BENEATH - A Novel (21 page)

Robert brought his attention back to the sphere as it locked silently into position. Connelly turned to Willard, who had been working the cranes from the control panel on the other side of the chasm. He was starkly illuminated in the spotlights shining from the TES panels.
 
"Nicely done. Go ahead and pop the hatch."

Willard nodded and worked the controls. The upper glass half of the sphere glided open like a clam shell. It stopped at a ninety degree angle. Robert motioned to the open sphere with both hands. "Your chariot awaits."

Connelly stepped inside without a word. Robert wondered if she was feeling the same mix of nervousness, excitement and trepidation. Robert stepped up into the sphere and scanned the interior. It was just as he remembered. Four comfortable-looking chairs sat in the center of the sphere, two facing one direction, two facing the other.
 
The floor was a flat, metal panel, three and a half feet down so that the glass and metal merged at waist level. Three thin stairs leading to the floor marked the only break in computer consoles around the circumference of the sphere's interior. It reminded Robert of a futuristic, alien escape pod.

As soon as Robert took his seat and buckled in next to Connelly, he signaled to Willard with an upturned thumb. "Lock us in."

The hatch slid closed over them. As the sphere's cabin pressurized, Robert became aware of a slight hiss. His heart began to thrum as he thought his suit had sprung a leak, but he quickly realized that with the return of pressurization, also came the return of sound. The hiss was just the cabin being pressurized. But his momentary panic attack was enough to reveal his emotional state. He was on edge. And the ride down to Europa's ocean was going to be a very long elevator ride, ending beneath countless feet of ice. Robert began counting in his head.

One…two…three…

"Start the oxygen feed," Connelly instructed.

"You got it." Willard's voice still rang clear through the sphere's thick outer shell. Through the glass, Robert could see Willard twisting a knob on the side of the TES control panel. A rush of air brushed across Robert's body, though he couldn't feel its coolness through his suit.

"O2 feed is steady and levels are good to go," Willard said. "You may now breath freely."

Connelly glanced at Robert. "You want to go first?"

Robert shook his head. "Beauty before the beast."

Twenty-one…twenty-two…twenty-three…

"Well, Ethan isn't here, so I guess we'll have to go at the same time."

"I can still hear you, you know," Willard said through the headset.

A smile crept onto Robert's face. Connelly always seemed to know when he needed a mood lightener, and taunting Willard always did the trick. He nodded his confirmation and raised his hands to his helmet. Simultaneously, the pair worked through the series of seals and locks that glued their hood-like helmets to the rest of the PMS suit. Two minutes passed before they were ready for the final step. Their eyes met and both removed the hoods, sliding them back over their heads.

Robert sucked in a long breath, letting the cool, dry air flow through his nose and fill his lungs. He held it for ten seconds and let it out quickly. His next breaths were just as deep, but much quicker. With each breath he became more relaxed and more confident that he was breathing good air into his lungs and not just the frozen void of space. He looked up at Connelly. She was already strapping herself into one of the seats. He took his place next to her and buckled himself in tight.

Fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty…

After both were settled and comfortable, Connelly switched on the interior com system and spoke, "You there, Ethan?"

"I hear you. How's the old man holding up? He looked pretty freaked when you guys took off the hoods." Willard's voice reverberated all around them, projected from the sphere's speakers, the same speakers that would allow them to hear any sounds flowing through the water below.

"I'm fine," Robert said.

"Air is holding," Connelly added. "All systems green?"

"Green like Kermit."

"Lower us down."

"You got it, boss."

With a quick jerk, the sphere lifted up off the base. Robert strained for a view of the deep hole as they dangled above it, but the seatbelt held him secure. A good thing, too, Robert thought. The sphere warbled back and forth as it stopped above the ice shaft. Seconds later, they were descending.

"Get ready for some steam guys," Willard said. "Looks like we have a few feet of ice to melt again."

The bluish-white walls of the chasm began to pass by all around them. Just as Robert became fascinated, a plume of steam rocketed up around them as the sphere's blazing hot base melted through the ice. Moisture quickly collected on the glass top of the sphere and refroze, obscuring the view in all directions. Robert suddenly felt confined, buried alive in a spherical elevator being lowered into the depths of hell.

His breath caught somewhere between his chest and his mouth, expanding a tightness in his throat he thought would cause his neck to burst, spewing blood all over the interior of the sphere like a Japanese anime cartoon. Robert bit down on his lower lip as sweat began to bead up on his forehead.

A sudden pressure on his knee almost made him gasp. He jerked his head up and came face to face with Connelly, who looked both concerned and amused. "Robert, you stopped breathing."

Robert made a deliberate effort to breath. He closed his eyes as he continued breathing, trying his hardest to ignore the sinking feeling created by the downward motion of the elevator.
Of TES
, he forced himself to think.
Not an elevator
.

"Hey…" Connelly's voice was soft, comforting.
Robert looked opened his eyes and met Connelly's. "Keep counting," she said.

Robert nodded.

One hundred thirty-three…one hundred thirty-four…one hundred thirty-five…

*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*

"How's this for privacy?" Connelly said after switching off the com system inside the sphere. "Now what did you want to talk about?" Connelly knew exactly what
she
wanted to talk about and had resisted the urge to bring up the topic for as long as she could. She wanted to get the unavoidable lecture out of the way before they broke the surface of the water. Not because Robert's words of wisdom would sour the moment, but rather, she knew that after taking a dip in the Europa's ocean, Robert would most likely forget what he wanted to discuss. She'd always valued his opinions, welcome or not, and didn't feel right taking advantage of his forgetfulness.

"Think it's safe to undo the belts?" Robert said as he stretched the safety belt away from his belly.

"Not much a seatbelt will do if we fall, right?" Connelly noticed Robert's expression sour. "Sorry."

Robert undid his seatbelt and let it slide back into the sides of the chair. He looked Connelly in the eyes, his gaze expressing the seriousness of the subject about to be broached. "There are security cameras in all the Surveyor's vital compartments, including the Bio-lab."

Connelly had assumed as much after Robert's initial attempt to speak back in the docking bay.
 
"Right…" She tried to sound as casual as possible, like she already knew there were security cameras. "I don't suppose you saw anything of interest?" She couldn't help but let out a nervous chuckle.

Robert scratched his head as his serious tone diminished slightly and his cheeks turned rosy red. "Ahh, you mean other than the budding romance?"

"Exactly." It was Connelly's turn to sound serious.

"I'm not your father," Robert said.

"What are you then? My brother?"

"
Brother
? No, I, ahh… Hey, that's not even what I wanted to talk about."

Connelly felt surprise and relief, but a tinge of disappointment churned within the brew. She wondered if she really did want to hear what he thought. Maybe Michael
was
not good, but she couldn't see it? She'd seen the same thing happen to other women. "You don't?"

"God, no."

"Oh..." Connelly could feel the skin on her forehead bunching up as she tried to figure out where Robert was heading. "What else was on the tape?"

"As you know, the Europhid tracked Michael's movements, displaying that it had senses beyond that of your garden variety vegetable."

"Right."

 
"I reviewed the tape several times, close up, frame by frame. I'm fairly sure that Europhids, or at least this one, displayed some signs of higher intelligence."

"Compared to garden variety vegetables," Connelly added.

"Exactly."
"What was most intriguing about the footage was the timing of the attack. It played innocent, moving almost cutely back and forth, until the exact moment Michael was completely distracted."

"Your saying the attack wasn't just a reflexive action?"

"More than that. The Europhid, an alien organism that has never come in contact with a human, recognized how Michael perceived the world visually, through human eyes. It understood what his eyes were used for and how they worked. It knew to strike the moment he focused on you. How does a creature that has no knowledge or evolved experience with humanity know how Michael's eyes work?"

Connelly shifted in her seat, not sure if she was uncomfortable with the topic or if she had picked poor padding for the seats. Either way, something was causing her spine to ache. "Have you ruled out coincidence?"

"Barring putting my hand in front of another Europhid and looking away, I'd say the tape is fairly conclusive. Have a look at it when we get back. I think you'll find the video convincing enough." It was Robert's turn to shift uncomfortably. "I would have brought it up publicly if the stinging incident wasn't accompanied by more…intimate matters."

Connelly felt her face flush. Robert said he'd watched the tape several times, close up and frame by frame. How many times had he seen her closing her eyes and reaching out for Peterson? She didn't mind Robert knowing the truth, but it was damned embarrassing. Connelly pushed the topic from her mind and kept to the more urgent, and honestly, more interesting subject at hand. "If the Europhid had a true understanding of human physiology, which would have to be in depth if it really knew when to strike, why did it inject Michael with a poison that had no effect other than to produce a slight infection?"

Robert leaned back in his chair. "Now it's our turn to attempt understanding the actions of an alien creature. We assumed the substance was a poison simply on the basis that on Earth, organisms that inject anything almost always inject toxins or poisons with the intent of paralyzing or outright killing their enemies."

As Robert pursed his lips tightly, they turned. "This is an alien species. The injection could be anything. A pheromone for instance. It could be used to track his movements or attract something to him. Or maybe it's a slow acting poison, meant to kill over time. It could do nothing at all. Or it could just affect his mind, cause him to act irrationally and put the rest of us in danger."

"He
was
acting irrational when he put the Europhid in the incubator," Connelly said with a grimace.

"Your affections can do that to a man."

Connelly shot a fiery stare in to Robert that threatened to broil his brains inside his skull.

"Sorry," he said quickly. Robert regained his composure and continued. "But it's most likely something we haven't even conceived of yet. We have to remember that these are alien organisms. They may not have arms, legs or even mouths, but we know by observing the environment they live in, they're survivors. Of course, I'll be damned before I let a one foot tall, red eggplant outsmart me. If the Europhids can understand the human eye, I'll have them figured out soon enough."

Robert played with his beard for a moment. "The real question is, for what other reason could Peterson have been stung?"

*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*

Peterson stood before the Med-lab doors, pushing the button to open them over and over. But the doors were locked. He turned to the security panel and accessed the door mechanism. The lock was password protected.

His head shook. Drool collected at the corner of his mouth. He stared blankly while twitching, his voice making a scratchy click with each breath. Then he typed: Quaren104—the password known only to Harris and Choi.

Stumbling like a stiff legged man in the middle of a grand mal seizure, Peterson made his way through the halls of the Surveyor. He bumped loudly in the walls and nearly tumbled over with each step. What was left of his personality and consciousness was tucked away in the far reaches of his mind, like watching a baseball game from the nose bleed section. His eyes, once deep and brown, were now glazed over with a dark crimson haze.

After a skin-bruising five minute stroll, Peterson's movements became smoother. Along with an increase in balance, his steps became even and quick. With a quick jerk of the head, he stopped moving in the center of the hallway. Twisting with a robot-like rigidity, he looked back over his shoulder, back the way he came, toward a dimly lit hallway.