The Europa Effect (The Vega Chronicles)

by A. L. Mengel

  Winston’s face shifted. “What do you mean, Jere? We’re being briefed, right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, we are. But I think they are holding something from us.”

  “I knew it,” Eli said.

  They all looked at Eli. He hung his head down towards the floor and shook his head back and forth.

  Counselor Abagail reached out and touched his chin. “You knew it?”

  Eli raised his eyes and looked directly at Counselor Abagail and nodded.

  “How did you know?” she asked, lowering her hand.

  Eli looked up at the others. His eyes were wide. A drip of sweat ran from his hairline down the side of his cheek. “Do you remember, back on Earth? In Sector B? When the scout came?”

  Counselor Abagail placed her arm around Eli and lowered her head and made eye contact with him. “What about it, Eli?”

  He raised his hands and covered his face. “You remember when the scout came?”

  Counselor Abagail nodded.

  There had been the period of amnesia after her time on Mars, which now had lifted, at least somewhat, and she remembered standing in front of a window in the outer receiving chamber of Sector B. She saw the dark shadow approaching through the brilliant sunlight; a wanderer who had collapsed in front of the hydraulic doors. “I remember him…” she said.

  The others each nodded. Counselor Abagail nodded. “Yes. I remember now, quite well. He came to us out of the blue. I remember taking him in.”

  Eli looked up at Counselor Abagail as the others looked on. “But you didn’t hear what he said to me.”

  “What did he say?” Jeremiah asked.

  Eli took a deep breath and stood up straight. Counselor Abagail released her embrace, and all stood, watching Eli.

  Eli bit his lower lip, and looked at the others. Winston smiled wanly. “Go ahead, Eli. What did he say to you?”

  “He told me that only one of us would hold the key to the portal. That only one of us could advance.”

  Jeremiah scoffed. “Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.”

  “Discover the key,” he said. “That was right before he passed out.”

  “Why are you just telling us this now?” Winston asked.

  Counselor Abagail watched as Eli lowered his eyes and shook his head. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I thought maybe he was delirious and suffering from radiation poisoning.”

  REPORT TO CONFERENCE 3.5.2.2. AT ONCE!

  They all looked up as a dark, spherical drone hovered above them. Counselor Abagail leaned close to Eli and whispered in his ear. “We need to discuss this further. Later.” Eli raised his eyes and looked up at her. His eyes were wide, pleading. She gave him a smile and gathered the group. “Let’s go guys. They clearly are waiting for us. ”

  *****

  Conference Room 3.5.2.2. was located on the opposite end of the ship, and the four of them took the Broadline along the hull, and as the vast sea of stars passed on the clear side, she didn’t look out at them this time. She looked at the others on her team. They all looked tired. And haggard. Eli and Winston sat on a small bench opposite where she had been standing. Jeremiah leaned against the wall, his eyes closed and his head leaning back.

  She reached forward and snapped her fingers. “Hey!”

  Jeremiah opened his eyes and looked back at her as Winston and Eli shifted on their bench. Jeremiah raised his eyebrows.

  “How long did you guys stay at the pub last night?”

  Jeremiah stretched his arms high above his head and yawned. “Just a few more…”

  She looked over at Winston. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

  “Are you guys for real?”

  Jeremiah shrugged his shoulders, and stood. “Hey, I haven’t had beer in eons. Back on Earth, we barely had enough water. Now, we have a Town Square with a bar that’s at our disposal for no cost. Is it a crime that I like the amenities on this ship?”

  She looked down and shook her head. As the tram pulled into the station, she looked up. “Are we all going to be okay for today’s briefing?

  As the door slid open, and Jeremiah walked out, he turned and looked down at her.

  “We’ll be fine Counselor.”

  They exited the tram in a soaring atrium.

  This area was filled with all those in white. It did not have the crowds of Town Square, and it also did not have the grass, sidewalks, houses or buildings which dominated the square.

  The atrium on this end of the ship was stark white. Further down Copernicus and Moses stood waiting under a large sign that read CONFERENCE.

  As Counselor Abgail, Jeremiah, Winston and Eli approached, Copernicus extended his arms and smiled.

  “Welcome, my team!” he beamed.

  Moses reached up and placed his hand on Eli’s shoulder and nodded. “Welcome everyone. Are you all well rested? We have much to discuss, and this is of the utmost importance. The fate of humanity is on the line now.”

  Counselor Abagail raised her eyes up towards Jeremiah. He shrugged. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “How far are we from 3.5.2.2?”

  Moses looked at Jeremiah. “We are quite close. It’s just in the bay of rooms back there.”

  Copernicus ushered everyone forward and towards the conference rooms. Once they were inside 3.5.2.2., he stood at the forward end of an expansive black table. Everyone found a seat as Copernicus stood at the end of the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He took a breath, closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.

  After everyone was situated in a tall, leather chair, he looked at everyone. Moses sat in the front chair, looking up at him. Counselor Abagail thought that Copernicus looked serious.

  He placed his hands on the top edge of the front chair, and looked out at the team.

  “One of my biggest fears I have is the failure of our mission,” he said. He pulled the chair out and sat slowly, never breaking eye contact with each of the team. Counselor Abagail stared at him intently.

  “It’s unfortunate that the majority of the Earth survivors on this ship will not live to colonize the new planet. But the Vegan technology that allows for speed does not agree with the human body. Our physiology is different than yours and we are able to tolerate it.

  Counselor Abagail remembered her astronomy studies from the University in the years before the shift back on Earth. “What about worm holes? I remember studying them. Are there any documented worm holes we could pass through?”

  Copernicus raised his eyebrows and leaned back. “A very good question, Counselor. And Moses will explain to you some of the options regarding those phenomena.”

  Moses nodded and stood.

  He walked to the front of the room and stood next to where Copernicus was sitting. He placed his hands on the back of his chair as Copernicus nodded in his direction and then returned to face the team. Counselor Abagail looked over towards Winston and Eli. Winston leaned forward and was watching Moses closely.

  Eli was leaning back in his chair and his eyelids were drooping. She tore a piece of paper from the notepad in front of her seat and crumpled it. She tossed it at Eli who jumped when it hit him on the chest. He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Anything to add?” Moses looked at Eli, over towards Counselor Abagail, and back at Eli again.

  Eli cleared his throat. “How is a worm hole going to get us anywhere? The ship is too big.”

  Moses smiled and raised his index finger. “Exactly!” he said. Copernicus grinned.

  “We haven’t the technology to create the negative matter to expand a worm hole.”

  Counselor Abagail straightened in her chair. “I’ve studied worm holes years ago. They are fleeting – sometimes only appearing for seconds at a time before closing. But they can be a straight shot to a distant galaxy if the negative antigravity can be created to keep the wormhole expanded and open for a ship to pass through.”

  “And we don’t have that technology,” Moses added.

 
; “So why are we discussing it?” Winston asked.

  “Because there are rumors of a portal,” Copernicus said. “Beneath the icy surface of Europa. The portal opens a portal which resembles worm hole through which you can safely enter the constellation Lyra. As an individual, not a large ship.”

  Counselor Abagail raised her head and looked directly at Copernicus. “A portal? Interesting…”

  “You mean so it is like a worm hole?” Jeremiah asked. “How would someone pass through without a ship?”

  Copernicus shook his head.

  “For this…not exactly,” he said. He waved his hand back and forth over the black glass table. A graphic appeared – a blue tined icy sphere, etched with a network of orange tinted lines. “It’s a portal,” Copernicus added. “It’s similar to a worm hole, but still holds much mystery.”

  “Behold, Jupiter’s moon Europa,” he said. The graphic enlarged and zoomed in towards the surface. Counselor Abagail leaned forward, over the table and noticed that the orange lines actually appeared to be salt deposits and orange cosmic dust which blows off of Jupiter. Copernicus continued. “The surface remains blue and fresh, as the surface ice is warmer than the rest of the planet, and is constantly being recycled.”

  Counselor Abagail studied the hologram of the ice moon for a few minutes and then leaned back in her chair. “So you are saying there is a portal there? Where is it?”

  Moses nodded and stood. “It’s thought to be underneath the surface ice. Our beacons detect it in a certain cavern. But it’s small and very inaccessible.”

  The graphic changed, as an image of a giant drill appeared, cylindrical, the size of a telephone pole.

  “You see,” Copernicus said, “we have to access it through a deep layer of surface ice.”

  The team nodded. “We used to study Europa years ago,” Winston said. “We discovered an ocean under the ice.”

  Moses leaned over the table as the graphic depicted the drill driving through the surface ice and, as the ocean beneath is exposed from the chipped frozen pieces falling away, “Exactly!”

  Jeremiah shook his head.

  Copernicus looked at Jeremiah and raised his eyes. “What is it, Jeremiah?”

  “So you have these massive drills and you say you can break through the surface ice, right?”

  Moses and Copernicus both nodded. Winston and Eli leaned forward. Counselor Abagail leaned back in her chair and watched Jeremiah. He stood and moved around the table, standing next to Moses. “So we break through the surface ice,” Jeremiah said. “And we find a super-massive ocean – which we won’t know how deep it is – and where does it get us? Nowhere! Because you both reminded us that we don’t have the technology to expand a worm hole enough with antigravity to allow a ship to pass through.”

  Counselor Abagail leaned forward and played with a pen. “And the worm hole would be inaccessible,” she added. “In the middle of an ocean which we know next to nothing about?”

  The room erupted in chatter.

  Copernicus raised his hands. “Please…please…everyone. What we have discussed before applies here. Now that your amnesia has worn off, I am certain that you each remember back in Sector B in your area on Earth when Moses approached your colony. And he told you to trust.”

  Counselor Abagail slammed her fists on the table. “How can we trust when there is so much unknown?! We are the team you are planning to send there. What happens when something goes wrong? It happens to us!”

  Copernicus stood and leaned forward on the table, his palms flat on the surface. “The choice is yours,” he said. “But I urge you all – we urge you all – to make the right decision. A decision for humanity.”

  Jeremiah scoffed and shook his head. “But we haven’t discussed the purpose! We find this portal you speak of, then what? We don’t know if it’s even accessible.”

  “That’s where it becomes a leap of faith,” Moses said.

  “And you have the will to say no,” Copernicus said. He stood and looked at each member of the team. They looked up at him as he spoke. “So that is our mission. We drill through the surface ice. We have an amphibian aquatic rover which you can submerge and search for the portal. But you each have some thinking to do. You each have a choice to make. We find this portal, we can save humanity. Think about all of those people – your human brothers and sisters – who cannot survive the journey to the Lyra constellation.”

  The team remained seated and silent.

  “I ask each of you to make a decision. To give them a chance for survival. We can send them through the portal – if it exists. We have reason to believe that it does. And no, we cannot get the ship through the portal.”

  The graphic in the center of the table disappeared and the surface darkened. Jeremiah stretched.

  “Now, go, get some rest,” Moses said. “Take some time to eat. Think. For sixteen hours from now, we will need to begin the cryogenic process.”

  The team stood.

  “Wait a minute,” Counselor Abagail said. “Cryogenics?” She glanced over at Jeremiah and then back at Moses and Copernicus. “We have to go back under?”

  Copernicus stood and joined Moses at the door. It slid open revealing a corridor teeming with activity. Those who were dressed in white rushed through. “We have addressed the issue, Counselor, and do not anticipate any amnesic effects this time. This meeting is over. Please meet us in Cryogenics in precisely sixteen hours if you choose to go.”

  He and Moses left.

  *****

  The others joined Counselor Abagail and Jeremiah at the door.

  They slowly walked into the hallway as a group of crewmembers rushed around them and continued down the corridor.

  Counselor Abagail shook her head.

  She bit her lower lip and her eyes were darting around the corridor, watching the crew. It seemed as though preparations were being made, and a rushed sense of urgency wafted through the crew area. She looked at the others as they stood silently. “When they told me that we had been cryogenically cooled in hyper-sleep for the trip to Mars I had no memory of it. The amnesia was so bad that I couldn’t even remember who I was…or how I had gotten here.”

  “And what was the deal with having to drain our knees?” Eli asked.

  Jeremiah shook his head and placed his hand on Counselor Abagail’s shoulder. “Since this is such a mystery,” he said, “Why don’t we head over to Cryogenics and see for ourselves? I mean, if they want us to go back into stasis we need to see what we are dealing with.”

  The others nodded as Counselor Abagail leaned against the wall. She closed her eyes for a moment, and listened to the activity around them. As she blocked her sense of vision, she felt that her hearing became more acute. She could hear the rumble of the engines as the ship cruised the Martian system. And in her mind, she could see the fiery planet.

  The Red Planet.

  And on the surface, the three mounds that looked so much like graves. Jeremiah seemed to be acting more like himself, despite her earlier concerns in the receiving chamber.

  Take a leap of faith…

  Those words continued to ring through her mind like a metronome. How could she trust those around her…whether it be the Vegans, or now, even Jeremiah, who has chipped away at her confidence? There was just something different about everything.

  Still, despite her reservations, Jeremiah was, in fact, behaving like himself. Winston and Eli, on the other hand, had been unusually quiet throughout the entire Europa briefing. There seemed to be something a little different about them, but they did have a traumatic experience on Mars themselves, especially when they thought she was lying dead at the bottom of a deep ravine.

  Fall forward.

  She took a breath, exhaled, and opened her eyes. Jeremiah was leaning his shoulder against the wall, looking right at her. He cracked a smile and raised his eyebrows. “So…to cryogenics?”

  She looked at Winston and Eli who were standing and facing her. Both smiled.

 
; She nodded. “Let’s go check these hibernation pods out.”

  Still, with the transition to the preparation for the journey to Europa, she couldn’t get the question out of her mind: what happened to her team on the surface of Mars?

  *****

  Cryogenics was located throughout the ship in multiple satellite locations. Jeremiah led them through the corridors, turning around and gesturing for them to follow.

  “Speed up guys! We can walk to this one!”

  Counselor Abagail had to break into a walk-run to keep up. “Jeremiah!” she called. He turned and waved his hand forward but did not stop.

  “You’re moving so fast like you know the ship!”

  He continued facing forward but she saw him nodding as charged ahead. “I do!” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how much exploring I have done!”

  After a few more minutes of navigating the busy corridors, Jeremiah approached a large set of doors. A sign read “CRYOGENICS” spanning the wall above the doors. The doors slid open, and a familiar male voice spoke before he had a chance to turn around.

  “Hello Jeremiah. I thought you would be heading here.”

  The rest of the team caught up as Counselor Abagail caught her breath. The corridors looked the same as the other areas of the ship – long, polished steel flooring, stark white walls with networks of black panels with colorful; displays – but there was a lack of activity in this area.

  “Moses!” Winston exclaimed. Counselor Abagail leaned against the wall and looked over at Moses. He was nodding and smiling.

  “As I said, after our discussion in 3.5.2.2. I had a feeling that you would be seeking out Cryogenics.” He extended his arm and placed it in the small of Jeremiah’s back. “And Jeremiah here has taken many tours of the ship recently, so I knew he would know where this area was.”

  Jeremiah nodded.

  “Well!” Moses said. “Let me show you the pods and how things will work when you are in Cryogenic stasis.”

  They filed into the main holding area.

  Several medical personnel manned workstations in similar white dress as the other crew. But in this room, this area, the function was far more specialized.