Soon they would be able to tell where they had landed. The ship was in a hollow that it had probably dug out itself with its hot, engine-exhaust gases. It was maybe 20 meters deep. What had looked like the horizon was the upper edge of the hollow.
Anna stepped out onto the overhang and started to wave. What was she doing? He followed her. The edge of the hollow had a strange, jagged profile, and it was moving like a caterpillar with its fine hairs vibrating in the wind. The noise was coming from there.
Finally he could make out small details, and a shiver ran up his spine. Wnutri and Snarushi were standing at the edge of the hollow, packed tightly together. Many of them were waving, and just as many were clapping. They must’ve come here to welcome them home. He’d never before seen so many Titanians in one place.
“Crazy. There must be thousands!” Anna said. “Geraldine must’ve brought the entire population here.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. There wasn’t just one row of people. The overhang was just high enough that they could see over the edge of the hollow. There were many more people standing behind at the very edge. It was overwhelming.
Boris felt almost embarrassed by the attention, because they had only done what had been necessary and logical. “Are they all here for us?” he asked.
“It’s great, don’t you think? We’re heroes!”
“No, I can’t believe that. Maybe they wanted to see the founders’ ship.”
The ship was part of their foundation’s legend, the story that they had all learned in school. Of course, all the Titanians would be interested in seeing it. It’s good they had decided against replacing all their legends with the historical truth.
“Don’t be so modest. I think you’ll see it’s all because of us,” Anna said.
Boris was breathing heavily. It wasn’t easy climbing out of the hollow. They had to help each other, but Boris went up last behind the others. He was the last to appear at the top. Anna was right. Another shiver skittered up his spine. The mass of people had separated almost magically as the four of them climbed over the edge of the hollow. The Snarushi were clapping and yelling.
The Wnutri, in their spacesuits, were quieter. Most of them were waving or clapping. What would all of them think now if they knew how things truly were? On Earth, the Snarushi were considered genetic monsters. How would their side-by-side lifestyle change if they were to build a permanent, continuous contact to Earth?
Had Jenna’s thoughts changed? She knew that the founders had violated the laws and ethics of those on Earth. She had to clearly understand now what an aberration of the human spirit he embodied—at least from the Earth’s viewpoint. Certainly that viewpoint must’ve influenced her feelings somehow! It had to be impossible to simply ignore the beliefs of ten billion beings, to whom she was genetically more closely related than to him.
She wouldn’t stand out if she ever returned to Earth. It had been lucky that the Earthlings had found her on the asteroid. What would have happened if they had met him first? Would they have just shot the horrible monster?
A hand landed on his shoulder. Boris stopped and turned around. Many arms were reaching out toward him, and he shook a few hands.
“Great job,” somebody yelled.
“Fantastic,” somebody else said.
“I want to have your baby,” an older Snarushi shouted. Those near him laughed, and he joined in. They all had come here because of them. The thought felt like an added weight on his shoulders. He was suddenly a role model. Schoolkids would be taught about the four rescuers. Little boys and girls would want to emulate them. Maybe even some newborns would be named after them.
A voice he knew well came from his left. “Seriously, well done. I’m proud of you.” Boris turned around to see his uncle Grigori, who was smiling broadly.
“Thanks, Grigori.”
“Come have dinner with us soon,” Grigori said, “after all this hubbub has died down.”
“I will,” he answered.
“You must come to our place, too,” a Snarushi standing directly next to Grigori said. “I make the best pierogi on Titan.”
He didn’t know her. Nevertheless, he nodded again. After all this commotion was over he would climb up Doom Mons, attach and spread out his wings, and then end everything by crashing. All alone. Maybe he wouldn’t even wait that long. Nobody would notice his absence. He could simply stop following the others and hide himself in the crowd—he only needed to move a few meters to the left or right and everyone would think he was just a normal, old Titanian.
Now would be the moment. If all the hoopla continued, everyone would know his face at some point, but now, so shortly after landing, he could still return to the nobody that he had always been.
Someone grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. He was just about to tear his hand loose and hurl some choice invectives when he noticed it was Anna who was pulling him. Had she not found Frida yet? Why else would she be bothering to look out for him?
“Come on,” she said. “You can enjoy the adulation of the masses later. We’ve still got a few official hands to shake.”
The official ceremony took place in a large, new auditorium. It was divided in the middle by a partition wall to allow both Wnutri and Snarushi to be accommodated comfortably. They entered the hall through a wide, open gate. Inside were many Snarushi. They were all holding uniformly shaped, gold-colored cups with long drinking straws, and each wore a skinny, bright-colored scarf.
At the entrance, a Snarushi was handing out scarves to everyone. Boris took one and examined it. It had yellow, green, and red stripes, and consisted of a material that didn’t harden, even at these temperatures. Their four names were printed on the scarf. How embarrassing!
Their names were arranged alphabetically: Anna, Boris, Geralt, Jenna. His gaze remained on the last name. It would be better for him to cut off that name, because he didn’t think he would ever hear from Jenna again. Anna took the scarf from him and put it around his neck. It hung down lower on one side. If he wasn’t careful, he might lose it. He decided not to be careful.
The crowd parted in front of them. Geralt and Jenna looked like dwarfs among all the Snarushi. They could have been trophies that he and Anna had brought back from a hunt. Due to all the people, the humidity rose. A thin layer of condensation formed on Geralt’s and Jenna’s visors, and their faces looked blurry behind the glass. It was not their world, that much was clear.
They reached the curtain. It formed a kind of bulging section, a temporary transition zone. Jenna turned around briefly and waved at him, but he couldn’t make out her face. Was she smiling? He hoped not. She entered the cross-over between their two worlds. Shortly afterward, the bulge disappeared, as if a powerful wizard had simply waved his wand, and both his Wnutri friends were gone.
The celebration was boring, but it wasn’t because of the other people. Everyone was extremely friendly to him. He received so many invitations that, if he accepted them all, he wouldn’t have to eat alone for the next ten orbital periods. There were so many he quickly lost track of them and he couldn’t remember who was who. Anna kept forcing him to talk to Snarushi she thought he would find interesting. Curiously, they were often women. She must’ve been thinking the same thing that he was.
But she also didn’t seem very happy. She kept turning around and looking for someone—he was sure she must be searching for Frida. Why hadn’t that stupid woman simply sent a note if she couldn’t be here to welcome Anna home today? Of course, there were Titanians who had to work today, but a simple note seemed to be the least she could’ve done.
He bitterly resented people who hurt his little sister. She didn’t deserve that. However, his anger toward Frida also had an advantage. At least it distracted him a little from his thoughts of Jenna. Nevertheless, he kept trying to catch a glimpse of her shape through the transparent curtain, but he couldn’t find her. It was as if the ground had swallowed her up.
There was finally at least one happy ending. Just be
fore the end of the party, Frida came rushing into already half-empty the auditorium. He had already asked Anna several times to go home with him, but she had waved him away every time, pointing out the grand atmosphere in the room.
At least her wish to stay had proven the right thing to do this time. Boris was happy for her. The two women stood wrapped in each other’s arms and didn’t appear to want to ever let go again. It was nice to see Anna so happy. But it also reinforced his feeling that he’d lost something. Couldn’t they have destroyed the asteroid later? Couldn’t they have delayed their rescue just a little longer?
Someone touched his shoulder. He was close to the curtain, and the touch had come from the other side.
“What a great party, don’t you think?” Geralt asked. Then he spoke a longer sentence, but Boris couldn’t understand him. The curtain dampened his words.
“What did you say? You’ll have to talk louder.”
“I said you shouldn’t make such a sad face. Everything will work out okay. Trust me.”
“Everything will work out okay? No, I don’t think you’re being realistic. Not everything works out okay in life.”
“Some things just take time,” Geralt said.
What did he mean by that? Did he know more than what he was saying? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Good things come to those who wait, I guess you could say. Sometime down the road our society will be ready for the truth about the founders.”
He was talking about the truth regarding their history. Geraldine was the only other one who knew all the details. She wanted to disclose the truth to the people a little at a time. How could you portion out the truth piece by piece? Was that even possible? At least it wasn’t his concern, but Geralt had been entrusted with a role in developing a strategy for it. It wouldn’t be easy, so it was good that Geralt at least believed in his statement that everything would be okay in the end.
Boris didn’t share that belief.
4815.7
He ran and ran and ran. The physical exertion left no room for any thinking. There was only the ice and him. He left footprint after footprint behind him, without slowing down. Boris continued doing laps around the base. The other runners he had met when he had started today had long since left the track and were back with their families.
Anna’s voice sounded in his head. “Boris, are you there?”
“I’m... running... right now,” he answered.
“Won’t you come and eat with us tonight? Frida’s cooking. We’d love to see you. We’re going to eat outside, next to the methane lake.”
He hadn’t eaten anything for three days. He didn’t need to eat when he didn’t feel like it. The tank gave his body everything that it needed. “I’m not hungry,” he said. That also wasn’t a lie. He wasn’t hungry and had no desire to eat, just this supersized urge to keep moving.
“Come on,” Anna said. “We haven’t seen you since we landed.”
Because you’ve been spending all your time with Frida, he thought. But he didn’t blame her. Geralt also hadn’t had any time for him. His friend was spending many hours in secret meetings that he kept complaining about. “No, thanks,” was all he could say to Anna.
Just two more laps. Then he would have completed 40 kilometers. Boris ran across the Titanian plain. There was mist both to the left and right of the track. It might’ve been romantic if he wasn’t running by himself.
“Boris?” It was Anna again.
“No, I’m not coming to dinner,” he said, “I don’t want to ruin your evening with my sad life.”
“It’s not about tonight. I just heard from Geraldine. She couldn’t reach you.”
“I set my radio to private. I was hoping to finally get some peace and quiet.”
“That’s too bad, because you probably also don’t know what she wants from us.”
“From us?”
He stopped, bent forward, and put his hands on his thighs. Maybe 38 kilometers would be enough for today.
“Yes, from us. But you wanted your peace and quiet tonight. It might be best to report to Geraldine before tomorrow, though.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Tell me!”
“Okay. Geraldine wants us to use the founders’ ship again. She thinks it’s time we learn more about our surroundings—Saturn’s ring system, the other moons. I think she wants to be ready if Earth ever turns their attention on us.”
“That’s smart and completely reasonable. When do we launch?” Boris’s heart was racing. He shouldn’t have stopped running.
“Whenever we want.”
“We?”
“Geralt, you, and me.”
“Oh,” he said. She hadn’t said anything about Jenna. Why not? She probably didn’t want anything to do with such menial tasks. He dared not ask.
“And before you ask, there wasn’t any mention of Jenna.”
There it was. She was now at a different level than the rest of them. He should’ve been happy for her. Maybe she would even replace Geraldine at some point. The commander was getting old.
He couldn’t put the right words together. “Have you...” His voice cracked, and Boris coughed.
“I haven’t heard anything from her, I’m sorry. She seems to have disappeared without a trace.”
“A secret mission?” he asked.
“I asked Geraldine. I knew you never would. But she doesn’t know anything about where she is. She said she wished Jenna would be part of this expedition, but she also doesn’t want to have to wait to track her down.”
“Thanks for asking her.”
“Someone had to take charge. So, will you come with us tonight?”
“No, but I’ll see you in the morning at the ship, okay?”
“I look forward to it.”
4822.3
The glass barriers disappeared from his perception, and the universe spread out before him. The astrodome was a small paradise that allowed him to merge with the cosmos and reconnect with life. Some things were bigger than himself—for example, the glistening rings surrounding the mighty planet, Saturn. For the first time he had the chance to marvel at them from above and not just from the side.
To enable that view, the ship had left the ecliptic. Sensors were tirelessly recording everything they discovered. The dome gave him the chance to let the tremendous beauty all around him restore his inner peace and wonder, which he so quickly lost on the hazy surface of Titan and during the grueling everyday work.
He would suggest offering health-restoring space cruises. Anyone who felt worn out or depressed should be allowed to travel between Saturn’s rings. There was space on board the ship for 100 Titanians. Right now, they just had four. Geralt had convinced Ivona, a Wnutri, to come along on the trip. So, their four-person crew had been reestablished.
Ivona was a materials engineer. She was supposed to study the composition of all the phenomena they encountered. Her passions included archeology, and likely also a certain archeologist. Boris didn’t want to know any more details. He didn’t begrudge it to his friend. He had only wondered that Anna hadn’t requested taking Frida with them, too. Anna had then explained that the two of them got along much better when they had some alone time.
He’d just thought of Anna, and then there she was, calling him. “Boris, it’s time.”
“I’m coming.”
He took one last look at Saturn and said goodbye. It was time for them to return home. Their flight would be evaluated. Had they collected enough information to justify additional expeditions? Geraldine seemed only partially interested in Saturn and its moons, because she had continuously urged them to turn their observations toward Earth. (1288) Santa, the asteroid where he had lost Jenna, seemed to have since gone into orbit around Earth.
So Earth now had two moons. If Geralt’s guesses were correct, Earth now had an unbelievable energy source available in the asteroid. Would it have been better for Titan if they hadn’t blown up (158) Koronis? But Geraldine didn’t blame t
hem. Titan needed no help from the outside, she said. They were strong enough to develop their own energy.
Slowly he crawled downward through the narrow passage. He pushed the hatch to the side and let himself float down into the command center.
“It’s about time,” Anna said.
“Yes, it is,” he answered.
4822.4
They landed in the same hollow. The cargo hatch was now below the edge of the hollow, which he could see in the infrared image. The next time they would have to select a different landing site.
Boris had a sense of déjà vu as he moved the lever, and he and Anna opened the cargo hatch together. They walked out onto the overhang and waited until the mist dissipated. Again, he had to shake off the oily fluid that condensed on his outer skin.
“Hey, you’re spraying me. Watch out,” Anna said.
“Sorry.”
No crowd of people awaited them this time. Everything was quiet. Even the ventilation system wasn’t working so loudly.
“Welcome home,” Geraldine announced over the open frequency. “I’ll wait for you in the base.”
The people’s attention disappeared so quickly, Boris thought. He was happy, although part of him felt a little neglected. They were doing important work for Titan, and space flight was still dangerous. But that was also true for the work of most of their people.
Titan was not very forgiving in terms of mistakes, and there were so few Titanians that each individual’s contribution was important. It would be sad if that changed somehow. The moon had enough space for a billion people, but then it would no longer be Titan.
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