Portal-eARC (26 page)

Got you. End.

The next ten minutes dragged by like an eternity, but he wasn’t going to interrupt them. Sure enough, after about eleven minutes, the flashing started, but this time accompanied by a much brighter and more defined spot that sparkled.
Using multispectral scanning probe,
Maddie sent.
Set for distinctly different area of spectrum than
Zarathustra
headlights.

Several more messages were sent, detailing the characteristics of the simple amplitude modulation scheme A.J. had devised, with Mia’s help. Joe had to do a bit of hacking on the code for the rover’s headlights in order to allow high-speed amplitude variation, but the sealed solid-state emitters were more than capable of it. He then keyed the modulation to go to the radio receiving portion of his suit, transmitting a copy to Helen’s update buffer for whenever she woke up.
Here goes…
“Maddie?”

“Joe!” Her voice was distorted, muffled, but it was Madeline’s voice. “Neither of you are hurt?”

“No. That slow-motion crash is pretty deceptive—I got my leg wedged between two seats and it could’ve broken bad—but the suits are designed to keep that from happening. Helen’s sleeping now, but she’s fine.”

“Glad to hear that,” A.J.’s voice came blurrily on. “Good thinking on this approach, Joe. Light penetrates just fine at this range.”

“Hey, I haven’t been working with you all this time without learning to think about sensor stuff,” he said quietly. Helen was still sleeping, stretched out across the backs of two chairs. “What’s the bandwidth on this?”

“A little less than three kHz,” A.J. answered.

“Ick. No data transfer worth talking about,” Joe said, disappointed. “It’d take me, what, five minutes to send a megabyte down that pipe.”

“We’re lucky to get that with this MacGyvered rig. Besides, what data do you need to send?”

“How about photos of extraterrestrial lifeforms?”

The light-radio was silent for a moment, and then so many voices tried to talk at once that it was nothing but a hash of noise. Finally it quieted down and Maddie was speaking: “…nough, enough! Joe, are you
serious
?”

“Dead serious. Helen made the discovery and we’ve spent about half the time we’ve been down here filming them.” He summarized the analysis of the water and what they’d seen thus far. “Sometimes I see faint glints that might even be from something bigger farther down, but we weren’t built for sonar or anything.”

“
Unglaublich
,” Hohenheim said. “Unbelievable that you would happen to encounter life so soon. What sort of odds are those?”

“Not as bad as you might think, General,” Helen’s voice said, making him glance down in startlement. The xenopaleontologist grinned back. “The oxygen concentration is much higher than in the deep oceans of Earth, and something’s circulating it. If there’s some sort of nutrient and energy source like our black smokers—”

“I think there is. I heard something that sounded like that,” Joe interjected.

“Well, then, there’s nutrients, oxygen, energy, and the squeezing motion from Jupiter is circulating it all. This ocean’s probably
full
of life. The top part of the ocean may be their equivalent of the bottom, the desert area—and everything might be attracted by
Zarathustra
’s presence. Heat, vibration, maybe even light, all these things mean
change
, and change can mean nutrients.”

“Do you think this is actually
native
Europan life, or is this…seeded, I guess you’d say?” Madeline asked.

“That’s a good question, Maddie,” Helen said. “A lot of what I’ve seen—past the microscopic scale—
could
be something descended from Bemmie’s biosphere, I see a lot of trilateral symmetry so far. But there’s nothing saying that kind of design couldn’t develop naturally on Europa, either. We’ll have to get samples and do extensive testing. Somehow.”

“If the Bemmies did this kind of thing regularly,” A.J. said, “I’d bet you’ll find a mix. If they’re bioforming colonizers, they’d want to be compatible with whatever was there to begin with, so that the stuff already present served a useful purpose for your colonizing species.”

“Assuming there
was
anything here before they arrived,” Maddie said.

“A much smaller assumption now that we know for a fact that at least two separate solar systems evolved life; this means that life isn’t the terribly unique phenomenon some people thought it might be,” Helen said. “We already had good reason to think life evolved separately at least two or three times on Earth alone, so it would seem likely to me that Europa had life on it to begin with. But samples will tell the story for sure.”

“And we won’t get any of those until we can get out of here,” Joe pointed out. “Have you guys got an answer for that?”

“A jury-rigged one, yes, but it might work,” Maddie said, and described their current plan. “
Odin
will be on its way to Europa orbit—actually, one of the Europa Lagrange points, a bit more than a hundred thousand kilometers away from
Odin
at the moment—in about, what, General, nineteen hours?”

“About that, yes. Once on-station most of us will be free to assist.”

“Sounds like you guys have everything under control,” Joe said, grinning. “I guess all Helen and I have to do is hang around.”

Chapter 33.

General Hohenheim dropped lightly from
Munin
’s hatch. “Good morning, Mr. Baker. You are no longer alone.”

A.J.’s grip was a little tighter than it had been the first time they shook hands, and the eyes showed immense relief. “And I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. So
Odin
is in orbit around Europa now?”

“Technically,” Jackie said, coming up and giving her old friend a hug—Hohenheim suspected A.J. needed one, given the circumstances—”
Odin
is in orbit around Jupiter, at the L1 Lagrangian point. Which puts it very close to Europa, as Europa’s mass is very tiny compared to Jupiter’s.”

“Oh. Well, whatever, as long as it’s a better setup than we had.”

Dan’s voice cut in. “How’s this? No transmission delay to speak of.”

“That’s sure a lot better,” A.J. agreed. “Is it just Dan up there?” he asked, seeing Horst coming down.

“Not quite,” Anthony said. “I am here with Dan, and so also is Brett. We can continue the work, make sure
Odin
stays on station—because, you realize, the L1 point is not a stable place—and assist with computing solutions if needed. Brett felt he was more useful here with the most powerful of the computers.”

“He’s probably right,” came Madeline’s voice. “Welcome back, all of you.”

“Shall we get to work?” Hohenheim asked. “You have made many plans, I think, Mr. Baker—”

“A.J., please.”

“A.J., of course.”

The sharp nod was easily visible. “Been setting up the machines to fabricate the rails for
Athena
, just like Brett designed. Mia, I didn’t want to try anything like putting a cradle on
Athena
without you here.”

The Norwegian engineer nodded with a smile. “I’m sure you would have done fine, A.J., but it’s best that we take no chances.”

“Sure as hell I’m not taking any as long as she’s down there,” A.J. said. It was spoken so quietly Hohenheim suspected that it had been intended to be private; the General decided he would take it that way, and none of the others commented. More loudly, A.J. said, “I agree. Now, the hard part’s going to be getting
Athena
down the rabbit hole. If you’ll look here,” their helmet displays suddenly showed a 3-D map of the region, “you’ll see that the quake caused the ice to split and then collapse over there, about a kilometer. I’ve mapped the area and it gets us down pretty darn close to the level we want—but it’s not really stable. Right now, it’s closing at about three centimeters a day, which isn’t too bad, but there’s no telling what’ll happen if we get another strong jolt.”

“All the more reason to move quickly,” Hohenheim said. “Mia, can we move
Athena
into
Munin
and fly her to the target location faster than we could drag
Athena
by hand?”

“I’d say almost certainly, General. That’s rough terrain, even in this light gravity, and our experience with the
Nebula Storm
’s rocket nozzle showed that the light gravity is almost completely counterbalanced by the difficulty in exerting significant force by hand.”

“Athena’s almost all the way up,” Horst said, obviously studying the telltales on the local systems. “As soon as she is clear of the ice, we will shut her down and detach her from the supports. The rest of you can disassemble the support framework and we will all move to
Munin.
Yes?”

“Works for me,” A.J. said. “Glad to see you here too, Doc,” he said to Petra Masters.

“I hope my professional skills won’t be needed, but it seemed much more likely that they’d be needed here than up there.”

“So how long until you have
Athena
set up to descend and start cutting through to our location?” Madeline asked.

A.J. looked at Mia, who shrugged. “I do not know that we can make a terribly good guess at that, at least at this time. If all goes well, it may be a matter of a day. If not, it could be several days.”

“Not to pressure you, but Larry and I are on a very limited timeline.”

“We understand that most keenly, Agent Fathom,” Hohenheim said. “And we shall make
every
effort to get to you soon. But at the same time, I believe you would not argue that we must proceed with utmost caution. We shall get only one chance to succeed at this, I think. Especially since reaching you will be only the first step.”

“No argument there, General,” Larry said emphatically. “Don’t forget to assemble anything that’s remotely likely to help seal leaks
and
break through ice.”

A somewhat distorted voice—clearly that of Joe Buckley—joined in. “And when you say, proceed with caution, remember to think of backup plans. Like, say, if that pit A.J. found collapses on you.”

“Here is hoping that won’t happen,” Horst said. “Because, honestly? I cannot see there is a backup plan if it does.”

Hohenheim didn’t think there was one, either. Half a kilometer and more down, they had nothing to stop that huge hole from closing—probably there was nothing on Earth short of carefully designed mine bracing that could—and while
Athena
might be moved laterally, there was no practical way he could imagine to bore
upward
with her. “So we must assume it will not happen. If it does, however, let there be no regrets or recriminations, yes?”

“General,” Helen said reluctantly, “I really don’t want you to take the chance. The rest of you can still get
home
. We’ve done so much work to make that possible. Maybe I’m the only one—”

“You certainly aren’t,” Madeline said emphatically, and Hohenheim felt a twinge of…what? Pride, perhaps, although that seemed utterly nonsensical. These people weren’t his crew, he had no hand in selecting or training them.

“You most certainly are not,” Madeline Fathom repeated. “General, all four of us don’t want to die, but even less would we want to think we got everyone else killed. I know we began this conversation before, but I don’t want to cut it off this time.”

“She’s right,” Joe said calmly. “Believe me, this isn’t a pleasant death we’re looking at, and I’d rather not be looking at it at all. But we
all
survived what we shouldn’t have, some of us more than once.” The gallows humor hurt Hohenheim more than it amused, and judging from the stiff pose of Mr. Baker, hurt him much more. “We’ve done goddamn amazing things here, all to get us home, and I think we’d be
proud,
” his voice wavered just a tiny bit, “to die knowing all that work wasn’t in vain, and you guys got to go home.”

“Yeah,” Larry said, echoing the sentiment. “And hell, where better for an astrophysicist to end up entombed than here?”

For a long moment, no one said anything.

“Yeah. That makes…sense.” A.J. said slowly, quietly. He straightened slowly. “But
I
don’t want it to be a waste, either.”

Hohenheim nodded. “Indeed, Mr. Baker. Agent Fathom…Doctor Conley, Doctor Buckley, Doctor Sutter…I am—I think we
all
are—touched by your sincerity, and your courage. If you were my people, I would be able to tell you that I was proud to have you as members of
Odin
’s crew. But instead I can only say this: that you may think of regretting the waste if we do not go, but—even upon careful reflection—we would find it an
utter
waste to leave without having done
everything
that we could, even if it risked all of our lives—to rescue our friends. We are not leaving…unless
all
of us are leaving.”

“So we will stay and try—even if it may get the rest of us killed.” He looked around at the others. “Are we all in agreement?”

“Undoubtedly, General,” Horst Eberhardt said firmly.

“I will not leave my friend Larry under the surface of our Europa,” Andrew said simply.

“A fossil I dug up got Helen—all of us—into this,” Jackie said, with a spark of humor. “I’ll just have to dig up a couple more fossils now.”

“Oh, that’s cruel,” Helen said with a chuckle.

The others agreed with the sentiments—and with Jackie’s cruelty.

A.J. slowly straightened and nodded. “I’d stay and try if the rest of you left,” he said quietly. Hohenheim realized he meant it quite literally.
And perhaps
that
intensity is what brought him together with the paleontologist willing to risk her career for a discovery.
“But I’m
damn
glad I don’t have to!” he said, with a cheery brightness that did not quite mask his near-tears to anyone listening. “Damn glad.”

Chapter 34.

“
MOVE
, you stinking piece of—” A.J. expressed his feelings with a kick to
Athena
’s side.

“It’s frozen to the rails again,” Jackie said with a sigh.

“There’s
got
to be a leak somewhere,” Mia Svendsen said tiredly, trying to push hair back from a forehead that was sealed away inside her suit. She muttered something in Norwegian that didn’t sound at all polite. “But all the systems claim they’re working.”