Ice Moon 2 The Io Encounter

by Brandon Q Morris

  “During explosive eruptions material is flung up to a height of 500 kilometers. Some of the smoke plumes can even be seen from Earth through a telescope.”

  “They certainly will be able to detect this plume from Earth as well,” Hayato said. Francesca and Martin looked at him. His face bore a mysterious expression and he seemed to be waiting for a reaction.

  “Come on, out with it,” Francesca said.

  “Well,” he said, “these measurement data… well, if I had not gathered them myself I would assume they were fake.”

  “Why?” Martin and Francesca asked simultaneously.

  “They are... extreme.”

  As if to emphasize his statement, the lander module vibrated.

  “That is what I am talking about,” Hayato said, pointing his thumb downward. “Something is happening here that this moon has not experienced in thousands and thousands of years.”

  “You really think...?”

  “Yes, Francesca. There will be an absolutely monumental volcanic eruption. I also looked at the data from the seismometer. Everything indicates there will be a huge explosion at the site of Reiden Patera.”

  It sounded terrible, but also too abstract for Francesca, so she asked, “What would that mean for us?”

  “We will be shaken about quite a bit. I do not know whether the lander can withstand it, but it probably would. The explosion would discharge the pressure, and since there is no atmosphere, we do not have to worry about a shockwave.”

  “And what about the rain of ash?”

  “We are too close to the volcano for it. Most of the material would fall at a distance of 300 to 400 kilometers. Of course we should not be outside in our spacesuits during the eruption, and we had better not attempt any launch. On the other hand, where would we go after launching?”

  “I disagree,” Martin interjected.

  “Please, Martin,” Francesca said, “let’s not go over that again.” The German astronaut had earlier suggested starting the journey to Earth with one DFD, instead of waiting here forever.

  Francesca looked at Hayato, who stared at her monitor with his lips pressed together. There must be something else, something terrible. She barely dared to ask, but she knew it didn’t help to ignore issues.

  “What else, Hayato?”

  “I calculated the speed the material ejected during the explosion will reach. With a probability of 90 percent, the eruption will give it a maximum speed of over 70 kilometers per second.”

  “So part of the stuff will end in an orbit around Jupiter,” Francesca surmised.

  “That would be no problem, as it has been known to happen repeatedly. A part of the radiation exposure on Io is caused by it.”

  “The way you say it, there is a problem after all.”

  “Yes. The escape velocity of Io is about 2.5 kilometers per second. But at 70 km/s the material even exceeds the escape velocity of Jupiter. It will travel to other planets, maybe even to Earth. If the spores get there, they might destroy the entire ecosystem. The propeller zeppelins are geared toward a maximum consumption of all resources. They will digest anything that provides them with energy.”

  “Almost like humans.”

  “Yes, but the difference is, you cannot talk to spores or negotiate with them.”

  April 21, 2047, West Virginia

  The control room stank, and Robert Millikan raised his right arm to smell his armpit. He was definitely the culprit. Why had he never bothered to ask for a shower to be installed in here? Since learning his son had been trapped on Io, he had not left the control room of the radio observatory. At first he was scared of encountering the reporters waiting outside, but then he worried he might miss a message from ILSE.

  There was a knock at the iron door, patterned according to the agreed-upon signal. This must be Georgina, he thought. She was very sympathetic and brought him food and clean clothes every day. She had not asked him a single time to come back home again. She understood him, and he was grateful for it.

  Millikan opened the door. Georgina’s favorite perfume reminded him of roses, though he would not be able to identify it by name. Her cheeks were flushed, and she impetuously pushed into the room. What does she want?

  “Good morning,” she said, not waiting for a reply. “Did you see the article in The New York Times?” She held a rolled-up ink foil toward him, on which he recognized the logo of the newspaper. This was one of Georgina’s little quirks—she preferred reading printed versions. Since using paper for a throwaway item like a daily newspaper was considered ecologically wasteful, such retro readers were now using ink foils that automatically refreshed their contents.

  “No, give it to me,” he said, and she handed him the foil. Slowly, the door closed behind her.

  ‘Two Guests and a Lie,’ was the title of the lead story. The word ‘Guests’ was in italics, and ‘Lie’ was larger than the rest of the headline. The article stated that, according to this newspaper’s sources, two Chinese were being kept as prisoners in the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, even though that clearly contradicted an executive order. ‘Does the President violate his own orders?’ the reporter asked in the text. The White House had not yet commented, beyond the President’s spokesperson assuring the press that all allegations would be investigated. If there were actual indications of illegal activities, the spokesperson stated, everyone involved would be tried in court.

  Robert Millikan abruptly sat down. He was sure this was connected to the Chinese woman’s visit about three weeks ago. She seemed to have kept her promise. Right at that moment, the ink foil indicated an update of the article. The Department of Defense, it said, was happy to welcome the Chinese couple as guests of the United States. The two of them would arrive in Washington, D.C. in a few hours and from there would fly home, at their own request. The DoD regretted this misunderstanding, which was based on a ‘series of unfortunate events, and which would be further investigated.’

  “Aren’t they Jiaying’s parents?” asked Georgina.

  He nodded. His lips felt parched and he needed something to drink.

  “A ‘series of unfortunate events?’ Really?”

  Robert gave her a tired smile. “They are going to find some excuse, but it doesn’t matter. The most important thing is Jiaying’s parents being free again—and Jiaying should be told at once.”

  “Are you already sending messages?”

  “Yes, as long as I am here, a signal is transmitted showing them they are not alone. But there is no answer.”

  “So ILSE probably does not want to reply.”

  “Yes,” Robert said, “and the lander is unable to.”

  He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  “I am sorry, Georgina, it’s just...”

  “I know. I’m leaving, no problem. Here, I’m putting the bag with your food on the table.”

  Robert Millikan nodded. “Thanks,” he said. For the first time in quite a while he felt a real smile appearing on his face. He must immediately change the message that the large antenna of the observatory kept sending toward Jupiter round the clock. But how?

  He had to send a message to Amy or Jiaying without Watson finding out, since the AI would not pass on such a message. The task seemed impossible. Unless…

  What if the story in the Washington Post was true? What if an ‘illegal alien intelligence’ actually was in ILSE’s on-board computers? There could only be two explanations: the illegal alien intelligence was either exactly that, in which case he had no chance of communicating with it; or someone in the crew had managed to transfer the contents of Marchenko’s brain into the computer system. He had no alternative but to hope that Marchenko’s brain had been preserved. He would send a message to Marchenko’s secure email, and hope to contact him without Watson suspecting anything. One chance in a million, but worth a shot. He had to try to tell Jiaying what was happening to her parents, which could change everything.

  Robert would send the same information to Martin as well. One way or
the other, Jiaying had to be told her parents were safe.

  April 21, 2047, ILSE

  Marchenko roamed restlessly throughout the ship. Since Watson had once again given him access to his senses, he no longer felt buried alive, but he was still locked up and reduced to idleness. If this went on, he would wish to be in his grave again. Jiaying and Amy seemed to have found a method for exchanging messages. He did not actually catch them doing so, which was good, since otherwise Watson would know of it, too. Marchenko simply deduced this from their behavior. Jiaying employed something he had never before seen her use, a real pen—and there was also one in Amy’s cabin. Whenever either of the two women took a shower or went to the toilet, she afterward appeared to become more active. This was particularly noticeable with Jiaying, who earlier seemed to have accepted her fate. If he could only participate in their conversation somehow!

  In the afternoon, local time, Marchenko’s wish turned into an urgent necessity. He had to get in contact with Jiaying, because the message that the antenna just received from space would change everything. Radio astronomer Robert Millikan had written that her parents were free. Once Jiaying became aware of this, she could free herself from the role of a traitor that she had been forced to assume. This did not mean they would regain control of the ship, but it would give them an advantage over Watson, who did not expect Jiaying to turn against him.

  But how could Marchenko make himself understood, if he could only listen? He needed a creative solution that was outside Watson’s knowledge of the world. Seeing, listening, feeling—Marchenko went through all the systems he had access to. What about the cameras? He could use them to observe Jiaying and Amy. The surveillance cameras in all public rooms had a swivel joint and a zoom lens in order to better track details, but he did not directly control them. Instead, all he had to do was think about watching an object more closely and the cameras would turn this into a command and move accordingly.

  Jiaying was in the lab examining the structure of the virus. She did this almost every day, as if to punish herself. He looked at her head, and then his gaze moved down her body to her feet. With the aid of another camera he watched himself observe Jiaying, and the first camera did indeed move, as he suspected. He repeated the process more quickly and the camera—his eye—seemed to nod. Now he looked over Jiaying’s left shoulder, then over the right one. The surveillance camera moved obediently, and it looked like someone shaking his head.

  What could he use this for? First, he would have to attract Jiaying’s attention without alerting Watson. Or should he try Amy first? He did not know whether Jiaying would remain levelheaded, considering her despair. The commander was also facing imminent death, but she did not have to wrestle with her own guilt in addition to this.

  He made his first attempt with Amy, who was currently in her cabin. Marchenko saw she was nursing her little son Dimitri Sol. He felt embarrassed, at first, and had to remind himself he was a doctor. Every time when Amy happened to look toward the camera he made the swivel joint nod briefly. He actually needed only four tries before Amy started wondering. She got up, touched the camera and moved it, but she said nothing.

  He waited for a while and then repeated his experiment. He made the camera nod three times, four times, five times, but Amy did not seem to notice. He watched her. Amy was browsing through a book that seemed to be a boring novel. Yet five minutes later she suddenly started nodding. She was imitating the camera. Marchenko was impressed, Amy was really clever, since one had to understand human psychology well in order to recognize this as an answer.

  Marchenko thought he felt his heart beating faster, even though he did not have one anymore. What now? He had to present the message in a way Amy could decipher. Did she still know Morse code? During Marchenko’s training they had to learn it, but did this also apply to the Americans? He started with the simple word ‘HI’—four short nods, a longer pause, and then two more short ones. While he was sending the signal, Amy only watched the camera out of the corner of her eye. An observer would assume she was cleaning her fingernails. Then she turned once again toward her book. At the beginning of the next chapter she gave three short nods, one long one, and another short one. This was the Morse code shorthand signal for ‘Understood.’ He had done it! He was successfully intervening in the world of the living!

  Now he must not get too cocky. There was an important message he had to convey to Amy, but he should not rush it—it was a question of timing. If cameras in the ship started nodding all the time, Watson would probably notice it. What was the shortest possible form of that message? He remembered how the Enceladus creature had transmitted its message about Io. He would need three concepts, ‘Jiaying,’ ‘parents,’ and ‘free.’ He could abbreviate Jiaying’s name as JY, because Morse code used no capital letters. The word ‘parents’ had seven letters. He could use ‘MUMDAD’ to shorten it to six. ‘MUM’ alone would not be clear enough, and he could hardly shorten ‘FREE’ any further. So there were twelve letters to transmit. It would be best to split up the information. Two letters at most during each contact, the whole thing spread across eight hours. This way, he should definitely remain below Watson’s radar.

  It was going to be his most exciting day since being imprisoned on the ship. When the eight hours were over, he was glad he had achieved something, but there was still a lot of insecurity. Did Amy understand all the letters? Clever as she was, she never again reacted to the nodding of the cameras. Had she interpreted the message correctly? What would she tell Jiaying? Marchenko tried to figure out the commander’s behavior, but she gave no outward clue.

  April 21, 2047, Io

  They had only been here for a week, but his senses were already going haywire. Just a moment ago Martin had looked through the porthole of the CELSS and he had seen a naked blonde calmly walking across the surface of Io. He did not recognize her, since her back was facing him, so it could have been a naked man with feminine curves. There was only one problem, though—the garden module did not have a porthole. Martin pinched his cheeks tightly with his fingers in an attempt to at least wake up a little bit. These damned sleep problems caused by the seemingly eternal day on Io, he sighed.

  Martin looked at his watch. According to Earth time, UTC, it was shortly after midnight. He had promised Francesca he would rest for a minimum of a few hours before their little excursion to the crater. As it was, he probably had not managed to sleep more than an hour and a half. Well, I’ll have plenty of time to catch up on sleep during the return flight to Earth. Think positively, Martin.

  He stood up and walked to the opening that led down. The lander module below him was pitch black. He checked his watch again and saw the agreed-upon moment had arrived. He climbed down the ladder without trying to be particularly quiet. As he stepped off the ladder he heard Hayato snoring softly. He did not have to wake him, since Francesca would be accompanying Martin, but they could not manage the necessary preparations in complete darkness.

  “Watson, muted light,” Martin commanded, but nothing happened. He slapped his hand against his forehead. Fortunately no one noticed his mistake. Now, where is the light switch? Martin felt his way through the room until his shin abruptly hit something. He yelped like a puppy.

  “Martin... is that you?” Francesca’s voice sounded particularly sexy when she was sleepy.

  “Yes, I am looking for the light switch.”

  “Just a moment.” He heard a rustling sound, and then the ceiling light turned on and bathed the room in harsh light. Martin protected his eyes with his hands. He slowly moved his fingers apart to get used to the brightness.

  “Good morning,” Francesca said. She stood in front of him wearing her tracksuit. “Should we get going? Did you sleep well?”

  He nodded, and then shook his head. In his present state he couldn’t handle too many words at once.

  “Well then, hop onto the bike,” the pilot said. Of all things! He had already forgotten he was required to exercise first due to the lack of
outside pressure. On Titan, going outside had been much easier. Martin trudged to the exercise bike and started pedaling. If he was lucky, this would be his last excursion into a vacuum. Then Martin had to silently laugh at the extent of his naiveté. If he was lucky, he would make it back to the lander, which was a more realistic wish, and then maybe that luck would enable them to establish a connection with Earth.

  “How is this supposed to work later?” asked Francesca during his exercise.

  “I... am... going... to... tell… you… later,” he said, gasping his reply. Then he put on the oxygen mask. The pilot was wonderful at telling stories while she climbed a steep mountain on her exercise bike, but his fitness level was nowhere near that high. Twenty minutes later his blood levels showed he had done enough preparation. He left the mask on and started to put on the spacesuit. He hesitated for a moment when he took the diaper. They would be out there for three hours at most, but if there was an accident he would have to clean the entire suit. He did not want to risk it. Once he was wearing the LCVG, he put on the lower part of the suit. Suddenly he realized he had almost forgotten about the most important thing—his gear! Hayato, who was now awake, went and placed it in the airlock of the CELSS.

  Ten minutes later, Martin and Francesca started on their way. The pilot showed him the most energy-conserving method of moving in the low gravity. It took him a little while, and of course everything she did seemed to be so much simpler and more elegant, but finally he managed to keep up with her. It could almost be a romantic walk. In the light of what looked like a huge moon they were strolling across plains no human had ever navigated before. Suddenly Martin stopped and looked at the sky.

  “Francesca, stop a minute!” He pointed upward. The pilot raised her head and did not answer. Above them was some kind of aurora—yellow-orange and green and blue—a network of fine threads in front of the black night-sky background.