“Prepare for landing.”
The image on the display faded, most likely due to fine ice crystals being stirred up by the main engines. The sound of the engines faded away, and Francesca switched them off. It seemed they were already slow enough. It was a strange, otherworldly feeling. One could not land like this anywhere else. They would bounce off an asteroid if their velocity was not precisely zero at the end. And on any larger celestial body, an unchecked impact after a fall from 100 meters would destroy the ship.
Martin saw Francesca smile. This was probably why she insisted on manual control. Arriving on an alien moon in free fall must be a special treat for a passionate pilot.
“Ten... nine... eight...”
“Shhhh,” Francesca said. Watson abandoned the countdown. Majestically and in complete silence the lander descended toward the ice layer that covered this mysterious moon to a thickness of several kilometers. Then it touched down very slowly and gently.
“Welcome to Enceladus,” Francesca said. All of them applauded.
“Rossi to commander, we are here and everyone is fine—except for Watson, I think.”
“Thanks, Francesca,” Amy replied. “What is wrong with Doc?”
“I think he was afraid. Am I right, Watson?”
“I am not sure,” the AI replied. “I felt an unpleasant tingling, that is the only way I can describe it. But it felt very different compared to the time I was still falling toward the sun in ILSE.”
“I understand,” Amy said. “It must have been apprehension, a lesser form of fear, while the other feeling was more like despair.”
December 18, 2049, Enceladus
It was different being here this time. Martin wondered all night long what felt so dissimilar, but he could not find an explanation for why it was so. After all, they were not here for the first time—it wasn’t like first sex with a new partner. He knew exactly what to expect. A human had already taken a first step here, and there had even been a first death. His body still distinctly recalled how it felt to walk around out there, so he would not have to practice the required skill. He also remembered the view across the ice fields, with gigantic Saturn in a sky that had always seemed to look darker to him than the darkest night on Earth.
All of this might be true, but it did not get to the essential point—Enceladus itself was different now.
This feeling was confirmed, when after strenuous preparation—technically speaking, there was little difference between an excursion on Enceladus and a spacewalk—Martin finally uncoupled from the connector of the SuitPort and climbed down the metal stairs. Even though his friends were not far away, a feeling of infinite loneliness overcame him. This emotion even brought tears to the corners of his eyes, which he unfortunately could not wipe away due to his helmet. He noticed them trickling down his cheeks, and it was a comforting sensation, as it proved he was alive. Something had died, but he was still alive. I hope that it’s only hormones, he thought, or the stress of being cooped up for months, forcing itself out in this grandiose landscape. There was one thing he had to say, even though he remembered it very well: The view is unbeatable.
Martin looked around. In three directions of the compass a plain stretched ahead of them. He could not see that behind him it was fractured, not smooth. They had chosen the landing site well. It provided enough space to move the laser and its power plant and to anchor them in the ice. A range of hills cast sharp black shadows to the East.
The contrast between up and down was particularly fascinating. The sparkling, glittering ice at the bottom was covered by a thin crystal layer. The moon seemed to glow from the inside, like one of those paper lampshades with a light bulb in the center. But as soon as your gaze reached the horizon, the brightness plunged from one hundred to zero. The sky over Enceladus was pitch black, and the contrast with the ground made it appear much darker and emptier than when viewed from the spaceship. However, this effect only held until you gazed toward the East and saw Saturn. There, looking from the southern face of Enceladus, Saturn stood only a few degrees above the horizon. It must be ‘the Moon illusion’ known from Earth that made it look gigantic. The sun, though, which must have just risen, looked far smaller than usual and provided no warmth at all. At best, minus 150 degrees is what the weather report would predict for the coming days.
Martin walked a few steps into the plain. In actuality he jumped there, since normal walking in the low gravity was impossible. He turned around and was shocked to see how small the lander looked already. Someone was following him, waving with one arm. Martin had a sudden flashback. For a split second he thought the person was Hayato, but then he realized it had to be one of the three women. Perhaps he ought to activate his two-way radio.
“...and we should start unpacking. I am coming toward you,” Jiaying’s voice said. So she had the courage to leave Francesca and Valentina alone together in the lander? Well, those two had to learn to get along with each other at some point. Jiaying came closer and waved again, and Martin waved back.
“It is so great out here! Look, there is Saturn, and over there the sun is rising,” she said.
Martin smiled. It was nice to see her so happy and excited.
“Come, let’s jump a bit,” he called to her. When she got close enough, he took her hand and jumped upward. “We’re flying!” he exclaimed and laughed.
Jiaying played along. The next time around, she crouched and pulled him up. “Yippee!” she shouted. “The whole planet is a huge trampoline.”
They kept jumping until Martin realized he was sweating.
“Come on, let’s get to work,” he said, and drew Jiaying toward the lander. They actually had plenty of time. Francesca and Valentina would be traveling for several days. Just Jiaying and himself in the lander—that almost sounded like a vacation. But in case they needed Valentina’s help, they should set up the laser before their fellow astronauts left for Valkyrie. The task did not involve anything that seemed beyond Martin’s skills, but in the end they might be stopped by something as simple as a mandatory password the Russian woman had set up to allow the power plant to produce energy.
The laser and power plant modules were located in the same metal cage where Valkyrie had been when they first landed on Enceladus three years ago. Each of the units weighed about as much as the drill vessel, so they once again chose the pulley method. The first time he and Hayato had pulled the cables while Jiaying had watched from the lander module. How is Amy’s husband doing back on Earth? Does he miss her as much as she misses him? wondered Martin.
He thought for a moment and then decided to switch roles. It would be easier to explain the role he had taken previously.
“I am going to attach the pulley and the rope and you get the slide. Should I show...”
“Martin, of course I read the task description beforehand. Considering your vertigo I should be the one to attach the pulley. That would be best.”
He nodded. He should have known Jiaying would not do anything unprepared. She squeezed his shoulder, took the rope and pulley, and climbed up the scaffolding. He watched her in fascination.
She contacted him again via radio, asking, “Where is the slide? You are not here to just stand around, are you?”
He had barely managed to unroll the plastic tarp, which was about five meters wide, when Jiaying unexpectedly appeared beside him. In her hand she held the thin rope that was connected to the top of the laser via the pulley.
“How did you...”
“I jumped. We only weigh two kilos here,” Jiaying said with a laugh.
Damn, I fell in love with a madwoman, he thought.
She turned around and attached herself to the lander. This was the disadvantage of the low gravity: While the laser and power plant only weighed half a ton instead of 40 tons, she only had two kilograms to use while pulling the rope. Therefore she needed the heavy lander module as an anchor.
“Heave ho,” Jiaying said, uttering the command herself. Martin had taught her the expression, and she pro
nounced it very well.
The pulley enhanced her strength in such a way that she managed to get 500 kilograms moving. The rope connecting her to the lander became taut.
“Oops.” Jiaying was surprised—her feet were losing contact. She was floating several centimeters above the ground, maybe because the final deflection roller had been placed slightly higher than last time.
At first, she did not even realize her cargo was starting to move. Jiaying let the rope play out centimeter by centimeter. Slowly and in eerie silence the entire block slid downward. After half an hour only a few meters remained.
“Everything okay with you?” asked Martin.
Jiaying nodded. “Just fine.”
He checked her biomonitor. Jiaying did not appear to be exhausted. Martin had to admit she had exercised a bit more during their journey than he had. What goes around, comes around, he thought.
The slide ended three centimeters above the ground. Jiaying unreeled the rope far enough, and the colossus consisting of laser and fusion generator sat down on the surface. While it was only a few meters away from the lander, this posed no problem. If something went wrong with the power plant, a few additional meters would not help.
“Thanks to both of you,” Valentina said from inside the lander. “I can take over the rest.”
Jiaying and Martin looked at each other. One of them had to return if Valentina wanted to come outside. Both the lander module and Valkyrie had SuitPorts. They allowed the astronaut to slide from the inside into a spacesuit attached outside. The SuitPort method saved space in comparison to an airlock, but the drawback was that no more than two people could be outside simultaneously. Three years ago, Martin and Francesca had needed to take the suits attached to Valkyrie, and these were waiting inside the lander module to be used again.
Tomorrow, Valentina and Francesca would put on those suits while inside, and exit the lander through the hatch on their way to the drill vessel. This would cause the air to be vented from the lander module. They had enough oxygen in store and could easily create more from ice, electrochemically, but during their exit no one could stay in the lander unprotected. Until then, they would have to make do with the two SuitPorts that could be attached on the outside.
“Would you mind going inside? I would like to keep an eye on Valentina,” Martin said. He looked at the display on his arm. He still had enough air.
“Okay,” Jiaying said, “I will see you later.”
Martin hoped Valentina had already started exercising diligently. If she had just started the pre-breathing phase, he would have to wait a long time out here. However, she appeared to be well prepared—five minutes after Jiaying attached the suit, its arms and legs started moving again. He had never consciously watched the exit process—it looked a bit like a limp rubber doll gradually coming to life. First the legs stretched and started to wiggle. Martin knew exactly why: The LCVG slipped while Valentina pushed herself into the suit, and now she was trying to move the creases to a spot where they did not bother her. Then the arms started to move—at first randomly, while Valentina slipped them on, then with deliberation, since she had to initiate the uncoupling herself.
Martin suspected what would happen next. The Russian woman took her first step on the moon—and immediately bounced off. It was odd, because the lander module experienced the same low gravity, and they all had adapted to it inside. Yet out here, where the eye perceived a massive object reminiscent of good old Earth, the ancient mental programming set in and the astronaut mechanically wanted to take strong steps. Humans really were exclusively inhabitants of Earth and just plain did not belong here.
Valentina shrieked, but that was normal during the first steps taken on a new world. Martin already felt rather calm. Ten minutes later she reached him, and by then, she had adapted to the situation.
“Let us get this thing going,” she said, jumping ahead. The ‘thing’ looked like a giant, dented metal box, and Valentina slid a metal sheet aside on one end. Below it was a hole in which she inserted a special key. A second cover opened, revealing a screen and a keyboard with huge keys. Obviously the keys were made to be used with the gloves of a spacesuit. Valentina entered a few commands while whistling cheerfully.
“Don’t we have to unpack something?” asked Martin.
“No.” She shook her head. “It is all ready to be used.”
Martin was disappointed. He had imagined a laser gun to look, at least a little bit, like an old-fashioned cannon—but this brick?
“Who is responsible for product design at your company?” he asked.
Valentina laughed. “Is that a serious question?”
“I just expected something more impressive.”
“You have been watching too much science fiction. Except for us, no one will ever see this device. Why would it need a fancy design? My father definitely would not spend any money on that.”
What she said was true, but Martin was still disappointed by its unimpressive appearance.
“Let’s assume a spaceship happens to fly by. And your father dislikes its captain.”
“Yes, the laser could shoot at the ship and probably destroy it.”
“So it can aim?”
“That is absolutely necessary,” Valentina explained. “If we want to accelerate a mini-spaceship from Earth, or from the asteroids, by using a laser, we can never predict its trajectory with absolute precision. Therefore, the device here must be able to aim at its target. Take a look at the lid of the box. On the right side, the covers can be moved in a controlled fashion. Below it is high-quality glass. In order to aim, the automatic system only has to move the laser to the right position within the box.”
This clarified why Shostakovich was implementing such a major project in secret. The lasers distributed across the solar system could be used as weapons. That would significantly disturb the balance of power between nations. Martin shivered. What if the system fell into the hands of a madman? Could Shostakovich be that madman? It would not be wrong to call him an oddball. Martin squelched the thought.
“And what if Enceladus is on the other side of Saturn at that moment?” he asked.
“That would not happen. We calculate the launches in such a way that all lasers are always in range.”
“So much effort for something that won’t generate any profit—your father even saves money on product design. Why does he support the project?”
“The stars, Martin,” Valentina said. “We will be able to accelerate our mini-spaceships to 20 percent of the speed of light. Then they will need only 20 years to reach the nearest star—that is doable! And each additional laser we place farther outside adds a few percent more speed and shortens the travel time accordingly. My father believes that whoever reaches the stars will become immortal.”
“And you?”
“I am not religious, but I am fascinated by the idea of us leaving our solar system, of humans gradually spreading across the Milky Way. Aren’t you?”
“Generally yes, but you—or we—are still very far from that goal. This isn’t about spaceships like ILSE, but only tiny space probes. They might transmit some images from Proxima Centauri in 25 years, but centuries will pass by before we can travel there ourselves.”
“I think that you are mistaken there, Martin,” Valentina said. Then she moved her hand to the visor of her helmet and raised her index finger. It was only when she said ‘shhhh’ that he recognized the gesture.
December 19, 2049, Enceladus
We should have brought along a logistics expert, Martin thought as he was looking at the plan for today. It could all be so simple: Francesca and Valentina would pack their things, dress for the weather, walk a few minutes to Valkyrie, get on board, and then putter along, down into the ocean. It would have worked that way if the mission had been precisely planned, but that really was not the case—and Martin was worried about it. He did not object to improvisation, but he also knew how important thorough planning was, especially in space.
“Then we will improvise according to plan, if you prefer that,” Francesca said when he mentioned his concerns to her. She preferred being spontaneous and running straight through a brick wall—or into the wall, if it surprisingly turned out to be too hard. Luckily, Jiaying understood him better. For this reason he was glad he could remain with her in the lander.
His sleep lately had been deep and dreamless, and that also bothered him. He asked himself where his dreams went. Last time around, the creature used them to contact him. Did it now see no reason to do so? Without the help of the being they certainly would not be able to salvage Marchenko.
Now they were about to leave the lander, one after the other. The air inside the lander was moist from all the breath they exhaled during the pre-breathing phase. While Martin and Jiaying slipped into the SuitPorts, Francesca and Valentina were still walking around in their LCVG underwear. Recently, there had been no sign of aggression between the two. Maybe the common mission bonded them together, or all the excitement left no time for such feelings. In that case, Martin remembered, they would have plenty of opportunities for arguing during the excursion that was going to last several days.
He had to hurry. Jiaying had already uncoupled from her SuitPort and was calling him by radio. He would—according to plan—help her transport the cable reel to Valkyrie. They did not have to worry about Francesca and Valentina, who would put on their spacesuits later and depart the lander via the hatch.
“Don’t forget the spacesuits,” Martin reminded them while standing on the ice of Enceladus. “Your cable carriers will go ahead in the meantime.”
They needed the optical cable to supply Valkyrie with inexhaustible energy. At one end the laser would feed light energy into the vessel, while at its other end, the energy would be turned into electricity.
Jiaying had already opened a cover on the outside of the lander where the cable reel was stowed. It was not heavy, and one kilometer of cable only weighed 20 kilograms—on Earth. Here it was only as heavy as a cup of coffee. Jiaying took the reel and closed the cover. Martin hurried to get to her. Yesterday, Valentina had showed him the outlet where they had to connect one end of the cable. At first, the plug did not seem to fit, until Martin noticed he had to place it at a slight angle and then push and turn simultaneously—a special latching mechanism.
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