BENEATH - A Novel (32 page)

She stopped and scanned the area, looking for any hint of where she was. But the edges of the field were slightly raised and if Peterson had extinguished the lights on the ATV, it would be invisible in the near dark.

Peterson…

She changed her focus and searched the field for any sign of her body-snatched crewmate. He was gone.

A shifting shape fell from the darkness above. The impact struck Choi in the chest and sent her sprawling backwards. She toppled over and landed on a group of Europhids that didn't have time to move. She felt them turn to mush beneath her weight and ooze out from her sides as her weight pushed down.

"No!" Peterson shouted as he landed. He roared loud enough to make his voice hoarse and charged forward.

"What do you want with me?" Choi screamed as she pushed away from Peterson, slipping on the Europhid gut-covered ice. Her chest tore with pain with every move.

"Decontamination," Peterson said, standing above Choi. "You understand the concept."

Choi paused. "Yes."

"You will be studied. With understanding comes efficiency. You understand this as well."

Choi realized that Peterson was expressing the basic concept of, "know your enemy." But he was relating to her field of study and it made sense. The Europhids, the stupid little spongy cucumbers, were going to study her so they could kill human beings better. "Yes," she said, "I understand."

"Then you will understand this as well." Peterson raised his hands to the dark sky and smiled.

Choi watched as a nearby Europhid expanded, opened at the top and then spat out a single golf ball sized orb of light. Within seconds, the darkened domain became lit by thousands, perhaps millions of the tiny luminous globes, all floating towards orbit. She recognized them immediately—the charged particles that had almost destroyed the Surveyor after they arrived in orbit. They were headed for the Surveyor once again, and if Peterson had done something to Harris, there would be no one to stop them this time.

Before Choi could verbally react to the sight, Peterson's foot smashed into the side of her head. Choi fell over sideways as consciousness slipped away again.

They were all going to die on Europa.

"You can't be serious," Willard said with a vigorous shake of the head. "I'll admit that this moon is covered in life, but subterranean Europian cows…c'mon." He looked at Connelly, thinking she would immediately support his objection, but she had quickly become rigid. It was as though Robert's cow comment had set off a silent alarm inside her skull. "What's the deal with you two?"

"Kath," Robert said, as he watched the cave entrance, "Would you mind explaining the significance of a methane rich atmosphere to the boy?" Robert looked at her. "I'll watch the door."

Willard slouched. They
were
serious. He wondered if the stress of their near death experience had further clouded their scientific objectivity. They were setting a record for the number of times a person could jump headlong into the unknown. First detaching from TES, and then chasing a pod of Europian whales, leading them into an encounter with an alien predator and ending in this sub-oceanic cave system—which they now intended on exploring. From a safety standpoint, they were about to cross another line and Willard was beginning to consider reporting their odd behavior to Harris.

Of course, he knew the truth about Connelly's and Robert's actions. They were excited. They were scientists, analytical thinkers at heart, but what they had discovered in the past few days was nearly beyond human comprehension. What made matters worse was that every foolhardy action taken on this mission had only lead to greater discoveries that served to increase the level of excitement and, in turn, increase the number of unsafe calls. At the end of the day, if they survived, their discoveries would be hailed by science as brilliant and brave, but until then, every new wonder brought along a host of unknown dangers that Willard was beginning to resent.

No…more hate.

Ever since his own life-threatening experience in the belly of a massive predator, Willard had felt an unrelenting emotional insistence that they head back to the surface as soon as possible. More than that, he thought they should return to the Surveyor, leave orbit and make haste to Earth without looking back. But that would never happen. Not with this crew.

Willard glanced at Connelly, who had moved closer to speak to him, but had never taken her eyes off the cave entrance.

"Methane gas, as you know, is in abundance around cow farms," Connelly said. She paused and met Willard's eyes. Satisfied that he was listening, she continued. "But it's not the cow feces itself that creates the gas…it's the breakdown of organic material within the manure. This doesn't just happen with cow poop, either. You just notice it because of the high concentrations on most farms."

"Ok, fine," Willard said. "Maybe these caves are filled with methane escaping from the ocean's decomposing organisms. Fish poop, too. And don't volcanoes on Earth spew methane? It could be a naturally occurring gas here."

Willard noticed Robert pause his slow creep toward the cave entrance. "He does have a point."

Connelly nodded. "I'm sure some of the gas comes from natural sources, but the concentration of methane is high enough to suggest otherwise." Connelly switched on her PMS suit's headlamp and aimed it toward the cave. The gentle mist in the cave glowed brightly in the light. The entrance tunnel was empty. She turned to Willard again, lighting up his face. "Methane is created by the decomposition of organic material,
any
organic material."

"Which means that these caves could be filled with little alien rats or some kind of fungus," Willard said.

Robert looked back, shaking his head. "Nope."

"Why not?"

"Too much gas." Robert said. "The amount of organic material somewhere in this cave system must be immense, suggesting a significant population of larger creatures, probably of varying sizes, both plant and animal."

"But this cave is barren, Willard said. "There's nothing here."

Robert smiled. "You've been caving, right?"

Willard didn't want to answer. Robert knew the answer anyway. "Yeah."

"Would you say some of those caves were devoid of life?"

Willard sighed. "I came through about ten different tunnels before I made it to you two. I didn't see anything on the way."

Connelly looked at Willard with a shocked expression. "How did you find us?"

Willard sighed again. "I don't know. All I know is that we need to get the hell out of these caves and back up to the surface."

The seriousness in Willard's voice garnered him the attention of both Robert and Connelly. They stared at him, waiting for him to say more. But that's all he had. Something inside him was urging, pushing him to leave. The message was simple:
run
!

"You feeling okay?" Robert asked.

"I'm fi—" A shadow slid into the cave entrance. Willard blinked and the shadow slipped away.

Robert and Connelly spun towards the entrance. "What is it?" Connelly said.

"What'd you see?" Robert asked, his voice pitched higher than normal.

Conflicting emotions began vying for superiority in Willard's mind. His sense of adventure had kicked in when he saw the shadow. His interest in the unknown began to thirst for more. But he was also responsible for the welfare of Robert and Connelly. His sole job was to keep them alive. On top of all that was the persistent scream inside his brain—run!

Willard replayed the shadow in his mind. It was low to the cave floor. Short. It appeared to have limbs, how many he had no idea. But its size seemed small enough to not be a threat. But it was
something
. He wanted to see it,
needed
to see it for himself.

Willard flicked on his PMS headlamp and stepped toward the entrance. "We mark every turn so we can find our way back. I go first. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, we hightail it back to the sphere and go topside, no questions asked, no complaints." He made eye contact with both Connelly and Robert. "I am understood?"

Robert nodded.

"Perfectly," Connelly said.

Willard opened a small pack that lay with the emergency equipment and took out an ice pick.

"What's that for?" Robert asked.

He gripped the ice pick tightly and headed for the cave entrance. "I'll be damned before I let anything else swallow me today."

*
  
*
  
*
  
*
  
*

With every light-footed step, Connelly felt her apprehension growing. They were entering the unknown once again. She wondered if turning back might be the wise thing to do. The information they had already amassed during their short stay beneath the surface of Europa was already full of scientific curiosities and amazing new discoveries. Several return missions to Europa would no doubt be scheduled. This moon would become her home for as long as the GEC would let her stay.

Connelly found it peculiar that her goals could have changed so radically over the past months, but she couldn't deny, no matter how much she loved Earth Oceanography, that the ecosystems on and within Europa were endlessly fascinating. She rarely felt more challenged, more rewarded…more alive.

As Connelly took another step forward, she realized that the growing sensation within her belly wasn't just nervousness about facing the unknown, it was an awakening of her soul. Her mind was enraptured by her recent alien encounters and she longed for nothing else. Like a drug addict, she began to look forward to the next beast, the next fungus, the next predator, no matter how dangerous…she desired to learn everything there was to know about the organisms on this moon.

Willard stopped his forward motion with a quick jolt. Connelly stopped behind him. A swell of anxiety drowned her excitement, which now seemed irrational and foolish. She noticed Willard's grip tighten around the metal handle of the ice pick. He'd seen something.

Light cut across the cave tunnel in a wide swath as Willard peeked around a curve in the cave wall. Robert eased up behind Connelly and gently rested his hand on her shoulder. Her anxiety was eased slightly by his reassuring presence. Her breath came in controlled five second intervals as she suppressed the old feelings of uncontrollable emotions. The stale smell of her suit mixed with fresh oxygen further helped repress her rising anxiety.

I will not lose control
, Connelly willed herself.
I beat this a long time ago.

With a cool voice, Connelly said, "What did you see?"

Willard continued his search ten seconds more before answering. When he finally replied it was with a reticent voice. "Something's been dogging us the whole way…keeping just out of view. In the shadows."

Robert stepped forward and scanned the area with his headlamp. "I don't see anything."

"It's there," Willard said, "Just around the bend."

"What's it doing?" Robert asked.

Willard leveled his eyes plumb with Robert's. "I think it's making sure we follow it."

Robert laughed nervously. "That's, ahh, I think that's probably a bad thing…" He looked at Connelly. "Right?"

For the majority of her career Connelly had been looked at to make the final decision in different situations. The choices she made sometimes put people's lives at risk. This was the first time she wished the responsibility belonged to someone else. "I don't think we can make any judgment about the intentions of anything living down here."

Willard looked slightly annoyed. "Have we forgotten our little learning experience with the surfboard toothed Shamu?"

She took a moment to breath deep. "Ethan…what we have discovered on this moon is a complete ecosystem full of varied creatures included predators
and
prey. The system works here the same as it does on Earth, we just don't know which creatures are which. We could be following Europa's version of a chipmunk."

"Or an alien Kodiak bear," Willard said.

Connelly caught a sliver of motion in her periphery and jolted her headlamp toward it. She saw a blur of a creature, low to the floor, no bigger than a small dog, scurry quickly away. There was definitely something there, but with their impenetrable suits and the small stature of the creature, Connelly was positive it posed little threat. She looked at Willard. She could see it in his eyes; he'd seen it too. "Still think it's dangerous?"

"Some of the most deadly creatures on Earth are smaller than my hand," Willard said.

"You two…" Robert started. "I swear, you're like brother and sister. I'd like to venture a compromise considering that neither of you are about to agree on anything and standing around doing absolutely nothing is a waste of time and air."

Connelly couldn't help but smile. She loved it when Robert was assertive.

"We continue on—"

Willard opened his mouth to speak, but Robert continued with a louder voice. "However, at the first, and I mean first, sign of danger, I will turn tail and retreat to the sphere. If that happens, both of you will turn and follow me, no questions asked. Can we agree on this?"