The Life Below

by Alexandra Monir

  “C’mon.” Sydney grips my arm, and we take slow, careful steps toward the elevator pod. And then, once we’re close enough for the pod to register our footsteps, it lights up with its silvery glow, giving us a break from the dark. I breathe a sigh of relief as we step inside.

  “Where are we going, exactly?” I ask Sydney.

  “The Floating Lab,” she answers, and I raise my eyebrows. So far, only our science officer, aka Minka, and mission medical officer, Sydney, have been granted access to the lab. I was wondering when it would be my turn. Knowing my track record, I probably should have guessed that I’d end up sneaking my way in.

  We bump past the row of touch-screen desks in the Communications Bay, moving toward the hatch door that leads us out of our Astronauts’ Residence bubble and onto the humanless, uncharted side of the ship. Sydney aims our flashlights forward while I yank open the hatch, and as we crawl inside, through the tunnel that connects all the different modules of the ship—our bodies start to rise. There’s a rush in my stomach, the air escapes my lungs, as zero gravity returns. It’s a feeling I can’t imagine ever getting used to.

  We propel ourselves forward by pushing off handholds, floating past the artificial greenhouse, the payload bay, and the storage module until we get to the airlock that leads to the lab. I follow Sydney through the heavy circular door and wave my flashlight ahead, catching glimpses of a working zero g science lab through the pale beam of light. Wires coil from floor to ceiling, fold-down lab tables extend from the walls, monitor screens and magnifying mirrors swivel above our heads, and at least two dozen science instruments wait within arm’s reach, secured to a Velcro partition of the wall. I’m so fixated on our surroundings that, for a second, I forget the real reason we’re here.

  Until Sydney presses her palms against a padded white section of the wall, which swings open to reveal a lab fridge. She pulls out a glass petri dish, the bottom of it filled with a familiar blue liquid. And then she pushes the middle of one of the folded-up lab tables till it springs into working position, grabs a microscope off one of the wall shelves, and practically pushes me in front of it, where I cling to a handrail to keep from floating away. Watching Sydney in action, it occurs to me that I might have been wrong before, thinking I didn’t belong with the others here. I’m clearly not the only one willing to break the rules and put myself in dicey situations, all in the name of science—and the truth.

  “You were right about the three nuclei,” Sydney murmurs behind me as I adjust the lens. “Once I saw that, I was . . . well, freaked-out would be an understatement. All I could think was that I had to know what kind of life this bizarro cell represents if I’m going to keep giving us these injections. So then I thought, if you were right about the RRB coming from Europa, I could try replicating the atmospheric conditions of Europa on the microscopic level. I just changed the temperature of the water in the petri dish and mixed it with nutrients and a spare amount of oxygen and carbon—”

  My stomach comes crashing to the floor.

  “You just did all that? Sydney, please tell me you didn’t reanimate something when we don’t even know what it is!”

  Her silence confirms my fears. And as I lean into the lens, I can feel every muscle in my body tensing, bracing for the unknown.

  At first glance, it looks no different from the bacteria I saw under my own microscope when I investigated the RRB back at space camp: a reddish tube-shaped organism, with its unprecedented three nuclei in the middle of the cell’s cytoplasm. And then—

  I let out a scream, recoiling so fast that I lose my grip on the handrail. The dormant bacteria is twitching—once, then twice. And then it pounces to life. Six spindly tendrils sprout around its exterior, like limbs, and suddenly its tube-like shell is doubling in size, expanding right there beneath the glass.

  I spring backward in shock, the zero g sending me flying straight into the wall. I find a ladder to grasp on to and Sydney joins me on the other side, the two of us staring down at the abandoned lab table in fear.

  “I didn’t just see that,” I say when I find my voice.

  “It did the same thing with me, too,” Sydney says shakily. “But when I looked a second time, that . . . that thing had gone down to its normal size. So it must have the ability to change its size and shape at will.”

  “That’s not terrifying or anything.” I gulp. My body turns cold as it hits me just how alone Sydney and I are in here, with an unknown specimen growing as we speak. It takes every ounce of self-control to think clearly, to not just sprint out of the lab.

  “We need to confront the mission leaders about this. But first—we can’t let that thing continue growing when we’re all confined together on this ship. We have to . . .” My voice trails off because of course it’s the last thing I want to say. A discovery like this, a new form of life, is a scientist’s miracle. And I’m about to suggest killing it.

  “I thought you might say that.” Sydney drops her eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry I got us into this mess. I should have just believed you.”

  Um, yeah you should have. But I swallow the retort, forcing myself to remain calm. Besides, I’m not really one to talk, not after what I did to Dot.

  “It’s okay. Let’s just figure out what to do. I’m thinking our best option is to . . . dump it out the main airlock,” I say with a wince. “The one leading out into space.”

  “That means suiting up for a spacewalk,” Sydney says. “How will we manage all that with just the two of us and a couple of flashlights? Not to mention, the airlock is so close to the flight capsule.”

  “Right. Cyb.” I sigh heavily. Chances are the robot is still plugged into his charging pod for the night, but if he happens to be awake and manning the cockpit, there’s no way he won’t hear us—and getting cornered by Dr. Takumi’s AI crone would only make this night about ten times more complicated.

  I aim the flashlight around the lab, the thin light circling the space as I search for something we might be able to use. And then I pause as the pale glow lands on a bolted-down black-and-white machine, taking up a third of the lab’s north wall. It looks just like one of the vintage copy machines or printer/scanners back on Earth, but with an ironclad door securing what’s inside, and a dozen more buttons on the outside.

  “The catalytic oxidizer,” I murmur. “That could work.”

  “Really?” Sydney follows my flashlight’s beam with her eyes. “Have you used one of these before?”

  “Not yet—it’s really Minka’s territory—but I know how it works. It’s the device that uses a catalyst to decompose hazardous waste and convert it into methane gas for rocket fuel.” I look up, feeling my spirits rise. “So once we put the petri dish inside, the machine’s steaming, high-pressure air should kill the bacteria and turn it into methane!”

  “You sure that’s all it’ll turn into?” Sydney asks, biting one of her fingernails.

  “That’s all the oxidizer is made to do,” I tell her. “Besides, what other options do we have?”

  “True.” Sydney glances from the petri dish under the microscope to the oxidizer. “So all we have to do is get it inside?”

  I nod. We both hesitate, neither of us particularly eager to go near the alien organism again. But then I take a deep breath and push off the ladder toward the lab table. It was my idea, after all.

  Sydney follows, and I’m relieved when she makes the move toward the microscope, taking the petri dish in her hands. She keeps her eyes trained straight ahead, avoiding the scene within the glass, but her shallow gulps of breath let me know how scared she really is. I shine my flashlight on the petri dish, unable to stop myself from looking, and my heart jumps in my throat at the sight of skittering movement. Something as microscopic as bacteria cells should never be visible to the naked eye—which means the organism in Sydney’s hands is growing at an exponential rate.

  “Hurry,” I say through gritted teeth, giving her a slight push forward in the air toward the machine.

 
; It takes me another few minutes to figure out how to power on the machine, my heart hammering in my chest the whole time as I study the different buttons and acronyms on the display screen, all too aware of the ticking time bomb Sydney is holding. Finally the door opens with a pop, its interior already hissing with gathering steam.

  “Here goes.” I bite my lip, torn between relief and regret as Sydney gingerly slides the dish inside. My voice drops to a whisper as I look at the dark movement in the glass one last time. “I’m sorry . . .”

  I tell myself a dozen different things as the machine whirs into motion and the petri dish starts spinning, dissolving. I tell myself that the organism could have been dangerous, that it could have threatened our ship, our mission, our lives. We had to do this. It was our duty. We couldn’t afford to wait a moment longer and let the risk build.

  But none of that diminishes my guilt. Because what if I’m wrong? What if it only looks freakish and threatening, but really isn’t? What if we just killed a landmark scientific discovery for no reason?

  The machine emits a series of beeps, and then a tube running from the back of the oxidizer into the ship’s wall starts gurgling with activity. The converted methane. And a moment later, everything falls still. The sequence is complete.

  Sydney and I exchange a nervous glance before I open the door to the oxidizer. Inside, there is no longer any hint of the RRB or petri dish. All that’s left is the lingering steam.

  “Well, that’s probably the last time I reanimate something,” Sydney says, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “I should hope so.” I glance down at my wrist monitor. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. Maybe we can still manage to get in a couple hours of sleep before the wake-up call.”

  We float across the lab to the hatch door, neither of us looking back as we close it behind us. We cross through the ship’s modules in silence, and it’s not until we open the door to the Astronauts’ Residence and our feet hit the floor that things start to regain a smidge of normalcy. Riding back up the elevator pod together, Sydney gives my arm a squeeze.

  “Thanks, Naomi. I owe you one. Or five.” She pauses. “Friends?”

  “Of course.”

  As unsettling as that whole adventure was, at least I have an ally here now—something I’m beginning to realize how much I needed.

  We tiptoe off the elevator pod onto our floor, and I stop in front of my sleeping compartment.

  “See you in the morning,” I say through a yawn. “Goodnight, Sydney.”

  “Goodnight,” she echoes. “Sleep well.”

  But as my mind replays the scene we just left, something tells me we’ll be lucky to sleep at all.

  Nine

  LEO

  FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I MET HER, GRETA WAGNER APPEARS nervous. I catch her eyeing me warily during our morning training and I can’t help wondering if she’s changed her mind—if she’s figured out that I’m just a has-been athlete, not the astronaut prodigy she was hoping for. Her mind seems to be somewhere else while quizzing me on the different regions of Europa, and I brace myself for the blow I feel coming. I might have had my own reservations about putting my life in Greta’s hands after what happened to Johannes, but the thought of her dropping me from the mission reminds me again how much I want this—need this.

  And then I hear a howl, coming from the supposedly soundproof lab windows. Wind. In our new, climate-mangled Earth, that sound never means anything good.

  Greta’s eyes dart back and forth, from me to the brewing storm clouds visible through the lab’s skylight window. “We have to get you out of here before it hits.”

  True to her warning, we speed through the rest of my training day. From Cartography, where Greta shows me how to interpret and follow the hidden map crisscrossing Europa’s surface, to Space Survival 101 with Lark and a flight training sim with Asher that I actually pass this time, it all flies by in fast-forward.

  We’re just sitting down for a quick meal in the lab, brought to us by Corion on a gleaming silver tray, when our conversation is cut short by the sound of the wind. It’s been howling in the background all day, but this last gust is more like a scream, echoing at a pitch that could shatter glass.

  We all look up to see darkness falling across the skylight window, even though it’s only the middle of the day. Greta points to the wall, muttering something in German, and suddenly a video screen lowers over it, flickering with images from the news. That’s when we see what’s really happening outside—the clouds unleashing their fury once again.

  I grip the side of the table with white knuckles, watching as the scene shifts from violently swaying trees to roofs ripping off their structures in Salzburg, just a couple of hours away from here. A map fills the screen, and as it zooms in on Vienna, the city outside our door, the footage flashes to the clouds swirling and funneling into something new.

  “The tornado first made landfall in Munich and is moving swiftly east toward Vienna—”

  Greta drops her plate with a clang. “The ship!”

  She pushes back from the table and the rest of us follow suit, our chairs scraping against the metal floor as Corion shouts directions to his staff into a headset. “Engage the secondary barriers. Unlock the storm shelter!” He gestures for us to follow him, but after a split-second decision, I turn on my heel and make a run for the concealed cabinet Greta showed me. The one that holds my space suit and life-support pack.

  “What are you doing?” I hear Asher yell behind me, but I don’t stop moving until I’m in front of the hidden cabinet, pushing it open with my palm.

  “Leo.” Greta catches up to me, studying my face intently. “Are you certain?”

  “We can’t wait any longer,” I answer. “I know this tornado could wreck our ship, or cost us our launch window, or both. Let me go now, while I still have a chance.”

  She hesitates, and for a moment I’m sure she’s going to say no. But then she gives a slight nod, and starts calling out instructions.

  “Corion, prepare our transfer to the launchpad. Lark and Asher, help Leo suit up. Let’s go!”

  With the two of them on either side of me, helping me into the thirty-pound, blue-gray pressure suit and its attached survival backpack, it hits me with dizzying force: This is real. This is actually happening.

  Lark and Asher help me lock in my communications cap and full pressure helmet as I step into heavy black space boots and slip on pressure gloves. Then, after Greta’s looked me over and checked my oxygen levels—we’re off.

  We march out the lab doors, with Greta, Asher, and Lark surrounding me like I’m a prizefighter and they’re my ring crew. Corion is waiting in the front seat of a self-driving, six-tire All-Terrain Mobility Platform, a modern version of the open-air army vehicles you’d find in a war zone. It takes all four pairs of hands to help me climb up to my seat in the gathering storm, my heavyweight gear making each movement intense with effort. And then the wheels start skidding up the path from Greta’s lair, the wind whipping us through curves as we traverse the one-mile stretch of canopied trees to reach the main attraction: her private lake, with its own rocket barge. There, like a beacon beneath the clouds, is the WagnerOne: a sleek, compact, and mighty rocket ship built for another world.

  “Holy . . . wow.” Asher whistles under his breath. “Can you believe this, dude?”

  “No.” I shake my head in disbelief. If my parents and Angelica could see me now . . .

  Greta leads me inside to the flight deck and cockpit, which looks like a shrunken replica of the Pontus flight capsule, while another hatch opens into a small, one-room cabin with a bolted-down single bed, kitchenette, shower, and toilet. It is stark and minimalist, with no added comforts like on the Pontus, but I know why. The viability of the WagnerOne lies in its weight and speed. The smaller and faster we can be, the quicker we’ll catch up to the Pontus, and the less effect our added weight will have on their trajectory when the two of us—incrociamo le dita, fingers crossed!—manage to dock.<
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  Heading back to the flight deck, I nearly jump out of my skin when a gray square console that I thought was part of the cockpit starts walking toward us.

  “Commander Danieli,” the square . . . thing says. A metallic light darts from its surface as it speaks. “I look forward to serving you.”

  I spin around to face Greta.

  “A robot? I’m flying with an AI?”

  “His name is Kitt,” Greta replies. “We didn’t have the room for a humanoid, but Kitt is a very capable bot who will be able to assist you with day-to-day tasks aboard the ship.”

  I throw my arms around her, feeling a rush of gratitude. Greta looks slightly bewildered at first, but then she gives me a tentative hug in return. When she steps back, I’m surprised to see a glint of tears behind her glasses. I look away, knowing she wouldn’t want me to notice.

  “I thought I was going to be completely alone up there,” I say. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about Kitt sooner!”

  “Well, I didn’t want you to get lax in your training,” she says with a wry smile. “Also, Kitt has only been programmed with enough memory and battery life to last until Europa. After that, he’ll be deactivated, so you can’t get too attached.”

  “Oh.” I pause. “Well, still. Thank you.”

  She nods. “Are you ready to say your good-byes?”

  “Wait.” I lower my voice, looking outside the capsule door to where Asher and Lark are standing. “What’s going to happen to them after this? Will you keep them safe?”

  “You have my word,” she promises. “They will both be employed by Wagner Enterprises for as long as they’d like, with their choice of lodgings and my private security detail looking after them as well.”

  I release my breath.

  “Okay. And there’s—there’s one other thing I need you to do for me.”

  Greta raises an eyebrow.