On the Shores of Titan's Farthest Sea

by Michael Carroll

  (*)

  It wasn’t like Gwen to be late. Piers’ communications comrade was prompt as periwinkle. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t picking up on any of her devices or channels.

  “Over an hour tardy,” Piers mumbled. “Well, old boy, time to break my water-only rule.” Piers put the comm assembly on auto and nicked up the wickershams to the coffee console.

  As he made his way back toward his office, his steaming beverage sloshing dangerously, the airlock hatch at the far end of the hab corridor unsealed. As soon as the door swung open, he could hear a cacophony of crashing equipment and yelling voices.

  “Get a biologist.”

  “Get the doc!”

  “Did anybody see it?”

  Half a dozen people blundered through the hatchway, two or three at a time. Two supported a collapsed figure, his arms draped across their shoulders. The wilted man looked up in Piers’ direction. He was a good 60 feet down the corridor, and Piers couldn’t quite tell who it was, but he could tell the man’s hair was plastered across his forehead in sweat, and his eyes were wide with excitement. Or terror. He was breathing hard as he spoke.

  “It was so graceful. But can you imagine? Can you? Did you see it?”

  One of the people holding the man up looked at a woman next to him. “Can you please call Doc Mason?”

  “Yeah, yeah, got it.”

  The woman punched a tab on the wall, called into it, and said they were on their way with a medical emergency. It looked more like a psychiatric one to Piers.

  He let the group pass. The last one on parade was a short woman whom Piers had seen before.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He saw something that freaked him out.”

  “What did he see?”

  She hesitated.

  “What did he think he saw?” Piers encouraged.

  “He claims he saw something swimming in the methane out there.”

  “Swimming,” Piers said flatly.

  She nodded.

  “You mean someone.”

  She shook her head.

  “Something. Alive.”

  She nodded in the affirmative. “Long neck. Bulbous head. Ridges along the back.”

  “Is he, ah, on medication or something?”

  “What he is is a damned good observer. Renowned scientist. Not like him at all. His description was…clinical. I gotta go.”

  “Good luck,” Piers said, stepping aside. The parade of rescuers disappeared down the corridor, leaving the telltale aroma of mineral spirits in their wake.

  When Piers opened the door to Comms, Gwen was inside waiting for him. She cradled her head in her hands, covering her eyes as if playing hide and seek. “Hey, you have books. I never noticed.”

  “I put most of them out just recently. Got a few of my favorites on the last autodrop from Earth.”

  “I admire your literary tenacity. Not easy to get such bulky things out this far.”

  “I have friends in low places, like shipping companies.”

  “Piers, I’m sorry about the time. I’ve got a five-alarm monster headache. Slept in.”

  “No worries. Want some coffee?”

  She grabbed for it gratefully. “I’m just not used to these. My sis used to get migraines, but I never did.” She took a long pull of the dark elixir. “I’m good now.”

  “You sure? I might be able to get Dave or Beth to fill in.”

  “Nope. You go. I hereby grant you your freedom.”

  “Thanks, Gwen. You may have some interesting calls to field. Somebody reported a sea monster swimming in Kraken.”

  “Pretty weird. I had a dream about something like that just before I woke up.”

  For some reason, Piers found that piece of news unsettling.

  © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_22

  22. Florence

  Michael Carroll1

  (1)Littleton, CO, USA

  Tanya looked in the mirror. She didn’t like who was looking back. Her eyes were red and darkened. Her skin was pale, even for this unflattering light. Her hair looked like a Demoiselle Crane’s nest, and the base of her skull hurt.

  “What’s wrong with you, silly girl?” She splashed water on her face, took a swig, and ran wet fingers through her hair. She just couldn’t be bothered with fashion today.

  She trudged down the main corridor toward the galley. Maybe some nice fresh orange juice would help. Of course, it wasn’t fresh, and it probably wasn’t even orange juice when you got right down to it. Just something they put in the water to make it taste like home.

  The halls were filled with lyrical music. She had never heard anything like it. It sounded tribal, breathy. It echoed hauntingly down the walkways, seemingly from all directions. Flutes?

  As she approached the hatch to the main hub, she could see that someone had been careless. Dirty handprints covered the wall next to the hatch, as well as the doorway itself. Silly people. In a place like this, cleanliness was a matter of safety. She would need to do something about that, eventually. But first, breakfast.

  (*)

  Abby sat at her desk, haunted by one thought: Why would a paleontologist be on Titan? She thought about Kevin’s journal, about what she had told Troy.

  These aren’t drugs. These are…microbes or something.

  Did somebody know something about fossils that they weren’t telling? Titan fossils? In this day and age, how could anybody keep something like that a secret? It seemed implausible. Perhaps it was time to play Florence Nightingale.

  The Medlab seemed busier than usual. A harried nurse sent Abby toward the back room, where Doc Mason was tending to a patient who cradled his head in his hands. “It’s weird, Doc. I just don’t get headaches.”

  “Neither do I,” Doc Mason said, popping a pill.

  Abby noticed Doc Mason and her medication. “Hey Doc, never seen our good doctor self—medicating.”

  “You know what they say: physician, heal thyself. It’s been one of those really special days.” The doctor grimaced.

  “Sorry about that. I hope it calms down.” Abby glanced around. “Wondered if I could visit with your patient from the drill rig?”

  “Be my guest. Jasmine Major, Bed Four.”

  “Thanks.” The doctor’s eyes were as bloodshot as a drunk’s on Monday. “You okay?”

  “Just a bit of a headache. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I caught it from my patients. We’ve had three doozies just this morning. But migraines aren’t contagious, so I’ve been told.” Doc Mason waved her on.

  Abby found the patient in bed number four. She was lying on her side, eating ice chips, apparently perfectly calm.

  “Hi,” Abby said cheerfully. “I understand you are new here.”

  “You mean to Titan, or to the health center? I suppose I’m new to both.”

  “Either way, welcome. I’m Abigail Marco.” She offered her hand.

  “Pleasure. I’m Jasmine M—well, you see they have me labeled.” the patient said, pointing to her bedside chart.

  “So what’s a paleontologist doing in a place like this?”

  Jasmine wagged a finger at her. “Oh, now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? My bosses wouldn’t like that one little bit.” She grinned. She was slurring her words. Her eyes didn’t seem to be tracking. “I still haven’t had time to go browsing in the west. That’s where they found the nice stuff.”

  Abby locked eyes with the woman. “What nice stuff?”

  “Some of our so-called advisors, they didn’t believe it. But I had better data than they did. Higher res. You could make out the details in the little things. Oops!” Major held her hand up to her mouth and giggled. Abruptly, she became morose. “We really shouldn’t be here, you know. Doing all this.”

  Abby decided to humor the patient. She pulled up a chair and sat. “All what?”

  The woman proppe
d herself up on her elbow, dropping her voice to a whisper. “All this digging. All this drilling. We’ve stirred something up.” She leaned back in her bed and stared at the ceiling. She blinked slowly, her eyes dreamy. “And now they’ll come for us.”

  Jasmine Major said the last with such clarity that it alarmed Abby. The only danger Abby could possibly imagine was the mystery facility to the north. “Who will come for us? The people on the north shore?”

  Major looked at her with confusion, then pity. She seemed to be studying her. “And when they do come crawling out of that pond out there, they will destroy this outpost and everything in it, and then they will devour us down to our bones.”

  The doctor stepped over to the bed as Major yelled, “To the bones!”

  Doc Mason tapped a bedside console. Her new patient quieted. The doc shrugged and looked at Abby sheepishly. “Saw this once, or something a bit like it. Same symptoms, anyway. Back on Earth. East African continent. Patient was hallucinating from a fungal infection. The stuff got into the community grain. Caused widespread hallucinations. Bad stuff. That’s not what this is, of course. I did a check, and there is no fungal infection, there are no microbes present, no fever, none of that. Puzzling.”

  “Very,” Abby agreed.

  “Abby, my dear, can you do me a favor? When you go by Piers’, can you ask him about the music?” Doc Mason was massaging her temples, closing her eyes.

  “Music?”

  “I can’t seem to get it to shut off in here.”

  “I’ll check into it,” she said, although she didn’t hear any at the moment. Abby waved goodbye.

  On her way out the door, she spotted the patient’s environment suit. The nametag read Major, J.

  © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_23

  23. Power Play

  Michael Carroll1

  (1)Littleton, CO, USA

  Sommers shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “Sir, Marv has a suggestion.”

  “A suggestion?” the Commodore blustered. “Is Marv in any position to make suggestions?”

  “Well, a proposal. Shall I—”

  “All right, all right. Send him in.”

  Sommers tried to slink out the hatch as Marv made his way through it.

  “Sommers, I need you to remain.” The Commodore thought he could hear a sigh of disappointment.

  “Yes, sir.” Sommers closed the hatch.

  Marv stood silently at attention. The Commodore stared at him broodingly. “Well?”

  “Well, sir, the thing is, I’ve been thinking a lot about Mayda Research Station.”

  “As have we all. You have an idea to make up for all the pain and suffering that your little security breach is causing us, I take it?”

  Marv fought the cringe within and squared his shoulders. “I do indeed. I propose that our asset at Mayda pull the plug on the power.”

  “Are you suggesting we kill a hundred researchers? That’s going to be really subtle. And popular in the long run. That’ll go over real big with the bosses.”

  “Not at all. We would simply interrupt their power to isolate them, to take down their communications. Just long enough for Montenegro to come and go, and then we can make more permanent arrangements for stealth here.”

  “What about backup systems?”

  “They have them, of course. They can communicate through satellite links, so we need to physically disable those. But their entire satellite comlink assembly is about the size of a single person rover. We could carry it off without damaging it, so we could use it for ourselves if we need it in the future.”

  The Commodore turned. “And Sommers, what do you think?”

  “Can’t we just have our asset get the witnesses out of there? We would be dealing with two instead of a hundred.”

  “No good,” Marv said. “By now the news of our last launch may be all over the outpost, despite our precautions. No, I think we’ve got to cut them off, and the only way to do it completely is to cripple the outpost from the ground up.”

  “And that means its power plant,” Commodore Clark said. He seemed to be warming to the idea. “But we will be needing that facility. We can’t just go blowing up their reactor.”

  Marv nodded almost imperceptibly. “There are better ways.”

  “Been doing our homework, have we?” asked Sommers.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I have. We can have what’s-his-name remove this one assembly from the reactor. This thingie takes the power from the nuclear fuel and turns it into electricity somehow. It has gears or something. Anyway, supposedly it’s easy. It’s a specific enough part that they’ll never get a replacement in a million years.”

  “A million years is a long time,” Clark said.

  “Remember, sir, they have that one-of-a-kind new reactor. Hard to get parts.” Marv shot a sideways glance at Sommers. “As I understand it.”

  “Not bad. Not bad.” The Commodore sat at his desk quietly. He looked up. “Let’s put some energy into this, shall we?”

  (*)

  Towing a cargo vessel was not for the faint of heart. Stresses could tear apart the ship under power or send it careening off into space on any of a dozen crazy trajectories. But Titan was the easiest world around which to settle into orbit. Its dense, extended atmosphere provided a wide, soft blanket for aerocapture, and its slight gravity and distance from its parent planet enabled ships to approach at relatively low velocities.

  Montenegro’s ship was not a monster. It was small enough to maneuver, sleek enough to evade, fast enough to strike and escape. His crew needed only to attach thruster packs to the ship under tow and remotely slave it to them as they skimmed the tenuous outer atmosphere. Their polar trajectory was carefully crafted for covertness, avoiding the radar and communication corridors of the main Titan centers. The ship retained radio silence until the time was right.

  © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_24

  24. A Present Absence

  Michael Carroll1

  (1)Littleton, CO, USA

  Circe Mbiraru knew things, and Jeremy Belton knew about a few of the things she knew. The question was, did she know he knew she knew? Before it all got too twisted, he decided to have a chat with her. He had almost missed her, had just caught a glimpse as she left. She wore an uncharacteristically unfashionable floppy hat and sunglasses; she was nearly unrecognizable. She had moved fast, leaving Acheron on a bullet train, headed straight for New Tucson and the Villa. Belton took an airvan. He would make it to New Tucson half an hour before the train would, since—unlike commercial transport—he had no stops along the way.

  Crossing the great deserts of Solis Planum, Belton put his vehicle on auto, downed an insti-lunch and some coffee, and drifted off for an hour. When he awoke, New Tucson sprawled below him. It was an extensive city, with an industrial section and manicured parks near a central hub.

  As the van descended, Belton could make out more detail. The final approach gave him a glimpse of the TBI, his old stomping grounds. The Tri-Planet Bureau of Investigation took the penthouse level of the tallest building in the city, a glass monolith reflecting the Martian sky in tints of purple.

  “Here it comes,” Belton mumbled, gazing out the other side. In some ways, New Tucson had been Demian Sable’s town. His Villa was here because his nightclub was. Fifty meters below the van spread a large building with a flashing holographic image of the Hindu multi-armed god Shiva juggling letters that read The Revelations Café. As the van passed overhead, Shiva winked at him. He pulled into a bar he knew just down the street, had a quick drink, and took his time heading over to the Villa.

  The ever-present guard was absent, and the robo-sentry had been deactivated. The wrought-iron gates stood open across the sweeping drive, afternoon Sun ca
sting their shadows like bars of a prison. Belton walked along a pathway between two reflecting pools. The water in the pools was in need of tending; leaves floated on their surfaces, and green scum grew along the margins. At the far end, two lions stared down at him from their pedestals, looking forlorn and lonely. Beyond, the great double doors were closed, the windows darkened. Whoever the floppy-hatted woman had been, she hadn’t been Circe.

  “I must be losing my edge.”

  Belton’s comm pinged with the ID R-A-O. He touched his ear. “Belton.”

  “Jeremy, it’s Sanjay. I have some news.”

  “Want to trade?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “I’m at the Villa, and it looks like nobody’s been here for a while, like they’ve closed up shop for the season.”

  Rao grumbled. “That confirms my bit of news. It seems that Ms. Mbiraru may have left aboard an interplanetary yacht, one of those Q’in nuclear drive deals.”

  “Fast and hot.”

  “Yep.”

  “And here I thought you guys were so good at telling who was coming and going from this place.”

  “I just told you she went.”

  “Would have been nice to know beforehand.”

  “Yeah, it would’ve,” Rao admitted sheepishly.

  “By now, she could be anywhere,” Jeremy complained. “The Galileans, Iapetus, Vesta, on her way to Sedna or Pluto.”

  “On her way, at least. Not there, though. We’re pretty sure she left within the last two days if she went on the one we think she did.”

  “Can’t you pull them over or something?”

  “No reason to. It’s a private little barge owned by a very influential politician from the Elysium quadrant.”

  And wasn’t that just like Demian Sable and his gang, Jeremy thought. Not only were they well-connected with transport and corporate finance, they had their claws into the mainstream political arena. Not just politicians, but influential politicians. “Great,” he said flatly.