Impact

by Brandon Q Morris

  Boris pressed a few of the keys. Like for Geralt, characters appeared on the small screen. Each key seemed to be allocated to a particular character. He tried to read the characters. He pressed a key with a snake-like character, a T, an A to the left of the snake key, a P to the left of the T key, and then another T.

  The screen flashed. A longer text appeared that he couldn’t decipher. It was followed by a character with a middle line and two arms extending upward, as if it were asking for help, then a slanted line and a primitive N, with the crossbar falling at an angle. He should really learn Old English. Maybe Anna would be interested, too. But no, she’d rather spend her time with Frida, who could only watch her through the window in the tank at present.

  The day after tomorrow, his sister should be awake again. He looked for the key that had made the character with the two arms. Maybe it would call up some kind of help menu. There it was, second row, almost in the middle. He pressed it.

  The noise was what he noticed first. Three of the rotors started turning. They turned faster and faster, getting louder and louder. Boris could feel the wind that the rotors were producing through the touch cells on his outer skin.

  Geralt yelled, “What are you doing?” His voice caught. He waved with both arms.

  “I... I don’t know!” Boris called.

  “Stop it right now!”

  “I don’t know how to stop it!”

  Grigori pushed Boris out of the way from behind and tried to grab one of the rotors. “Ow!” he said, “I can probably stop these things, but I’d probably destroy them, too. Should I?”

  “No, don’t! That thing is essential. And—as you just learned—the rotor blades are sharp,” Geralt warned. “Be careful!”

  Boris forced his way back to the keyboard. He had activated it, so he should be able to stop it again. “Geralt, what’s ‘stop’ in Old English?”

  “Stop.”

  It sounded almost like modern Titanish. Boris looked for the ‘Sh’ letter at the start of the word, but he couldn’t find it. “That can’t be it. I can’t find the ‘Sh’ key. Is there another word for it?”

  “You spell it with an ‘Ess.’”

  “An ‘Ess?’”

  “It looks like a snake.”

  The Dragonfly was already floating a few centimeters above the table. Geralt had been wrong. The RTG still had enough energy to be able to lift the probe. It had probably not flown off only because a destination hadn’t been programmed yet.

  Boris looked for the snake letter. Then a T, an O, and a P...

  Nothing happened.

  “That must not be it,” Boris said. “It must be a different command.”

  “Wait. The Old English P looks like our R,” Geralt called. “Maybe you typed it wrong.”

  The P is the R? What kind of nonsense was this? Then the command was really “stor”? That sounded like some name from a Viking saga. But he’d try it anyway. He typed S-T-O-L. Shit, the Dragonfly had lifted somewhat just as he was going to type the last letter.

  “Grigori, can you hold this thing still so that I can press the right keys?”

  Now it should be easier. The arrow pointing left did what he expected—it deleted the last character. Boris replaced it with an ‘R,’ or Old English ‘P,’ or whatever.

  S-T-O-P.

  That looked good. The little man with the upwardly reaching arms appeared again, followed by the diagonal line and the funny-looking N. Help definitely wouldn’t be the wrong choice now. He pressed the key that resembled the little man.

  The noise died. The probe fell downward all at once, and Grigori could barely keep holding onto it. Boris helped him put it back in the center of the lab table.

  “Phew, I’m glad that worked out okay,” Grigori said.

  “Okay, but don’t you dare touch it again,” Geralt scolded them.

  “You could’ve warned us that it was still functional,” Martha said.

  “If I had known that, I would have warned you. But now I’d be very grateful if you’d let me back in to examine it.”

  “Of course,” Boris said.

  They retreated to their side of the room. The front barrier lowered again. The life-support system filled the isolated area in the middle with oxygen, and then the second barrier raised again.

  “Thank you, everyone,” Geralt said. “I don’t want to kick you out, but I prefer to be alone when I’m working.”

  “Of course, Geralt,” Grigori replied. “We’ve got plenty to do ourselves.”

  4790.5

  Today, of all days, was Boris’s day off. He would have much preferred to be distracted by work, but the regulations were stringent. Every Titanian had one free day in each 16-day orbital period. Today he had been planning on hiking into the mountains with Anna. Xanadu, a region that contained the tallest mountain on the moon, the 3337-meter high Mithrim Montes, was just 45 kilometers south of the base where he was stationed.

  He’d never make it that far on foot. He was only planning to climb one of the long hills that marked the beginning of the mountainous Xanadu Region. Boris walked quickly out of the base. If he could exercise strenuously enough so he would get out of breath, it would keep him from thinking about Anna, who was still floating in her tank like a caterpillar in its cocoon. He’d visited her before his hike. Frida was already there, of course. She had looked at him like he was a bad person, and she was probably justified in feeling that way, because ultimately, he hadn’t taken good enough care of her friend. Boris had left as quickly as he’d come.

  He pulled the straps of his backpack tighter. He didn’t need provisions. There were tanks holding supplies distributed across all the populated areas of Titan. No, his backpack wasn’t for supplies. It was carrying his wings. He had promised Anna that he would show her a few tricks today. Now here he was, marching through the grayish-brown landscape without her. He could feel a warm spot right above the horizon. It had to be the sun, even though he couldn’t see it in visible light.

  At first glance, Titan always appeared to have the same, cloudy weather. But that was wrong. The gloomy days were not always filled with a melancholy breeze. Sometimes it rained, and there was even the occasional thunderstorm. It’d be nice to have a decent thunderstorm right now, he thought. At least it would match his dreary mood, even if it wouldn’t be without its dangers for him.

  The incline wasn’t steep, but it was long. Boris quickly became hot. He didn’t have the ability to sweat—his outer skin merely had to open a few pores, and the heat dissipated into the ice-cold atmosphere of Titan. It wasn’t a programmed process. The fungus organism that formed an essential part of the outer skin tolerated heat only up to a specified temperature, and when it became too hot, it let the heat out. Essentially, the Snarushi had a symbiotic relationship with their outer skin.

  Boris sometimes wondered what would happen if this fungus developed intelligence—that is, real intelligence—and not just the will for survival that also protected the creature it surrounded. Would all the Snarushi suddenly be at the mercy of an intelligent fungus? The outer skin also contained artificial, force-boosted muscles integrated with their circulatory system. They reacted to movements of his limbs and imperceptibly amplified the input force. But what if they no longer followed his orders, responding only to those from the fungus?

  ‘Boris, you’re crazy,’ was what Anna would have told him. ‘You’re always making things up and thinking of the worst possible outcomes. That’s why no woman wants to be with you. Who would want to only talk about visions of terrible futures?’

  That was a sore point. Even though he was already older than 500 orbital periods, he’d never found a girlfriend. He’d once made out with Sharon, but that was back when both of them weren’t even 300 orbital periods old. And Sharon had now been a Wnutri for a long time. Relationships between Snarushi and Wnutri weren’t forbidden, but they were unworkable in practice, unless you were okay with staying completely platonic. Otherwise things got complicated very quickly,
because one of the partners in the couple would always have to be uncomfortable, while the other felt fine. So, Sharon was not a viable option.

  Then who else? Martha? She had sometimes dropped hints that she might be interested, but she had been a friend of his mother. That wouldn’t work. He’d have to move to a different base, but Anna was not going to want to leave Frida, and he didn’t want to leave Anna. He wouldn’t be able to watch over her. Was it time to let her go and release himself from that responsibility? Why not? A new start in a different base, perhaps that’s what he needed. Somewhere close to Mithrim Montes so that he could finally climb the only 3,000-meter mountain on Titan, his home.

  Crrraaaaaaaaack. His right foot had broken through the surface. That was good, because it meant he’d left the foothills of the plains and had started to climb higher. And it had only taken him three hours so far, a personal record. Carefully he pulled his foot out of the hole. The hills he was headed toward were made primarily from water ice. The higher he climbed, the warmer it became, and thus the more brittle the subsurface.

  In many places, methane rain had dug channels into the surface, but it also flowed below the surface of the ice. If he wasn’t careful, he might break through a thin top layer and fall into a large channel. That had never happened to him, and he’d come out this way at least 30 times before, but there could always be a first time.

  No thanks. He had no desire to need rescuing from anyone at the base! Boris used his fingers to switch on the luminescent display on his hand. The closest tank was located about 12 kilometers to the east. He could recharge himself there in the event of an emergency.

  He started to walk forward somewhat slower, concentrating on the sound of his footsteps. If he stepped on a spot with a hollow channel underneath, he’d be able to hear a dull echo. Concentrating also stopped his mind from fixating on adverse outcomes. The air had grown clearer in the meantime. He discovered puddles here and there, so it had rained not long ago. The liquid methane rain had washed some of the tholins out of the air, helping to make it clearer. Then the rain started to fall again. At first it was just a fine mist. Boris kept having to wipe it from his lenses in order to maintain decent vision.

  Then the precipitation became heavier. He could see more clearly now, but the sound of the precipitation hitting the ground masked the sound of his footsteps. The methane appeared to be forming directly above him, which was a characteristic of a thick atmosphere like this. He couldn’t make out any clouds. The entire sky was almost uniformly brown, and bands of liquid were falling from above, impacting the ground with a dull thud. It didn’t sound like the splashing of a clear, pure spring, but instead like a pot of old soup being dumped out onto the ground.

  Boris started to walk even more slowly. He watched where the methane drained away. Maybe he could avoid the underground cavities that way.

  The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Then something happened that he’d only witnessed three or four times in his life—the sky opened up. Thin rays of sunlight reached through a pink-colored backdrop and fell on him, the mountains, the entire landscape, and also on the rain moving away in the opposite direction. Wow! he saw a colorful arch across the wall of rain. The colors were muted, but it was very distinctly a rainbow. Boris couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was a wonder of nature that was exceptionally rare on Titan.

  If only Anna were here with me, the moment would be perfect... The thought snapped him back to reality. And, as if the sun had suddenly noticed it was visible, it immediately covered itself again with clouds. After two minutes, everything looked as it had before, as if the rainbow had been only a dream. The puddles were real, however, with thin wispy curls of evaporating and condensing methane rising out of the liquid.

  He finally reached the summit. A thick fog had settled in, so he didn’t notice that he was almost there until he was only two meters away. Apparently, Titan wanted to show off all its different weather options today, which didn’t make things easier. Boris removed his backpack, placed it on the ground in front of him, and knelt down. Then he unpacked the wings. They were made from a unique material and automatically started to expand as he unfolded them. The material was so thin that it almost seemed transparent, and as lightweight as... nothing came to mind.

  There were two loops for each arm on the back, and farther forward were loops for handholds. He moved the wings experimentally, producing such lift that he nearly lost his balance. He freed one hand so he could attach his empty backpack to his belt. Then he took a three-step running start, spread his arms, and jumped into the abyss.

  He was flying! The feeling was indescribable, and unlike anything else he’d ever done. It was a feeling he thought he would never get used to, the ability to glide through Titan’s atmosphere under his own power. This amount of freedom was possible only in air. It felt like he was oblivious to the laws of gravity. With that feeling came the hope that—someday—he might be able to escape the other everyday laws of science and, similarly, all of the rules and orders of society to which he was subjected, day after day.

  Boris flapped his arms forcefully. The altitude display on his hand immediately jumped by ten meters. He leaned slightly to one side and slowly corkscrewed downward meter by meter. A large, black area was visible in front of him. Was that the lake in which they had gone diving just the other day?

  He turned around and flapped the wings again. He reached 1,500 meters, then 2,000. How high could he go? No, today was not the day for crazy experiments. If something happened to him, Anna would wake up tomorrow and he wouldn’t be there. He displayed the direction toward the tank and resumed his glide. His challenge today was to remain in the air as long as possible, and then land next to the tank.

  The wind enveloped his body. The outermost cells of his outer skin immediately began to use the flow of air to generate energy. They could also convert solar energy into electrical power, or differences in temperature into usable energy. The developers of the second skin had incorporated everything that had occurred to the founders, plus whatever other creatures had already developed for themselves when engineering the genetic structure of this specialized skin. The possibilities created by these modifications had always fascinated Boris, so there had never really been a question about becoming a Snarushi. Anna had followed him, just like her big brother always followed her.

  The pressure sensors in his abdomen indicated he’d found a thermal. The moon’s atmosphere was still a big mystery to the researchers. The weather was so chaotic that forecasts beyond 24 hours were useless. Slowly the updraft carried him higher. He was already back up to 1,500 meters.

  The sky brightened briefly to the north, making him think it could be lightning. He reached for the telescopic goggles that he usually wore around his neck, but they weren’t there. He’d left them back at the base. He silently cursed his forgetfulness. There had just been too much going on yesterday. The thunderstorm, if there was one, was far away. It’d be better for him to try to stay in the here and now and enjoy his flight.

  The number on his hand display still showed 100 meters. There was a particularly large number of particles in the air down here closer to the ground that he couldn’t quite make out. The tank that he was aiming for had to be right below him. Boris pulled in his wings and dropped more quickly.

  Fifteen meters, ten, five.

  He spread his wings and moved into a landing position, right leg forward, left leg back, and as relaxed and loose as possible in his hips and knees, just like his teacher had taught him.

  Zero meters.

  But he still wasn’t on the ground. Boris laughed. The primitive altimeter in his hand had been tricked by a transition layer. He would have seen it if he’d had his goggles. That was now the second time today he should’ve had them. Maybe he needed his head examined. The instruments in his skin were organic. They couldn’t be easily replaced, only repaired or healed when they became damaged.

  Negative five meters.

  He str
etched out his hand and shook it. Sometimes that was enough for the instruments to recalibrate themselves.

  Minus ten.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Ninety-five.

  Ah, he’d finally crossed through the transition layer that was confusing his instruments. Usually these were areas with somewhat higher temperatures, where the air was thinner, so that part of the electromagnetic spectrum was reflected, similar to a Fata Morgana effect.

  Boris prepared for landing, a second time. Now he saw the tank. It was a cylinder fitted with shining solar cells and supported on a framework structure. He adjusted his flight direction so that he’d land a few meters to one side.

  “Hello, Boris. I am Tank WWC34. I am ready for you,” the tank’s primitive AI—a female voice speaking the standard greeting—announced in his head by radio.

  “Happy to hear it, WWC34.”

  If it had been dark, or if there had been very dense fog, he would have been able to navigate by the tank, too, but that was not necessary today. Following the standard routine, Boris checked his landing site. There weren’t any obstacles. He pulled his wings closer to his body, extended his legs toward the ground, and then touched down. He was on solid ground again.

  Boris looked around and confirmed he was all alone. The closest base was about 50 kilometers away, but he wasn’t worried. The tank gave him a sense of security. What must the founders had felt back in those early days? They had only been weak humans, even more helpless than today’s Wnutri, who had made their own genetic improvements. They were billions of kilometers from their own kind, who were all locked in a gruesome war and couldn’t have helped them if they’d needed it. They must have felt so afraid, so alone in this alien and mortally dangerous landscape.