The Europa Effect

by A. L. Mengel

  “Exactly, my son. And their galaxy is nearing its end. It’s just a period in time that they happened to be witness to. So many millennia, and here we are. Just as we are supposed to be. But now, they are the leaders of the survivors of their planet. Whether they know it yet or not, they are the greatest minds.”

  Moses nodded. “True, true.”

  “And we’re here to usher them to the next world,” he said. “But it is they who have to make the commitment. Not only to save themselves, but to save the human race.”

  “Do you think they’ll find it? Down on Mars, I mean?”

  Copernicus stopped walking and faced Moses. They looked into one another’s eyes. “Do not worry, Moses. It doesn’t matter if they find it or not. Because they won’t know what it is, and even if they discover it, they won’t hold the key.”

  5

  MEETING OF THE MINDS

  INIKIA STOOD IN THE CORRIDOR with her hands clasped behind her back. She stood across from the conference rooms, watching the team emerge from the sliding doors. She had led the procession from the briefing and turned and waited as the others exited slowly.

  Her face was solemn; expressionless.

  The wall glowed a pale blue behind her, and after they had left the conference room, a panel raised behind her to reveal a network of colorful alien foliage; blue, orange. Jeremiah ran to the edge of the wall, and pressed his face against the clear panel. “These are like nothing I have ever seen before!” He looked over at Inikia with wide eyes. “They are from the Lyra constellation. Perfectly natural for the habitat. The solarium gives them the proper lighting and nourishment.”

  “How did you know that?” Counselor Abagail asked.

  “Memory triggers,” Winston reminded. “Just like they said…you will see and hear things that trigger memories.”

  “We are hopeful that the amnesia will wear off soon and is only temporary,” Inikia added.

  Jeremiah’s face was plastered across the glass covering the solarium.

  He didn’t appear to be listening.

  He shook his head slowly. “But the temperature in that solarium?”

  “It’s similar to the mean average on your former planet, but a bit warmer. Also, our planet – or at least the planet that you will eventually colonize – has no magnetic shield. It’s also slightly closer to its parent star –”

  “– But what about radiation?” Eli leaned forward and looked over at Inikia with wide eyes.

  Inikia moved closer to Eli. She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned close to his ear. “You must learn to trust,” she said. Counselor Abagail examined the plant life and watched Inikia attempt to comfort Eli. “It’s a legitimate concern,” Counselor Abagail said, as she studied a pink plant with large, round “leaves”.

  Inikia moved closer to the glass and stood next to Jeremiah, side by side, looking inside at the bright blue, pink, and orange colored shrubs and trees. “The species of foliage and forestry on the surface of this planet absorb stellar radiation. They dispel it as oxygen. That’s one of the reasons why this will make it the perfect planet for you.”

  Counselor Abagail moved forward and joined them. She looked back at Winston and over at the others and they each agreed: the species of plants and trees were like nothing they had ever seen before. It was a patchwork of brilliant color; blues and purples, orange trunks, and no green foliage whatsoever.

  Inikia reached her arm out and ushered the others to follow her. Jeremiah remained standing in front of the clear display, his mouth hanging open, his head shaking back and forth. Counselor Abagail leaned close to his ear and smiled. “You’re a botanist,” she reminded him. “At least that’s what we’ve been learning. So I know you must be thrilled to see species that have never been seen by any humans before us.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Just seeing that flooded my mind with memories.”

  “Please, let’s go,” Inikia said. “We must begin our sessions. It is critical that we understand you each in every detail before you begin your missions.”

  They followed her as Jeremiah reluctantly joined them. He looked back at the solarium repeatedly until it was out of view.

  “So what’s the deal with these mind exploration sessions you speak of?” Winston asked.

  “You will each be interviewed as a group. And then be placed under sedation for an examination of your subconscious thoughts. And this process will help you recover your memories.”

  The team followed Inikia as she led them back to the Borderline tram, but as they walked, Counselor Abagail made eye contact with Jeremiah. He looked back at her and shook his head.

  There, she knew it.

  There was something strange about this mind exploration session. Could it help them? Or were there some other intentions that they were unaware of?

  *****

  Their minds somehow connected.

  They were led into a small room with chairs arranged in a circle. There was a small kitchenette off to the side with a coffee setup and cabinetry.

  When they sat across from each other on the stark white chairs in the colorless room – save the expansive windows that opened towards the pastels and noble gasses of interstellar space.

  But Abby ignored the celestial view.

  She looked over at Jeremiah.

  She saw him rub his close cropped blonde hair and watched him fidget. She thought that he could be former military, with the cut and the athletic build.

  But with her memory only gradually returning with unpredictable triggers, she couldn’t be for sure.

  He looked downwards, towards the floor, draped his arms over the sides of the small plastic chair, and appeared to be speaking to himself. She looked down at his restless legs. The others were sitting in chairs opposite one another, patiently waiting.

  “Hey,” she said, leaning closer to Jeremiah. Her voice sounded somewhat foreign against the otherwise silent room. She noticed Winston and Eli looked up and over in their direction.

  He stopped fidgeting and looked up at her with a blank expression on his face. “What is it, Counselor?”

  She shifted in her chair, but maintained eye contact. “Back when we were standing outside the solarium, Inikia mentioned about mind exploration sessions. You looked over at me. Are you remembering something?”

  He took a breath and sighed. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I…”

  She lowered her head but raised her eyes and maintained eye contact with him.

  “I just don’t understand any of this,” he said. He shook his head and slouched back in his chair. “I don’t get it. I wake up. We’re in fucking outer space. No recollection of how we got here. And it seems that we are remembering things, but it feels they are older memories. From a distant past. What about more recent? Like how we got on this ship. Why is there a complete blank? But I don’t know anything else. Except this.” He gestured his arm out towards the room.

  She nodded. “Except this.”

  He looked over at her. “I mean, is this what we have always been doing? Traveling through space on this ship?”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s clear we haven’t. They speak of Sector B. But in every attempt to remember, I just get fleeting flashes, just tiny puzzle pieces, and I don’t know how they fit together.”

  “But have you known anything different? Anything besides where you are and what you are doing right now?”

  He lowered his head and closed his eyes. “This is all I am remembering. Waking up. A nurse of some sort came into my room. Connected some sort of drainage bag to the side of my knee. Going to see that Moses man. And then coming into this room.”

  The drainage bag.

  So he had it too.

  She folded her arms and cocked her head to the side, focused on Jeremiah. “So…why is it that we had to have a primitive bag draining fluid? I don’t get it either. But you seem like you knew something back at the solarium.”

  “I don’t know anything…I just go on fe
eling. And I don’t know how I feel about these mind exploration sessions.”

  She nodded.

  They both looked towards the door as Moses stood the doorway. He stood, smiling and nodding, his hands clasped at front of his waist. “So the entire team is here,

  he said. “Are you ready to get started?”

  They each looked at each other but no one said anything.

  Moses walked in the center of the circle of chairs. He looked at each of them as he spoke. “Since we have had amnesia issues since you woke, I think it’s prudent that we do official introductions, so each of you are aware of who each of you are.”

  Winston raised his hand, stood, and Moses nodded at him.

  “As I’d mentioned in the initial briefing, I remember everything,” Winston said. “But if they are still experiencing amnesia, and only receiving memories in bits and pieces, how will they introduce themselves to one another?”

  Moses smiled and nodded. “That’s an excellent question.” Winston sat back down, looked over at the others and shrugged.

  “Eli DeJesus,” Moses said, looking over at Eli. The young, Hispanic man looked up and cracked a smile. Moses then looked over at Abby and smiled. She looked up at him as he nodded. “Hi Abby.”

  The man with the close cropped hair stopped and leaned forward, looking up at Eli. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You know her?”

  “We met this morning,” Eli said. “When we all went to listen to Moses. We sat next to each other.”

  Moses nodded. “I am well aware of that. But did you know that you have known each other for years? That you worked closely with each other back on Sector B?”

  They looked at each other as Counselor Abagail made eye contact with Eli. “I thought you seemed familiar back at the briefing.”

  Eli nodded. “You too.”

  She looked over at Jeremiah. “And what about you?”

  “I hadn’t seen you in the amphitheater. But I feel that I know you.”

  “You each know each other,” Moses said. “You each have a long history together, actually. Right Winston?”

  Winston looked up at Moses and nodded. “Right,” he said.

  Counselor Abagail leaned back in her chair. The others took chairs across from her as she nodded to herself, as if deep in thought. “Yes…yes.” Her face lit up as she made eye contact with the others. “I like that we’re all on the same team. It seems…like it’s was meant to be.”

  *****

  Copernicus headed down the corridor to the bridge. As he approached the outer atrium, a bay of doors slid open. There was a massive control center on the upper echelon, looking outwards to soaring windows which reached from floor to ceiling.

  Mars was in view.

  The crew were each at their stations. Copernicus stood in front of the large communication screen on the opposite wall. “Get me Moses.”

  CONTACTING MIND EXPLORATION LAB

  It flashed a few moments across the screen as Moses appeared in the center. Behind him, Copernicus could see Inikia sitting in the group circle speaking with the team.

  “It’s time, Moses. We are ready. Get them ready. Now.”

  Moses nodded and the transmission ended.

  *****

  No one knew if the Earth lived or perished.

  As they explored each other’s minds, their amnesia slowly lifted. They had discussed when the ship had just left Earth. How they could remember standing at the edge of what was to be known, on the ship, as ‘Town Square’; at the far edge of the central area where there were vast observation windows.

  They hung their heads as they left the expansive windows, as the arc pulled away and the blue sphere was no longer in view, gone. Inikia dimmed the lights. A hologram appeared in the center of the circle, showing the long, cylindrical ship. The ship exited the orbit, gaining speed, and moving away from the planet they once had known as home.

  They all had agreed that there had been a star. It had been a wandering star; a collapsed celestial artifact that had somehow targeted their solar system – but as they had learned of the stars presence so late in the process, there was nothing that they could do.

  “There was nothing you could have done, except leave,” Moses said. “We detected the star far before you. And spent time researching your culture to prepare a new home for you.”

  A series of panels slid open on the opposite wall as the group looked over at Winston.

  He leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped in his lap.

  Inikia raised her eyebrows and studied him directly.

  “So you have not experienced any type of amnesia from the cooling fluids?”

  Winston shook his head and leaned forward. “I remember everything,” he said.

  “I remember when the scout – Moses – approached our colony. I can tell you that he was in poor physical condition and was immediately taken to Medical. The medical staff stabilized him as best they could and placed in him into quarantine.”

  Inikia ushered several others in white in the room. “What about what happened before Moses arrived?”

  Inikia stood and approached the other side of the room. The panels retracted into the adjoining walls and revealed a room with four flat worktables surrounded by brightly lit monitors. She motioned to the staff and they scurried with several of the equipment panels as each worktable lowered slightly.

  “Go on,” she said, as the team’s attention diverted back to Winston.

  He cleared his throat. “I remember evacuating. When the wave came. We were close to the Eastern seaboard. Before the shift, we were probably 100 miles from the ocean. But when the wave came, we were coastal.”

  Jeremiah’s eyes brightened. “Yes! I remember the wave too.”

  Inika stood next to the group of chairs and smiled. “You see, you can help each other. Each of you has been affected by the cryogenic process differently. But each of you can help the others remember. That will be critical, especially when you reach the surface.”

  Counselor Abagail was the first to undress.

  The medical staff assisted her on the worktable, and she was covered in a shiny, metallic material. Several assistants inserted needles into her arms as the monitors behind her came to life.

  “Open your mind to us, Counselor Abagail…let us see you…your history…your future…”

  She closed her eyes and thought she saw a star.

  A wandering star.

  One of the neutrons that traveled through the galaxy, a white, hot sphere, with spirals of light fingering outwards. She hovered in its path, floating; levitating; coasting through the cosmos, as the planets whished past her: she felt the heat from the star, and turned around to the brilliance of the sun; towards the center of the Milky Way and beyond…

  In some way, but they didn’t exactly know how…they were all looking at the same thing.

  Seeing the same visions.

  Thinking similar thoughts. They had the same eyes. And ears. The ears were in the same spot on their heads; just beneath the hairline. For they were both men and women.

  Humans, at least on the outside.

  But what of the Vegans?

  So similar…yet different. What had been their cosmic origin?

  And many of them still looked the same.

  Could pass as human.

  Like the others, who really were humans, from the dying planet they had just visited, to save, to rescue, to bring to their ship.

  But there were the others.

  There were those who were already on the ship.

  The Vegans, who had seen the humans from Earth file into the ship. They saw the same humans who had visited the quarantine lines, who were checked by doctors, and still, the Vegans who observed, who were already populating the ship, watched as the new humans filed inside, and once were medically cleared, were ushered into the living quarters. But that area, the living quarters, was where the new arrivals appeared to be most impressed.

  They looked upwards at a soaring
blue sky, one that mimicked what they had seen on their own home planet. The brilliant green grass never needed to be mowed, never needed to be watered.

  There was one particular inhabitant of the ship, who stood in the grass, watching the new arrivals populate the ship and find and struggle to listen to – as some pressed their noses against the glass to say their final goodbyes to the blue planet.

  Another vision came.

  She saw herself, on the ship. Had it been more recent?

  There was her mornings in the darkness. And the confusion. Her wake up time.

  The day would continue; each day the same way. They would wake, drain the fluid from their knees, be escorted by a private nurse to their closest dining hall, eat breakfast and come alive once again.

  But the same dreams and the same visions would not be remembered, nor discovered, until the group sessions later in the day.

  And then, as the day wore on, they would start to remember. The haze would gradually lift. They would remember their days on the Earth.

  It would slowly return.

  In bits and pieces, broken memories and partial scenes, until, by the time the sessions ended and they adjourned for dinner, they were talking amongst each other; those who had been strangers upon waking remembered one another once again by the time they retired.

  And when they would fall asleep, there would be darkness. No dreams that they could remember. And when they awoke the next day, the process would start all over again. They would have the same conversations with their private nurses. Completely devoid of any memory of the previous day; or how they got on a ship in the deep, dark vastness of space. Or even that they have ever lived on planet Earth ever.

  And the same process would repeat itself in a cycle. Day, after day, after day.

  How would this time be any different?

  *****

  SHE WANTED TO OPEN HER EYES but she thought not to.

  There was something different though. About the feel of the wrap.

  Like it had been removed.

  And she felt wind against her face. Had she been dreaming again?