The Europa Effect

by A. L. Mengel

  “I can see so much from here!” Eli pressed his face against the thick, clear material as his breath steamed it up. He reached up and wiped the mist away.

  The doors to the bridge slid open with a hiss and Jeremiah walked through. He carried himself with confidence; walking tall and determined.

  Jeremiah joined Eli and placed his arm around his shoulder as Winston and Counselor Abagail stood looking out at the colors of Jupiter.. He pointed at the tiny sphere in front of the gas giant; pointing towards the small, dark, round silhouette in the foreground. “That’s Europa,” he said. “That tiny little circular thing is the ice moon they were talking about. But it won’t be tiny when we get there.”

  Eli gasped and shook his head. “It looks like a black dot on an ocean of swirling color…”

  “Because it is.”

  They both turned around to see who the voice was. Moses joined them. He smiled wanly, his arms clasped behind his back as he approached the team. Counselor Abagail was tying her red hair behind her head in a neat pony-tail, and turned to face Moses. Eli was still admiring the celestial show before them.

  “How much longer until we approach orbit?” Jeremiah asked, looking at Counselor Abagail, and then over at Moses.

  “We are farther away than you might think,” he said.

  “How far?” Jeremiah asked.

  “I just came from a briefing, and they told me another few weeks until we are in orbit.”

  Jeremiah scoffed. “How is that even possible?”

  As Jeremiah stood, watching through the expansive windows, Counselor Abagail gently placed her hand on his shoulder. She leaned close to his ear. “Everything is so vast,” she said. “We can see so far…but to travel there…we are limited to the physical.”

  Jeremiah turned to look at her. He placed his arm around her and smiled, as they both looked out at the cosmic magnificence of Jupiter.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” Counselor Abagail asked.

  He nodded. “It’s like nothing I have ever seen before.

  She admired the swirling gas giant planet. The layers of bright, pastel colors, swirling around the sphere in different rotating directions. She had previously only seen photos of Jupiter in textbooks and computer images.

  “You’ve seen the star, haven’t you?”

  Jeremiah squeezed her lightly. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “The wandering star? Is that what you called it back on Earth?”

  He let out a soft chuckle.

  “I had many encounters with that star,” he said. “At first it seemed like a dream to me.”

  She nodded.

  “And after a while, I started to believe that I was hallucinating.”

  “But you weren’t, were you?”

  He looked down and shook his head. “No, I wasn’t.”

  Counselor Abagail took a breath, held it for a moment, and exhaled. “So,” she said. “I think I saw Gensys 1 long before we encountered it.”

  “Yes, I remember you telling us. It made me think.”

  She started to speak but he cut her off. “Gensys 1 is not the wandering star,” he said. “That was a black hole. That’s not what the wandering star is.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Which star is then?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a mystery, Abby.” He returned his gaze to Jupiter. “All of this, it’s just one big, gigantic mystery. The cosmos is the biggest, greatest mystery of the scientific world. There’s so much of it that’s unexplored.”

  “Do you think we will ever make it to Vega?”

  He looked back at her, smiled and nodded. “One of the things the wandering star taught me – the most significant lesson that I took from my interactions with the star – was that science cannot exist without faith. And faith cannot exist without science.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Interesting.”

  He nodded. “I understand the science of our predicament. But I have faith that we will make it to Vega. That our kind will live on.”

  She looked down, closed her eyes and shook her head. “But the survivors. All lost.”

  He reached out and lifted her chin. She raised her eyes to him. “But we have the DNA we were looking for from The Red Outpost back on Mars, remember? Our mission there was a success!”

  She smiled softly.

  “Now it’s your turn,” he said. “You are our leader on Europa. I will not challenge you. And Eli and Winston support you as well.”

  She nodded. “I have a nervous feeling in my stomach. I can feel it. Each time I look out at the small moon in the foreground – I am equally awed but so anxious.”

  “You’re a scientist,” he said. “You have the technical knowledge to lead a successful mission. This mission to Europa is equally exciting as it is anxiety inducing. Yes, we don’t really know what to expect. We’ve never been to that surface. We just have the data from probes and studies. If Copernicus says there is a portal underneath that icy surface, then we should explore that.”

  She studied the small sphere in front of swirling Jupiter. Could there really be a portal? And where would it lead?

  “All we can do is look. And find out if it’s really there. But now it’s time to take a leap of faith.”

  She sighed, and took a few steps closer to the windows. When she was a little girl, she loved to use her telescope at night, and to view the stars and planets. It had been her childhood dream to walk the cosmos as an astronaut. And this mission – what had initially been a rescue mission from a dying planet – has turned to an exploration mission.

  Could the portal on Europa – if it actually were to exist – lead to a habitable world? Could they enter and find a new life, populate a new Earth in a different galaxy with human DNA?

  She turned and looked at Jeremiah, who had joined Winston and Eli and their admiration of the Jovian system. It seemed so unlike Jeremiah to acquiesce and give her total control. She remembered, back on Earth in Sector B, how often he challenged Elder Cane for power over the colony. But here? In the cosmos? He was giving her total power and cooperation?

  She sighed and looked back at the Ice Moon.

  And thought of Mars.

  So many millions of miles away. So much closer to the planet she had once called home. She thought of those on Earth who had chosen to stay behind. And wondered how much time they would have left with dwindling rations.

  But as her mind registered what she was looking at – the tiny sphere against the gaseous pastel palette – she couldn’t get the images of Mars out of her mind. And of the three mounds of dirt.

  Could they have been graves?

  And whose graves were they?

  *****

  The doors to the bridge opened with a hiss and everyone turned and saw Copernicus approaching them. “We are through the worm hole,” he said. “The crew can handle it now.” He approached Moses and leaned close to him, whispering in his ear. Copernicus then turned and headed down the corridor, his back to the group. After a moment, Moses clasped his hands together. “Well, everyone,” he said. “We still have some time before we launch you to Europa, so I urge you all to return to your quarters. Eat and rest.”

  Counselor Abagail raised her eyebrows when she saw Inikia approach Moses and stand next to him.

  Moses continued. “I know Counselor Abagail is quite familiar with Inikia. But the rest of you…do you remember her?”

  They nodded. “I remember her showing us the solarium of the Vegan plant life,” Winston said, giving her a nod.

  “Wonderful,” Moses said. “She will guide you to your new quarters. You’ll be staying in the Vegan sector of the ship from now on.” He glanced over at Inikia and nodded. He slowly turned and left, giving the team a nod.

  Eli wandered to the other side of the corridor and sat back and leaned against the cool steel wall opposite of the viewing area. He closed his eyes and sighed. “It’s so different out here,” he said. “So vast. Nothing like Earth at all.”

  She shifted her face. “What
do you mean?”

  He opened his eyes just a bit, glancing over at her. She was opening a water canister. “Well the breathing apparatus,” he said. “I just can’t get used to it. And we’re supposed to drill through the ice? On Europa?” He looked around at the others who were resting in a nearby relaxation room.

  Winston leaned back in a recliner and was reading a book.

  “Hey!” Eli said.

  Winston looked up and raised his eyebrows.

  Eli looked over at Winston and gave him a big, strong hug. “Let’s relax. And get ready.”

  As they waited and rested in their new quarters in the weeks on the approach to the Jovian system, they spent much of their waking hours together. They did not have the same issues as previous – no longer did they have to drain the fluid from their knees.

  And when they would awaken, they did not experience the amnesia they had previously.

  During breakfast on the day of the mission, Winston looked over at Eli and shook his head but said nothing, looking downwards as Eli was slowly turning the page of the paperback he was reading.

  Winston leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “What book is that?”

  Eli raised his eyes and looked over at Winston. “It’s a book called The Ice Moon.”

  Jeremiah took a sip of coffee and leaned over and peered at Eli’s book. “You are reading a book about space exploration?”

  He took the book and held it against his chest. “It’s about Europa. I found it in the ship library.”

  Counselor Abagail raised her eyebrows and looked directly at Eli, still holding her mug. “I thought the library was destroyed with Town Square?”

  Eli shook his head. “That one was. But I found another one the other day. In this area. I think it’s the Vegan library?”

  Counselor Abagail’s mouth dropped open. “You mean…extra-terrestrial books? How would they even be in English?”

  “This one I remember from Earth. There were quite a few books that were familiar.”

  Jeremiah picked up the book and held it in front of his face. “How interesting,” he said. “How they have taken such an interest in our culture…and still such an archaic format given their technological advancement.”

  They heard footsteps approach their table. They looked up as Moses and Copernicus stood together.

  “We have studied your kind for many generations,” Copernicus said. “And we have taken painstaking efforts to preserve your way of life over that time period.”

  “But I think you will find that our ways are far more similar to yours than you may believe,” Moses said.

  “Anyway,” Copernicus said. “Please report to the Launch Chamber.”

  Winston nodded, placed a bookmark in his page, and closed the book. He leaned back, as his eyes looked downwards at Eli. He breathed in through his nose and continued looking over at Eli. “Do you honestly think the answers are in this book?”

  Eli shrugged his shoulders. “Well there must be something! Some chronicle of the past missions?”

  Winston shook his head. “No, Eli. That’s all merely speculation. This is the first mission to Europa.”

  After they were prepped and suited, they stood in the outer chamber as the sun shield lifted, revealing the small, icy blue sphere; a planet which they had only studied up until that point.

  As they looked at one another and experienced the same things, the same cosmic visions, piece by piece, the tapestries of their minds were gradually sewn together.

  When Counselor Abagail looked over towards Jeremiah, she could remember him.

  While her memories of Sector B did not flood her mind and leave her awash with reflection, his smile, closely cropped hair, the way he carried himself and pressed himself against the glass admiring Europa and Jupiter with the others, reminded her of who he once was while they spent their years together in Sector B.

  He looked over at her and they made eye contact. He cracked a smile.

  Their minds met.

  Connected.

  A certain unseen electricity was in the air, flowing between each of their minds as they stood, watching in silence as the ship hovered towards the vastness of swirling Jupiter.

  It was if they could reach out and touch her spinning clouds of gases; the planet which man had studied for many years; but never was able to explore directly until now.

  *****

  “Four seven, descent initiating.”

  Counselor Abagail watched the doors close together. And she felt the thud as their pod separated from Vega One. She turned her head to the right, and saw Eli make the Sign of the Cross. Winston’s eyes were closed, and Jeremiah turned and made eye contact with her. “This is it,” he said. “No other humans have done what we are about to do.”

  She sighed.

  It was much easier to communicate in these suits. She could speak normally, hear the others normally, and that felt better than Mars. The human technology seemed so primitive and constricting. Full of air, and hard to move around.

  These alien suits…were like wearing clothes that breathed.

  But her impression of the atmospheric suits was dwarfed when she turned and looked through the clear slits across from where they were sitting.

  She gasped. “It’s – ”

  She heard Jeremiah chime in on the audio. “Jupiter…” he said. “And we’re about to get close to her…”

  She saw the pastel through the sliver.

  “Radiation shield engaged.”

  Jeremiah took the helm as she watched the giant rotating pastel sphere of Jupiter in the foreground.

  2

  THE COSMIC POPULACE

  *****

  THE POD TOUCHED DOWN with a thud.

  They looked out the front windows and remained speechless. The field of ice before them was a hint of powder blue, reflecting the pinks and oranges of the gigantic Jupiter which filled the sky. The ice moon was filled with a darkness that never saw the light of day, but the reflections from the colors of Jupiter offered the cosmic masterpiece they each hold only dreamed of until this day.

  Eli opened the back port door as the audio alarm indicated the loss of atmosphere.

  “Wait!” Counselor Abagail said. “We are going to do this together. Man has never set foot on the icy surface of Europa in all of recorded history. This is going to be a group effort.”

  Winston and Eli stood by the outer door as Jeremiah headed from the cockpit. Jeremiah reached forward and disengaged the door. It let out a lengthy hiss. He turned around and nodded. Counselor Abagail saw the reflection of his teeth through his helmet visor. He gave a thumbs up and swung the door outwards.

  She stepped on the ice.

  It was hard and dry.

  The terrain was flat and when she looked to her right, there was a field of stars. Further out Vega One waited in orbit. To her left, Jupiter filled the sky with its swirling layers of pastel gases, rotating throughout the sphere. Winston appeared behind her with a radiometer.

  “The radiation is intense from Jupiter,” he said. “It’s off the scale.”

  She turned and looked at Winston whose face was peering downwards, studying the instrument. “Have some confidence in the Vegans!” she said. “These suits were designed specifically for this mission.”

  Winston looked up and nodded. “My only concern, with these radiation levels, is how life would survive these conditions? We don’t know until we excavate, and even then, what will happen to the environment once we break through this icy shell?”

  Jeremiah had been walking the area immediately surrounding the ship. He joined Counselor Abagail and Winston. “We don’t know,” Jeremiah said. “But if Copernicus is right – if there is a portal under the ice on this moon – then, historically, we need to find it.”

  Winston handed the radiometer to Jeremiah. Counselor Abagail leaned in close to see it as well. She raised her head and looked over at Winston as Jeremiah started punching in the reset code.

  “We exp
ected this, Winston,” she said. “Now is not the time to bring up radiation concerns.” She looked up towards the open pod outer door. “Eli! What did you find?”

  Eli appeared through the ship door. She could see the whites of his eyes through the visor.

  “What is it, Eli?”

  He climbed down to the surface and joined the others. Counselor Abagail watched him approach, and despite the visor and the darkness, his face was painted with defeat.

  “We landed in the wrong spot,” he said. “The drill is 22 kilometers that way.” He pointed straight ahead.

  Everyone turned to look. The terrain was flat and icy up to the point of the horizon. At the very edge, where the icy ground met the cosmic sky, there were the shadows of a ridge.

  Winston’s voice came through the helmet audio. “That’s a surface crack,” he said. “So the drill is probably on the other side.”

  “We have to plan how to get across the crack,” Counselor Abagail said.

  “There’s a hook and rope gun in the pod,” Eli offered.

  Counselor Abagail shook her head. “No, the surface cracks can be seen from orbit. So they have to be miles wide. At the very least.”

  She looked over at Jeremiah, “We’re going to have to climb down and climb back up.”

  She turned to face Jeremiah, who was looking outwards towards the horizon. He turned around and faced the others. “What about bringing the drill to us? Can we do that somehow?”

  “We just have the same problem in reverse,” Winston said.

  “Can’t we just move the pod?” Eli asked.

  “We don’t have the power reserves,” Winston said. “It doesn’t work that way. MACA 1 is designed to land on the surface and launch back to Vega One. It’s not a surface transport vehicle.”

  “And we don’t have a ROVER,” Jeremiah added. “Not that it would matter once we approached the ridge.”

  Counselor Abagail turned back around and faced the horizon. “We could walk,” she said. “It might take some time, but the surface cracks are jagged. There might be a point in the distance where we could walk around the crack and approach the drill.”