Titan Cruel Moon

by Kate Rauner

  Titan

  Kate Rauner

  Copyright Kate Rauner 2018

  License Notes

  Welcome

  Start Reading

  Table of Contents

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Learn about Titan

  Also by Kate Rauner

  Thanks

  Connect with Kate

  Copyright and License Notes

  Epigraph

  The unspoken promise is that things will be different... But things won’t be different on those distant planets. They’ll be exactly the same, just worse, always worse. Sam Kriss on colonizing other worlds

  Chapter 1

  F ynn pushed back from the space plane's window, ignoring the cold against his fingertips. He'd never been in orbit before and was lucky this tour came before the fall semester began. Public news about the Herschel was as close as he'd gotten to his father's project, or to his dad, in months, so to visit the ship before it left Earth orbit was doubly thrilling.

  In the seat beside him, his sister leaned forward.

  "Want to swap seats?" he asked, continuing to stare at the ship. "Are you getting a good view?"

  The Herschel looked like a fleet of gleaming white submarines bundled together. The ship lay alongside the Collins Spaceport, a tee-shaped collection of living and working modules providing final assembly for interplanetary spacecraft. From the space plane's approach vector, the spaceport and ship were silhouetted against the huge, nearly full Moon, and connected by a passageway fragile as a straw.

  "You keep the window," his sister said. "I've been here before."

  "You never told me that."

  His sister, Maliah, was pushing thirty but as enthusiastic as a kid. "There's lots I haven't told you. I'll race you to the ship when we dock. There's a surprise waiting for you."

  "We're supposed to wait in the dock for an orientation lecture. The flight attendants said they have an important announcement."

  "I'll explain everything you need to know."

  Since setting foot in the space plane, Fynn felt as bouncy as his sister. Excitement agitated his queasy, zero-g stomach, but he never could resist one of Maliah's adventures. "Okay. You're on." They strapped in for docking.

  The other passengers, including their mother, floated obediently through the ample airlock to a well-marked waiting area for their orientation lecture. Maliah pushed Fynn the other way.

  They entered a wide white tube, bare except for lines of lights and rings of handholds enameled in safety-yellow. He kicked off to follow her.

  He'd studied diagrams of the ship. They'd be entering the Herschel's central core, an open recreational space with nothing to run into, so he slapped both hands on each railing ring, gaining speed.

  Maliah snagged his arm as he emerged and spun them close to the hull. "Surprise."

  Fynn's chest tightened. This wasn't a recreation bay. Streamlined coffins ringed the central module like spokes of a wheel, each with a panel of steady green lights and a bright yellow gear bag clipped alongside. Another level of shiny steel pods hung above them, and another, as far as he could see up the Herschel's dark core.

  Fynn stared through layers of pods, trying to understand what he saw. "Where are we?"

  Maliah was triumphant. "The Herschel's a colony ship. We're going to Titan."

  She hugged him tight, losing her handhold, and they floated along a sleek pod. The center of the module was empty and wide enough for several people, a shaft running through the shadowy core. Clammy, stagnant air left Fynn shivering in his sweatshirt and jeans.

  He gripped Maliah with one shaky hand, twisting for a better view of the endless pods. "But, the Herschel's a research vessel, built to study the Saturn system."

  "So the mongrels think."

  "Don't call them that."

  "Why not? They call us a cult."

  "My friends at university don't."

  "You've spent too much time away. You called outsiders mongrels when you lived at home. You're back with us now, back with your Kin, and headed to our new home."

  "But..." Fynn gulped. "My PhD classes start in two weeks."

  "That doesn't matter anymore."

  "I promised Dad. He picked my thesis topic."

  "You always were daddy's good little boy. Well, Dad's waiting for us." Maliah kicked against a pod and towed Fynn upward, toward the Herschel's bow, rising past level after level of pods.

  He swallowed hard, his mind scrambling for words. "But, the research consortium. They expect a crew of scientists to board next week. What about the mission's corporate sponsors? Subscribers worldwide?"

  "Not to mention the latest crypto-currency bubble," Maliah said. "Won't they be surprised?"

  Fynn grabbed a pod and jerked her to a stop. "I've seen media coverage of this mission. I've seen the inside of this ship, and this isn't it." He waved into the shadows in confusion.

  Maliah beamed. "That's been my job. Creating fake feeds to convince everyone it's a science mission while we really packed the Hershel for a colony."

  She kicked off hard, pulling him loose. "Our suppliers were all kept in the dark. We only allowed specially approved workers onboard, and they're all Kin. Then, to bring up the rest of us, Doctor Tanaka had to overrule the mission's Board of Directors. It was quite a battle arranging tours." She giggled. "So I'm told. But even a mongrel can't be fooled forever. We've got to hurry and break orbit."

  Light-headed and queasy-stomached again, Fynn allowed her to tow him along. He wasn't convinced, even as they cruised past the steel pods reflecting glints of LEDs. What about school? What about his father's instructions? It was too much to believe on his sister's word.

  "Look, there's Dad." She slapped a pod to hurry into several crossing beams of light.

  The tightness in Fynn's chest became painful. Why hadn't Dad told him any of this?

  Their father waved a thin arm, his khaki sleeve flapping. Other figures in white coveralls floated below him next to rings of pods slotted open from end to end under narrow spotlights. They were medics from the Kin's own clinic, and one of them snagged Maliah.

  "Maliah Rupar? Fynn Rupar? If you'd take your shirts off, please." She was only a few years older than Fynn, had been in the Kin's school barracks with them, and certainly knew who they were, so he ignored her question. After a lifetime of training, however, he followed instructions automatically and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. His brand-new, cardinal red sweatshirt with engineering stenciled down one arm.

  When he pulled himself around to face his father, he was looking in a mirror. They'd both inherited sharp black eyes and dark skin from the Indus Valley. A smile spread over his father's broad face, however, while Fynn bit his lip. "Maliah says we're going to Titan."

  Dad gripped the closest pod and clapped him on the shoulder. "That's right. We'll have a world all our own to conquer. It's the greatest challenge in human history."

  The medic frowned. "Chief Engineer Rupar, I
must insist we proceed."

  Fynn hugged himself with one arm, secured by the medic's grip on his other side. "What about our plans? You want me to get a doctorate, and I've worked hard." Angry words flashed through his mind, tangling his tongue. But he adored his father and, since childhood, wanted to please him. "Why didn't you tell me? Ow!"

  The medic had pressed an injector against his arm.

  His father's smile flattened. "I'm sorry for the deception. You have a right to be angry. But we had no choice. Our secret was hard enough to keep, and you were leaving for university. Now, what you learned there qualifies you to be on my team, to get this colony up and running."

  Fynn's throat closed around his protests. To work with his father, who'd spent so much time away from home, was something he'd always wanted.

  "I'll be on the surface when you wake up. We can talk then. Right now, I must apologize to your mother."

  Passengers from the space plane approached, floating or clutching handholds, some with faces full of confusion, others glistening as tears crawled across their cheeks in zero-g. Graceful and athletic, their mother was at the front of the crowd. Maliah got there first to greet her.

  There was a lot of Mom in Maliah. His sister's face had more color and her hair was golden rather than pale blond, but she resembled their mother while Fynn did not. A few dark Indian faces stared out from the crowd behind them, and even fewer with the Asian heritage Kin termed Samurai. Most showed the pale coloring of his mother's Viking ancestors.

  Mom waved to him from inside Maliah's arms. Her face was ashen. She hadn't known. He wasn't the only one who didn't share his father's secret.

  The medic slid a half-mask over Fynn's head and he jerked his attention back to her. "If you don't want to drown in stasis fluid," she said. "This mask must fit tightly."

  "Stasis?" Fynn understood the open pod for the first time. The inside was smooth with a half-dozen slender tubes floating along the walls. It would be a tight fit. "I can't get in that thing. Is stasis even approved for human use?"

  "There's no way to accommodate over four hundred people on an eighteen-month flight without it. Now, don't worry. Stasis development is well advanced, and we won't seal you inside until you're asleep."

  The medic continued talking about aerosols in the breathing air and modified metabolism rates. Fynn knew he should be terrified, but his pounding heart slowed as a sense of contentment spread through his chest and warmed his face. He wanted to ask what was in the injection, but his tongue refused to respond, and he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 2

  A medic rubbing her with towels brought Maliah fully awake. Her head was congested, and her body felt cold and numb. "Are we there?" Her voice sounded far away.

  "Sure are, parked in orbit above Titan. The pilots have been awake for some time. They're ready to take you down." The medic pulled coveralls over her legs as Maliah steadied herself against the pod.

  It was disappointing not to feel excited, but stasis aftereffects left her mind blunted. She'd been told to expect that, and so had planned what her first move would be after she woke.

  Across the module, her mother was toweling Fynn dry. Fynn looked dazed, but her mother's lips were pressed into a flat line. Maliah expected her to be angry since she hated to lose control, but didn't want to deal with it. "Mom, I'm going to the shuttle."

  Maliah maneuvered forward without a sideways glance until she reached the Herschel's dock.

  The dock was a round, empty room with four evenly spaced hatches. Maliah kicked toward the one door standing open. Through a short airlock, she entered the shuttle and glided into a center row of passenger berths arranged like bunk beds stacked three high and four long. Using fingertips, she moved along an aisle to the bridge door, which also stood open, and then through a short tunnel between life-support compartments to a bright, open command deck.

  "Permission to come aboard?"

  In slow motion, the pilot spun up from one of the seats. He was a chubby man with graying hair and smile lines crinkling the corners of his eyes.

  "Hi Maliah. How're you feeling?"

  Her muscles ached, her sinuses throbbed, and one ear was clogged. "Terrible, thanks, Evan. Yourself?"

  "Almost normal, but then, I've been awake for three weeks."

  "I was hoping for a view." Enormous monitors covered the front and side bulkheads and the overhead of the bridge. "Flip on the cameras."

  "Not much to see until we leave dock. The rest of the Advance Team can't be far behind you. I should get in the back and encourage everyone to strap in." Evan pushed off, gliding directly through the center of the hatch frame.

  Maliah followed and found several people had drifted in. Fynn faced his best friend Drew. They'd oriented their feet against the deck as if they were standing. Drew was tall like Fynn with the same lanky build, so school coaches had always teamed them up for sports. Her brother had given Drew's long nose a permanent crook in a boxing lesson.

  She was glad Dad assigned Drew to the Advance Team with Fynn. Those two had met on her brother's seventh birthday, the day he'd moved into the Kin's barracks, and they'd been inseparable until university. Since Drew's parents returned to the adult barracks right after he moved, he'd always came home with Fynn on barracks breaks, so Maliah knew him as well as she knew her own brother.

  She glided along the aisle. "Hey guys, how're you feeling?"

  Drew snuffled mightily. "Like I've got the worst flu." He exaggerated everything, but since Maliah felt awful too, she nodded in sympathy.

  "And I can't feel my left foot," he said.

  Fynn rubbed his thigh. "I've got a numb spot on my leg. But the medic says it should clear up over time."

  "Hey, Drew." Maliah aimed to distract them from any worries. "There's some dirt on your lip."

  He stroked his sandy brown mustache. "Ha ha. I'll have you know it only took me three months to grow this."

  The pilot came by, asking them to strap into a berth.

  "Fine by me," Drew said. "I want a bottom bunk." He tossed his yellow gear bag and rebounded into Fynn before maneuvering under the straps and rolling to face the hull.

  Maliah shook her head. "That guy can sleep anywhere."

  "There are only three medics waking people," Fynn said. "Well, four with Mom helping. They said they're bringing thirty-six people out of stasis today."

  Maliah nodded. "That's right. The Advance Team's supposed to shuttle down together."

  "It'll take an hour. Does this sleeve work?" Fynn held out his left arm, pointing to a section of his coveralls. Fiber-based electronics were super-pliable, but in new cloth, they left a telltale stiffness.

  Maliah grinned. "Yes, absolutely, and it runs off body heat. Activate it with your thumb here, in the corner."

  Fynn pressed the spot and organic LEDs lit up a narrow display down his forearm. He touched a music icon. "Hey, that looks like my playlist."

  "I have something for you." Maliah fished through her bag and held out a data cube, a high-density unit no bigger than a thumb tip, with its tiny green access light glowing. "I downloaded all the books and media from your cloud account before we left."

  "You hacked my account?"

  "Yes, and you're welcome. I have Drew's too."

  "He'll appreciate that. I do, too." Fynn might have been working up some anger over the hack, but now, whether because of her gift or stasis dullness, he deflated. "Really I do. Thanks."

  "Anything for my little brother." She'd always brought him gifts. When he was a little kid, still at home after she'd moved to the barracks, Maliah would sneak across the playing fields with a caterpillar in a bottle or a cookie from the big kids' mess hall. Of course, she didn't get the same intense adoration from him now, but she smiled, warm inside.

  "But, couldn't I download files myself over the Herschel's comms?" he asked.

  "Sorry, Fynn. We don't expect the mongrels to fund communications with us. Not after we hijacked the Herschel. But I brought a
pretty good cybernet system for the colony, with as much popular media as I could store after uploading all the technical stuff. And you have your cube. So there's plenty of entertainment."

  Fynn's eyes widened. "No comms with Earth? You really stole this ship? Won't the consortium report a hijacking to the government? Send someone after us?"

  "Ha! Officials will say it's not their problem. As for the consortium, where would they get another ship? You think the Mars colony will give up one of theirs to chase us? Besides, as soon as we left, the mongrels probably started suing each other. So no one's coming. You'll feel better once your head clears. Get into the center bunk. I'll take the top, but I'm going to the bridge first."

  She took a long look around this time. The four chairs were large and comfortable, each with a five-point harness and one wide arm inset with a touch screen and a few toggle switches. Otherwise, the bridge was barren of gauges and switches, or any obvious control devices. They were pretty much riding inside a robot, with the shuttle's artificial intelligence housed behind bulkhead panels.

  Maliah slipped into a harness and closed her eyes. With nothing to do but wait, her muscles unwound. They'd succeeded. She felt light inside, not just from zero-g, and pressed a palm against her chest to feel her heartbeat. In a few minutes, she fell asleep.

  ***

  Maliah woke at a sharp clunk and fumbled for her harness straps.

  "I disengaged the docking clamps," Evan said. "Our maneuvers are pre-programmed until we clear the ship. Relax and watch the monitors."

  The shuttle's tapered rear hatch lip slid free from the dock without a tremor. Then Saturn slid out from behind the Herschel, and Maliah forgot everything else. The shuttle's cameras caught the planet fully illuminated, its beige face streaked with bands and braids of subtle color. The equator bulged, making Saturn a flattened sphere that overflowed the monitor's screen. Here in Titan's orbit, close to Saturn's equatorial plane, she viewed the rings edge-on, a narrow group of light and dark strands across the planet's swollen midline.

  Evan slipped his hand into a control glove. Saturn swung away, stars filled the screen, and then Titan coasted into view, a brownish disc thanks to its perpetual hydrocarbon haze. They were so close to the moon that its image curved across the screen.