Stenner paused, taking a moment to catch his breath. “Now… we need to be ready for a quick launch. We’re waiting on requests to fill the fuel tanks and we’re calling the sub back for the samples. For safety reasons the samples will stay at the lab, but we need to be ready to move them in the event of a sudden departure. That is the most important thing… get the samples from the sub… If and when we can bring them up here and we have the time, we’ll discuss sending EUNICE back down. The situation is fluid, Mara, and Mission will be in contact by the hour,” he said.
“International mining rights…” Mara said, trying to continue.
“Enough,” Stenner interrupted. “We are not in a position to enforce the mineral rights or to do anything about it. We’re better off keeping this confidential. Understand?”
Mara’s head hung low. She held her gaze at the table and avoided eye contact with Stenner. She had conceded his point, but it was devastating.
“Mission Control will be monitoring this exchange. I’m transmitting the meeting to them when we are finished. They will have input that they will want to relay to you. We’re looking for alternatives, Mara. Hopefully something can be done.”
“Stenner, out.”
“Fuck,” Mara said when the monitor went black, just to say it.
“Let’s just get ready for the next Sol,” Reese said. “We still have a lot of work we can do when the samples get up here. We’ll make every minute count,” she added.
“Did you come all this way to just keep this a secret?” Mara asked.
“It’s not how I pictured it. But who could have predicted what we saw?” Reese answered.
“We need to do what is best for this place, not ours, Mara. It’s not our position to risk the safety of this place, not even for science,” Julian said.
“I just think if people knew… they would protect…”
“Protect it? How? Nobody has the means to protect this place. Laws don’t work out here, Mara. This is the wild west of space. New territory… It’s every man for himself out here,” Julian replied.
Dr. Aman shook his head. “Maybe it would have been better that we never found out what was down there.”
Mara scoffed. She had heard enough, but she couldn’t help herself from arguing. “This is a publicly funded mission. The public deserves to know what we are finding. She waited for the others to agree, but none did. Mara turned away and stomped toward her bunk, and Dr. Aman followed her. He caught the door and entered her room just as Mara was landing on her bunk.
“Mara…” he said to her, but she tried to ignore him.
“Mara!”
“Leave me alone, Aman.”
“Mara, we are all as unhappy as you are about this but let us find out what we have here before we tell the whole world. Everyone is just being cautious.”
“I just want to do the mission,” she responded. “We finally found what I was looking for and now we can’t even talk about it?”
“We will. When the time is right. But not now… not with the miners close by.”
“Then when?”
Dr. Aman couldn’t give her an answer. He hesitated and corrected his posture, trying to determine his response, and he softened his voice after taking a few deep breaths.
“I am happy to see you so passionate about this, Mara,” he said. “It tells me you still have a fire inside of you. We will get our chance. You will get your chance. For now, let us make sure we can keep what we have found safe.”
Mara tried to relax. She realized there was little else she could do. Dr. Aman began to leave her room, but he stopped when Mara started to say something.
“I finally have a reason to be here,” she said.
Dr. Aman stood just outside her door and he turned to her from the hallway. He sent a sincere look of sympathy toward her, as if he finally appreciated something she had said, and then he headed down the hall to the rest of the crew without another word.
Sol 9; Mission time - 18:12
“At least you got some samples today,” Julian said to Reese as Dr. Aman spoke with Mara. “She should be happy about that,” he said. “Any chance you got some of the substrate or vent material?” he asked.
“I got what I could. We’ll see what it looks like when the sub is here. I got a little of everything.”
“Remember to move the samples to the lab in case we have to leave,” Julian told her, taking his eyes off the monitors to glance at her.
“Affirmative,” she said. “I’ll have to smuggle them to the lab without the miners seeing them, of course, but I’ll manage. It will probably be late anyway. Most of them will be asleep.”
“Yes, and there’s the issue that we didn’t discuss with Stenner,” Julian said. “Hanson knows what we found.”
Reese nodded. “I don’t think he will tell Johan. I get the feeling he will stay quiet,” she told him.
Julian flashed a curious look.
“Just a feeling,” she said, and she threw a quick eye nod down the hall where Mara had just left.
Julian chuckled, as if things needed to be any more complicated. “Then he better not rat us out. Mara would throw him down the drill shaft,” he said.
“I’ve never seen her this upset,” Reese commented. “She’s been moping around the entire mission like the world is against her, and now Mission is giving her a reason to believe it.”
“We stick to orders,” Dr. Aman interjected as he entered the room. “If Mara has a problem with it, she can see me about it, or change her attitude.”
Reese looked at Dr. Aman with a strained expression. “I’m glad you’re the one she will come after. Right now, she just wants to stay and do her work,” she said. “She’d jump ship if we try to leave.”
“Well that’s better than she’s been the rest of the trip,” Dr. Aman replied. “She may actually want to be here now.”
CHAPTER 8
Sol 10; Mission time - 02:57
After a few hours of rolling the cable onto the crane, Reese had EUNICE topside and hanging nose down in the drill chamber. She had been working through the night. Hanson had set the crane to retract the cable and gone to bed, which she was grateful for, since she was going to have to be secretive while removing the diamonds from the sub.
EUNICE was still dripping wet as Reese looked around to see who would be watching her. There were only a few miners, and they had been minding their own business, tending to their equipment, and generally ignoring her as they always had.
She planned to take the samples from the ocean floor one by one and set them discreetly into their containers, and she would set the containers into one of the toolboxes nearby. It would provide at least a minimal amount of secrecy. She felt they would be concealed quite well there.
She unlatched the side panel to the collection box on the sub, and there, inside, lay the treasures from below. Creatures that had never been seen by human eyes, and the diamond fragments they came on, were right in front of her. She looked at them for a bit longer than she needed to, astonished that they existed at all.
She quickly assorted one diamond after another into the storage boxes, careful not to reveal them to anyone else, and then she placed them into the tool chest.
Several samples made it secretly into the collection boxes, but when she turned to collect another, there was a figure suddenly standing right beside her. He was close enough to startle her. He was unkept in appearance, middle-aged, and she could see through his awkward grin that he was missing a tooth.
“Rumor is you designed her,” the man said with an uncomfortable smile.
Reese suddenly felt unnaturally tense. She nodded at the man before she could think of anything meaningful to say. “I did,” she said, unconvincingly.
She wondered if she had attracted attention with her secretive actions. She couldn’t imagine any other reason h
e would have come to speak with her.
“Mostly my design,” she continued, trying to remain as natural as possible. She attempted to back away from him while still hiding the samples. She wondered if he had seen them, but she didn’t want to be too obvious either.
“Impressive,” he said, looking over the submersible. “Murphy,” he added, and he held out his hand.
Reese looked at him as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She grabbed it and shook it lightly.
“They call me Murphy. Most of us go by our last name around here.” His awkward smile was not going away.
“Reese,” she answered. “Or, I guess, Fielding… you can call me,” she said, and she tried to smile. “And thanks,” she said. “State-of-the-art tech… I was blessed with a NASA-sized budget,” she replied, trying to laugh.
Murphy extended the awkward smile while looking upon the exterior of the submersible. “You mind I take a look inside?” he asked.
Reese wondered if he was intentionally creating the uncomfortable situation, or if he was unaware how uneasy he made her.
“Sure,” she said, and she carefully moved around to close the sample boxes so he couldn’t see the diamonds that were inside. She then she slowly opened the motor housing and circuit-board compartment for him to see.
Murphy poked his head toward her, peering around the open doors inside the sub and into its inner workings. He seemed genuinely interested in the design. As he looked around inside, Reese could hear him mumbling to himself. The muffled grunts were coming through his thick beard.
Then he leaned away from the sub, finally retreating into his personal space. “I’m sort of the head of robotics for our crew,” he said. “Wanted to see what you had in there.”
“Head of robotics?” she asked.
He bobbed his head. “It’s not an official position, but I’m the one they turn to,” he said, still smiling. “So, it’s true, you designed her, huh? She’s a beaute. You got a lot of control-features here, spring-activated thrusters and fins, stabilizers, a generous network of cameras and relays,” he said with a large grin. He looked over the sub as curiously as a child would at seeing the inside of a favorite toy.
“I wanted to be an engineer, ya know?” he kept talking while staring into the unit. “Spent four semesters before I dropped out.” He quit looking inside and turned for her reaction.
Reese nodded with a half-smile.
“My Mom got sick,” he followed. “I dropped out.”
“I’m sorry to hear,” Reese said.
“Ahh,” he moaned. “Ancient history. That’s how I ended up a miner. Been out here off and on ever since.”
Reese tried to smile as he peered around at her console longer than she would have liked. She was becoming irritated at trying to hide the samples from him.
“So what kind of robots do you build?” she asked, as a matter of keeping him distracted.
Murphy sprang away, surprised at the question. “Oh…” he said. “I got all kinds of stuff. You should see. I got exploration-bots, repair-bots, worker-bots.”
Reese looked at him skeptically. “Do you design them and build them yourself?”
“Ya… program them too. We can send them into some of the crevices inside the machines… into the asteroids. You know, saves us time now and then,” he said.
Reese found herself suddenly curious. “What do you mean? Do they search for minerals and do repairs?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, they have to. Some of them larger machines we have to fix… a man don’t quite fit in there,” he said, laughing and pointing at the crane suspended above them. He finished with a hearty smile, like this was the first conversation he’d had in years.
Reese was cautiously interested. She wasn’t sure she believed that this man, a miner, could have possibly built and programmed a robot that could handle repairs to the complex machinery she had seen, let alone the repairs required on one of the mining vessels.
“I’d like to see them,” she said, being polite. She turned to her sub, closing some of the panels back where they had been, hinting that their talk was almost over.
Murphy backed away, still smiling at her and the sub. “I should let you get to work.”
An awkward second passed, and she drew in a deep breath. “Maybe you can show me what you have some time,” she said, hoping to end their conversation.
Murphy nodded. “Ok, I will.” He glanced up at EUNICE hanging close by. “Goodnight,” he said, and he extended his hand to his head like he was tipping a hat on his head. “It was nice to meet you, Reese… or uh, Fielding,” he replied, backing away.
“See you soon,” Reese said. She watched him go, and she felt a smile cross her face, unsure where her kind gesture would lead.
“Head of robotics?” she thought to herself, “On a mining rig?” It would be something to see if he was telling her the truth, but she doubted he was. She thought it more likely he’d been sent by Johan, possibly to spy on her. She glanced one more time at the older man, watching him walk away, and she watched him disappear into the bunk room.
Reese returned to her chores. She opened the panel to the collection box inside EUNICE once again, careful that nobody but her had an angle to see the treasure that was inside. Then she carefully continued to remove the diamonds and the creatures one by one when she could. She would try to have all of them out of the sub and at the lab for Mara when she would be awake.
She smiled slightly as she thought about the old man. He was the first and only miner to introduce himself to her, besides Hanson. He had been so genuine, and she had to admit his interest in her sub was as much a compliment as she had expected to ever get from these men.
Sol 10; Mission time - 06:17
Mara hadn’t slept for most of the night. Her mind was frustrated with her predicament. “It was a blessing and a curse to be here,” she thought to herself. To have found so much life, so much diversity and beauty, and then not to be able to report it, share it, or even talk about it. It had aggravated her to no end. She wanted to send a message, any message, to anyone she could. She wanted to tell someone what she had seen.
Her thought of her mother. She had spent months with her before the mission — months spent on the couch at her beach house. She wanted her to know how successful the journey had been. She wanted to tell her that it had been worth it, even after all she had been through, just to have a short glimpse into this amazing world.
There were so many questions, and the answers teased at her, seemingly so accessible, but just out of reach. She was tantalizingly close to having the answers she had hoped to have.
She walked lazily into the mess hall where Dr. Aman was already seated like usual. His lab coat was pressed firm and steam was rising from his morning tea. Reports were scattered across the table from the previous sol, piled much higher than normal.
Mara dropped into one of the chairs and her foot went up to rest on the seat nearby.
“I made pancakes if you want them,” he said. “I have whip cream too,” he added.
Mara sat silently, not acknowledging him. Her head was rolled back, eyes to the ceiling.
“Let me guess, you are not eating now,” he said to her.
She remained silent, not responding to him.
“Mara,” he said. “We are all in this together. Nobody likes this.” He watched her to check her reaction.
“I thought we had decided you would not resort to isolating yourself in your bunk any longer?” he told her. She was still refusing to answer. “Now try these pancakes,” he continued, hoping to cheer her up.
“I can’t eat,” she said.
“Fine. Not even a protein bar?”
“No. I’m going to check on the sub.”
“I am afraid Reese beat you to it.”
“What?” Mara asked, disgruntled at the news.
“She went last night after you stormed off. EUNICE is topside and at the drill outpost. Samples are waiting for you at the lab. You can get started on those, but there will be no more research below us until we clear it with Mission.”
Mara snapped upright. “You pulled the sub without me?” she asked.
“You stormed off last night. I tried to stop you.”
She was finding it hard to restrain herself.
“We are preparing for departure, and you need to get your materials in order. Have the samples you want for study brought from the Zephyr to the lab. You will want the ones you cannot do without if we are forced to launch.”
“So, it’s just over?” she asked.
“Orders from last night… you know this,” Dr. Aman reminded
her.
Mara slouched in the chair. She could feel the immense disappointment taking over her body. “I thought we’d have more time,” she said.
“Mara, must I remind you?” he said, taking a deep breath. “I got a recording from my family last night.”
Dr. Aman twirled his fork between his fingers. “They are worried for me, and I told them I would be coming home soon.” He shook his head. “I do not want to have to break my promise.”
Mara looked at the pancakes on his plate as he told her about his family. She wondered how he could eat.
“You will understand when you have children of your own,” he told her.
Mara sighed. “How are they handling it?” she asked.
Dr. Aman mulled over his answer. “I smile into the camera and I pretend it is not as bad as it is. But I fear for them what they do not know,” he told her.
Mara tensed and nodded at him. She knew anxiety like this from her time at the hospitals.
Dr. Aman seemed relieved she was not taking the news any worse. “Mara, you have your samples. You have recordings, video, test readings from the sub… It is already enough for a lifetime of work. Be grateful for what you have. We are endangering ourselves and the habitat below the longer we stay,” he said.
Mara scoffed. She didn’t think she was endangering anything. Her thoughts went to the work she could do. She decided to at least make the best of what time she did have.
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