Solaris Rising 3 - The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction

by Ian Whates

  The Song, strong and sudden, flowed up and flung the Roshini Muniam against the ice. The uneven under-surface of the ice cracked the vessel open like a nut.

  Alarms blared. Metal tore. The Roshini Muniam spun. The inner wall remained intact, but the pressures on the torn outer wall threatened it. Without an outer wall, they would not be able to return to the Liu Yang. Without an inner wall, they would die instantly.

  Avapim went out into the sea: double-tethered to the Roshini Muniam, double-tanked, in constant communication with Ju.

  The life is invisible to the naked eye, so Avapim saw only water: murky, dark, pierced by the Roshini Muniam’s beams of light. Avapim hauled herself along handrails on the module’s outer wall – spinning, spinning – to the crack, where she pulled the pieces of metal towards one another and applied the sealant. It worked quickly. Avapim returned to the airlock and entered the module, and Ju activated the tether to pull the still-spinning Roshini Muniam – slower, slower – back to the fissure in the ice: mission over! Mission failed, mission accomplished. The reconnection with the launcher, the return to the Liu Yang: fraught, successful.

  The technicians repairing the Roshini Muniam discovered a secret success in the water caught between the inner and outer walls: that the up-flow of the Song had brought a single specimen of a creature that lived at the bottom of the sea. A new form of life!

  The Sunflower Seeds Carried on Song! (2093)

  THE LIFE WAS a hundred cells, a circle: a head of sunflower seeds. Avapim Sannikorn, Ju Dimagiba, He Hongxia and Liu Gan surrounded it like petals. Circling them, the Song and the poster’s words. What wonders in the deep waters of Enceladus! What else awaited us!

  The life was a simple multicellular organism, its cells unspecialised. Dead.

  The joy of finding it lifted the team’s sadness at suspending the manned exploration schedule until the interactions of ocean’s currents were better understood.

  Oh Life, Tenaciously Anchored To The Ice! (2094)

  LIFE! DISCOVERIES WITHOUT end!

  A year’s analysis of data collected in the Roshini Muniam’s cameras during its single mission revealed clues of another form of life: dimples, a millimetre in diameter, in the underside of the ice.

  He Hongxia and Liu Gan announced the discovery together.

  “We are fortunate that the Roshini Muniam, in its erratic spinning, cast a light on the ice and allowed our high resolution visual light spectrum camera to capture images at a far closer range than we would ever have risked,” He Hongxia said. “It certainly proved the camera’s auto-focus capabilities!”

  Beside her, Liu Gan smiled and said, “The shutter rate ensured that sufficient images were not blurred by the module’s spin speed. This enabled us to examine them very closely. What we have discovered are these.”

  The dimples, like circular footsteps!

  “These,” Liu Gan continued, “are the marks left behind by life forms no longer alive. The life forms would have been anchored in the ice: extending, we theorise, into the water to collect the nutrients carried on the currents. Each visible dimple represents a cluster of hundreds or thousands of these life forms. In common with all other life we have found on Enceladus, each individual would not be visible with the naked eye. However, in these clusters, it is probable that the life would be visible!”

  “Although we do not yet know the rate of erosion on the underside of the ice,” He Hongxia said, “we suspect that it is quite swift: the dimples must represent life forms that died recently. We hope, on future missions, to find live colonies.”

  A poster produced by a Vietnamese artist showed nine people – the technicians on the Liu Yang – in a glass-roofed vessel under the ice and the life, viewing it. Long, slender, a single form. Colourless like so much of Enceladus’ life. Swaying in a current, plant-like (although no life on Enceladus was a plant). The life!

  Saturn Has Become The Shore Of The Universe! (2095)

  AN IMAGE CREATED by Psyche Corporation to celebrate the completion of phases one and two in their manned mining mission to the Saturn System: design and funding. It showed the final design for a pair of mining stations in the high atmosphere of Saturn, black against those bright bands of colour. Enceladus orbited in the bottom-right corner, its ice plumes spreading horizontally across the bottom of the image: a white space for the text.

  Psyche Corporation predicted a 2105 launch date for the mission.

  Building A Home At The Shore Of The Universe! (2095)

  LIU GAN BORROWED the Psyche Corporation’s slogan for an image that accompanied her preliminary report on the habitability of the Saturn System using Enceladus as one source of mineral resources. Saturn sat at the bottom, less than a hemisphere, and above it hung the rings and the moons Enceladus, Titan, Rhea and smaller, un-marked spheres and cratered shapes. Light grey against the space between the moons, space stations spelling the word ‘future’.

  Introducing her report, Liu Gan said: “One thing is inevitable: human populations will continue to grow. There are now eleven settlements and twenty scientific research stations on Mars. After their setbacks, the Lunar settlements are growing healthily. Five major corporations work in the asteroid belt, as well as an unknown small number of private contractors. While Psyche Corporation plans to begin mining activities in the Saturn System, Planetary Resources is looking at expanding its mining efforts within the asteroid belt and Acersecomic is developing plans for larger scale civilian habitation there. People want to live in space! The Psyche Corporation will come to the Saturn System! What I will do in my new role as Settlement Liaison is ensure that all habitation of the Saturn System prioritises the safety of the life on Enceladus and the possible life elsewhere, as well as human life.”

  To live alongside the Enceladus life!

  “One other thing is true: we have been living in reduced gravity for fourteen years. Avapim Sannikorn and Cristina Tangco’s daughter was borne and born in reduced gravity. The difficulties of returning to Earth for any of us would be immense. Perhaps a home could be found for us in the asteroid belt or on the Moon. Perhaps in special facilities on Earth. I want to live here! Seven years of travel, seven years of orbit, waking each day to the pale sphere, the plumes of ice! I can’t imagine any other sight and neither can He Hongxia.” A fond smile at the thought of her wife. “With Mason Ng, I will ensure that the Saturn System is a home for all!”

  Her relationship with Mason Ng received hostile reactions on Earth.

  I Alone Hold Up Liu Yang For Scientific Discovery! (2095)

  AN UNPOPULAR POSTER. He Hongxia stood alone on the surface of Enceladus, holding the Liu Yang in one hand high above her head. A banner trailed from the Liu Yang with the poster’s caption written on it, black on red.

  He Hongxia dismissed the poster, stating in a transmission sent to Earth and picked up at the places in-between: “I do not hold up the Liu Yang alone! There is Liu Gan, who works at my side, and Avapim Sannikorn, who will go under the ice again with Ju Dimagiba in the next twenty months now that our mapping is more extensive and the outer wall of the Roshini Muniam has been rebuilt, reinforced, and Li Fuquan and Cristina Tangco, who run the autonomous exploration unit – our primary source of data from under the ice! There are twelve of us living here, working every day to expand our knowledge of Enceladus and its life forms. Do not say that I work alone.”

  Seven Years, Seven Hundred Steps! (2088 - 2095)

  THE CULMINATION OF seven years: a second series of images created by the team. How far they had come! Further than the hundreds of thousands of kilometres they had travelled to reach the Saturn System in the first seven years, further in knowledge, in understanding.

  Imagine, the final image said in Enceladus-pale text, The Next Seven Years’ Steps.

  How far, how changed: the future!

  A Live Map Of The Ocean Currents Of Enceladus! (2100)

  THE ENCELADUS TEAM had been able to access this map since late 2096, but only in 2100 was it made availabl
e to the public: the live feed of the micro-machines mapping the currents across the main ocean body. Of course, on Earth it lagged by seventy minutes. On Enceladus it was fresh, used by Avapim Sannikorn and Ju Dimagiba to more safely survey the sea. The map spread across the nets in hundreds of stylised variants: true colour, line art, illustrated with oversized life forms, two-dimensional segments, an immersive game. To swim among the life! To feel the tidally-pulled water against your skin, tangling your hair with Shells and Lontar, tugging it up towards the Anchors swilling in the sea!

  For some people, the map closed the astronomical units of distance between the inner system and the Liu Yang. For some, it showed how great that gap was.

  Nineteen years since the team on the Liu Yang left Earth, twelve years since they arrived in the Saturn System. In 2100, An Tangco-Sannikorn turned seven years old! Discoveries continued – of multicellular, unspecialised life – enriching theories of the full ocean life cycle. The discovery in 2098 of live Anchors went un-illustrated. It had already been drawn in 2094! In 2100, the Moon reopened its borders to settlement. In 2100, the population of Mars tripled: primarily immigrants, but the percentage of births grew. Psyche Corporation’s Saturn System mission launch date was pushed back to 2107.

  “We are all part of the Solar System,” Liu Gan said in a report. “We are all working together to learn, to make homes, to act responsibly. This is our future: Earth, the Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, the Saturn System – where next?”

  Oh, radiant Venus!

  Distant stars!

  “We have come so far from Earth,” He Hongxia said to Liu Gan privately, as they lay in their bed looking out the window above: the ice plumes of Enceladus cascading into space!

  Enceladus Is My Home! (2103)

  DESIGNED BY AN Tangco-Sannikorn. The girl stood on the ice of Enceladus, wearing the dark blue spacesuit designed for her first mission outside the Liu Yang, her face beaming bright behind her helmet’s visor. Excited. Successful. At her back, the ice plumes rising into the star-speckled sky, dominating the image, painted in subtle shifting hues. Shades only a person who walked on Enceladus would know!

  To stand near Enceladus’ plumes! To see, only five hundred metres away, what Cassini first detected in 2005!

  To call it home.

  RED LIGHTS, AND RAIN

  GARETH L. POWELL

  Gareth L. Powell is a novelist from the South West of England. Although he has written two well-received space opera novels and numerous short stories, he is probably best known for his Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy, published by Solaris Books, the first of which won the BSFA Award for best novel in 2014. He can be found online at: www.garethlpowell.com

  IT’S RAINING IN Amsterdam. Paige stands in the oak-panelled front bar of a small corner pub. She has wet hair because she walked here from her hotel. Now she’s standing by the open door, holding half a litre of Amstel, watching the rain stipple the surface of the canal across the street. For the fourth time in five minutes, she takes out her mobile and checks the screen for messages. From across the room, the barman looks at her. He has dark skin and gold dreads. Seeing the phone in her hand again, he smiles, obviously convinced she’s waiting for a date.

  Outside, damp tourists pass in the rain, looking for the Anne Frank house; open-topped pleasure boats seek shelter beneath humped-back bridges; and bare-headed boys cut past on scooters, cigarettes flaring, girlfriends clinging side-saddle to the parcel shelves, tyres going bop-bop-bop on the wet cobble stones. Paige sucks the froth from her beer. On the other side of the canal, a church bell clangs nine o’clock. As it happens, she is waiting for a man, but this won’t be any sort of date, and she’ll be lucky if she survives to see the sun come up tomorrow morning. She pockets the mobile, changes the beer glass from one hand to the other, and slips her fingers into the pocket of her coat, allowing them to brush the cold metal butt of the pistol. It’s a lightweight coil gun: a magnetic projectile accelerator, fifty years more advanced than anything else in this time zone, and capable of punching a titanium slug through a concrete wall. With luck, it will be enough.

  She watches the barman lay out new beer mats on the zinc counter. He’s just a boy, really. Paige should probably warn him to leave, but she doesn’t want to attract too much attention, not just yet. She doesn’t want the police to blunder in and complicate matters.

  For a moment, her eyes are off the door, and that’s when Josef arrives, heralded by the swish of his coat, the clack of his boots as they hit the step. She sees the barman’s gaze flick past her shoulder, his eyes widen, and she turns to find Josef standing on the threshold, close enough to kiss.

  “Hello, Paige.” He’s at least five inches taller than her; rake thin with pale lips and rain-slicked hair.

  “Josef.” She slides her right hand into her coat, sees him notice the movement.

  “Are you here to kill me, Paige?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not going to be easy.”

  “I know.”

  He flicks his eyes in the direction of the bar, licks his bottom lip. “What about him?”

  Paige takes a step back, placing herself between the ‘vampire’ and the boy with the golden dreadlocks. She curls the index finger of the hand still in her pocket around the trigger of the coil gun.

  “Not tonight, Josef.”

  Josef shrugs and folds his arms, shifts his weight petulantly from one foot to the other.

  “So, what?” he says. “You want to go at it right now, in here?”

  Paige shakes her head. She’s trying not to show emotion, but her heart’s hammering and she’s sure he can hear it.

  “Outside,” she says. Josef narrows his eyes. He looks her up and down, assessing her as an opponent. Despite his attenuated frame, she knows he can strike like a whip when he wants to. She tenses, ready for his attack and, for a moment, they’re frozen like that: eyes locked, waiting for the other to make the first move. Then Josef laughs. He turns on his heel, flicks up the collar of his coat, and steps out into the rain.

  Paige lets out a long breath. Her stomach’s churning. She pulls the coil gun from her pocket and looks over at the barman.

  “Stay here,” she says.

  SHE FOLLOWS JOSEF into a small concrete yard at the rear of the pub, surrounded by walls on all sides, and lit from above by the orange reflection of city lights on low cloud. Rusty dumpsters stand against one wall; a fire escape ladder hangs from the back of the pub; and metal trapdoors cover the cellar. Two storeys above, the gutters leak, spattering the concrete.

  Josef says, “So, how do you want to do this?”

  Paige lets the peeling wooden door to the street bang shut behind her, hiding them from passers-by. The coil gun feels heavy in her hand.

  “Get over by the wall,” she says.

  Josef shakes his head.

  She opens her mouth to insist but, before she can speak or raise the gun, he’s closed the distance between them, his weight slamming her back against the wooden door. She feels his breath on her cheek, his hand clasping her throat. She tries to bring the gun to bear but he chops it away, sending the weapon clattering across the wet floor.

  “You’re pathetic,” he growls, and lifts her by the throat. Her feet paw at empty air. She tries to prise his hand loose, but his fingers are like talons, and she can’t breathe; she’s choking. In desperation, she kicks his kneecap, making him stagger. With a snarl, he tosses her against one of the large wheeled dumpsters. She hits it with an echoing crash, and ends up on her hands and knees, coughing, struggling for air. Josef’s boot catches her in the ribs, and rolls her onto her side. He stamps down once, twice, and something snaps in her left forearm. The pain fills her. She yelps, and curls herself around it. The coil gun rests on the concrete three or four metres away on the other side of the yard, and there’s no way he’ll let her reach it. He kicks her twice more, then leans down with his mouth open, letting her see his glistening ceramic incisors. They’re fully extended now, locked in
attack position, and ready to tear out her windpipe.

  “Ha’ enough?” he says, the fangs distorting his speech.

  Paige coughs again. She’s cradling her broken arm, and she still can’t breathe properly. She’s about to tell him to go to hell, when the back door of the pub swings open, and out steps the boy with the golden dreads, a sawn-off antique shotgun held at his hip.

  “That’s enough,” the boy says. His eyes are wide and scared.

  Josef looks up with a hiss, teeth bared. Startled, the barman pulls the trigger. The flash and bang fill the yard. Josef takes both barrels in the chest. It snatches him away like laundry in the wind, and he lands by the door to the street, flapping and yelling, drumming his boot heels on the concrete.

  “Shoot him again,” Paige gasps, but the young man stands frozen in place, transfixed by the thrashing vampire. He hasn’t even reloaded. Paige uses her good arm to claw her way into a sitting position. The rain’s soaked through her clothes.

  “Shoot him!”

  But it’s too late. Still hollering, Josef claws his way through the wooden door, out onto the street. Paige pulls herself up and makes it to the pavement just in time to see him slip over the edge of the bank, into the canal, dropping noiselessly into the water between two tethered barges. She turns back to find the boy with the shotgun looking at her.

  “Is he dead?”

  She shakes her head. The air’s tangy with gun smoke. “No, he’ll be back.” She scoops up her fallen coil gun and slides it back into her coat pocket. Her left arm’s clutched against her chest. Every time she moves, she has to bite her lip against the pain.