Oceanworlds
Page 28
“The results … are here!?”
“I’m reaching out to you not only as a friend, but as one astrobiologist paying professional courtesy to another. This is the most important moment in our careers. Correction. This is the most important moment in our young profession’s history. The marathon started about two hours ago, the last bits of data reached Earth about thirty minutes ago. You’re the laggard playing catch-up. Mind-boggling what’s going on. Go to Wikipedia to get the summary. The entry’s being edited in real time.”
“But what about the results?” Belinda asked.
“Make your own opinion … but they aren’t promising. Talk to you soon!”
Right away new calls started coming in. She silenced the phone and got to work.
“Mummy, I need to go to the loo.”
“My love, look at me. How badly do you need to go on a scale of one to ten?”
“Hmm … one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. An eight, Mummy.”
“I want you to promise Mummy one big favor. Try to keep it at eight for as long as you possibly can, okay?”
After wolfing down the Wikipedia entry on her laptop’s screen, she got to the thick data log.
High-school chemistry students would be startled to see those old, intimidating bullies they swore never to encounter again strutting around the screen, starting with that worst of tyrants, carbon. C3H7NO2Se. C4H5N3O. C12O9. Belinda went line by line across the tabulated compounds inventory. Everything looked all right. Everything looked inert. All signs of life were null. The ecstasy tempered down. It is possible we have gone through such outrageous risks, such outlandish lengths of space and time … for nothing? Maybe there’s a pattern here somewhere, so blatantly clear it camouflages in its explicitness. In a few hours we should know—this is a 21st-century marathon after all. We humans are leg amputees compared with the artificial intelligence currently sifting through the data. Breaking down complexity, trying thousands of variations each second, attempting to decipher the riddles within.
She left the Kingdom of Carbon, the realm of organic molecules responsible for all life on Earth. Skipped over reams of data until she entered the rarefied Kingdom of Silicon. Everything in molecular biology enshrines carbon, which merits an explanation. We say Terran life is carbon-based, even though it depends on other atoms as much as on carbon. Carbon looks unassuming, one proton above boron’s five and one less than nitrogen’s seven. It composes a relevant 19 percent of our body, but it’s no oxygen at 65 percent. The key to its absolute dominance is scaffolding. Most atoms can bond to another single atom. Carbon can bond with up to four others, which makes it the backbone of almost all complex molecules on Earth. Science fiction loves silicon because it’s the only other element capable of ménage à quatre. But for all its promise, it comes with a stigma. Life barely uses it even though it is eighty-four times more abundant than carbon on Earth. CaAl2Si2O8. SiH3NMe2. Belinda mentally discarded one formulation after another. She then transitioned to an exotic family of molecules called organosilicon, sharing both carbon and silicon bonds. Another slap in the face. Nothing.
A decade ago a young biochemist out of university became infatuated with the sweeping promise of astrobiology, that young and resourceful scientific branch full of urgency. The low probability of anything happening during her lifetime was more than offset by the fabulous implications of a future potential success. She certainly wasn’t the first or the only one with such hopes and dreams. Some of the most brilliant scientists in the world have dedicated their lives to building the most sensitive instruments ever made to have a chance at addressing whether life exists beyond Earth. Telescopes able to deduce the existence of exoplanets by the extremely faint dimming of a star when they cross in front of them. Parabolic antenna clusters able to listen simultaneously to a million of our nearest stars over countless different frequencies. And humanity played ball, financing the expensive moonshots, because the promise is so extraordinary—or was. The answer in front of Belinda, from the most promising test over seven decades of searching, seemed blunt, brutal, and bleak. Failures should push to persevere even further, but this was an early attack and capture that had the strong insinuation of a checkmate. We have been defeated repeatedly and consistently in the search for life on Mars for decades. That not only didn’t dent our motivation, it provoked an ever-stronger push. But this … this is different. Enceladus was the gold standard, acing every requirement for life-as-we-know-it. Every requirement was here in front of Belinda. Yet the one thing that really mattered, the consummation of chemistry into biology, looked entirely absent.
“Mummy, I’m at nine and a half.”
“Let’s go. Sorry for the wait, Em.” Belinda tried to sound and feel nonchalant, but the beautiful colors of the sunset were now tinted in sepia. “Do you have any bush in mind?”
“Yes! That one with the unhappy face over there.”
I let Jimmy go—Emma—our family shouldered the brunt of the mission. Was the sacrifice worth it? The irony is that while I confront the stark reality, across the vastness of space, a shoulder away from Enceladus, Jimmy, Sophia, and Yi are probably still blissfully ignorant. Jimmy and Yi will be okay, I think. They had other reasons for heading there. But Sophia, she will be devastated.
Emma squatted down behind a small bush near the side of the road. The nostalgia overcame Belinda. She flew back to that postcard spring day in London, looking down at the city from Primrose Hill. The three of them together, Emma kicking Dad’s hand from inside her. Was all this worth it? Jimmy and Emma share so much, yet are perfect strangers. When he comes back, she’ll be 6. Those six years of waiting, of longing, of a life on pause, they cannot be claimed back. They are lost forever—and hardly half that time has passed. She could remember the gentle breeze, the smell of grass, the deep blue sky. James’ presence was a halo enveloping her. His handsome face, his infectious smile. His promise to come back sounded less weighty that day, less consequential under the shining sun, the bonhomie around them, the ageless woodland below, the church spires, cranes, and skyscrapers in the background. The elms, cypresses, beeches, cedars. Something flashed through her mind. She paused. That time Jimmy mentioned how orderly forests appeared in Britain. I think he said “manicured.” A casual happy coincidence for the unknowing eye. A Londoner knows better, she had told him. The highest form of landscaping is the art of hiding intention behind natural looks—
“Muuuuummy! I’m done here!”
They went back to the car. Something was brewing inside Belinda, an impression of being on the edge of something. Emma took her pill organizer out of her pink unicorn school bag and presented it to her mother. Seven rows, one for each day of the week; one moon symbol, one sun, and one sunset per day. 7 × 3. 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3. 3n, where n goes from 1 to 7. Belinda’s heart pounded faster. She opened her laptop and went back to the organosilicon molecules. Gently, slowly, as if removing Mikados from jumbled pick-up sticks. There were seventeen molecules, all with long backbones of silicon and carbon. She focused on counting the silicon atoms.
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 12
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 14
Si-Si-Si-Si = 4
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 8
Si-Si-Si-Si = 4
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 10
Si-Si = 2
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 6
Uncanny. She now felt her heart beating in her temples.
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 6
Si-Si-Si-Si = 4
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 18
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 10
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 12
Please, please, please.
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 16
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 6
Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si = 10
Si-Si-Si-Si = 4
She stared at the screen, dazed. Her head felt like it had had too many
glasses of pinot grigio. Am I dreaming? She tried testing it. “What are you doing my love?” she asked. No answer. She turned back. Emma had zoned out playing a game on her tablet. This is real. This is happening. This is now!
She inhaled a few times, trying to clear her mind, and then she stared at the screen again.
12, 14, 4, 8, 4, 10, 2, 6, 6, 4, 18, 10, 12, 16, 6, 10, 4 or as multiples: 2 × 6, 2 × 7, 2 × 2, 2 × 4, 2 × 2, 2 × 5, 2 × 1, 2 × 3, 2 × 3, 2 × 2, 2 × 9, 2 × 5, 2 × 6, 2 × 8, 2 × 3, 2 × 5, 2 × 2. Or as notation: Si2n. Everything is in pairs.
She tried to be skeptical, but the weight of the evidence made it futile. The tables had turned. In a world of probabilistic randomness, there was suddenly a mathematical pattern. Nature has no business preferring even instead of odd numbers. Something else is selectively picking chemicals on Enceladus. On Earth, that something else is called—but she wouldn’t form the word in her mind.
She was trembling, her thoughts hazy and bewildered. She called Alex back.
“Hey B. What’s up?” Belinda couldn’t force the words out. “B? Anyone there?”
“I’m here,” Emma said a little indignantly.
Slowly, barely audible, “Alex … there are … biosignatures in the data.”
There was silence at first, followed by, “OH MY GOD.”
51 | Messiah
Hours later
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA
Emma and Belinda walked hand in hand, seemingly shrinking in size as they approached Hangar One. This was Emma’s first venture to the cavernous free-standing structure, and it showed.
“Mummy, look! It’s higher than the Moon!” Emma rejoiced at Belinda raising her eyes almost vertically toward a Moon resting perfectly to the side of the hangar’s apex.
Nitha Sharma intercepted the two and introduced herself to Emma.
“I thought you were bigger,” said Emma, seeing Shackleton’s famous mission head for the first time.
“I thought you were smaller,” said Nitha, smiling at the little one.
Emma ran ahead toward a crew unloading concert loudspeakers from a semi-trailer truck.
“She’s very articulate. And speaks so well—you could hardly tell …” said Nitha.
“My Emma’s precious. And precocious too. Jimmy, Grandpa, and I are all terribly proud … there’s plenty of work ahead, though. Today I had her call out our order at a Starbucks Drive-Thru and it was all wrong at pick up. I felt for the first time as if she could sense there was something wrong with her voice—” Belinda halted after noticing the cranes, technicians laying cables, loudspeaker arrays, and staff assembling scaffolds. “Nitha …”
“Tomorrow will be big, B. Really big.” Nitha’s phone began ringing.
“But, but why me?” said Belinda, upset. “Look at all this. It’s turning into, what, a Rolling Stones concert?”
“You made the discovery. But more importantly, you carry the kind of goodwill that few people on Earth have right now.”
“Nitha, you know me. I don’t do well speaking in public.” They walked past the sharp line of the giant clamshell doors, cutting the sunshine under the looming hangar shadow.
“Mainstream media was talking about Area 51 just yesterday. Area 51! Green men and flying saucers. You are sanity’s messiah. You, Belinda Egger, are the one who can cut the rampant speculation and make us return to reason.” Nitha took the call.
“No.”
“No. No and no. We won’t accept any bullshit government helicopters landing here. None.”
She listened for a while and Belinda could hear a faint urgent voice on the other end of the line. After a few seconds, Nitha cut the caller off with, “Well, get used to it, you have no jurisdiction here. Google leased the Federal Airfield for another five decad—”
“Shackleton was funded by the people, not a dollar from Uncle S—”
“Listen to me very carefully, George. If you try that—”
“I—”
“I will personally announce the press conference cancelation at the press conference and we’ll move it to another country. That’s going to cost you your cushy job, best-case scenario.”
Finally, she snapped, “Well, fly economy for once in your life, dammit!”
Nitha hung up and apologized to Belinda. She was irritated by the call. “This is why … people are confused. They—all of us—we’re scared. Those two on Enceladus have inadvertently exposed how thin the fabric of society becomes when everything we held as immutable and hallowed shifts … humanity needs to see honesty and transparency. You need to tell everyone what has happened in your own words … the tantalizing dream of alien life is suddenly upon us and we are realizing it’s a planet-sized hot potato we don’t know how to deal with. An alien microbe is terrific. An alien civilization is terrifying.”
52 | Blast Off
A day later, September 13 2030. Main Mission day 10
ENCELADUS
Derya was tired and craving to be back inside Caird to eat and especially sleep, but Sergei still had an hour and a half of fieldwork and the cabin wouldn’t be pressurized until they were both back. Meanwhile, Yi probably muses about the immortality of the soul as understood by each of the three main Abrahamic religions while—and this is the important part—helping himself to my rations. If you so much as touched one of them, I’ll have you on a white rice diet until we land back on Earth, he thought.
He worked on the Mole’s rig, preparing for the piercing. The cryobot was 17,000 feet beneath him—and not even on a straight line—yet he could still see the faint blue fluorescence emanating from the borehole. The rig was far more than the support tripod that kept the Mole standing before it burrowed down. Once the latter punctured the ocean, its back section would detach and affix to the ice. Then, as the Mole sank using its propeller toward the long-dreamed of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, a thin transmission cable would keep it tethered to the rig by Derya’s side, which would relay the sensor data and video feed back to Caird. Why? Because while radio waves regularly travel billions and lasers millions of miles across space, both are useless after just a few dozen feet of salt water—ahh, the poetic elegance of physics.
The rig was anchored to the ice by three long bolts. His final outside task that day was stress testing them for the big moment. More of a shrinking raisin moment. He gathered his strength and jumped, promptly yanked back by the rope connecting his waist harness to the rig. He did it two more times, hardly with any conviction by the last. Check. Good enough for my coveted stamp of approval.
The software on board Caird had been throttling the Mole down—currently ninety-seven feet above the ocean—to penetrate right when Enceladus was furthest from Saturn, in another eleven hours. Right now, the pendulum was at the opposite end and Saturn’s gravity squeeze had switched on the jets in all their glory. He extended his gloved palm to catch snowflakes falling at a funeral pace. That’s right. Our stop-and-frisk showed you are all dead. We could have sent a string of expletives instead of data to Earth and it would have amounted to the same—well, except for astrobiologists. You put ten atoms holding hands somewhere other than Earth in front of them and they start screaming hysterically. We quadrupled that, so they’re probably dreaming up a new branch of science. Still, Derya was mildly curious about resuming communication with Earth in three hours to read about the world’s reaction to the no-life results they had sent the previous day.
Meanwhile, screens inside Caird had been flashing. The radar in the Mole’s nose was getting ambiguous readings: sensing an ice mass one hundred feet thick in front and, simultaneously, the ocean almost in contact with the probe. The artificial intelligence was guessing long stalactites and its 3D rendering showed a dense population of icicles as tall as grown conifers, with the Mole about to pierce right in between three of them.
A while later, after his bashing of Yi had gone off the boil, after listening for old times’ sake to the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and after another chapter of How t
o Win Friends and Influence People—polls back home, the last by Der Spiegel magazine a week before, made him the most likely person to get elected to the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, once he came back—Derya changed his killing time strategy to sightseeing. He noticed a few pins lying on the floor around the rig. His eyes followed the path to Caird and registered more litter. The wake of progress. But we should clean up before we leave. Nothing better than to have the rapture of untrodden nature desecrated by stumbling across a squirted-out McDonald’s ketchup packet—or worse, what happened to Father in Greece.
As soon as Derya made some money after his PhD, he had bought his father, an amateur historian, a tour package to visit the site of his favorite battle, Marathon. Father was probably savoring the watershed moment in history, seeing in his mind’s eye the 100,000 Persians charging against the 10,000 Athenians, when he got out of the bus onto the battlefield, stepping right over a used condom surrounded by vomit and empty bottles, scarring his epic visions for life. Needless to say he hated the trip, all of it. And me for coming up with the idea. “What’s wrong with you!? Everything you touch becomes shit,” he had later said in a low, threatening voice that could only really mean, “My only son, my firstborn: I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Expecting a pitch-dark Christmas-esque Eve, he realized the surroundings were lit up as if it were a full Moon back on Earth. He arched his body backward and was perplexed to see Earth’s natural satellite in front of him: a ghostly white disk covered in its characteristic pockmarks. What—how’s that …? Like an April Fools’ prank, reality eventually clicked. He was looking at Dione,26 Enceladus’ big sister. A third of the diameter of Earth’s Moon and a third of the distance made them identical in the sky at a casual glance. Staring at it, he identified the Janiculum Dorsa, a long ridge that looked like the scarring in Derya’s left forearm after that deep cut nine years before. An accident to all but me. Images of this ridge and its surrounding depression taken in 2013 by Cassini gave evidence of tectonic activity and unmasked yet another deep-water ocean underneath.