The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction (Solar System Series Book 4)

by Brandon Q Morris

  He stripped naked and washed his whole body. He had to clench his teeth every time he touched the inner sides of his joints. He applied a protective cream from the Medikit and finally slipped into underwear, which he’d taken from the smaller cosmonaut’s belongings. He wrapped up his diaper and his own dirty underwear in a plastic bag.

  Then it was time to eat. He felt like a new person. The mushy stuff from the self-heating pouch that he’d taken from the rover had never tasted so good. He gobbled the sludge down and before long his body started to complain. Diarrhea! Just what I need. He removed the traces of the incident as best he could, but he couldn’t keep the air in the tent from getting worse.

  Would he be able to sleep under these conditions? What if the killer returned and sliced into the tent again? But that would be impossible. He would have had to have survived for at least three months alone in the cave. Nobody could do that.

  Nick lay down and closed his eyes.

  5/18/2082, Triton

  A shrill whistle jolted Nick from his sleep. It was an alert that the oxygen content in the tent was too low. Had the killer returned after all? He searched for his helmet in a panic, then shoved it on his head and turned on the helmet light. Then he reached for the pressure gauge on the arm of the spacesuit. The air pressure was stable, so the tent was intact. He’d simply used up all the oxygen. Nick shut off the empty bottle and opened the next one. Thanks to the two dead men, he had enough. Luckily. He inhaled deeply. Actually, he felt astonishingly refreshed. Perhaps the stench in the tent had kept him from having nightmares. He checked the clock. Eight hours of sleep? When was the last time I’ve had that?

  It was time to continue the search. What had the men been doing down here? He put on more protective cream. Then it was time for breakfast. He ate more slowly this time. Afterwards, he washed his face and brushed his teeth. Then he peed into the empty food container. This was no small feat, but it was worth it because it would keep his diaper dry a little longer. He got dressed. Diaper, thermal underwear, LCVG, and finally the spacesuit. He took his time. It was going to be a busy day because he’d decided to follow the Russians’ path. They hadn’t come into this cave for no reason. They had probably only planned on staying overnight before continuing on to their destination. He checked to ensure his helmet was hermetically sealed and exited the tent.

  It was as dark around him as it had been the day before. If he hadn’t known that he was in a cave, he wouldn’t have paid attention. But the stars were missing from the sky. He fired the fifth shot from the flare gun. The red orb briefly lit up the end of the hall in the direction he was walking. ‘Hall of the Ice Queen,’ this was its name in his mind. There seemed to be a small opening at the end. He figured the path would continue through it.

  Should he take the tent? He wrapped it up, but even here on Triton it weighed a good ten kilograms. The two men had probably experienced difficulty carrying it. They must have known that they wouldn’t be able to make it to their destination in one day. But if they had just taken a break there, maybe it was only a day away. Did that make sense? Not if the two had wanted to overnight it several more times. But he’d have to live with the risk. If he didn’t find anything before that evening, he’d just have to turn back, and the tent would be waiting for him here. The prospect of being able to sleep comfortably again put a real bounce in his step.

  What he had seen in the glow of the flare had indeed been a continuation of the passage. Here, it was only about three meters in diameter and led upwards. Nick didn’t feel good about it. What if it led up to the surface? Why would the two Russians have made a detour through the cave to end up back at ground level? This made no sense to him. And where had the wind from the day before come from?

  He turned and walked back to the Hall of the Ice Queen. There had to be a second way. He moved along the inner wall and after half an hour, he discovered another opening. However, it was only about a meter high and just slightly wider than he was. Could this really be the way that the Russians had wanted to go? Was this the way their murderer had come from? He squeezed himself into the opening. There was some relatively warm air coming from below. There had to be something there—but what? Nick racked his brain but he didn’t have the slightest idea. He wondered again if he had already reached the ocean?

  The passage widened again, leading deeper and deeper into the ice world. Nick wondered how many kilometers below the moon’s surface he might be. And, just how active was this moon? Sometimes he thought he heard the ice crack, but that was impossible. The air was still too thin to transmit sound to his external microphone. He stopped and pressed it to the ice, but it remained silent. He couldn’t let himself lose his marbles. Maybe that’s what had happened to the killer.

  But then again, the killer had been too systematic for that. He must have observed the two Russians and only struck after they had gone to sleep. If they’d been awakened by noises, they would have been able to put their suits on in time. It must have been cold-blooded, calculated murder. What could drive a person to do such a thing? The three of them had probably spent several months in a spaceship together on their way here. He could never have done anything like that to Oscar. And did RB know about it? It would have been perfidious to have let him walk right into a trap… but, he didn’t trust Valentina’s scruples on that count.

  His watch vibrated. It was supposed to warn him when it was time to turn back. He had three hours remaining. He checked the air pressure, which was double in comparison to what it had been in the hall. Suddenly everything flipped upside-down and he was on his back. While he’d been checking his watch, he’d lost his footing. In low gravity, everything was as if in slow motion. But that didn’t mean that he’d been able to control his fall. He felt a sharp pain and then he was drawn downwards, faster and faster, as if on a playground slide.

  Was he falling into the ocean beneath the ice? Nick shined his light ahead of him, but all he saw was the blackness of the cave, which now sloped at about a 20-degree angle. He’d never be able to climb up from here. He surrendered to his fall, and as if to reward him, the slide released him and his body come to a stop.

  “Phew.”

  Nobody answered, and there was no echo, either. The lack of air and sound automatically meant that no life belonged here. It was like being in a virtual setting, in a world that an architect had not designed with consistency. But that was the reality here, and if he didn’t factor that in, he would die. This, of course, was an impossibility, since his daughter needed him. The question wasn’t can I, it was, how can I?

  Nick got up and looked around. His gaze traveled upward. In front of him there were hundreds—even thousands—of stalactites and stalagmites. In the light they were twinkling blue, along with shades of green, orange, and purple. His suit told him that it was 90 Kelvin, which was about the melting point of methane. The gas was pouring in through thin cracks in the ice, dripping to the ground, and freezing into stalagmites.

  And the stalactites, also consisting of frozen methane, descended from above. He touched one of them and then another. They were soft—not as hard as the limestone stalactites found in caves on Earth. This was reassuring, given that there were so many of them hanging from the ceiling. If one fell on him from above, it wouldn’t impale him but instead it would ooze over him like sludge and dissolve into liquid from the warmth of the spacesuit, then ultimately turn back into gas.

  But he still had to be careful. There were puddles of liquid methane on the ground, and he couldn’t see how deep they were. If he were to fall into one, the methane would vaporize and draw more heat from the suit than it could produce. He would be frozen alive, and this too wouldn’t do if he was going to meet his daughter.

  He moved slowly through the picturesque but deadly cave. Why were the structures shimmering in such varied colors? It must’ve had something to do with their chemical compositions. Perhaps there were even more complex molecules beneath the surface, absorbing the light at a different part of the
spectrum than the blue methane. There was so much to discover down here! Why hadn’t RB figured this out and invited researchers from around the world? The group was otherwise quite willing to support scientists’ work. Perhaps he’d been the first human to behold this beautiful scene. Or the fourth, if his predecessors had already made it down here. It was too bad Oscar wasn’t with him. He could have recorded all the data, and would have had more to offer science than his own observations would.

  Nick circled around a stalactite that was twice his width. Then he stopped abruptly. In front of him was another body, a dead man in a spacesuit with the Russian insignia on the upper arm.

  This had to be the third cosmonaut, the one who’d been responsible for the others’ deaths. The killer. Apparently he’d paid for it with his life. It had not been a glorious death. He must have accidentally gotten into one of the methane pools up to his waist, been unable to free himself, and then frozen into a pillar of ice.

  But why was the dead man holding out his arms like Jesus on the cross? If he himself had fallen into such a methane hole, he would have tried to pull himself out with his hands. If this had been unsuccessful, he would have involuntarily hugged his arms around himself to hold body heat, even if this would certainly have had no effect because of the spacesuit. But would he have stretched his arms out and held that position until he died?

  Something was wrong here. Nick approached the corpse and pressed on the right arm. The body was as hard as stone. It would have been impossible for someone to have pushed his arms out after he’d died. He had to have assumed that position himself. Had he wanted to atone for his crime, like Jesus on the cross? Or was this meant as a warning to all those who came after him? ‘Please don’t continue. Death is waiting for you here!’

  Nick looked at the dead man’s hands. The right one was open, with all the fingers spread out. The left hand, however, was clenched into a fist. He examined it. There was a thin layer of ice that had settled on the fingers of the glove. He scratched it until it peeled off. Then he saw it, a delicate chain wrapped around the base of the middle finger. What was this? Jewelry on the outside of a spacesuit? The dead man was holding something in his hand. Nick took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, without looking at the dead man in the face. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to disturb you for a moment.”

  He took the corpse’s fist in his own hands. He felt sorry for the man. Did he have family waiting for him in Akademgorodok? Or had Valentina already informed his wife and children about his unexpected death and compensated the family for the loss? The fist gradually warmed up in his hands. First, he could move the thumb. He pushed it up, a little bit. Then there was some resistance. He pushed harder. He felt the glove crack, and then the thumb was free.

  The other fingers needed more heat. Nick inspected the methane hole where the dead man was standing. It was small and easily recognizable. Could the Russian have fallen in the dark? No, he had gotten in deliberately. Nick drove his index finger into the fist and got a hold of the dead man’s forefinger. He bent it upwards. Again, he felt a crack at the halfway point. It was a revolting sound. Then it was the pinky finger’s turn. He wanted to work his way up slowly. Whatever the man was holding appeared to be valuable, at least to himself. Nick couldn’t let it accidentally fall into the methane. Perhaps it was a locket with a picture of his wife or daughter. He’d take it to Earth and give it to the family. Unlike the Russian, he was not going to die down here in this cave.

  It was the ring finger’s turn. The hand already seemed warmed up a bit. The finger would crack anyway. When bending it up, Nick felt something metallic beneath the fabric of the glove. A wedding ring? Only the middle finger was left. There was something metallic and silvery protruding from under it. He still couldn’t tell what it was. Nick held it with his right hand while using his left to bend the finger upwards. It wasn’t a locket. The Russian was holding a memory stick that looked just like the one he’d used to transmit Oscar’s software. The chip hung on a thin metal chain looped around the ring finger. Nick tried to pull it towards himself, but it seemed to be firmly attached to the surface of the glove. He used a small screwdriver from the tool bag to pry it off. The chain broke and the memory chip fell from the dead man’s hand. Nick caught it.

  What could be on it? There was plenty of space on the tiny chip. Maybe the man had recorded the complete story of Triton. Or perhaps it was a farewell message to his family. He wouldn’t be able to find out until he had something that was able to read the information. Couldn’t the man have written a note? The rover was more than a day’s walk away, and it didn’t have a screen anyway. He needed Oscar. He’d be meeting back up with him in less than a week.

  Nick took a step back. He should free the dead man from this undignified situation. Otherwise, possibly for eternity, he’d have to stand in the frozen puddle of methane with his arms outstretched, like a scarecrow that was supposed to frighten visitors entering a corn maze. He approached the Russian from the left side and pulled hard on his arm. He had to set the power booster to the max for anything to happen. It was a good thing the suit was so robust, because he surely would have torn off the man’s arm if he’d been naked.

  The body leaned in his direction and finally broke free from the ice. Nick reached under his outstretched arms, pulled him backward into a niche, and leaned him against the wall. However, the corpse was positioned there diagonally like a board, so he pressed against the stomach until it cracked and he could bend the body. Then he pushed the man’s feet closer to the wall until he was sitting, more or less naturally, in the corner.

  That was better. The arms were still outstretched, but it looked more like the man was leaning casually against the wall, as if he had fallen asleep while taking a break. Nick instructed his own suit’s controls to take a picture. Perhaps his family would want one. It could never hurt to have evidence. He’d have to remember to get pictures of the other two on his way back.

  “Farewell,” he said. “It seems that your buddies are weighing on your conscience, so I don’t regret that we never got to know each other. But I would still wish for you a place in a cemetery near your family. I can’t take you home, but if somebody else comes here, he’ll find you and bring you back.”

  “Thanks, Nick,” replied the dead man, in Nick’s voice.

  He really had to be careful to not go crazy.

  Nick had been following the passage for three minutes before he remembered something. The Russian was certain to still have usable air. He turned back, knelt beside the body, and checked the Russian’s tank. There was enough for ten hours. He swapped the tank with his own. When Nick got up again, the taste of the air seemed stale somehow. He couldn’t help but thinking that this was the corpse smell. Yet this was impossible. The oxygen in the tank hadn’t passed through anyone’s lungs yet, at least not after the tank had been filled up on Earth.

  He logged the body’s location and continued further down. In no less than four and a half hours he would turn back, pick up his old tank, and then make his way back to the tent. He wasn’t frightened by how far he had to go. Starting off was something of a pain, but once he was on the move, he could go a hundred kilometers without stopping. He entered a kind of trance.

  After about an hour, he left the area with the dripstones. It was probably too hot for that here, as the thermometer read 102 Kelvin—minus 171 degrees Celsius. He’d be freezing without his suit. But the methane was now coursing down the walls and over the ground in rivulets. Previously, it had not been known that Triton was home to methane in such quantities.

  The walls now appeared dark blue in his headlamp light. Sometimes it looked like they were overgrown with a layer of seaweed or fungi, but upon closer inspection he discovered small crystals of nitrogen compounds. The cave narrowed and widened, over and over, but it never got smaller than about two by three meters. At such narrow points it looked as if somebody had cleared the way, especially since the sections resembled u
pright rectangles. Was it possible for this to have occurred naturally? He touched the walls, but there were no detectable structures. The coursing methane would have smoothed everything down.

  He reached the ten-kilometer mark after two and a half hours. He sat on the ground for a short break, but he immediately realized that this was a mistake. While sitting, the diaper pushed into his crotch so that there was pressure on the inflamed areas. He sucked some liquid from the straw in his helmet. How far below the surface was he now? He had probably covered around 70 kilometers. But the incline was still only just a few degrees. This told him he still had to be closer to the surface than to the ocean below the ice. The thought calmed him.

  He got back up again. The pain was hellish, but it passed as he got moving. Nick whistled a tune to not feel so alone. Suddenly the passageway appeared to come to an end. His spotlight showed him a blue wall blocking the way. Shortly before he reached it, the cave turned sharply to the left almost at a right angle. This could not have been a naturally-occurring phenomenon. His curiosity piqued, he followed the passage. Now the corridor really did stop, and there was no mistaking it. He was standing before a huge metal gate!

  So this had been the Russians’ goal. Had they known what they were looking for? What had really happened here? If he could just read the memory stick! Had RB built something down here that nobody should know about? And what did it have to do with the AI at the Triton station, if anything at all? Would it be better for him to just forget about everything down here, reactivate the AI, and fly home?