The mist settled to the bottom of the hollow, and Boris could see someone standing and waving at them from the edge of the depression, someone too far away for him to identify. “Look, Frida’s here,” he said.
“No, that can’t be Frida. She’s supposed to be somewhere close to the North Pole today, exploring some ethane lake,” Anna said.
“Maybe she’s here to surprise you.”
“I don’t think so. I know her very well. But whoever it is, she’s really into waving.”
“Maybe Geraldine sent someone out to greet us?”
“You heard her before. She’s waiting in the base. Maybe you’ve got a fan.”
“Me, a fan?”
“Why shouldn’t Boris, the hero, have a fan?”
He waved back. “I can make my own jokes, thank you.”
They scrambled up the wall of the hollow. The wall was so steep that Boris had to crawl on all fours part of the way, but moving under gravity felt good. In their micro-gravity environment out among the stars, he was always too lazy to torture himself on those exercise machines. He was panting, because he didn’t want to fall too far behind Anna. Geralt and Ivona were far behind them. Climbing was more difficult for them in their spacesuits.
Anna reached the edge first and stopped suddenly. He had to climb awkwardly past her. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop...”
There was the person who had been waving at them. It was a woman. She was unusually small, almost like a Wnutri, but she wasn’t wearing a spacesuit. It had to be a Snarushi, that was clear. But... she looked like Jenna!
It was unbelievable. The similarity! Did Jenna have a sister? This must’ve been her. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
But it wasn’t just his eyes that seemed to have been fooled. Whatever kind of trick this was had also made his heart start beating like crazy, and it felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. He cleared his throat, but that didn’t make anything better. It was a cruel trick, because he knew very well it had to be some kind of illusion.
“Hi, Anna, hi, Boris, it took you long enough,” the woman said.
It was Jenna’s voice. Her sister spoke with her voice? They had to be identical twins. Her sister had become a Snarushi. That was the only possible explanation, but his heart wouldn’t listen. It forced him to move toward her, one step and then another and then another. He looked at her as if in a trance. He was getting closer!
It was unbelievable. And she was smiling. She should’ve been defending herself. Jenna’s sister didn’t know him at all! How could he feel so attracted to her? And why wasn’t she telling him, “Stop, don’t come another step closer?” No, instead she had spread out her arms to embrace him.
It was a magical moment. An invisible force reduced the space between them. He couldn’t resist it. He was right in front of her, and then they were wrapped in each other’s arms, and there wasn’t a micrometer of space between them.
Jenna told him about the details of her transformation a few hours later. A Titanian adult had never before been transformed into a Snarushi. It had involved a painful process that took several orbital periods and would not be easily reversible. Her entire genetic code had to be reprogrammed so that her immune system wouldn’t reject the fungus organism.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.
“You would have tried to stop me.”
“That’s true.”
“You would have thought I wanted to become a Snarushi for you. And that would have been the wrong reason to do it. So, I needed time to figure out what it was I really wanted. In the end I made my decision—and went through with the transformation. I’m a Snarushi because I wanted to be a Snarushi. It fit me better. The spacesuit always got in my way. I wanted to experience Titan directly, with nothing in-between. I got to know that human, Blane, on board the Earth ship. He was completely at ease with himself and his physical being, but he was completely helpless without technology. That was no longer my way.”
“So, you transformed yourself into a monster?”
Jenna laughed. “Transforming into a monster is easy. You just need to shed your humanity. No, I turned myself into the person I want to be.”
4826.13
At the summit of Doom Mons, they were closer to the heavens than anywhere else. They hadn’t brought their wings with them this time. Boris and Jenna were lying next to each other in freshly fallen methane snow and looking at the cloud cover, which today displayed a rather unusual chaotic pattern of eddies and turbulence.
It looked almost as if Titan knew what was going to happen. The moon seemed more excited and impatient than they were. Boris checked the time. If the calculations were correct, it should start in 60 seconds. He brushed a few flakes off of Jenna’s face. Whether Snarushi or Wnutri, she was beautiful.
“There!” she said.
He looked up, and suddenly the sky was full of multi-color streaks. The asteroid had set off a fireworks show that was probably being watched by every Titanian. Boris was the kind of hero who was usually embarrassed to be recognized as the savior of their world, but in order to reserve such an exclusive place on Doom Mons for just Jenna and himself, he had gladly used his status to obtain some preferential treatment.
It had been worth it. The play of colors in the sky was spectacular, and lying here next to Jenna felt right, more right than anything else he’d ever felt in his life.
Author's Note
Dear reader,
If this isn’t your first book of mine, then you probably have just finished your second trip with me to Titan. We are 250 years in the future, and life on Earth has changed. I do hope the ‘Great War,’ which is part of this novel’s backstory, doesn’t transpire. But Titan is a fascinating moon, and every visit to it would be worthwhile. My books, of course, aren’t primarily travel guides, but, like a useful travel guide, I also hope to give a sense of what it might be like to be there.
This time you were able to dive into methane lakes and plunge off Doom Mons—which actually exists—all thanks to Snarushi genetic engineering. The two factions, Snarushi and Wnutri, are derived, incidentally, from Russian adjectives (wnutri, Cyrillic внутри, means ‘inner’ and Snarushi, Cyrillic снаружи, means ‘outer’). The fact that you keep finding foreign-language terms in my books is because I enjoy learning new languages. Russian, however, is one that I learned in school.
Do you have any questions or comments? I would love to read them and respond to you. Please write to me! My email address: [email protected]
By the way, there’s another side to this story. What happened on Earth? Why was it threatened? You can learn all about it in Impact: Earth:
hard-sf.com/links/1482762
One more request. There’s something you can do that’s unbelievably important for authors—you guessed it, write a review. That’s the only way this book will find new readers. If you liked this book, please click this link and write a few words:
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All the Snarushi and Wnutri—and I, most of all—thank you. Enjoy your reading adventures!
Yours, Brandon Q. Morris
Click on hard-sf.com/subscribe/ to receive A Guided Tour of Saturn in PDF format with many colorful illustrations.
Also by Brandon Q. Morris
The Triton Disaster
Nick Abrahams still holds the official world record for the number of space launches, but he’s bored stiff with his job hosting space tours. Only when his wife leaves him, however, does he try to change his life.
He accepts a tempting offer from a Russian billionaire. In exchange for making a simple repair on Neptune’s moon Triton, he will return to Earth a multi-millionaire, enabling him to achieve his ‘impossible dream’ of buying his own California vineyard.
The fact that Nick must travel alone during the four-year roundtrip doesn’t bother him at all, as he doesn’t particularly like people anyway. Once en route he learns his new boss left out some critical details in his job desc
ription—details that could cost him his life, and humankind its existence…
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The Death of the Universe
For many billions of years, humans—having conquered the curse of aging—spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death.
They have only one hope: The ‘Rescue Project’ was designed to feed the black hole in the center of the galaxy until it becomes a quasar, delivering much-needed energy to humankind during its last breaths. But then something happens that no one ever expected—and humanity is forced to look at itself and its existence in an entirely new way.
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The Enceladus Mission (Ice Moon 1)
In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon.
The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon. If life does indeed exist on Enceladus, it could only be at the bottom of the salty, ice covered ocean, which formed billions of years ago.
However, shortly after takeoff disaster strikes the mission, and the chances of the crew making it to Enceladus, let alone back home, look grim.
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Ice Moon – The Boxset
All four bestselling books of the Ice Moon series are now offered as a set, available only in e-book format.
The Enceladus Mission: Is there really life on Saturn's moon Enceladus? ILSE, the International Life Search Expedition, makes its way to the icy world where an underground ocean is suspected to be home to primitive life forms.
The Titan Probe: An old robotic NASA probe mysteriously awakens on the methane moon of Titan. The ILSE crew tries to solve the riddle—and discovers a dangerous secret.
The Io Encounter: Finally bound for Earth, ILSE makes it as far as Jupiter when the crew receives a startling message. The volcanic moon Io may harbor a looming threat that could wipe out Earth as we know it.
Return to Enceladus: The crew gets an offer to go back to Enceladus. Their mission—to recover the body of Dr. Marchenko, left for dead on the original expedition. Not everyone is working toward the same goal. Could it be their unwanted crew member?
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Proxima Rising
Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth’s space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away. The unusual crew faces a Herculean task—should they survive the journey. No one knows what to expect from this alien planet.
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The Hole
A mysterious object threatens to destroy our solar system. The survival of humankind is at risk, but nobody takes the warning of young astrophysicist Maribel Pedreira seriously. At the same time, an exiled crew of outcasts mines for rare minerals on a lone asteroid.
When other scientists finally acknowledge Pedreira’s alarming discovery, it becomes clear that these outcasts are the only ones who may be able to save our world, knowing that The Hole hurtles inexorably toward the sun.
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Silent Sun
Is our sun behaving differently from other stars? When an amateur astronomer discovers something strange on telescopic solar pictures, an explanation must be found. Is it merely artefact? Or has he found something totally unexpected?
An expert international crew is hastily assembled, a spaceship is speedily repurposed, and the foursome is sent on the ride of their lives. What challenges will they face on this spur-of-the-moment mission to our central star?
What awaits all of them is critical, not only for understanding the past, but even more so for the future of life on Earth.
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The Rift
There is a huge, bold black streak in the sky. Branches appear out of nowhere over North America, Southern Europe, and Central Africa. People who live beneath The Rift can see it. But scientists worldwide are distressed—their equipment cannot pick up any type of signal from it.
The rift appears to consist of nothing. Literally. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Most people are curious but not overly concerned. The phenomenon seems to pose no danger. It is just there.
Then something jolts the most hardened naysayers, and surpasses the worst nightmares of the world’s greatest scientists—and rocks their understanding of the universe.
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Mars Nation 1
NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space.
But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed ‘Mars for Everyone’ initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.
Challenges arise even before they reach Mars orbit. The MfE spaceship Santa Maria is damaged along the way. Only the four NASA astronauts can intervene and try to save their lives.
No one anticipates the impending catastrophe that threatens their very existence—not to speak of the daily hurdles that an extended stay on an alien planet sets before them. On Mars, a struggle begins for limited resources, human cooperation, and just plain survival.
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A Guided Tour of Saturn
Saturn holds more wonder and intrigue than just glistening rings and its 82 moons. Visitors to its North Pole can view a hexagonal cloud pattern, while those traveling to its South Pole can take in the marvel of an ancient maelstrom. Of all the planets in our solar system, Saturn has the lowest density and the most flattened shape.
A quick visit to Saturn should include stops to see at least three things. The rings, of course, are a must-see attraction, just like the Washington Monument is part of every tourist’s list of things to see in Washington, D.C., but I wouldn’t put them at the top of my list, because we’ve known about them for a long time and you’ve probably already seen pictures. Plus, you should be able to get a good look at them on your arriving flight.
‘The hexagon,’ on the other hand, is shrouded in mystery. It rotates about the North Pole once every 10 hours and 39 minutes. Each of its six sides is made up of clouds and is 13,800 kilometers long, which is greater than Earth’s diameter. It hasn’t moved its position since it was first discovered in images from the Voyager probe.
Astronomers aren’t sure yet where the hexagon comes from. They’ve conjectured that maybe it’s some kind of standing wave—a phenomenon similar to surfing waves in rapidly flowing bodies of water, for example, Munich’s man-made, world-famous Eisbach River. At any rate, scientists have been able to produce such hexagonal patterns in rotating fluids in the laboratory.
The Eye of Saturn
In the middle of the hexagon is a vortex, although much smaller than its counterpart at the South Pole. But the northern storm provides an especially fascinating sight to tourists, because it gives the appearance that the planet is staring back at its observer. Researchers had long assumed that such eyes were a ty
pical feature of only Earth-bound anticyclonic storms—even Jupiter’s Great Red Spot doesn’t have such a structure.
Saturn’s eye is also the warmest point of the planet close to its surface. While everywhere else on the planet you would have to contend with temperatures around minus 185 degrees Celsius, here the weather is relatively balmy minus 122.
Storms are not uncommon on the Ringed Planet. With speeds up to 1800 kilometers per hour, it boasts the second-fastest winds in the solar system. Once every Saturn year, equivalent to 30 Earth years, around the time of the summer solstice, a Great White Spot can be seen, although it is not as long-lived as Jupiter’s famous spots. Particularly fast storms sometimes can even take on a bluish tint, probably due to the phenomenon of Rayleigh scattering, which is also responsible for the blue color of the Earth’s sky.
Three Kinds of Clouds
Storms form white spots and vortices in Saturn’s approximately 1,000-kilometers-thick atmosphere. It is primarily made up of hydrogen, with some helium and traces of other elements. Similar to Jupiter, the atmosphere consists of concentric bands, but Saturn’s are much finer. Satellite images have unveiled their layered structure.
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