The Life Below

by Alexandra Monir

  “Yes.”

  Remi was one of the astronauts on the doomed mission to Mars five years ago. The failure of that mission and the tragedy of losing their entire crew is what led to a complete reorganization of NASA, with Dr. Takumi replacing the previous leader, and partnering with General Sokolov and the other international space agencies to develop a new, airtight Plan B. But even though so much has changed since Athena, and we’re going to an entirely different place in the solar system, that never stopped Naomi from worrying about history repeating itself.

  “Well . . . Remi was my fiancé.”

  “Oh.” My breath catches. “I—I’m sorry.”

  You would think that with all the death I’ve seen, it would make it easier for me to talk about. But I still never have the right words.

  “Thanks,” she mumbles. “Anyway. I know they concluded the astronauts all died, but without any bodies or concrete proof, I always wondered if he might still be out there somewhere. That was one of my main reasons for staying with the ISTC—to see if the closer I got to Dr. Takumi, the more answers I’d find.”

  “Did—did it work?” I ask.

  She shakes her head bitterly. “I wish. And then, once I saw what happened to Suki and Callum at training camp, I knew the Final Six weren’t safe.” She looks up defiantly. “I had to do something to help—before the Europa Mission turns out like Mars.”

  The thought gives me a chill. So she thinks the same as Naomi.

  “Lark proved her ingenuity when she reached out to me the day after the Final Six selections were made,” Greta speaks up. “She was the first—and so far the only—person to figure out that I’m the mind behind the Space Conspirator.”

  Asher’s head jerks up.

  “What? You are?”

  I meet his eyes and nod. Naomi was the first one to tell me about the Space Conspirator—the anonymous science blog that went viral after the Athena disaster, when everyone was looking for answers to what happened. Even I, a thirteen-year-old kid in Italy at the time with no connection to NASA, can remember family conversations around the table at Sunday lunch, with all of us theorizing what went wrong for the doomed astronauts. Nowadays, Naomi says the website’s focus is on proving that life exists on Europa and beyond, that we’re not alone. I guess that’s where I come in.

  “How did you figure out it was Greta?” I ask Lark, suddenly remembering that Naomi doesn’t know. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her—

  “It was in the coding,” Lark says with a modest shrug. “There was a shorthand in the IP algorithm that reminded me of something similar I’d seen in the Pontus software, which I knew Greta programmed.”

  “Ah.” I nod, even though that just went over my head.

  “After she figured me out, Lark said she knew I was up to a countermission and wanted to help.” Greta gestures to me. “And you know the rest.”

  “Ash, what about you?” I ask, still incredulous that my old space camp roommate and buddy is here. “Does your brother know where you are?”

  “Yeah, but I swore him to secrecy. I think he was as excited as I was when we heard from Lark,” he says with a chuckle. “I mean . . . I wasn’t the same when I came home after eliminations. I wanted it so bad, and to be so close and then get cut—” He breaks off midsentence. “Well, I know you know how that feels.”

  “And now you’ve come all this way to help me go to Europa,” I say with a pang of guilt. “That must seem unfair, especially when you’re the one who actually knows how to fly a spacecraft. . . .” My voice trails off.

  “It’s okay,” he says, and I can tell he means it. “The ship basically runs by itself, aside from liftoff and docking—the two main things I’ll be training you in. It’s the other stuff, the dealing with unknowns underwater, that no one can really teach, but you can actually do. So it should be you. It should have been you from the start, instead of that obnoxious Beckett Wolfe.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him. “You might be an even better friend than I deserve.”

  “And now it’s time we got on with said training,” Greta says, glancing down at her wrist monitor. “It won’t be long before Dr. Takumi finds out that Leo never made it to Italy, and that Lark and Asher are missing too. Chances are, he’ll put two and two together and end up here. We need to get Leo launched, and the two of you out of here, before he does.”

  My chest tightens. I’ve put my friends at risk, and who knows what will happen to them once I’m off in space, unable to help them the way they’ve helped me? But when I look back at the two of them, I don’t see fear or doubt. They look proud, determined. And I’m so grateful, I can’t speak.

  Six

  NAOMI

  WE SIT AROUND THE TABLE EYEING EACH OTHER AS REALITY sinks in. There’s no Cyb or Tera here to break the tension, no Dr. Takumi or General Sokolov on-screen to distract us. We don’t even have a video screen in the dining room to connect us with the outside world, though the blinking red lights of the cameras are omnipresent as ever.

  It’s just the six of us, alone in the universe.

  Sydney is the first to break the silence. “It’s so quiet up here. Too quiet. Does anyone want some music or something?”

  “What kind of music?” Beckett asks skeptically while the rest of us immediately say yes, grasping at anything to make this night a little more bearable.

  Sydney glances up at the ceiling, wired with sensors built to listen to and follow our commands. “Dinner Music playlist.”

  A hypnotic mid-tempo track starts playing, the singer’s breathy vocals like silk against an electro beat. The background music makes it easier for us to talk, and Dev asks, “Why do you guys think we were the ones chosen?”

  When no one answers, he laughs. “Isn’t this the part where we all brag about ourselves?”

  “I think it’s obvious enough,” Jian says with a shrug. “It was just based on our skills and the roles the mission leaders needed to fill. I must have been the best pilot of the bunch, just like Sydney was at the top when it came to medicine and biology, and so on.”

  “Sure. But we were all up against stiff competition for our roles here,” Dev reminds him. “Isn’t it hard to say who was really better at what? I think there had to have been more to the decision. Our winning personalities, maybe?” He wiggles his eyebrows at Sydney, and she gives him a playful shove. Watching them, I’m reminded that they were on the same training team. They’re probably close, and relieved to have each other here. I push my plate away, my stomach suddenly hurting.

  “I think they knew exactly who they wanted from the beginning,” Beckett says, stretching his arms behind his head with his usual arrogant air. “Our time at space camp only confirmed it.”

  He meets my eyes, his pointed look daring me to contradict him. But even though I know he didn’t get here honestly, that he manipulated himself onto the team and Leo out of it, I don’t say anything. Yet.

  “What was the president talking to you about on Air Force One?” I ask instead, with all the faux-civility I can muster. “You seemed to be awfully deep in conversation.”

  “I was saying good-bye to my uncle,” Beckett says, as if anyone could forget their relation. “That’s it.”

  He’s lying. There was more to that conversation. I could feel it when I watched it take place—and I wonder if it’s the reason for Beckett’s sudden boost in status on the ship.

  “What I want to know is how two Americans ended up on this mission,” Minka says, looking from me to Beckett with an unfriendly gaze. “I thought it was supposed to be an international effort, but instead, we have three from primarily English-speaking countries?” She turns her glance on Sydney. “It seems NASA received preferential treatment, and none for Roscosmos or ESA.”

  “Uh, Canada has our own space agency, remember?” Sydney retorts. “You don’t need to lump me in with NASA.”

  “And it was supposed to be just one American,” I add under my breath.

  Beckett turns
his glowering stare on me.

  “What did you say?”

  I raise my chin, meeting his eyes.

  “I said it would have been just one American, if they’d chosen the underwater specialist who always came first in our training. Leo Danieli.”

  Beckett shoves his chair back from the table, anger twisting his face into something ugly.

  “Take that back,” he hisses. “You better apologize before I come up with a punishment for you. Did you already forget who’s in charge when Takumi and Sokolov aren’t around?”

  “Guys, guys.” Jian holds up his hands. “Calm down. No one is punishing anyone. It’s our first night here, we’re all away from home and going through something no one prepares you for—it’s only natural for there to be some tension. Let’s just . . . let it go.”

  “He’s right,” Sydney says. “C’mon, Beckett. Sit down.”

  For a minute I think he’s going to blow up at her, too. But then he drops back into his seat with a huff, shooting me a warning glare. I’m not looking at him, though.

  I’m watching as Dev and Sydney exchange a glance—a look I must have shared a hundred times with Leo when we were at space camp. The kind of glance that manages to say, How did we end up with these train wrecks and all their drama? and, at the same time, Thank God you’re here.

  And looking at them now, I’ve never felt more alone.

  Between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), the Pontus goes into Power-Conservation Mode, shutting down the lights and any nonessential equipment and electronics. The six of us retreat to our rooms an hour before then, attempting to settle in for our first night’s sleep in the most surreal of surroundings. But instead of getting into bed, I wait for the darkness to fall, and for the cameras to switch off with the lights. And then I slip out the door, feeling my way along the walls to the next compartment.

  I give Sydney’s door a light tap and she appears right away, wearing cozy blue pajamas with her black curls piled up in a messy bun. She motions me inside, where there’s barely enough floor space for both of us, and then perches at the foot of the bed with a flashlight, which bathes the room in an eerie glow.

  “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  She pats the comforter next to her, and as I sit down, my mind scrambles for the best way to begin. Part of me thinks I might be crazy to share all this with someone I barely know, but Sydney is the one injecting the alien bacteria into all of us. If there’s a single person on this ship who needs to hear the truth, it’s her.

  “Um. You know how Dev was asking why we think we each got chosen?” I start. “Well, in my case, it’s because of what I know—what I found out.” I raise my eyes to hers. “I’m the one who hacked Dot.”

  “What?” Sydney’s jaw drops. “Are you kidding?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  “How could you—why would you—do that?”

  “Because we’d just lost Suki and Callum, and I knew it had to do with the RRB and Europa,” I say, my voice coming out more defensive than I intended. I take a deep breath. “I could tell there was a lot that Dr. Takumi and the general were hiding, so I took matters into my own hands. I just didn’t think I’d get caught, or that anything would happen to Dot. . . .” My voice trails off in guilt, and I can’t help noticing how Sydney shifts away from me, closer to the edge of the bed.

  “And you’re saying Dr. Takumi drafted you to keep you quiet about whatever this—this intel is?” Sydney gives me a suspicious look, clearly doubting my story.

  “That, and the fact that I accidentally proved to him I’m the one for the job,” I say wryly. “Dr. Takumi knew that anyone who could hack into their high-security robotics system would be able to handle the tech on the ship.”

  “Okay . . . Go on.”

  “Before I tell you what I found out, will you promise to just keep an open mind, and also keep it between us?” I ask her. “What I’m about to say might sound far-fetched, but it’s all true and vetted.”

  Sydney looks like she’s ready to throttle me in anticipation. “Okay, just tell me already!”

  “So, before I even hacked Dot, I swiped a vial of RRB and studied it under my portable microscope. Something jumped out at me right away when I looked in the lens. The radiation-resistant bacteria had a nucleus. And not just one or two, but three nuclei.”

  Sydney’s head snaps up so fast, she could give herself whiplash. She knows as well as I do that there is no bacteria on Earth that contains a nucleus; it’s as much a law of science as the law of gravity. So to find a strain of bacteria with three nuclei . . . means it’s from another world.

  “After that discovery, I knew my next step was to find evidence of biosignatures from Europa, to prove that life does exist there, and to find out its connection to the RRB. And the only realistic way I could think of for getting my hands on that data was through the robots.”

  Sydney gives me a sideways look.

  “I don’t know whether I should be freaked out by you, or impressed.”

  “I guess you can be both?” I say with a sheepish grin.

  “So how did you possibly hack into Dot?” she presses. “We all assumed it was some sort of high-up cybercriminal.”

  “Er, not exactly. It’s a long story that involves my own hacking software, and taking advantage of a golden opportunity to sneak into the robotics lab when you were all in the emergency tunnel the night of the storm. But in short, my plan worked. And when I programmed Dot with the command to show me any data she had for biosignatures on Europa . . . well, she brought me this.”

  I reach into the pocket of my sweatshirt where I’ve carefully hidden the notes that I jotted down from memory: my closest account of all the letters, numbers, and symbols that flashed before me on Dot’s touch screen that night in Houston. Sydney snatches the paper from my hands and holds it under the flashlight. I watch her eyes widen in disbelief as she takes in the sketch at the center of the page: a cell, with an unprecedented three nuclei. Just like the RRB. And right underneath is the formula that fills in the missing piece; that answers humanity’s foremost question about Europa.

  C55H72O5N4Mg-CH4-

  Chlorophyll-Methane-Europa

  “Chlorophyll and methane found on Europa,” Sydney reads, her voice a whisper.

  “The biosignatures I was looking for.” I shiver at the memory.

  But a second later, Sydney is crumpling up the paper and tossing it back to me, a look of distrust on her face.

  “How do I know you didn’t just make this whole thing up? I have no reason to believe you.”

  “And I have no reason to lie!” I protest.

  “You could be playing a joke on me, or maybe this is some sort of . . . hazing ritual.” Sydney folds her arms over her chest. “I’m not falling for it.”

  “Why can’t you just consider the fact that I’m telling the truth? The RRB we’ve been injecting is alive, just like Suki tried telling me before she was sent away.” I can feel myself growing desperate—if I can’t convince our crew’s medical expert, what hope do I have? “It’s alive with the bacteria from Europa’s extraterrestrial life, and it’s changing us.”

  Sydney lets out a hollow laugh.

  “And what kind of life are you suggesting? Because any creature with three nuclei, that releases chlorophyll and methane and has a freaking tentacular club, would have to be some kind of monster.”

  “A tentacular what?”

  I follow Sydney’s pointed finger to one of the indecipherable images I’d seen flashing on Dot’s touch screen and attempted to sketch from memory: an elongated, curved blade covered in clustered circles.

  “Some of the things you’re forced to study in premed biology, you wish you could forget,” Sydney says darkly. “Like the semester spent on deep-sea gigantism, which included dissecting a giant squid. I swear, that terrifying thing gave me nightmares for a year.” She looks at me indignantly. “That’s how I know you’re making this up. Because that�
�—she slaps the paper—“looks exactly like the two tentacular clubs on the giant squid, suckers and all.” She points to the circles covering the curve, and I shake my head in disbelief. It never would have even occurred to me that that’s what it was.

  “I had no clue,” I tell her. “And I really doubt the same giant squids that we have on Earth are popping up on Europa. Whatever is there, it’s going to be different.”

  But it could be similar. It could look like a giant squid, and be just as violent and frightening to encounter.

  And then another thought rushes in that turns my insides cold.

  “What if—what if that’s one of the reasons you were chosen? Because they knew we might encounter these—these similar creatures, and you’re the one with experience?”

  “Stop it.” Sydney jumps off the bed, but this time her expression is more fear than fury. “I’ve had enough of this conversation. I don’t believe you, and honestly—I don’t want to.”

  I stand up, feeling thisclose to tears.

  “Should have known,” I mutter, heading for the door. And as it starts sliding closed behind me, I hear Sydney call my name. But I don’t look back.

  At breakfast the next morning, I’m greeted by five bleary-eyed, dazed faces. It’s clear my crewmates got about as much sleep as I did last night. It was impossible to relax in my tight quarters, with the feel of the walls closing in around me and the drone of foreign sounds, from the hum of our life-support systems to the whir of computer exhausts. Supposedly the sounds of space become like white noise for astronauts once they’ve been up here long enough—but I can’t imagine anything ever feeling normal about this.

  No one eats much of our vacuum-sealed, reheated bacon and eggs, and the conversation is equally sparse. I make a point of avoiding both Sydney’s and Beckett’s eyes, with the disheartening realization that I am friendless here. It’s a relief when the ship’s internal clock chimes the new hour, and I can push back from the table, with all of us due in the Communications Bay to upload the first of our daily instructions from Houston. My pulse quickens at the thought of the messages waiting for me—there has to be something new from home, and I still haven’t heard anything from Leo—until I remember that the servers don’t upload any personal mail until our “free time,” hours from now. I let out a frustrated sigh before sitting down at the largest of the touch-screen desks, the one reserved for communications and technology specialist.