The Europa Effect

by A. L. Mengel

  “Get us around this pull!” Copernicus shouted. “She’s tearing us apart!”

  The hull rumbled and creaked as Counselor Abagail raised her head and looked out at Gensys 1.

  “Why, hello there, little star…”

  She saw the pin point of light. It shot outwards from the heart of the darkness, out towards the ship.

  Take the leap of faith, Abby.

  The rings of gaseous light swirled around the dark sphere, and as she looked closer towards it, she saw the light bend upwards…and outwards…over…and under…swirling light fingered outwards.

  Trust yourself.

  The ship shook violently as she turned around to face the others. All were lying on the floor as the crew initiated overhead safety harnesses. Eli turned his head and looked over at her. His eyes were wide and his face painted with fear. “We’re going to make it,” she said. She reached over and held his hand as he bit his lower lip and closed his eyes. She crawled closer to him. “The worm hole is just beyond the black hole.” She spoke softly, just next to his ear. “Everything is going to be all right. We will find the worm hole right where the graphics say it is and will be back on the mission soon. And everything will be just fine…”

  The hull creaked and they raised their eyes upwards.

  “Hard port!” Copernicus said. He grabbed the edge of the console and held tight. “Full power!”

  “We are at full power Captain!”

  Counselor Abagail put her arm around Eli and turned her head to face the window as the bridge filled with bright light.

  Vega One shook and rumbled as the light was blinding and she closed her eyes.

  She listened. She could hear Copernicus speaking to himself, over and over.

  “Hold together, hold together, hold together…”

  And then she heard Eli’s voice. “Are we going to make it through, Abby?”

  And the rumble became deafening as Counselor Abagail and Eli were knocked apart. She was flung towards the windows and rolled against the side of a console.

  And then the shaking and deafening roars abated.

  They could hear the urgency of the alarm again. Counselor Abagail opened her eyes and saw the crew adjust their harnesses. Copernicus grabbed the side of the command station and hoisted himself up. “Status update.”

  The crew members studied the panels for a moment as the ship leveled out.

  “Central sector seal held. Hull breach in sectors 51 and 53 and were sealed. Otherwise we are intact.”

  He let out a deep breath and looked over towards the others. “Jeremiah, Abby. We’ve made it.”

  Winston eased himself up onto his elbows as Eli was crying softly, his arm draped over his eyes.

  Counselor Abagail joined Copernicus at the command station as Jeremiah joined them as well. “Copernicus,” she said. “I don’t think we will have to spend too much time looking for the worm hole. I am confident it’s in the same spot as where we entered through it.”

  He nodded but Jeremiah spoke. “But the navigation system was damaged, wasn’t it?”

  “We will have to search for it manually,” Winston said from the floor. He was still comforting Eli. “Look for curvature in the star pallet.”

  “Curvature?” Jeremiah asked.

  “A worm hole is where space time bends inwards and creates a hole – a shortcut to a distant galaxy,” Copernicus said.

  “And are they easy to find?” Counselor Abagail asked.

  “That depends,” Winston said.

  Copernicus walked over to Winston and Eli. “I have crew sounding the ship. So it’s safe to take him to medical. When we go through the worm hole, it’ll get rough again, but nothing like we just experienced.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Counselor Abagail said. “I am confident I will find this worm hole.”

  Copernicus nodded at her and turned. “Moses! Please accompany Winston and Eli to medical. And I will make an announcement when we are approaching the worm hole for everyone to strap in.”

  Moses nodded and assisted Winston with Eli. Counselor Abagail approached Jeremiah and placed her hand on his arm. “Are you staying up here with us?”

  Bridge activity returned to normal around them as the crew scanned for the worm hole.

  He nodded.

  “I can help you, Abby. I’ve been through this before. This searching through space. So many things that happened back on Earth that everyone thought I was hallucinating.”

  “I didn’t believe you were,” she said.

  They both stared out into the star scape. “There’s something about it,” he said. “Some cosmic connection. I don’t know why the star chose me, but it did. It’s like it spoke to me. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see the star.”

  “I think I am having similar visions.”

  He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”

  “Well, when we were supposedly in stasis, I had what I thought was a dream. And I was floating above our hibernation pods. At first, I thought I had died. That I’d somehow not survived the hypothermic cooling procedure. I was floating in the room, and then I could enter through the doors into the corridor…”

  “And what did you see?”

  “The ship was silent.”

  “Silent?”

  “There was absolutely zero activity. No crew. No medical personnel monitoring our status. I floated through the corridors and saw no one. The ship didn’t appear in distress. But I did see gigantic asteroids.”

  “Interesting…go on.”

  “But what is really mysterious…is I believe I saw Gensys 1 before we even were in its pull.”

  Jeremiah’s face lit up. His mouth dropped open. “You are amazing! You saw all this?”

  She looked up at him and nodded slowly.

  “Oh that is fascinating,” he said. “And you are definitely special!”

  *****

  Vega One was crippled but functional.

  With navigation systems offline, the bridge crew trained their eyes manually – looking for curvature and the seepage of color. Counselor Abagail walked over towards the expansive windows and looked outwards. There was a certain feeling of peace and serenity that overtook her. The stars out in this interstellar galaxy were somehow different than what she had seen before. And even in her childhood, back on Earth, while looking upwards in the sky, through her telescope, she would always admire the stars.

  “Look daddy!” she cried. “Look at that beautiful star! It’s so bright!”

  Daddy approached her and leaned inwards to the viewfinder. He closed his one eye and studied for a few moments. Little Abby stood next to Daddy, her eyes bright and filled with wonder, a big smile plastered across her face.

  “Hmm…no,” he said.

  Her face fell.

  “That’s not a star,” he said. “You found Venus! You found a planet, Abby!”

  She squealed. “Let me see! Let me see!”

  She looked back through the telescope, a round star scape in the viewfinder, surrounded by black. “It’s so bright and pretty!”

  Counselor Abagail wiped a tear from her cheek as she pressed her face against the clear glass hull. “The stars are so different yet still the same.”

  As she studied the vast sea of tiny, white spheres, she listened to Jeremiah speak with Copernicus behind her.

  “I believe Abby will find it,” he said.

  Copernicus raised his eyes and looked at Jeremiah.

  “She has a trained eye,” Jeremiah added.

  “Hmm,” Copernicus said, as they all studied the star scape. “The science of it all is interesting. What we did back there – with Gensys 1 – should be impossible.”

  Counselor Abagail turned around. “Having some faith can make the impossible possible.” She returned to gazing out the windows.

  Jeremiah looked at Copernicus and raised his eyebrows. He shrugged his shoulders. “There’s a lot here that can’t be explained,” he said. Copernicus continued looking ahea
d, but nodded as Jeremiah spoke.

  “Like…how did we not detect a worm hole right at the entry to the Jovian system? Or even more so…what happened to the crew when we were in stasis?”

  Copernicus turned and looked at Jeremiah. “You think there is another force at work here?”

  Jeremiah shrugged again.

  “I don’t know. I can’t be certain about anything. But the cosmos are so incredibly mysterious – so unexplored – how can we know what to expect?”

  Copernicus nodded. “True. The universe is so vast, even we Vegans travel mainly between Vega and the Milky Way. There are so many galaxies. Infinite.”

  Jeremiah stretched his arm out towards the windows. “But here…we don’t know where we are. We’re in uncharted territory. And Gensys 1 is clearly in a movement pattern. I remember when the Space Administration was so excited when they found her.”

  “It’s interesting how we happened to encounter her.”

  Jeremiah nodded. “She was beautiful.”

  “And deadly.”

  He nodded again. “We defied science. Sometimes we have to do that.”

  Copernicus looked at him and cracked a smile. “You are one smart man, Jeremiah. Interesting perspective.” And then he leaned in close and lowered his voice. “I want to make sure you go get evaluated before you head to the surface of Europa. I want to make sure you are functioning properly.”

  Jeremiah nodded. “Understood.”

  *****

  Counselor Abagail squinted her eyes, looking out towards the dark star palette. There had to be an indicator of where the worm hole could be. She remembered studying them in college astronomy.

  “Look for the curvature,” her professor had said. “You can see them, but they can close. Or they can move.”

  She was brought back to the present. Had that really been so many years ago? Had they really been drifting through an uncharted galaxy for nearly fifty years?

  And then she thought of the same astronomy class.

  “Spacetime is the fabric of the universe,” he had explained. “As you travel outwards, away from the Earth, you will be, in essence, traveling backwards in time. Think of all the first radio broadcasts during the dawn of the Industrial age. If you were to be standing on a planet, deep in interstellar space, you would just be picking some of those radio signals up.”

  She raised her hand and the professor acknowledged her.

  “What about time passage in the vicinity of a black hole?”

  The professor nodded and raised his eyebrows. “Very good question Miss Abagail.”

  “Time will pass more slowly in the vicinity of a black hole. So if you were to be standing on a planet next to a black hole, you would experience two things: there would be a much higher gravity. Quite noticeable. And two, the time would pass normally to you on the intergalactic planet, but back on Earth – ”

  “– Time would pass much more quickly. Yes Miss Abagail. So, in essence, a black hole slows the passage of time.”

  On the ship, so many years later, she squinted, looking for the curvature in space time. Where the stars would look tilted off their axis. Where the cosmic dust would filter out in pastel color, not just floating but directing.

  She gasped and turned around. Copernicus looked up from the command console.

  “Forty seven Earth years, right?” she asked. “That’s how long we’ve been drifting?”

  He nodded.

  “Can you run the ship data backwards?”

  “Yes, we can.”

  She joined Copernicus at the console as data filled the screen. “I remembered a lecture I attended in college,” she said. “And we had specifically discussed black holes and their effect on space time.”

  He nodded. “Go on.”

  “So time is passing much more slowly in this galaxy, right?”

  He looked over at her and nodded again. “Yes. Much more so. The extreme gravity and the time passage go hand in hand.”

  “So we haven’t actually been drifting for forty seven years, have we?”

  “Not in this galaxy. Based on data, I put us at a very recent arrival. That’s why I’m quite confident we will find the worm hole. There’s only a slim chance that it would have moved or closed in that short amount of time.”

  She clapped her hands and squealed. “Yes! I know we will find it!”

  He smiled. “You’re ready, Counselor Abagail. Now do you see why you have been chosen to lead the Ice Moon mission?”

  She paused and looked at Copernicus in the eyes. His eyes were tender. He was like the warm, loving father that she missed so. She reached and gave him a hug. “Thanks for helping me see that.” And then she leaned back and stood. “Now let me get back to the observation station.”

  He shook his head. “No need to. Look out there.”

  She turned and gasped.

  It was so beautiful.

  So cosmic.

  It was like the palette of stars bent inwards, revealing a tunnel, as if someone took a gigantic mirror and everything were reflecting back in on itself.

  She thought it looked like a painting.

  As if she were standing in a gallery of art; with the colors of a bountiful pallet and a cascade of color reaching inwards towards darkness. The bending brushed the brilliant gases inwards; the stars were surrounding.

  “It’s so beautiful…” she said, her mouth hanging open, as she shook her head slowly back and forth.

  Copernicus sounded the alarm as a digitized announcement followed:

  PREPARE FOR WORM HOLE ENTRY!

  She found a chair at the nearest empty console and pulled the straps over her shoulders and settled herself into the seat. The crew followed suit as each of the stations were secured and the crew members strapped in.

  Copernicus stood at the command console as the announcement sounded again.

  PREPARE FOR WORM HOLE ENTRY!

  In medical, Moses and Winston strapped Eli onto the raised bed he was resting on, while the medical staff locked all of the cabinets. Winston tapped Moses on the shoulder. “What can we expect going through this? You’ve been through many of these before, right?”

  Moses nodded.

  He finished securing Eli, who was in sedation. “He’ll sleep through it, thank God. Eli always seems to get so upset during these things.”

  Back on the bridge, Counselor Abagail sat in her crewman’s chair holding tight onto the armrests as the ship got closer and closer to the swirling pastel colors. She turned around and saw Copernicus sitting at the command console. “Hang tight,” he said. “The ride could get bumpy.”

  She grasped the chair as the ship jolted. “Woah!” she said.

  “It could get worse,” Copernicus said.

  On the bridge, they stood watching through the vast windows.

  Counselor Abagail watched as the star scape bent inwards, as if they were entering a vast tunnel, where the stars bordered and rounded the threshold, reflecting inwards.

  And then the ship rumbled as the worm hole sucked them into its velocity; light flashed past like bright cosmic windows, again, repeatedly.

  There was a bright blue flash.

  Copernicus stood and held onto the command console. “Man stations!”

  Counselor Abagail watched the cosmic masterpiece, her head cocked to the side. She ignored the turbulence. As the ship rocked and jolted, she was not fazed. The lights flashed by as her eyes glassed over.

  And there she saw her father.

  Like they were streaming through a vast telescope, towards the cosmic viewfinder filled with dust and stars. She saw his arms wrap around her, his smile and his teeth; she could feel his strong arms.

  She could touch him.

  Smell him.

  Feel his embrace.

  And then she saw the blue.

  The tint.

  The colorful gases.

  And she started to mutter. “I see the ice…I see the ice…I see the ice…I see it!” She broke her trance and looke
d back at the bridge, her eyes wide, her mouth open in laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “The Ice Moon! Oh good God she’s so glorious!”

  *****

  The Ice Moon.

  THE POWDER BLUE TINTED LAYER of thick, deep ice, across the vast sphere, in the shadows of the soaring pastel gas cloud networks of Jupiter, in the cosmic thrust of her gravitational pull, there was the orbit of the ice moon of Europa.

  Her network of orange veins, thought to be cracks in the ice, looked like hastily assembled puzzle pieces; a patchwork of veins on a powder blue icy skin. She was the perfect sphere; Jupiter was a gargantuan brilliance of color behind her, and she looked tiny in the forefront, but beyond, the tiny, white stars reached outwards for millennia, for light-years, beyond the distant, through the interstellar.

  But there was a feeling of contentment and awe from them as they stood on the observation deck.

  The vast windows were like a soaring mural of color; The Jovian System it would have been called, had it been art hanging in a gallery in the Earthly cities in the past.

  Counselor Abagail released her safety harness and stood. She turned around and saw Copernicus was standing, looking down, studying the control panels on the command station.

  “I’m heading to medical! This is amazing! I have to see the others!”

  The doors slid open and she ran down the corridor towards medical as fast as she could. She ran past several crew members who pressed for her to slow down, but she ignored them. Once at medical, the doors slid open and she burst inside. Eli was sitting up on one of the examination tables, and Winston was seated in a chair nearby. They both looked up at her.

  “You guys have to come see it! The worm hole was still right in the same spot. We’re on approach of the Jovian system. It’s so beautiful!”

  Eli’s face lit up and he smiled. He looked over at the medical attendant. The attendant nodded and Eli tossed the blanket aside and eased himself onto the floor.

  Counselor Abagail looked at Winston and then back at Eli “How’s your head?”

  Eli pulled on a pair of his regulation pants. “Just a mild concussion. But I’m feeling much better now.”

  He was excited and back to his old self. The three headed out and down the corridor. As they approached the bridge, Eli walked over to the side and peered out.