BENEATH - A Novel (17 page)

"And I think we can all agree," Willard said, "that Choi is not the type to be late."

"Unless they found something incredible," Connelly said.

"Or are unable," Willard said.

"Switch over to Com 1," Connelly said. All three quickly made the switch. "Peterson, Choi, this is Connelly. Can you hear me?"

Connelly and Robert shared a nervous glance. "If you're on Com 1 and can hear me, please respond."

A crackle of static filled their ears for an instant and then disappeared. Then it was replaced by a voice. "an hear you… ait until you…what we discov…"

Connelly felt a surge of panic. It was Peterson's voice, but he was yelling. Was he in pain? Were they in trouble? Connelly spoke louder. "Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?"

"What…No… 're fine."

Connelly relaxed. The message was broken, but clear. "What were you saying before?"

"…found something…t's unbelievable!"

"What? What did you find?"

"ife…"

Connelly felt like ripping PMS suit off, throwing her headset on the ground and smashing it. "Say again? I can barely hear you."

"ife, Connelly. We found life!"

Connelly gasped. Her mind spun. He said
life
. "But…what…Michael, we just finished melting through the surface. TES hasn't performed any tests yet. We haven't found
anything
yet."

"No," Peterson said. "On…surface."

Connelly's eyes went wide. They found life on the surface! Without thinking, Connelly took a step back, but instead of feeling the firm surface of the frozen moon beneath her foot, she felt nothing. Connelly yelped as she began to fall backward, into the chasm. Her arms flailed madly, but only added to her momentum.

Craning her head to the side, Connelly could see she was falling into the pit. She saw the water shimmering one hundred feet below and wondered if she would survive the impact in the low gravity. She imagined she would, and that the PMS suit would keep her from freezing and drowning, but TES would have to be retracted to get her out of the hole and that could take an hour. She felt sure she didn't have enough air left.

A voice shouted in Connelly's ear, so loud it hurt. She didn't make out a single word. Then the voice came again, "Raise your arms!"

Willard
.

Connelly had learned to trust that voice. She knew the harsh tone that took over Willard's voice in times of crisis. It meant,
listen to me and you'll live
. She listened to it every time and was alive today because of it. Connelly didn't hesitate. She raised her arms toward space.

Less than a second later, Willard's body sailed into view above her. He was moving fast and had his hands outstretched toward her. Connelly realized that for Willard to already be here, he must have taken action before she had reached a forty five degree angle.

"Take my hands!" Willard shouted.

With outstretched fingers, Connelly reach for Willard's hands as the floated past. Their fingers touched, frantically searching for a grip on the other's hands. Then they connected. In an instant, their hands were locked. Connelly felt a tug on her shoulders as her arms straightened out, pulled by Willard's forward motion. The falling sensation changed instantly to that of weightlessness as she was pulled up away from the pit.

Connelly looked up and saw Willard's body flip over as they moved forward, but Willard never let go. As Willard moved out of view, Connelly felt her speed increase. She was being whipped away from the hole! Suddenly, Willard's grip on her hands released. She reached out for him, but found nothing to hold on to. Her view rotated as she flipped, head over heels through the low gravity.

As she came around, the TES hole came into view again. She had cleared it! But something horrific caught her eye—a pair of booted feet disappearing over the edge! "Ethan!"

Connelly hit the ice and grunted. The impact wasn't hard enough to cause injury, but with the distraction of Willard falling into the pit, it was unexpected. After rolling for a few feet, Connelly leapt to her feet and surged toward the hole, nearly flinging herself back in. "Willard!"

"It's okay, boss," Willard's voice said through her headset. "As long as the big man doesn't lose his grip, I'll be fine."

As Connelly moved to the hole, she could see that Robert had a grip on a thin wire that was stretched out over the edge of the hole. She reached the precipice and looked over. Willard was dangling ten feet down, bouncing against the side.

"Robert," Willard said, "how you doing?"

"Well, you're much lighter in the low gravity, but I wouldn't try anything funny."

"Right. You guys want to pull me out now?" Connelly rushed around the border of the hole, careful not to repeat her folly. After reaching Robert she took hold of the cord and together, they yanked Willard up and onto the TES platform. Willard was exasperated, but smiling. "Extreme…" he said between deep breaths.

Connelly was out of breath too. "Willard…that was…crazy…. We both could…have fallen…in."

Willard laughed. "You
did
fall in."

Connelly smiled.

"Forgive me for not paying more attention to your near death experience, Kathy," Robert said, "But I believe there is a more pressing matter that demands our instant attention."

The information came rocketing back into Connelly's mind. Peterson had discovered life.

On the surface.

CHAPTER 12 -- EUROPHIDS

"Where did you say these came from?" Connelly said as she bent over one of the several glass containers, each of which held a single sample of the red, gelatinous cucumbers. But the cucumbers were no longer standing tall. All but one lay on their sides, limp and by comparison, lifeless. At the base of each sample was a patch of ruddy soil and a mass of snapped roots where they had been pulled apart from the rest. The largest of the bunch was still erect, balanced on a larger segment of soil.

"From the red streak," Peterson said, looking extremely pleased. "The entire area was covered in them."

Connelly looked flabbergasted. The chances of them finding life in such an inhospitable environment was a statistical improbability. Yet she couldn't deny that the strange organisms spread out before her on the lab tables of the Surveyor's level 5 lab, did not come from Earth.

"We now believe," Choi said, "that all of Europa's streaks are covered with these organisms."

Connelly shook her head, trying to imagine how it was possible.

Willard leaned down close to one of the containers. "They look like they came from cucumber-shaped Jell-O molds. Can we call them Jell-Os?"

Robert flitted Willard aside as he rounded the table, wielding a computer tablet and pen. He made a flurry of notes while moving swiftly from one sample to the next. "How can you even think of Jell-O in the midst of a discovery of this…ah, this magnitude."

Willard crossed his arms and took a step back. "All I'm saying is that they should have a name."

Connelly nodded and looked at Peterson. "You found them."

Peterson stared at the blood-red organisms. "Europhids… Not the technical name of course. I'll let you biology types figure that out. But for now, Europhids."

Harris entered the lab with a bright smile on his face. "Already naming our new friends?"

Connelly hadn't seen Captain Harris since they arrived back on the Surveyor. She felt a new calm fall over the excited crew. "Good to see you, Timothy."

Harris nodded and proceeded to take a closer look at the Europhid samples. "Has the discovery been documented?"

"We took digital stills and video," Choi said. "Each of the…Europhids has been weighed, measured and tagged for future reference."

Connelly stepped forward. "We were hoping to begin taking samples for analysis. We'd like to run the gamut of tests. Cultures, DNA, genetic sequencing. I can't even begin to imagine what these will look like under the electron microscope."

Harris stood up straight, diverting his eyes from the Europhids to Connelly. "All of that is going to have to wait."

Robert stopped his note taking. "What? Why?"

A flurry of anxious questions flooded Connelly's mind and threatened to spill out. She clenched her mouth shut and forced the questions out of her mind. She trusted Harris and if he had come to some sort of conclusion without them, she would abide by it. She couldn't help but fear he was about to order the samples jettisoned. It was true, that having alien biology on board was an immense risk, but Choi seemed certain that as long as the Europhids were contained, risk of contamination was at a minimum. Connelly felt a building fear as Harris opened his mouth to speak again.

"We've run into some kind of interference," Harris said. "All transmissions to Earth are being blocked somehow. Photos, video, audio, nothing's getting through. Solar radiation is normal right now so my only guess is that it's our proximity to Jupiter that's causing the problem. I'm currently running a full diagnostic to rectify the issue."

Connelly's trepidation skyrocketed. Harris was about to drop some kind of bomb.

"In addition, we will soon be on the far side of Jupiter, meaning that even if communications were restored, we still wouldn't have communications until we clear Jupiter again."

"How long will that be?" Willard asked.

"Forty-three hours," Harris said. "Typically we wouldn't make our next move, and that includes the analysis of alien organisms, until we had reported to and received clearance from ground control."

Connelly's heart sank. They were going to be sitting on their hands for forty-three hours!

"However," Harris said, "We did not come to Europa to twiddle our thumbs waiting to hear from mission control."

Feeling hope return, Connelly smiled. "So we can start our analysis?"

Harris shook his head. "No."

Now all the scientists in the room were looking upset.

"Well, which is it," Peterson said. "Can we get some work done or not?"

Robert pushed his glasses higher onto his nose. "This, ah, this is quite possibly the greatest discovery mankind has ever made. We can't just ignore it. There are hours, countless hours of study, research, analysis to—"

Harris held his open palm up. A smile was creeping onto his face. "I understand," he said, his smile growing wider.

"He finds this humorous," Peterson said to Robert, then glanced at Connelly, "He finds this humorous."

"I'm afraid," Harris said in a loud voice, "that there are much more urgent matters that need all of your attention."

Connelly felt her trust in Harris's decision making abilities begin to wane. How could he not see the importance of this work? Nothing else could be as important. Nothing!

"While what we have discovered here already is beyond all predictions and expectations," Harris said. "I'm afraid that this mission cannot be deemed a success until we accomplish what we came here to do."

"And what is that," Connelly said, her heart pounding beneath her ribs.

"I'll pose this as a question," Harris said. "We have discovered life on the surface of Europa, which is, as Kathy reminded us, a statistical improbability. But what we came here for, was not to find life on the surface of Europa, but beneath the surface, in the ocean that we now know exists."

Connelly's mind felt as though a vacuum cleaner had just been inserted and was now sucking out all the confusing, demanding thoughts within. Even the Europhids were beginning to lose ground in the battle for her attention.

"If there is life on the surface of Europa," Harris said, "how much more likely is it that we will discover life within the seas of Europa?"

"What are you saying?" Connelly asked.

"You're going back down," Harris said.

Connelly's jaw dropped. She wanted to ask why, but was afraid it would make her sound like she didn't' want to go. Luckily, the Captain had anticipated the query.

"In space, circumstances can change in an instant," Harris said. "We may round Europa only to discover that a solar storm has arrived, postponing any return to the surface for hours, days or weeks. As far as I can see, we have ten hours of smooth sailing with which to continue our exploration…barring another barrage of charged particles."

Connelly's faith in Harris was restored in full. "When can we go?"

"Three hours," Harris said. "I'll prep the lander and check your PMS suits over. After that, I don't see any reason to delay."

Sighing with relief, Connelly relaxed and leaned back on the lab table. "Then we have a few hours to work with the Europhids."

"Sorry," Harris said. "But I would prefer you all took a three hour break. Go get some sleep. I won't be sending a tired crew to the surface of Europa."

"But—" It was all Peterson could get out before Harris cut him off.

"Not a debate. If you want to work on the Europhids, you can stay here with me while the others go to the surface."

Peterson bit his lip. Connelly knew that everyone would want to go. Of course, it would only be she, Willard, and Robert who took the first ride in TES. But still, the idea of going back to the surface alone was enticing.