The Life Below

by Alexandra Monir

I slump into a seat, folding my arms, as Dr. Takumi continues.

  “If he’s acting on her commands, then he’s not to be trusted, and your mission cannot afford another mistake. I understand how lucky it must have seemed when he showed up, and we certainly appreciate his help enabling the Pontus to reestablish ground communication.” He pauses. “But it may not be worth the risk of adding an entirely new crewmate whose recent training opposes yours.”

  “What is he even saying?” Naomi sputters. “Is he actually advocating for—for the murder of Leo?”

  “It’s not murder when he chose to come here himself,” Beckett argues. “He knew the risks.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I stand and move toward the door, unable to stomach any more. But before leaving, I catch Dr. Takumi’s last words.

  “As for Cyb . . . All of us at ISTC are deeply disturbed to hear about the AI’s malfunction. We’re launching a full investigation to determine if a hacker could be responsible for the machine’s behavior, and if so, who’s the culprit. In the meantime, you did the right thing by disposing of Cyb, though I caution you, Naomi, against keeping the isolated hard drive. If it’s been compromised, you don’t want a trace of it on the ship.”

  Naomi’s mouth falls open.

  “How did he know?”

  When the others look at her quizzically, she says in a voice barely above a whisper, “I never said anything in last night’s message about keeping the hard drive. The only explanation is that he must have . . . seen me.”

  “But our ground communications were still dark then, remember?” Minka says. “We didn’t connect to Leo’s antenna until after Cyb was taken apart.”

  “Exactly.” Naomi looks up, her eyes searching for the blinking overhead camera lights. “What if there was a way to cut us off from Earth—but only one-way? Meaning we couldn’t see them and send or receive any messages, but they could see us. What if Takumi and Sokolov have been watching us this entire time?”

  “How would they be able to?” I ask from the doorway, too curious about this new wrinkle to leave the room.

  “Remember how I was so sure that the AIs came with their own wired-in comm system, independent of our antenna?” Naomi asks the others. “Well, I don’t think I was wrong about that. I think . . .” She takes a deep breath. “I think Cyb was following Takumi and Sokolov’s command when he destroyed our antenna. It was an inside job. They could have easily controlled him from Houston, including disabling his radio signal when they saw me going to check it. They kept us isolated in this bubble of no contact and fear, and all the while, they were watching.”

  There’s a stunned silence, and I can see from their expressions that Naomi’s crewmates don’t know what to believe.

  Beckett speaks first. “That’s an ugly accusation you just leveled at the people controlling our ship.”

  Naomi lifts her chin.

  “Yes. And I’d bet my life that it’s true. Why else would Dr. Takumi want me to destroy Cyb’s hard drive? I was only keeping it to investigate whose commands he was acting on, and I think it’s pretty clear now. If I’m right, better for them to know we’ve figured out the truth—and we won’t be controlled anymore.”

  “But why would they want to cut us off from communicating with Earth?” Jian shakes his head. “I mean, what would be the point?”

  “Information is power, isn’t it?” I speak up. “What if there was information they wanted to keep from you . . . maybe even the knowledge that I was on my way?”

  Naomi’s breath quickens.

  “Not only that—my brother was looking into something for me. For us. He was sending me his research on the kinds of alien life that could exist on Europa. The text was encrypted, but what if the messages were still intercepted?”

  Beckett groans loudly.

  “And what are you suggesting they would have a problem with there? You wasting your time on sci-fi?”

  “If Sam was getting warmer, and I convinced you all of it, we might have bailed on the mission ourselves. That would be the problem.” Naomi gives Sydney a meaningful look, as if she knows what Naomi is referring to.

  “We’re never going to know for sure, though, are we?” Sydney points out. “Not unless they can produce some proof that you’re wrong. So all we can do now is . . . keep questioning? Not just blindly follow the authority figures?”

  Naomi nods.

  “At the very least. We’ve been through enough, we know enough, to start making our own decisions.”

  “Is this your full-circle way of saying we should keep Leo on the mission?” Minka says, a snide edge to her voice, and I flinch.

  “That’s part of it,” Naomi admits. “But it’s about more than that. From now on, with every step or major decision that needs to be made, I say the answer lies with us—in a group vote. I don’t know about you, but I’m done having my fate decided by just one or two more ‘powerful’ voices.”

  And as she tosses her hair and strides across the room toward me, head held high—I’ve never been more in awe.

  Twenty-Five

  NAOMI

  ONE MONTH BEFORE APPROACHING JUPITER ORBIT, THE energy on the Pontus starts to shift. The days that once seemed to stretch so long are whipping by, full of plans and preparations: VR simulations to rehearse our upcoming landing and to practice driving rovers across Europa’s rough terrain and submersibles through her icy waters; mornings sweating under the lights of the solar greenhouse where we take turns trying to shore up our food supplies; and, in my case, reading everything I can get my hands on about the prehistoric creatures Sam found that resemble the RRB. But while there’s plenty to read about the creatures’ physical attributes, there’s nothing to say how they would react to humans in their midst. On a scale from benign to terrifying, I don’t know whether we’re dealing with the likes of dolphins or sharks. But there’s one thing I’m sure of: with Leo here, I can face anything.

  The Pontus has changed for me, too, since his ship docked with ours. Instead of the cold, austere vessel I boarded months ago, the ship now feels like a living, breathing home. There are still two missing pieces: Dev, and the old Sydney. Her grief has formed a shell around her, like a cloak she can’t hang up. And I know why she avoids Leo and, by extension, me. She can’t stand to be around the person who unwittingly took his place. I wish there was something, anything, I could do to make it better—but as my mom would say, time fixes all. I just have to wait.

  The morning of “T-minus thirty days” is the same milestone date when we’re expected to double up our RRB doses, to guard against the punishing radiation ahead. Instead of sharing a table with Leo, I slide in next to Sydney at breakfast. She peers up at me over her book with a “Can I help you?” expression, and I feel a twinge in my chest, remembering when we used to be friends.

  “What should we do?” I ask under my breath. “With what we know about the RRB, doesn’t it seem like a dangerous move to increase the doses? I mean, it already feels like we’re taking a giant risk every time we inject just a low dose of the serum . . .”

  “I don’t know.” Sydney fiddles with her curls, thinking. “I’ve spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons, but the one inescapable fact is that Europa’s radiation will torch us if we don’t have the antidote. And, creepy as this one is . . . well, it hasn’t hurt any of us here so far, has it?”

  “But how do we know the dosage amount isn’t all that’s keeping us from ending up like Suki or Callum?” I worry.

  “We don’t. But until you can think of another way to solve the radiation problem, I’m going to have to follow the rules on this one. And, who knows.” She gives me a wry half smile. “Maybe having some of those alien cells in our blood will turn out to be a good thing.”

  “Hard to imagine that,” I say with a shudder.

  I can barely watch as Sydney sinks the needle into Jian’s arm that night. Leo reaches for my hand, and though we usually make a point of avoiding PDA around the others, this time I hold ti
ght to his palm. I’m dreading the moment when it’s us up there, but more than that, I’m afraid of the unknown after.

  I squeeze my eyes shut when it’s my turn, not wanting to look as the alien blue serum pierces through my skin. But I soon realize it was a mistake to close my eyes.

  I’m swimming straight into a climbing, breathing black fog. Puffs from the rising cloud fill my lungs, foreign particles crawl against my skin, and I wonder if anyone will hear if I scream underwater—

  “Naomi! You okay?” Sydney’s hand grips my arm. “You’re sweating.”

  I blink, and the scene vanishes.

  “Y-yeah,” I mumble. “That was just . . . weird.”

  It was like the vision I had right after my first shot in space. Only this time, it seems to pick up right where the other left off.

  T-Minus Twenty-Four Hours Till Europa

  Our last night on the ship brings the six of us together in a way we haven’t been before. It’s Jian who suggests we make a final visit to the Observatory as a group, and we stop there before dinner, pressing our hands against the glass and comparing the goose bumps forming across our skin at the sight. After everything we’ve been through, it’s surreal to be this close to our final destination—close enough now to see Jupiter’s massive swirl of color as the dazzling gas giant rotates in the distance. And I know I’m a different Naomi today than I was in those first weeks when I’d linger here, desperate for home.

  While the Observatory visit is full of giddy excitement, dinner is when the nerves start to creep back as reality closes in: we are about to leave the cocoon of the ship and set foot on an alien world—where anything can happen.

  None of us six manages to eat more than a bite of our last dinner on the Pontus, and when the lights power off for bed, I can only toss and turn. Finally, after hours of struggling to fall asleep, I slip out of my cabin and make my way through the ship to the airlock, climbing out the other side to the sight that always makes me smile.

  I find Leo restlessly pacing his flight capsule, checking different dials on the control panel even though there’s no need—the Pontus is steering him now. But when he sees me, his face relaxes, and the worry lines disappear.

  He takes my hand, leading me back to the one-man crew quarters, with its single bunk bed, small kitchen table, gym equipment, and tiny makeshift lounge area.

  “I still can’t believe you stuck it out in here all those weeks before making it to Mars, not even knowing if Greta’s plan would work.” I shiver. “We could have missed each other in space. We—”

  “But we didn’t.” He laces his fingers in mine. “It worked out . . . just like it will on Europa.”

  “I hope so.” I swallow hard. “Did you know that landing a spacecraft is statistically the most dangerous part of a mission?”

  He pauses.

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “Well, how . . . how do we know we’ll survive tomorrow?”

  “We don’t know,” Leo concedes. “But I believe we will. If anyone has a fighting chance of surviving, well—I think we’ve proven it’s us.” He wraps his arm around me, pulling me in close. “And if this is our last night . . . then I’m just glad to be spending it with you.”

  I look up at him with a smile.

  “I love you, you know.”

  Leo gives me a grin that nearly melts my insides.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Do you ever wish that we could just . . . be together, without the colossal stress of trying to survive in space? You know, like normal couples before the world went mad: going on dates, sharing ordinary things like our favorite foods, TV shows, music . . .” I trail off.

  “All the time,” he answers. And then he stands up straighter, a sudden light glimmering in his eyes. “How about . . . now?”

  “Now?” I raise an eyebrow at him, gesturing at the space around us. “This doesn’t exactly scream ‘normal date night atmosphere.’ Especially considering the fact that we’re somewhere with literally no atmosphere.”

  “I know imagination doesn’t come naturally to scientists,” he teases me. “But just for tonight, pretend you’re with me in Rome.” He moves closer, running his hand up and down my cheek, and I lean into him, closing my eyes. “You’re at my apartment on Via Piacenza, I’ve poured you an aperol spritz . . .”

  I giggle as he reaches over to a cabinet and pulls out two gravity-mimicking Space Cups and packets of lemonade. He pours us each a glass, and raises his toward mine. “Saluti.”

  I clink my glass against his, and then he turns to the desktop computer.

  “Now for mood music . . .”

  I stop still, my mouth falling open, as a song I could never forget starts to play over the speakers.

  “Te voglio bene assai,

  ma tanto tanto bene sai.”

  Leo pulls me in for a slow dance, his hands encircling my waist. I wrap my arms around his neck. “Almost normal,” I whisper with a smile.

  He hums along, just as I imagined he would back when he sent me the song. His warm breath tickles my ear, and I lift my chin, tilting my face to his.

  “A bond that melts the blood inside the veins,” I whisper.

  His smile widens at the realization that I know what the lyrics mean. And then we are giving in to the words, the melody, the moment, as our lips meet over and over again.

  T-Minus Sixty Minutes Till Landing

  The moment we’ve been waiting for, fearing and anticipating all these months—is finally here.

  The six of us take our positions in the flight deck: Jian seated at the cockpit beside Tera, who’s remained stationed here ever since Cyb was deprogrammed, and the rest of us strapped into our acceleration seats. After Jian makes the argument that it’ll help our velocity to ditch the WagnerOne in orbit and have Leo and Kitt join us in the capsule for landing, Leo slips into the empty seat next to me. And I can tell as he looks at me that we’re both thinking the same thing: the person the seat belonged to first. But our mission affords no time to linger on the past. The future is hurtling toward us, in the form of an icy, red-splintered moon.

  The ship’s interior starts rattling violently as we spiral closer to Jupiter—so close that it looks like we could reach out and touch the gas giant. While Tera and Jian narrate the action through their headsets, the rest of us watch from the ceiling video screen, and I let out a gasp at the sight of our solar panel wing skimming past Jupiter. The biggest planet in the solar system is now in our rearview.

  And then the ghostly white face of Europa takes center stage.

  “Beginning orbital transfer,” Tera announces. We’re soaring down now, over a rocky, red-streaked landscape. “Pitching descent.”

  The Pontus shudders and pitches downward as the capsule fills with screams. I grip Leo’s hand, feeling like my stomach is flying out of my body. I force myself to focus on the screen above, on the sights—and I can’t help noticing that the closer we get to the ground, the more the rocky white landscape and crevasses resemble skeleton bones.

  “Landing gear ready,” Tera continues. “We now have eyes on our target landing site. Approaching Thera Macula—”

  “What?”

  The robot’s words send a shock wave through the cabin. Tera must have rerouted our destination . . . to the exact location we were trying to avoid.

  I hear Jian panicking, jabbing at different buttons to try to change the landing site back to Agenor Linea—but he can’t even log in to the Flight Navigation program anymore.

  “I’m locked out!” he yells. “The computer is saying that only Houston Mission Control has access. We’re stuck, and we—”

  “Initiating capsule separation,” Tera drones. “Deploying landing gear. Final stage separation and descent in five . . . four . . .”

  A green light illuminates the control panel. It’s too late. We’re landing on Thera Macula—alien territory. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

  “Final stage separation and descent
in three . . . two . . .”

  The spacecraft splits in two, its engines and power propulsion modules falling away, into the vacuum—

  “. . . One!”

  The remainder of the Pontus drops its last thousand feet, the thrusters unfurling, claws of machinery driving toward the ice below. And then the ship comes slamming to a stop.

  For the first time in a year, everything is still.

  Twenty-Six

  LEO

  MINKA IS THE FIRST TO BREAK THE SILENCE WITH A CRY OF disbelief that pierces the cabin. I pull off my helmet with shaking hands and turn to the rest of the crew. It hits me now that each of us, at one point or another, doubted we’d ever make it to Europa alive. And now, against the odds . . . here we are.

  I can’t tell who makes the first move, but as soon as we hear the click of a safety restraint unbuckling, the rest of us follow suit. There’s the rustling of heavy fabric as our six bodies rise up off the launch seats, and we stumble together through the new microgravity, toward the window shield at the front of the cabin. That’s where we catch our first glimpse of the icy, red-streaked ground.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again, unsure if I’m awake or dreaming. For the first time, Europa isn’t just a picture or a model—it’s the land our ship is standing on.

  Beckett lets out an expletive-laden cheer, his fists in the air like an Olympian who just won gold.

  “We. Did. It! No other achievement in human history can touch what we just accomplished! First effing humans to land on Europa!!”

  And suddenly, as Jian and Sydney whoop and cheer along with him and Naomi flies into my arms, the energy in our cabin shifts from fear to euphoria. It’s like we’ve forgotten that we should be terrified, forgotten all our differences and tensions, as the six of us hug and cry and jump up and down—together.

  Only the two robots manage to keep calm. It makes me laugh out loud to see Tera and Kitt, dutifully running through their Disembarking Checklist while Jian pops the bottle of bubbly stored for just this occasion, the rest of us cheering at the top of our lungs. And then, after we’ve filmed the icy view outside our window and recorded our first historic message to beam back to Earth, all while gulping down champagne—there’s only one thing left to do.