The Titan Probe

by Morris, Brandon Q.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she said. “Just a moment, let me clear the desk for you.”

  She took a few papers off the desk, so now everything looked perfectly neat. There was a camera attached to her computer screen. All Devendra had to do was to sit down in her office chair, start the recording, and talk. Jennifer pulled a second chair closer and placed it at an angle behind him. He clicked the recording button.

  “This is CapCom,” he began. “We have received an interesting signal at the Green Bank Observatory antenna. After detailed analysis we have concluded it warrants further investigation. However, the signal was sent only once, lasting less than a minute. We assume the message was not able to reach you because ILSE was in the radio shadow of Saturn at the moment of transmission. We are unable to say much about the nature of this signal, except that it was not caused naturally and it was sent on a channel your expedition also used. We should not get too optimistic, especially since the signal has not been re-sent since then.

  The source is located on the surface of Enceladus. For this reason it is clear you will be unable to avoid assigning significance to the signal. We give you free rein to choose any action you consider useful. This includes disregarding the signal and continuing your return trip home. CapCom, over.”

  January 2, 2047, Valkyrie

  Valkyrie covered the first part of the way without any problems. It had taken Marchenko a while to get used to the darkness, and it was for this reason he was glad he did not have to exit the vehicle right away. It was a completely different blackness than on the surface of Enceladus, or even in space. In his old life on Earth, darkness created a feeling of infinity. This was probably due to the stars, those tiny holes in the celestial vault. Marchenko remembered lying at night on the grass in a park, gazing up at the firmament. He had been almost addicted to this infinite freedom. It was so different from the crowded apartment where he lived with his mother, where he drank to tolerate his constantly shit-faced father and to fortify himself against his foul-tempered mother.

  Perhaps the blackness of the cosmos was easier to handle because it kept its distance and was incomplete. It did not clasp him like the darkness below the ice. Marchenko sighed. Useless thoughts. Machines were much better off in the long run. Valkyrie found its way using radar sensors, and it did not require light to cross the perfect darkness, which did not affect it. The computer connected to the camera displayed nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yet this 'nothing' was not far away, like the night sky seen from the grass, but very close, only two or three meters from him. Down here there was only himself, Valkyrie, and the nothingness outside. Of course the sensors told him there was something—a lot of ice, for instance. Not being able to see it concerned him. It seemed his species had not progressed much from a million years ago, when his ancestors lit the first fires in caves to protect themselves against the darkness. He shivered.

  But Marchenko would not be Marchenko if he did not hope to eventually get used to this menacing blackness. At the end of the voyage, he had to exit this protective metal tube and enter an almost unknown world wearing a fragile space suit. Until then, he decided to take an occasional break and to activate the searchlights of Valkyrie. According to the logbook, the vehicle was just traversing a cavity Francesca and Martin had named ‘Aladdin’s Cave.’ While the earlier camera recordings for this area had been protected by Francesca’s personal password, Marchenko had eyes to see the spectacular marvel himself. He stopped Valkyrie, turned on the searchlights, and was bedazzled. Gold and silver and all colors of the rainbow appeared in patterns created by the current. The name they assigned to this place was really no exaggeration. He wondered how Francesca might have reacted to this, and he experienced a wave of joy that seemed to come straight from his girlfriend’s heart, and that sensation was something unknown to him.

  Marchenko was overwhelmed by it all, and his eyes filled with tears. He had to sit down to steady himself from having a near-emotional deluge. “It’s like a fairy tale,” he suddenly heard. It was Francesca’s voice! What is happening here? Am I losing my mind? He got up and checked the oxygen level. The life support system was working fine, so it couldn’t be altitude sickness. He was still experiencing Francesca’s intense joy. Even when she used to sit right next to him, she had never been more present than she was at this moment. He almost believed he could feel her warm skin, smell her scent, and sense the aroma of the shampoo she always used hanging in the air.

  Then the mood faded. The colors on the walls still shimmered supernaturally, but Francesca’s presence had disappeared. Once again he was alone on board—or one might say he was normal again. But he knew the sensation he had just experienced was more than wishful thinking. It was a gift, he decided, though he did not know from whom. The keyboard was before him, and once he hit the Enter key, Valkyrie would continue on its course.

  Spellbound, Marchenko could not tear himself away from this scene. He made the vehicle move in small circles so he could take in as much as possible of the splendor on the monitor. Valkyrie was in a cave in the middle of the ice, measuring perhaps 50 by 50 meters, and about 80 meters high. It was a magical hideaway, although he was aware the colors were deceiving. What sparkled and shimmered here was not real gold, but molecules, the nature of which he did not understand and could not determine. He felt the urge to put on the space suit and explore Aladdin’s Cave for himself. Unfortunately, this would also mean the end of his journey. He could only leave the vehicle via the emergency hatch, and once he opened it, Valkyrie would be flooded by icy water.

  Marchenko looked at the monitor and saw it was approximately another 48 hours to his destination. He pressed the Enter key to make the vehicle continue on its journey. Aladdin’s Cave was a unique hydrochemical phenomenon, but at the end of his trip he hoped to find something even more magnificent.

  Without any notice, Marchenko now stood in front of the wooden door of a church. It had been painted brown, but the paint was already peeling. The door handle was very high up, as if the door was meant for giants. Marchenko needed to stand on tiptoe to pull it down. He flinched when the door moved inward with a loud creak. Shhh! Everyone is going to hear me come in. They are going to turn around and give me nasty looks! He breathed nervously, but the interior was empty.

  There was a strong smell of incense. Even though it was bright daylight outside, no light shined through the tall windows. In spite of this it wasn’t completely dark, either. Marchenko took a closer look at the windows. They were not made of stained glass mosaics, as usual, but of normal translucent glass. Behind them colorful fish swam, occasionally bumping their mouths against the panes. The fish had to be huge, but he was not afraid.

  Marchenko realized he was inside an Orthodox church. The front area of the large, cross-shaped room was separated from the rest of the church by a wall of icons—the iconostasis. There were benches near the side walls, but the large circle in the middle was empty, except for a baptismal font. The font gave off a golden shimmer, as if lit by a focused beam of light coming from above.

  Marchenko looked for its source, but the light seemed to come from beyond the dome of the church, somewhere in the nothingness. Now old memories came back. I know this church from somewhere. His mother always sat in a pew at the edge, in times when his father had once again beaten her so badly she could barely walk. Somehow, she always managed to limp to the church and the priest.

  He went to the first pew on the left. He used to sit here, pressing his fingernails into the hard wood. If I manage to break the pew with my fingernails, Father will stop beating mother, he would think. Then he is going to die, he imagined, looking up toward the dome, waiting for the lightning that would strike him for thinking such a thought. As the punishment did not occur, God must have approved of his plan. Marchenko looked at the hard wood and did not find any scratches at all.

  He sat in the pew, wondering, What am I supposed to do here? This is obviously a dream. He looked at his hands and his legs. They belon
ged to an adult, so he was no longer a child. Instead of normal clothing he wore the thermal underwear of the space suit, the LCVG.

  The baptismal font in the middle, situated under the dome, was new. He had never seen it before, nor did it belong in here, as it was much too small for an Orthodox church. Marchenko got up and walked toward the center of the church. When he looked up at the dome he realized it was huge. This was no longer the church his mother had taken him to when he was a child. The interior was tall, and his steps did not echo, even though he walked with hard-soled boots across a marble floor. The font, he noticed, was in the exact center directly under the dome. Around him was the space for the congregation, while in front of him the iconostasis hid the path to the inner sanctum behind a wall of images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints.

  Exactly in the middle of this wall there was a double door. It had no door handle, just a keyhole. Suddenly he remembered receiving a key from his father, and he was feeling hot. His father had ordered him to wear the key on a string around his neck and to never lose it. Marchenko touched his neck, but there was nothing there. He was afraid his mother would once again be punished for having a bad son. He turned around, wanting to look at his mother in the pew, but nobody was there. He was alone.

  Marchenko braced himself with both arms on the baptismal font and shook his head. This was the past, almost 50 years ago. He did not have to worry about his mother anymore because she had been buried in the cemetery of the church long ago. He remembered the taste of koliva, the honey-sweetened, boiled wheat berries the congregation had shared during the funeral ceremony. He turned his head to the left. He saw the door and had the impression it would play an important role in this dream, and he had to go through it. Marchenko walked toward it and tried to push it open, but it did not budge a millimeter. He needed the key his father had given him.

  The solitary baptismal font glowed in the middle. He once more tried to find the source of the light. He walked around the font several times, but in vain—he simply could not see where the beam was coming from. He bent over the font. It was filled with a dark liquid that seemed to be more viscous than water. He pushed against the vessel from the side, but the liquid did not move. Even the light bathing the baptismal font bounced off its surface. Marchenko dipped a finger in it and was surprised by its warmth. Must be almost 25 degrees, he estimated. He looked at his finger, which seemed to be covered by something like a thin oil slick, but the liquid did not smell like oil, or have any odor at all.

  Back then, over 50 years ago, the font had been at the edge of the domed section, a water-filled bronze vessel in which the priest immersed children during baptism. Marchenko remembered this—not his own baptism, of course, but many others he had later witnessed. The ritual always appeared magical to him, as if the hand of the priest had turned into the hand of God, who now protected the newcomer. Marchenko whispered the sentences he had memorized by hearing them so often.

  “Do you renounce Satan, and all his angels, and all his works, and all his services, and all his pride?”

  These words at first seemed unfamiliar to him, since they had been buried so deep in his brain.

  “I do renounce them,” he said.

  “Do you renounce Satan, and all his angels, and all his works, and all his services, and all his pride?”

  The dialog repeated itself. The third time, Marchenko spoke his answer much louder.

  The next line came. “Then blow and spit upon him!”

  Little Dmitri had always considered this the climax of the ritual. Blowing and spitting at the devil, laughing in his face, mocking him, and showing contempt for him—all this in the secure knowledge he would get away with it because God guarded him. This was a powerful symbol indeed! As a child he had always wondered why the godparents did not use this opportunity more joyfully and only hinted at spitting.

  Marchenko looked at the iconostasis.

  "Dost thou unite thyself unto Christ?” A whisper moved through the room. Had he just said this himself?

  The answer formed in his head: I do.

  Marchenko closed his eyes and lowered his face into the warm liquid. It caressed his skin. Behind him he heard the priest sing. All of his fears disappeared, and he knew now he would no longer need the key his father had given him. The door to the inner sanctum would open when he wanted it to. Marchenko stopped holding his breath and opened his mouth. The liquid flowed into his lungs. He let it happen, and did not even cough as a reflex. His body was dying, but he would live.

  January 2, 2047, ILSE

  There was a draft from somewhere. Martin felt cold and pulled the blanket toward his torso, since Jiaying had almost completely monopolized it. She mumbled something he did not understand. She was probably dreaming. She was sleeping on her side, facing the wall. He could only see the back of her head. Her black hair was thick and strong, and even after the night it still looked almost freshly combed. Martin cuddled up closer to his girlfriend and placed his hand on her hip. The bed was definitely not intended for two adults, but they had no other choice if they wanted to spend the night together. If only Jiaying wouldn’t turn down the temperature so low! He shivered under the thin blanket, and not even Jiaying’s body heat was enough to keep him comfortable.

  Martin decided to just get up. He left the bed as carefully as possible, and hoped a hot shower would warm him up. At the door, he glanced back into the room to see that Jiaying had immediately taken over the whole width of the bed. She was breathing evenly. Smiling, he remembered their reunion yesterday, the wonderful feeling of having Jiaying in his arms again. The tricky landing, the take-off that almost failed. As far as he was concerned, they had lived through enough adventures. He would not mind if—no, more than that, he hoped—the next twelve months were uneventful, a harmonious routine in which everyone knew what to do... and did it. The hot water ran across his skin, a clear reminder of the great advantages of human civilization.

  Martin’s hope only lasted for twelve hours.

  When Amy called all of them to an urgent meeting via the ship’s radio, he realized the adventure was not yet over. Today everyone was supposed to be having time off, a day just for personal use. In a different time or place people might have arranged an excursion. He had heard that Amy, Francesca, and Hayato were going to play board games in the afternoon. He thought the idea strange, adults playing board games in hostile outer space, but he understood the reasoning—Amy did not want Francesca to have to make it through the day alone.

  What were they going to discuss now? Martin was just reading something to Jiaying when Amy’s message came over the loudspeaker. If Amy bothered them on a day like today, it must be something important. It could only be something related to Earth or Mission Control.

  As expected, CapCom spoke to them via the fog display when they got there. Devendra kept his message brief.

  The instant he said, “The source is located on the surface of Enceladus,” everyone looked at Francesca. She appeared to be turning pale.

  “For this reason it is clear you will be unable to avoid assigning significance to the signal. We give you free rein to choose any action you consider useful. This includes disregarding the signal and continuing your return trip home. CapCom, over.”

  After Amy turned off the fog display, no one knew what to say. All color had drained from Francesca’s face. Martin was glad not to be in her shoes, because he knew she blamed herself for Marchenko’s death—or for the event that they, until now, had considered to be the Russian’s death. CapCom had explicitly warned them against getting their hopes up, yet one could see even Devendra was not immune to it. If there was no chance at all, Earth would not have bothered to report the signal to them.

  Francesca got up.

  “I am sorry,” she said, “but I have to go to my cabin right now.”

  She left the command module as fast as zero gravity would allow.

  “I think we all know what to do… don’t we?” Amy looked at each of the three remainin
g astronauts. Martin met her gaze without flinching. After we have come so far, we’ll manage a little detour, he thought. Who would have imagined we were going to see Enceladus up close once more?

  Only Jiaying did not seem to completely agree with what was obviously going to be proposed. “Shouldn’t we carefully weigh opportunities and risks first, before making a decision? We should be allowed to think about it for a little bit, shouldn’t we?”

  Martin was glad Francesca wasn’t in the room anymore. This was probably what she had been afraid of.

  Hayato nodded. “Yes, quite true,” he said slowly, “it can never hurt to think about decisions. In any case, we should be worrying about the ‘how,’ and not about the ‘if.’ For me, there is no question of whether or not we should check what significance this signal might have.”

  Jiaying leaned back. She at first wanted to say something, Martin noticed, but finally restrained herself.

  “Well, then,” the commander said, ending the brief discussion. “If there are no more objections, I will tell Watson to head back to Enceladus. After all, it’s practically around the corner. We are going to move from an orbit around Titan into an elliptical course around Saturn, during which time we will have a short rendezvous with Enceladus. That way will be faster for us; after all, the signal is quite old by now. If it was really sent by Marchenko, which no one appears to know for sure, he would urgently need help by now.”