“Astromine blamed me for the whole thing,” he said, shaking his head. “They said I’d triggered the explosion by driving my crawler too close to the mine. There was never a way for me to prove that the burner caused it, so now the insurance companies and Astromine have me listed as a criminal and a debtor due to gross negligence. Negligent homicide, they called it. It was better for them to lay it all on me. It means I can’t leave or go back to Earth. If I do, they’ll just bring me back, at least until I make up the debt.”
Mara took a deep breath as her jaw fell slightly open. She thought about what Hanson had done, what he had said; risking himself and his equipment to save his friends. It seemed as if he was being scapegoated or framed when in fact he was a hero.
“Is this all true? If it is, what you did was brave. You did the right thing,” she told him. “You’re a hero.”
She placed her hand on his arm, and she realized it was the arm she had seen that had been scarred in his accident. She looked down at her hand on him, thinking about what else he must have been through.
Hanson felt her reach out to him, and when he saw her face, he looked at her with despairing eyes. “That’s not the way Astromine or Johan see it,” he said. “It was easier for them to blame me. I cost them half a million dollars in damage to their crawler. That’s ten years salary for any one of these guys.”
“But you saved their lives,” she continued. “That should…”
“Lives? Lives are cheap, Mara.” He sat up quickly when he said it. “We had replacements come in for my friends the next day.” He sighed deeply. “But the crawler,” he said solemnly, “It took six months to replace the crawler… put the rig way behind schedule for the year. That’s where Astromine got me, pinned all the costs on me.” He looked back over at Mara, and their eyes met. “A hero?” he repeated, and he laughed with a dismissive chuckle. “They told my family what I had done… Tried to shame me; embarrass me. They said I was impulsive…”
Mara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The mining circuit sounded like it was placing men into servitude rather than helping them or caring for their safety. She couldn’t believe that someone like Hanson could be pinned and blamed for such an act of courage.
Hanson began to shiver. Mara had an overwhelming feeling of pity for him as she looked at him. She had assumed him a willing pirate, a swindler, a gambler. Now she could see that he had been hostage to Johan –– hostage to a corrupted industry. He had been manipulated as a young man, and she could only imagine how Johan would have attempted to mold him into another version of himself — greedy and profit-driven. Just the way Astromine wanted.
She lay down on the ice next to him, and her thoughts drifted to the other miners. How many other stories would they share? She was restless thinking about it. She shifted on the ice again, then took another angry breath. “I told you, you should stand up to him, you know… All of you…”
Hanson let out an exasperated breath. His chest was heaving while he tried to lay still. He chose not to respond. He didn’t say a word.
Mara was more than understanding. Then he surprised her and broke his silence.
“You know, if we get out of this, I mean off this moon, don’t waste a day of your life when you get back to Earth,” he told her. He was whispering it as he spoke. It was the sound of his conscious speaking a cold and barren truth. She listened carefully. “Be grateful you get to go back,” he said.
There was regret, and grief, and a desire to see his brother. She recalled the evening of the party, her curiosity about his past. Her caricature of him had been incomplete, she realized. Slowly she had been fitting the pieces together, and they were forming a picture she hadn’t expected.
Hanson turned to check on her. “You’re being too quiet,” he joked. Then he sat further forward on the ice, his head nearly hitting the ceiling of the cavern.
“So, what are you going to do when you get back?” he asked her.
Mara felt a sudden reticence to answer him. She felt embarrassed and privileged just to be asked the question after learning of his past. She realized she was going to have the opportunity to do anything she wanted with her fame.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I guess it’s back to expeditions in the Antarctic. You know, it would be nice to work in a warm environment again,” she joked.
“Hey, there you go,” Hanson said.
Mara watched small smile fill his visor.
“No family or husband back home?” he asked her. “I guess not, or you sure wouldn’t be out here, would you?” He lay back down on the ice again, amused with himself for teasing her about it.
His comment was met with a pause of silence. He turned to her worried that he’d hit a nerve.
“My Mom lives in Florida,” Mara said. “I’ll probably spend a lot of time there with her on the beach after this,” she answered.
“You live near the beach?” Hanson asked. “I’ve always wanted to go to the beach,” he said.
“You’ve never been?”
“Once, a long time ago,” Hanson responded. “I grew up in Minnesota, remember?”
“Minnesota has some beaches…”
He chuckled. “I mean a real beach, with palm trees… and warm sunshine. I went once, with my brother. We had so much fun. I have a picture of it in my room.”
Hanson rested with a smile on his face. He seemed to put aside the anguish about his past quickly when he spoke about his brother. Then his expression changed ever so slightly.
“So, what about other family… You don’t have anyone special back home?” he asked again, attempting to gently nudge the subject.
Mara could tell he was probing, but she hesitated to reply, and she had been quiet for too long.
“I didn’t mean to pry” Hanson told her.
“It’s ok,” she said. “It’s been a while, you know? They say it gets better. But right now, not so much.”
“Better?” Hanson asked.
Mara took a deep breath. “My boyfriend… he passed away before we could get married. We were taking it slow, working on our careers, that sort of thing. Then he was diagnosed with ALS, and things progressed quickly. It all happened so fast,” she said in a somber voice.
Hanson was suddenly deathly quiet. She could sense that he was waiting patiently to see if she wanted to continue. She knew he was finding himself apprehensive about the conversation, but she continued.
“Before he died, he made me promise him something,” she said. She paused, and her eyes started swelling. She was working hard to get the words out. “He made me promise to go on this mission. He said it would help me get back to where I needed to be.” She drew in a deep breath and then exhaled it into her mask. “For some reason he thought it would help me to get back to my career… back on my own path. So, I promised him I’d come here and fulfill his dream for him.”
Mara barely got the words out and then she collapsed onto
the ice.
Hanson remained silent beside her. He paused long enough to give her space and leave her to her emotions.
Then Mara sat back up as far up as the shelter would allow. She lifted her knees to her chin and put her arms around her legs, holding herself in a ball. Her tears were streaming from her eyes, raw, and truly coming out for the first time. There was no way for her to wipe them away behind her mask. They spilled from her eyes and streaked down her face and left wet stains on her cheeks.
Hanson waited silently for a minute. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize… I’m sure he thought it would be best,” he told her.
“It’s okay,” Mara said. “I guess we’re even now,” she said, and she glanced at him through her wet eyes. He looked confused.
“You told me your story,” she said, “Now you know mine.” She shifted again on the ice, uncomfortable talking about it.
Mara was get
ting ahold of her emotions, but it had felt good. It had felt good to say the words the way she had and to get it off her shoulders. It had felt good to tell someone… someone who might know of grief like hers. Even a little relief felt like a lot to her after all the time that had passed.
And that’s when it hit her. It hit her as the ice and the cold fell from the walls and entered her body. It shivered the cold truth into her. They were both here because of tragedies in their past. Each of them had their reasons to be here; far away… far from other people.
“I guess we’re both here because of what’s happened to us,” Mara said, feigning a smile. “Maybe we don’t have anything better to do.” She tried to force a laugh through her words, but it wasn’t convincing. ‘Kind of messed up, isn’t it?”
Hanson shook his head. “You know, it’s not messed up. You are doing something real here,” he told her. “I saw the work you are doing. You’re right, you know. Something good will come of it,” he told her.
Mara felt surprised. “That’s what George told me,” she said. “Something good will come of it…” She shook her head in disbelief.
Hanson remained respectfully quiet. Several minutes passed. Whatever tension had existed between them had somehow melted away into the surrounding ice, disappearing into the unremarkable features of the moon, as indistinguishable as the featureless plains that surrounded them.
Then he stirred for a moment, still considering the conversation with her. “Can I ask you something?” he asked.
Mara shrugged.
“Where’d you learn to shoot a rail-gun?”
Mara laughed at the question. She was still catching her breath. “Antarctica…” she said reluctantly, realizing they may still have a lot of time to kill. “I told you I spent time there training. We used to clear paths in the ice-shelf with rail-guns for the research vessel. It’s a bit harder in Earth’s gravity, you know. But it sticks with you… apparently,” she added with a tepid smile.
“Harder, huh…?” Hanson scoffed, thinking she was making a jab at him. “Well, you’re a good shot,” he said, and he sent a complimentary look toward her. “You never told me what you were doing there,” he replied.
Mara hesitated but had suddenly found herself much more comfortable. “Oh… checking bacteria populations, looking for extremophiles, global warming. You know… saving the world. Boring stuff.”
Hanson bobbed his head. It was like he hadn’t even known there were bacteria in the ice and snow of Antarctica. “Sounds important,” he told her.
Mara nodded at him. “So, I can ask you something then?” she responded.
Hanson shrugged at her with a slight head nod.
“Why’d you fix the crane? It was you, wasn’t it?” she asked him, with a slightly bewildered expression.
Hanson looked away for a second, trying to think of an acceptable explanation.
“Honestly… I don’t know,” he said. He was smiling, not really believing it himself. “I think it was the way you stood up to Johan. I didn’t like the way he treated you. You played him pretty good back there, you know,” and he chuckled.
Mara sighed as she listened. She was realizing how poorly she had judged the situation when they had first met. All this time she had assumed Hanson and Johan were close — that they had been working together, and that they had both been indifferent to her and the mission.
Hanson turned on the ice, and he surprised her by reaching into the pocket of his bio-suit. He slowly managed to pull out the gold nugget that he had placed as a bet that evening. “You know… you should have this,” he said to her.
Mara was startled to see the gold nugget out on the ice with them. She looked at the valuable object in his hand, smooth and shiny, just as she remembered. It was beautiful, and worth a small fortune.
“You carry that wherever you go?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. He held it out for her to take as he had days before.
“I told you I can’t take that,” she said.
Hanson gestured for her to take it anyway. “Sure, you can,” he said. “I want you to have it.” He held it out further for her to take. “You won it fair and square. Seriously.”
Mara made a cautious half-smile and then took the nugget from his hand. She felt it within her gloved palm. It was heavy, even in the reduced gravity of Europa, and she could sense its mass. She tossed it up in the air slightly to gauge its shape, then she lowered her hand to her side, still cradling the gold nugget. She put it down on the ice beside her, not quite believing that she was accepting it from him.
“That’s the nugget I was after when the crevice collapsed on me,” he told her. “And I want you to have it.”
Mara suddenly felt very uneasy. She reached quickly for the gold and gestured to give it back to him.
“No… I said keep it. I told you, you won it fair and square,” he said. He refused to reach out and take it back. “A bet is a bet, right?”
“I don’t want it,” Mara said again.
“It’s okay,” he answered. He leaned in closer. “If you’re really here to do what you say you are, then I want you to have it.” He leaned back down on the ice no longer facing her, as if it would settle the issue once and for all.
Mara looked down again at the gold nugget Hanson had given her. It truly was beautiful, and he had seemed sincere enough in insisting she keep it. She looked at him again, resting on the ice nearby. She smiled to herself, and she tucked the nugget in her pocket for safekeeping.
Mara lay uncomfortably down on the ice and let the sounds of the bio-suit churning in her helmet attempt to relax her into a light sleep.
Sol 15; Mission time - 08:13
Mara decided it was time to check in with the Hab. They had waited well over an hour in the shelter since the last check-in. She raised her arm and called over the comm-link. “Hab One, Mara here. Come in Hab One.”
“Mara, Hab One here, Dr. Aman speaking.”
“I know it’s you Aman,” Mara said curtly. “What’s the weather?”
“Radiation is coming down. Do not leave your shelter yet, but it looks like it may not be much longer.”
“Ok, good. We’ll wait here and check back in a few.”
“Good. And Mara, we will have some things to go over when you get here. We need a full report on the fissure, and Julian has some new findings for you.”
“New findings?” Mara asked.
“It is too much to go over on the comm, but we do not need to worry about the quakes any longer.”
“We don’t?” Mara asked.
“We will be in touch when it is safe to come out. Over,” Dr. Aman said.
“Copy that,” Mara told him. Then she lay back down on the ice. “Still waiting, but soon,” she told Hanson.
Sol 15; Mission time - 09:54
“What the hell is that?” Mara said, waking Hanson from a light nap.
The shelter grew dark. It was only slight at first, but then sudden and conspicuous. They’d been in the ice cave for a long time, but Mara was pretty sure it was not supposed to be night yet.
They had spent another hour in the small hollowed-out chamber waiting for the latest report from Dr. Aman. When he finally came across the comm-link with news that the radiation was safe, it only took a couple swift kicks from Hanson’s boot to open the chamber to the outside.
Hanson let Mara out first. She stepped out and was surprised to see the sun eclipsed behind Jupiter. The face of the massive planet had completely covered the sun. It explained the sudden darkness.
Europa experienced an eclipse every time it passed the far side of Jupiter from the Sun. At regular intervals on its orbit around the parent planet it would pass right through Jupiter’s shadow, and every three-and-a-half days the surface would grow dark, and the Sun would be hidden behind the giant planet. Since they were usually at
the Hab, or inside the drill chamber, Mara hadn’t experienced the phenomenon quite as spectacularly as she was experiencing this one.
She stood outside the chamber for a minute looking at the dark and menacing orb of Jupiter as Hanson crawled out on his own.
He stood beside her taking view of the eclipse. It was spectacular. The sun lit a fiery ring around the very thin edge of Jupiter, while the darkness formed a black disc in the sky, surrounded by the diffuse glow of distant stars. Even the faint ring around the monster planet was visible, backlit by the hidden sun. The other moons of Jupiter were visible to the sides, alight in various stages of their orbits. Some formed crescents and others gibbous bulges of different sizes and colors behind them. It was a spectacular view of the entire Jovian system. They stood there insignificantly small beneath the mighty God, King of the Planets, as it silently stormed on the horizon before them.
The light from the different moons glistened off the ice and created multi-layered shadows upon the ground. They lit the surface well enough to make way to the Hab without problems, despite the eclipse.
Mara radioed to the Hab for Dr. Aman. “Dr. Aman, you didn’t say anything about an eclipse,” she told him.
“Sorry Mara, I figured you would ride it out in the shelter. If it is too dark you can wait it out, but I would do it in the shelter.”
“Negative Dr. Aman, we want to get back. There’s plenty of light out here for us. We’ll be as fast as we can,” she said to him.
Mara and Hanson walked the short distance to the rover and she hopped in the passenger seat as Hanson replaced the used oxygen tanks in the tool kit.
“Just in case we need them,” he said. “Why don’t you drive?” he suggested. “You should get the feel of the rover,” he told her. “C’mon, take the wheel,” he said, and he rounded the passenger side.
Mara gauged the controls quickly and then slipped into the driver’s seat. It was a standard set up, nothing that needed a lot of instruction. She found the lights and switched them to the on position. They lit up the ice into the distance with long shadows that pointed their way towards the dark face of Jupiter.
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