Impact

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Yes, I guess so,” Boris said as carefree as he could.

  He was willing to bet Geraldine wouldn’t cancel the whole thing just because of his bitching, but he wasn’t positive. He had the unmistakable feeling that she would ultimately agree to his terms.

  “So, what is it you want?” Geraldine asked with a threatening undertone.

  Now he was sure she was bluffing. He relaxed. “Anna, my sister—she has to come with us. We’re a team. We do everything together. I’m good only when I work with her, as a pair.”

  “So good that your sister is right now lying unconscious in a tank?” Jenna asked.

  Boris leaped forward, but then stopped. His face twisted into a wry smile. “Yes, that one’s on me. But tomorrow she’ll be awake again. If I’ve understood correctly, the doctors are very confident she’ll be up for it. She’s still physically fit.”

  “Agreed,” Geraldine said. “If the doctors say it’s okay, Anna can join you. It’d be suspicious if you didn’t do this job as a team. And we’ve still got some things to get ready. You should be ready to leave in three days.”

  “How long will we be gone?” Geralt asked.

  “Right now, the plan is two weeks. But that also depends on how good the data from the archives is.”

  “I’ll gladly take a look at it before we go,” Geralt said.

  “I was going to ask you to do just that,” Geraldine said. “I will have the data sent to you.”

  “If Anna is awake tomorrow and the doctors give the okay, we could also leave a day earlier,” Boris said. “This seems to be an urgent matter.”

  “No, I’ve got something I’ve got to do before we can go,” Jenna said.

  “Jenna’s coming with us? Who else? The whole CoC and RC too?”

  “Jenna will be the leader of the expedition,” Geraldine said. “She has the complete confidence of the CoC. I expect that you’ll all follow her instructions.”

  Great. A young, inexperienced ‘chick’ would lead their excursion into the mountains. She’d probably never even been outside before. Instead, she had probably been sitting in a bunker, studying for her tests.

  “Understood,” he said.

  Maybe she was smart and wouldn’t always get in the way. If he was lucky, she would perhaps even spend the entire time in the enclosed rover, which she and Geralt, as Wnutri, would need.

  “Any more questions? If not, I will say goodbye.”

  Boris thought, yes, there was still one detail he was interested in. So he asked, “Where is the asteroid headed, then?”

  “(1288) Santa?” Jenna asked.

  Oh, she’d hoped to keep him in the dark. She knew, but she didn’t trust herself to say it. Instead she would stall with evasive answers and wait for Geraldine to answer for her.

  “Yes, what else? The one that left its orbit.”

  “Yes, that was (1288) Santa.”

  “I thought you already told us that much at the start of the meeting, Jenna.”

  “That could be.” Jenna turned around. Probably she had just turned red, or she was crying, and she didn’t want him to see.

  “Fine, then,” Geraldine said finally. “It looks like it will stay in the inner solar system. According to our calculations, the asteroid appears to be headed directly toward Earth.”

  4790.6

  Anna was talking! Boris watched her through the side window of the tank. She was moving her lips. That had to be a good sign—if she could speak, her brain couldn’t have been damaged too seriously. Boris felt so immensely relieved that if he had waved his arms, he might’ve lifted off right there on the spot and started flying around.

  He couldn’t hear what Anna was saying. The doctor, who was standing in front of the tank like him, had reserved the radio connection to his sister exclusively for himself. He wanted to first test his patient’s reactions before allowing her to exit the tank. He was a Wnutri wearing a lightweight pressure suit. The breathing air inside the suit inflated the white material so that he looked a little like a snowman. It was much too cold to build snowmen on Titan, but he’d seen old photographs of them. Building snowmen had been a favorite activity of children back in Old Russia, which many here considered their homeland.

  A beep came from a waist-high machine in front of the doctor. The device consisted of a square base with four wheels and a single arm extending upward from the base. On top of it was a keyboard, and a screen that Boris could see from the side. He zoomed in and recognized the outline of a human body. Within the outline, he could see lines that spread out throughout the body and came back together in the chest area, in what had to be the circulatory system. If anyone saw the display, they’d have no idea whether it was for a Wnutri or a Snarushi. The number of features they had in common far outnumbered their differences.

  The doctor appeared to be satisfied with what he saw, because he moved to the next screen. New lines appeared, thinner and with many more branches, already beyond the extent of Boris’s medical knowledge. That was what they relied on the doctors for. This doctor had arrived yesterday from a different base. Geraldine had probably wanted to make sure that Anna was really up to the challenges of their secret mission. He hadn’t introduced himself. Almost certainly he was some higher-up who also worked for the RC. He was probably internally annoyed that he’d had to perform this seemingly unimportant task.

  But it was obvious he took his job seriously. He seemed to be asking Anna more and more questions. She gave short, succinct replies. Boris would have liked to listen in, but conversations and connections with doctors were confidential and so strongly encoded that he would never be able to crack the encryption just with the equipment he had. He just needed to be patient—definitely not one of his strengths.

  “So, I think that does it for me,” Boris suddenly heard the doctor’s announcement in his head. The man sniffled, as if he might have a slight cold. At the same time, he packed up the machine. He folded the screen down onto the keyboard, and then he pressed down on it from above and the arm retracted.

  “Thanks, Dr. Valentinasson,” Anna said.

  Anna. How he had missed her voice! Could he have become too attached to his sister? But he’d had to take care of her after their mother died.

  “I was just doing my job,” the doctor said as he bent down and picked up the machine. It was scarcely bulkier than a thick folder. The doctor waved all around him, as if he were standing in front of students or fans, and then started walking away toward the base.

  “Can I leave the tank now?” Anna asked.

  The doctor didn’t answer. He was already out of range.

  “Yes, Valentinasson’s gone,” Boris said in his place.

  Through the side window, he saw how Anna pulled in her legs. To leave the tank, she’d have to turn upside down. The process was something like being born, only that she had somewhat more space than a child in utero. She assumed the fetal position, turned upside down, and then swam toward the opening by moving her arms.

  Boris moved over to meet her. The tank’s outlet opened. First he saw Anna’s hands, then her arms, and finally her head. She forced herself through the gelatinous mass that simultaneously held back most of the fluid. Boris reached out his arms. Now he could finally do something to help her. All she needed to do was fall into his arms, just like she’d done when she was a little girl.

  “Nice to have you back,” he said.

  “I agree.” She freed herself from his arms, straightened up, and stretched. The already frozen remnants of the nutrient fluid broke off from her outer skin as small sheets of ice.

  “Everything okay?” Boris asked.

  “I haven’t slept that well in a long time. Valentinasson said my brain functions might be even better now than before.”

  “That’s good, because we’ve got a very interesting job ahead of us. But it’s probably best if we talk about it someplace a little less public. Where’s Frida?”

  Boris looked around. Anna’s girlfriend had been at the tank a
lmost continuously for the last few days, but right now, of all times, she wasn’t there.

  “Frida told the doctor to tell me she couldn’t be here. She had to drive someone important from the CoC to another base and won’t be back until tonight.”

  “Well, that’s all good then.”

  “You really don’t need to worry about my relationships, Boris,” Anna said, smiling. “You should find someone yourself. It’s not good to always be alone.”

  “No time for that right now.”

  “That’s true. I’ve got to take care of a few things right now myself,” Anna said.

  “Okay. See you in two hours at our usual place?”

  “See you then.”

  Their ‘usual place’ was a beach chair that sat all by itself about a half kilometer from the base with a view overlooking a small methane lake. The lake, however, had recently evaporated. Geralt had told him that chairs like this had been ubiquitous on beaches on Earth, before all the old shorelines had gone underwater due to rising sea levels.

  Boris liked the construction, a wide seat with a backrest that could be adjusted to lean back, and it was equipped with a canopy that protected its user from the methane rain. The canopy could be folded up when it wasn’t raining, providing beautiful views of the sky, and letting you try to guess where the warm sun was on its difficult-to-track path across the usually cloudy sky. And when it was raining, the canopy made it all very cozy.

  At best, Boris liked to sit there alone and read a book displayed on the lenses of his goggles. He read everything that came out in modern Titanish. Unfortunately, only two or three translations of Earth’s classics were published each month.

  Today, however, he hadn’t brought his goggles. Boris was somewhat early to the beach chair. He sat down on the right side of the chair and leaned the backrest as far back as it would go. The meteorologists hadn’t called for rain today, but the sky hung so low over him that he wasn’t sure if he could trust their forecast.

  So, they were supposed to dig up the founder’s legendary spaceship. There seemed to be so much wrong with that idea! How did it even still exist? Life hadn’t been so straightforward back then. Maybe it had simply been forgotten, and then its destruction had become part of the legend.

  On the other hand, it hadn’t even been 30 generations ago. Could history become so wrong after only such a short amount of time? Or had someone actively worked to change the story?

  Did changing the story make it easier, perhaps, to implement the three taboos? Without a functional spaceship it would have been much simpler to ensure that nobody tried to fly off into space. The founders certainly might have thought of something like that. If there had been a way to leave the moon, the first few generations might not have worked so hard to transform Titan into a habitable world. They might not have realized that they had no choice but to change themselves in order to make it possible to survive the harsh conditions here. The idea of Wnutri and Snarushi might not have ever been conceived.

  Boris sighed. He would not have wanted to be in the founders’ place. They had to make decisions that were very unpopular at the time. The first attempts with the outer skin had led to the death of several volunteers, due to the fungus not stopping its growth as expected. And the increase in intelligence in the first Wnutri had also increased the risk of mental illnesses.

  At the time, researchers wanted to perform the modifications on embryos so the bodies would be better able to get accustomed to the manipulations. Luckily that path had ultimately been abandoned. For Boris, it had been evident by the time he’d reached the age of consent at 400 orbital periods that he wanted to become a Snarushi. But there still were some Titanians who didn’t choose which of the two paths was right for them until they were older.

  “Hey, let me guess. Lost in thought again?”

  Boris jumped. Anna was standing in front of him. How had she snuck up on him like that? He saw that she wasn’t wearing boots. It wasn’t a good idea to go without footwear at this distance from the base, as there were always sharp-edged bits of debris lying around that could slice open her bare soles if she were unlucky. Anna slapped him on the shoulder, sat down next to him, and propped up her right foot on his knee, so that she could wipe the ice particles from the sole of her foot.

  “Yes, I was just ruminating a bit,” he said.

  “Ah, ruminating. Hopefully only good thoughts.”

  “Of course. I was thinking about the new job.”

  “Our job, I assume.”

  “I wouldn’t have accepted it without you.”

  “I’ve told you before you don’t have to do that. I can manage very well on my own. I didn’t turn 400 yesterday, you know! And I don’t want to slow you down. I’ve got to think about my career, too.”

  “This isn’t about either of our careers. This job is... It could be a sensation. And it’s so secret that I wouldn’t even be able to tell you about it if you weren’t part of it already. But I know you well enough that I know you would have bugged me until I told you, anyway. And that could’ve caused lots of problems for me, and you, too. So, I think it’s better for both of us if you’re involved.”

  Anna slapped him on the shoulder again. “Haha. Well argued, little brother.” Then she removed her right foot and placed her left on his thigh, so that she could wipe it clean. “And now, you really must tell me what this is all about.”

  “That’s unbelievable.”

  “That’s what I thought when Geraldine told me.”

  “And this Jenna? What do you know about her?”

  He had thought Anna would ask him about the mission. Instead, she wanted information about the young scientist.

  “Only that she works for the Research Commission and is a bit arrogant. But why are you asking about her? She’s a Wnutri.”

  “You guys are all the same. I’m interested in her as a person. Plus, she’s going to be our boss, isn’t she?”

  “Sorry. You’re right. But like I said, she didn’t tell us anything about herself. Well, other than that she’s an astronomer.”

  “Maybe she was just feeling insecure, and that’s why she came across as defensive. It must be a new position for her to lead an expedition, plus with such an experienced man like you as a subordinate.”

  “Maybe so. I don’t know. But did she need to act so arrogant?”

  “Nobody ever needs to, but it happens. Do you always act just the way you want to?”

  “Okay, okay, Ms. Psychologist. Of course, you know I’ll give her a chance to prove herself.”

  “I don’t want anything more than that. And I need to thank you for thinking of me. I would have given anything to be part of this expedition.”

  They sat on the beach chair for a long time in silence. It was a surreal situation. How improbable is all this? Boris thought, as his mind turned again to the founders. They would have had to wear bulky spacesuits to move around through the atmosphere, which would have been toxic to them. Could they have imagined someone sitting here on what looked like an antique chair, without any life-support equipment, staring at a non-existent lake?

  They probably would have laughed at anyone who told them of a future like that. Nevertheless, there must’ve been some among them with the vision of making a future possible for themselves just with their own abilities. And at the same time, there had to have been some of them insightful enough to recognize that the limits of this moon might also become too restrictive for their descendants. Surely it would have been quite logical for them to completely disassemble their ship and use the parts for their own comfort and convenience.

  4790.7

  Warehouse 7 was a barracks-like building that was missing a back wall. Right through the middle of the space ran the requisite barrier that separated the area with breathable air from the zone with Titan’s atmosphere.

  The barrier was moving forward at the moment, giving him access to a large stack of boxes. Boris walked up to them. There were 13 containers, arranged in two r
ows.

  “And these are all going to fit in the rover?” he asked.

  “Only those with a white circle on top,” Geralt said from the Wnutri side of the barrier.

  “That would be one, two, three... nine,” Boris said.

  “Yes, I can count, too. Would you bring them out to the rover, please?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  Boris started with the first box. He moved it a little to test its weight. It wasn’t very heavy. He bent his knees, grasped it with both arms, lifted it as he stood, and carried it outside through the open back wall.

  The rover was only a few meters away. The cabin for the two Wnutri passengers was still open. He carried the box inside and placed it at the very back, just in front of the control system monitor. The cabin was surprisingly spacious. On the left wall were two beds, one behind the other. They looked comfortable enough, even though they were still missing sheets, probably in one of the boxes.

  When was the last time he had slept in a real bed? He’d always had problems with them. Sometimes the mattresses were too soft, sometimes too hard. In a tank, however, he was weightless, and nothing pressed against him.

  The second box was much heavier. “What did you put in this one, Geralt?” he asked.

  “What number is it?”

  “Sch-32.”

  Typical Geralt. Instead of numbering the boxes 1, 2, 3, etc., he’d given them designations like Sch-32 and M-19A.

  “That’s our collection of old tools.”

  “Why would we need those? Aren’t our modern tools much better? They’re also not as heavy. These seem to be made of pure iron. Or lead.”

  “Most of them are a steel alloy.”

  “But won’t that be too brittle outside in the cold?”