The Frozen Sky

by Jeff Carlson

  At first she didn’t realize she’d escaped. In this gravity, spidering through the ice felt too much like combat — grab, kick, grab again — swimming off the walls and ceiling. She gritted her teeth and endured.

  “Where are they?”

  —No lifeforms in range.

  “Scan again! Where are they?”

  —No lifeforms in range.

  Tidal pressures, heat, and gas had riddled the ice with fractures and melts. A few gaps lifted up like crazy subway tunnels. More often, there were honeycombs.

  The openings teased Vonnie with dead-ends and obstacles. Sometimes her suit was able to bash through stalactites or veils of ice. More often the ghost backtracked or gave up a hundred meters of hard-fought progress even when Vonnie was desperate to hide and rest.

  After 1.7 kilometers, the ghost reported more rock ahead. The ice she’d crossed appeared to fill a valley between two mountain peaks, which explained why the ice was cracked and soft. The rock formed a bowl. It radiated heat upward. It also supported this part of the frozen sky, because the mountains meant the sky could only drop so far.

  Her suit leapt an abyss onto solid ground. They charged up an uneven slope, weaving among the hollows and dripping ice overhead.

  —There are open lava tubes on our right.

  “Pick one! Hurry!” Vonnie didn’t want to go into the rock. She wanted to climb it. But if she stayed outside, the sunfish were more likely to hear her. “Where are they?”

  —No lifeforms in range.

  Her suit clambered sideways and down. Vonnie counted every step. The noises around her deepened.

  “We’re inside the mountain?” she said.

  —Affirmative.

  She wouldn’t get a better shot. Her hands tapped inside her gloves, opening her command codes. Then she launched a clumsy voice key assault on the ghost. “Authorization Alexis Six, all systems respond. Bajonett. Bajonett.”

  The emergency order was meant to compartmentalize and suspend all AI activity within a suit, ship, or station. At school, they’d called it the Knife. Basic processors were supposed to take over. Instead, the ghost caused another interrupt. Feedback squealed in Vonnie’s ears. Worse, her voice box transmitted the same roar as if calling for the sunfish.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  The suit convulsed, slamming her face with unbearable pain — and then she had manual control.

  She ran.

  Her terror left no room for thought. It made her more effective. She forgot her wounds. She forgot her exhaustion. All senses tuned to the dark, Vonnie became her own momentum, reveling in every centimeter gained. She ran with her eyes shut, chasing the sound of her own boot steps. This channel in the rock was tight enough to reflect every noise back on itself, and she dodged through the space between each rattling echo.

  15.

  Her frenzy didn’t last. The ninth or tenth time she fell, she paused before standing up. Then she was running again, crashing through the rock less successfully than before. Self-awareness returned in fits and starts.

  Fix your eyes, she thought. Test the system. If the ghost is gone, you can fix your eyes.

  Climbing, slipping, staggering, crawling, finally she accepted that she had no choice except to take her chances with life support. She decided to stop and set her trap.

  When the sunfish caught up, Vonnie was hidden on a rock shelf above a short cliff. She’d rebooted the ghost with some success. He was still no better than three-quarters logic, but she’d gained control of her medical systems and the nanotech was rebuilding her left eye. The ghost had fixed the sonar receptors in her helmet, so she could hear ultrasound again even if she couldn’t transmit. The two of them had also turned off her spotlight when they stripped her gear block for parts. First she’d used the light to set her trap, burning a false trail beneath the cliff.

  She should have anticipated that the sunfish would ignore it. As they stole into the fissure below her, they crept up the sides of the rift and moved straight toward her hiding place, filtering through every thin cleft and pit.

  Vonnie stood to meet them with her welding laser and a chunk of rock. “I need auto-targeting only,” she said. “Fire by voice command.”

  —Von, that drops efficiency to thirty percent.

  “Fire by voice command. Confirm.”

  —Listen to me.

  Her terahertz pulse detected movement sporadically, carrying new, ever-closer signals to her ears. She couldn’t tell if there were four or forty of them hidden in the rift, but their sonar calls were all around her.

  She discerned another hint of arms, then heard the clack of a falling pebble. Their voices rose like a wailing song.

  Her emotions were a different storm, but there was one clear idea at the center of it. She didn’t want to die badly. She didn’t want the wrong reasons to be her last.

  Should she put down her weapons and let them kill her? What would that teach the sunfish about human beings?

  The ghost said:

  —I have six to eight targets, all well-concealed. Ten targets now. If we’re going to pick them off before they jump, I need full system access.

  But they hadn’t jumped. Not yet. The sunfish seemed indecisive. Maybe their careful approach was an overture.

  “They’re not attacking,” she said.

  —They’re taking position.

  “Last time they came straight at me. What if I’m far enough from their home? They might realize I’m not their enemy.”

  Standing at the edge of the rock shelf, Vonnie made herself small. She knelt and tucked both arms against her chest, concealing her laser.

  —What are you doing?

  Her posture was submissive, yet she also tried to project resolve and strength, keeping her face up, turning it from side to side in an attempt to convey alertness. The sunfish understood at least some of her physiology. They knew her sensory organs were in her head.

  —Von, listen. It’s the only chance.

  “No,” she whispered, making her decision. “Off.”

  —Wait.

  “I said off.”

  The sunfish sang and sang and sang, measuring her, crowding her.

  A lesser woman might have wished them dead. Vonnie hoped to befriend them because ultimately the sunfish were like her. With their carvings and their architecture, they’d had exceeded all expectations — and merely by coming to Europa, so had she.

  Thousands of candidates had sneered when her file was announced as the third member of the science team. They’d swamped the boards with insults. Nice tits. Picked for the cameras. I guess she’s sleeping with the right people. Her abilities had been questioned by every jealous shithead on Earth. That they would’ve complained about anyone was no consolation. The disrespect was hard to shrug off, but how many of them would have survived the ice?

  How many men would have lowered their weapons?

  Vonnie was ruled by her desire to make things work. If that made her gullible or too patient or too curious, so be it. She didn’t want to fight.

  16.

  The first sunfish hit Vonnie from behind like a silent missile. It struck the side of her head. Then the rift exploded with bodies.

  She screamed uselessly. Whipping her fist into the monster on her head accomplished nothing, either. The sunfish had landed its body against the rough mark where her gear block had been, cinching its arms around her helmet, chewing with its beak. The sound was a rubbing squeal.

  Somehow she managed another sweep of the rift. The echoes from her terahertz pulse were close and frantic, overlapping. There were more than twenty sunfish in the tightly choreographed launch. Most of them had gotten past her explosives.

  “Are you still there!?” she shouted.

  —Von, listen. Don’t close me down again, please.

  She was already yelling over the ghost. “Auto assault, max force!” she shouted. “Lam! Lam! Combat menu AP, auto assault! Confirm!”

  The delay felt like another kind of blind
ness and separation. Vonnie screamed again, beating at the arms covering her face. The sunfish’s cartilage skin was like pounding on leather. Her cutting tool would pierce that hide, but she was afraid to use the laser.

  Something yanked her sideways, hurting her spine. At first she thought she’d been hit by a mass of sunfish.

  —Auto assault.

  The suit threw her in a cartwheel. As it rolled, it put her fist to her temple and drew the laser across the sunfish’s arms, a precise stutter of four burns. It tossed her onto her hip and met the incoming wave with a kick.

  Impacts shook Vonnie’s boot and shin. Then she was up again. Three arms clunked against her back. Some of the sunfish must have gone overhead when she dropped — they must have surrounded her — and the suit spun and rammed into the rock, scraping itself clean.

  Whatever triumph she’d felt gave way to claustrophobic terror. The suit did not use its shape like a human would. It pinned one monster with its chin, then used its hip like a club against another. Again and again it hurled itself against the rock. It wasn’t squeamish. It did not flinch at the wretched shrilling of a sunfish caught between its hands or even turn from the burst of entrails. In normal gravity, against larger enemies, Vonnie would have been seriously injured. Even here she was so shaken, she didn’t immediately realize the fight was over.

  Nor did she remember when she’d regained her left eye. She felt elation, then shock.

  “I can see,” she said. “Lam?”

  Her visor was peppered with chip marks and abrasions. It was opaque in the middle. A gouge the length of her finger ran across her nose. The sunfish had almost bashed through.

  Given another chance, they might succeed.

  Vonnie glanced through two unmarked portions in the synthetic diamond, bending her head to improve her vision.

  She stood at the top of the landslide beneath the cliff near her explosive charges. The rock was streaked with rimes of salt. Crusty white patches had seeped from the ceiling, but she was unable to peer into all of the holes overhead. Were there more sunfish above her?

  Half of her display was inoperative. The rest of her visor glowed with heat signatures, although the only living shapes were fading as the sunfish retreated. Eleven bodies lay impaled against the black lava. In the minimal gravity, the air was fogged with blood.

  Mute, she tried to turn away. Crying out, she knew she was paralyzed. The suit didn’t respond to her arms or leg or head.

  “Lam?” she said. “Lam, it’s over. Off-line. Lam, off-line.”

  If the sunfish attacked again— If the ghost controlled all suit functions— Her body choked with that heavy new fear, and she fought without thinking inside her shell. She screamed when she was unable to move even slightly.

  He spoke in a hush:

  —I have an additional threat.

  “Let me go!”

  —Von, quiet. Something’s coming.

  “What?”

  —There were new sonar calls right before the sunfish withdrew. Something scared them off.

  “Is it one of our probes?”

  —No, these are new lifeforms.

  Vonnie nodded bitterly. Food here was scarce. Any commotion would draw every predator within hearing.

  If there was good news, it was that the ghost’s voice had changed. He seemed cooler and more confident. This was the first time he’d called them sunfish. That he’d said no instead of negative was another indicator of health. Had he actually written out his glitches? With access to more systems, he could have duped himself and then cut away his flaws in a microsecond. She was overdue for a little luck.

  He said:

  —Do you want to stay and fight? I estimate they’re four hundred meters away.

  “How fast are they moving? Are they big?”

  —Judging from their sonar calls, they’re at least as fast as the sunfish. They’re also louder. They may be larger. They’re within two hundred meters now.

  Each breath came in a short, tight rhythm. Vonnie tried to calm her lungs and failed, hating her own seesaw of emotions, hating the darkness and her pain. She felt like apologizing even though he was a goddamned program. She felt grateful.

  Would he pass a diagnostic? If he’d attained full logic, the two of them would be a force to reckon with now that she could see again, but she was reluctant to put him to the test, not in combat, not even for the chance to take recordings of another major lifeform.

  “Run,” she said. “All these bodies, that should be a fat meal for whatever’s coming. They’ll stay to eat. Let’s get out of here.”

  17.

  Her suit leapt down from the cliff and hurried away, putting distance between them and the new predators. Unfortunately, Lam changed course seven times in five minutes through the spongy, jagged rock.

  Vonnie tracked their progress with a heads-up display as they scrambled through gaps and pockets, jumping a crack and two loose hills of debris.

  The ghost sought every possible way up, but they kept losing as much elevation as they’d gained, ducking and weaving for open space. They were forced left, then down, then down again through a pit laced with dry crunchy webs of mineral deposits. It felt like they were running in circles.

  “Go back! Lam, go back to that last branch.”

  —Radar suggests another upward trend ahead of us.

  “Aren’t you headed where we came from?”

  —We’ve paralleled several caverns, yes.

  “Christ.”

  She’d taken the explosive charges with her, so it would be easy to blow the channel behind her and shut off any pursuit, but what if she encountered another foe? What if this tunnel was another dead-end?

  Between radar sims and actual footsteps covered, Vonnie’s maps went twenty-two kilometers, although most of that was tangled into a pyramid just eight klicks on a side. Some sections of her trail had also gone unrecorded or were literally nonexistent now. Colossal shafts of ice had been pulverized when the sink hole collapsed. It was unlikely she could retrace her steps even if she wanted to.

  “What can you tell me about the new lifeforms?”

  —They used many of the same frequencies as the sunfish. I estimate there were only six of them, but the sunfish retreated within seconds of hearing the other sonar.

  Vonnie examined a wide vein of rock as they approached. It looked like an excellent place to drop the roof. All she wanted was out. No more data, no more diplomacy, no more trying to vindicate her friends’ deaths. No more guilt.

  “If they’re ahead of us, we need to be prepared.”

  —I’ve continued to see traces of prints and spoor. Look there. And there.

  Across her display, the ghost highlighted four smears of feces on a level spot on the tunnel floor. None was more than a few frozen blotches. In the frozen sky, nothing went to waste or was left behind.

  That made her feel awful again. Compared to Europa, her planet was unspeakably rich. She wasn’t sure if it was even possible for her to comprehend how their poverty affected them.

  Did the sunfish routinely scout the impermanent, snarled labyrinths in the ice? That could account for why they appeared to know these dead zones so well even when there was no food, no breathable air, and only a few drips of liquid water for them to use for oxygen. She’d seen no food sources other than the bugs, bacterial mats, and a few blots of fungi.

  Was that why they were chasing her? To eat her?

  She recalled the admiration she’d felt when she first connected the sunfish with the carvings at the top of the frozen sky. She’d supposed they explored the highest reaches of their world in the spirit of adventure, like people climbed Mt. Everest… like she’d volunteered for this mission… but she’d ignored the reality of Lam’s models.

  On Earth, a balanced ecology had reestablished itself after extinction events like the eruption of the Toba supervolcano or the Chicxulub meteor strike. On Europa, vast swaths of the biosphere had vanished completely, either burned to nothing or de
voured by the ice.

  Their environment was a patchwork mess of isolated survivors. What if the sunfish were so desperate for calories, they had no choice except to sweep through the ice looking for anything to sustain them?

  Pity. Empathy. Vonnie was glad to feel emotions other than revulsion. It kindled something new in her.

  For an instant, she was optimistic.

  “Why would they gather their feces instead of leaving it as markers?” she asked. “To hide themselves from predators? For fertilizer?”

  —That implies they’ve developed agriculture.

  “Farms, yes. Why not?” She practically smiled. Haggling with the ghost reminded her of talking to the real Lam. “They could grow fungus for food.”

  —It may be more likely that they use dung for insulation or cement. It would be difficult to seal rock structures with ice.

  “Cement,” she said, brooding out loud.

  The sunfish might have camouflaged a hundred passageways around her, covering traps and doorways with matching rock. The ghost would sense any that weren’t airtight, but how many clues had she missed?

  “Tell me what you can about the dung and give me a detailed read if we find any more.”

  —I believe the feces belonged to the new lifeforms. We’d need to stop for a thorough analysis to confirm, but it contained unique, indigestible nubs of cartilage from the sunfishes’ arms. It also looked to contain high concentrations of sodium chloride.

  “You mean salt.”

  —Yes. The sunfish carry it in poisonous levels in their skin.

  “So whatever pooped here, it eats sunfish.”

  —In retrospect, there’s a high probability the sunfish pursued us beyond their territory and we’re now in the home of the new lifeforms. Alternatively, these catacombs may be no-man’s-land where both sides conduct raids on each other.

  Vonnie shook her head. Even with her weapons and size, she hadn’t been able to make the sunfish run away. Whatever these other creatures were… if they scared the bloodthirsty sunfish…