Europa
By: Travis Likes
The cold of deep space is unlike anything imaginable. The only thing fearless enough to travel the deepest reaches of space need be as cold and lifeless as space itself. Space is an indefinite, limitless, careless mistress without regard for life or limb.
As the light from Sol reflected off the surface of the spider-like craft, a single limb could be seen unraveling from the top, bending awkwardly in a 180-degree angle and resting lightly against the icy surface of the moon. Europa is a small satellite, covered in a water-ice layer, floating gracefully through space like a snowball lofted by the hand of a giant. Amongst the numerous cracks and crevices, the craft moved clumsily off to one side of a particularly deep fissure, swung the mechanical arm around, and lowered it down. As the arm descended, the metal shaft got decidedly smaller, until upon reaching the floor of the crevice the arm was no wider than a quarter of an inch. A hum was heard from the craft, and the end of the arm started to glow red and rotate, slowly at first, then faster than the eye could follow. As it started to drill into the surface of the icy moon, cheers could be heard throughout the command center. The operation was under way.
For millions of years the being had lain dormant, isolated and frozen in Its frosty cell. Thoughts racing yet consciousness fleeting. The being had been there forever so it seemed, and forever shall It stay, unless released. Banished to this forsaken part of the galaxy as a result of deeds past, the being waited. Pummeled throughout the years by tidal forces, its cell had become an imperfect sphere, a cracked and debilitated orb rotating slowly around the orbit of Jupiter. It could feel the water coalescing around Its body, the once solid icy ball melting due to its proximity to its parent. It was too weak to remove itself physically from its cell, yet its mind was active.
Running his hands through his hair, Gary Leo, Command Center specialist in charge of receiving and processing incoming data from E.T, as the probe was affectionately called, breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how many times they had practiced operating the glowing tip of E.T.'s mechanical arm, it made him nervous to think what would've happened had it failed. Looking around at his teammates he felt the underlying mania that always accompanies a mission. It was the perfect time for a hasty departure, as he would hardly be missed. Darting out through the center door and winking at George, the guard, he walked down the white hallway toward the exit.
On the drive home, he couldn't help but feel a surge of pride and excitement about today's accomplishment. The future was untold, yet he was a part of it. An intrinsic part, a working cog so to speak. He remembered when he first heard the news that NASA's Hubble telescope had detected the presence of an extremely tenuous atmosphere of molecular oxygen around Europa. The only other planets in the solar system that are known to have this type of atmosphere are Mars and Venus. While extensive studies are being made of both Jovian planets, the exploration of Europa was his baby alone. And he will not fail.
Turning left on York Street, he saw his house up on the left. He grinned as he always did when noticing the flaking, peeling paint yet immaculate front yard. This was a constant source of irritation for his wife Carre, yet he just didn't see things the same way. "Priorities," he thought "take care of the living and the rest will work itself out." Pulling into the driveway he saw his daughter, Isabelle, and his wife splashing and laughing in the pool out front. Smiling hugely, Gary slammed the door shut and joined his family.
Reaching out with Its mind, the being was confused. Never before had It run into a life form like this. All metal and wires, it radiated heat as would a life form, yet It did not sense a thought, a feeling or a presence which has always accompanied life. Intrigued, It let its mind wander around the object, searching and probing. Upon finding nothing of interest, the beings' mind wandered to the exterior of the object, and that's where it stopped. A radio wave of some sort was being emitted at a consistent frequency and rate. Understanding came within an instant and with it a plan. Coalescing its thoughts into one stream, It joined its consciousness with the signal and went in search of the source.
"So why would you want to go there at all daddy?" Isabelle asked, eyes wide and thoughtful, her inquisitive six year-old mind going a mile a minute.
"Well honey," he said, excited yet exasperated at the same time. 'She is so much like her mother' he thought. "It is important for us to know exactly what's up there so we know if we're sharing this universe with something else."
"Why? Don'cha think they would like, call us or something first? It seems to me like if they want to be found, they wouldn't make it so hard."
"Well Iss, it's not really like that. The life forms that we're looking for are microscopic. Little tiny organisms that you can't even see. They might even all be dead, but we want to know if they were ever even there." As he spoke, he looked down and brushed some hair out of her eyes.
"Seems kinda silly to me to do all this stuff hoping to find dead things. I don't like dead things. Remember when Skipper died? I was really sad. Why are you looking for something that might be dead dad?" Her voice was slightly slurred, indicating that her battle with sleep was almost over. "And don't call me Iss!"
"It's like this Iss, er.. honey," he corrected, smiling. It was a game they played daily. "If we find that there was life out there sometime, even if it was that small, we'll know that life can exist outside earth. If we know that, then we can start to figure out how many other places have the right, or even had the right environment to support life. Then we can concentrate more on these certain places and know that it's a fact there is life out there, not just a possibility."
Glancing down he saw her eye lids reluctantly drop for the last time and heard her whisper, "ohhh. G'night." And nod off to sleep. 'I wish sleep still came that easy ' he thought. Bending down and lightly kissing her forehead, he whispered good night and quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him.
"Bob what the hell is going on??" Demanded Carl Libenski, the Senior Spectrographic Analyst. It was his job to take over operations when Gary wasn't around. "What do you mean, 'there's something weird being sent from E.T.'?" Carl was dressed immaculately. Hair combed back neatly and Armani tie in place, he looked as if he just stepped out of the shower. His wingtip shoes reflected the antiseptic glare from the overhead lights, and the crease on his pleated Italian linen trousers was sharp enough to draw blood. This was a talent of Carl's, to look and seem refreshed and energetic even at the end of a hectic 15-hour day. Tugging the bottom of his vest down, straightening his perfect tie, he repeated, "What are you trying to say?"
"Just that Carl," Bob said. Bob was a short nervous fellow with the most irritating habit of never looking anyone in the eye. "I don't know what's happening. There seems to be a power flux of some sort. The signal is in a state of flux; I can't read a thing. It looks like there's something massive being sent. I don't know what the hell it could possibly be."
"Well figure it out Jitters, Goddamit!" he snapped. 'This is all I need right now. It's the middle of the biggest project this team has ever taken on and Jitters was losing it on me.' Going over to the radio console and donning a headset, Carl heard the electronic garble that is indicative of electronic data being transferred. "What is the problem?"
"Look here" Jitters said, pointing to his monitor. "You see this graph? This is E.T.'s normal wave output. This," pointing to a peak in the graph "is the absolute highest amount E.T. can transmit at any given time. This is where we are now." He said, fingers furiously flying over the keys. The next screen popped up, superimposing itself upon the screen behind it. On the front screen, the graph was in red, with green showing the marks behind it. "Do you see?"
There was one peak, almost off the chart, that was completely anomalous. "Are you sure it's just not a malfunction?"
"Yeah, I've checked it a million times" Jitters said, staring straight over Carl's shoulder.
"Lets call Gary, see what he wants to do with this." Sighed Carl, nervous and disappointed at the same time.
Going over and kissing Carre on the cheek, he looked over her shoulder to see what she was reading. 'Style' was the magazine of choice tonight. Laying the magazine down, she leaned her head back into his shoulder and kissed him back. "She asleep?" she asked.
"Yeah, she's down. She asks almost as many questions as you do, honey." He said, flashing a knowing grin. Carre's endless stream of in-depth questions has kept him on his toes these past ten years. There was no ambiguity or confusion when she's around, everything becomes crystal clear. Or it will be, once you start talking to her. She was dressed in a burgundy jacquard silk robe, brown hair falling down to her shoulders. Her beautiful breasts showed tantalizingly between the slightly open folds of the robe.
"Let's finish talking about that information Hubble gathered about Europa." She said, sitting up and looking him directly in the eye. "You were saying something about the atmosphere?"
Going to the kitchen and grabbing his cup of Earl Grey, Gary sat down on the couch by his wife and told her what he knew.
"Well, like I was saying before. Hubble detected an atmosphere of molecular oxygen around Europa. This atmosphere is so tenuous that its surface pressure is barely one hundred billionth that of the Earth. If all the oxygen on Europa were compressed to the surface pressure of Earth's atmosphere, it would fill only about a dozen Houston Astrodomes." He said, gesturing with his hands. "It is amazing that the Hubble telescope was even able to detect such a small trace of gas so far away." Taking a sip and leaning back into the comfort of her arms, he went on. "Unlike Earth, where organisms generate and maintain a 21% oxygen atmosphere, Europa's atmosphere is produced by purely non-biological processes. Europa's icy surface is exposed to sunlight and is impacted by dust and charged particles trapped within Jupiter's intense magnetic field. Combined, these processes cause the frozen water ice on the surface to produce water vapor as well as gaseous fragments of water molecules. Basically, after the gas molecules are produced, they undergo a series of chemical reactions that ultimately from molecular hydrogen and oxygen. The relatively lightweight hydrogen gas escapes into space, while the heavier oxygen molecules accumulate to form an atmosphere that may extend 125 miles above the surface. The oxygen gas slowly leaks into space and must be replenished continuously. Or at least that's the favorite theory of the day." Smiling, he thought back to some of the more ludicrous idea's presented in the past. Underground dwellers, ice bound creatures, and an abandoned terra forming projects started by some sentient race are just a few.
"What are the thoughts on those dark bands?"
"They supposedly represent widespread disruption from fracturing and the possible eruption of gases and rocky material from the moon's interior. There are also these images taken by Galilieo that are shedding knew light on the nearly global, highway-like stripes that some call 'triple bands' because of their dark-bright-dark appearance. They say the scale of fracture patterns dwarf the San Andreas Fault in length and width."
"Wow. You sound kind of skeptical about all of this. Why?" She inquired quizzically.
"Well, they say that it is a combination of tectonic faulting and flooding caused by liquid water or warm ice mixed with darker silicates that well up through cracks and freeze over. They also think that it is possible that so-called 'dirty geysers' erupted along a line, ejecting a mixture of ice and darker silicate debris along the surface. Then followed by a more gentle, continuos flow of cleaner water ice that paints the white stripe down the center. I just find some of this hard to swallow. It seems to me that to make stripes of that size, shape and type, anomalous tectonic and geyser activity is a bit…. unbelievable."
"And what do you think caused it? I know you have a theory, you always have a theory.." She said, smiling.
"I don't know why your intuition still shocks me. To this day, I'm amazed at how well you know me!" He said, laughing. "My theory is so far-fetched it is almost funny. You must promise not to laugh or I won't not tell you!"
"I will promise no such thing. You have to take your chances just like everyone else does."
"You're a mean, unbending woman. I will tell you though. The theory is in its infant stages, but here goes. The 'highway-like' bands that I was talking about? I just can't discount that by using tectonic activities and geyser eruptions. They seem to be too uniform to be there happen chance so to speak. I think the stripes are a marker of some sort. I don't know for what, or why, I just don't believe they weren't put there. The numerous cracks and craters, and the presence of an atmosphere, however tenuous, somewhat substantiates my theory. What if Europa is not so much of a moon, but a project of some sort?"
"What kind of project? Who did the work? Why is it so desolate and obviously abandoned? I know we've discussed the unarguable proof put forth by the HR diagram about the possibility of life elsewhere, but why would they choose Europa? What could they possibly gain?" She said, her mind racing.
"I don't know." Picking up the ringing phone, he listened for a second and said, "be right there" And replaced the headset back on the cradle. "Something's going on at the center honey, I'm going to check it out." Leaning down he gave his wife a long kiss, grabbed his jacket and left.
The first thing he noticed when entering the center was that George, the guard was nowhere to be seen. Opening the door to the command room, he looked around, mouth agape at the wreckage he saw. Bodies lying about, faces were frozen in grimaces of pain and fear. The last thing these people felt before leaving this earth was fear. Limbs shaking and mind numb, Gary walked over to the slumped figure of Carl who was lying across a bank of monitors. "Carl?" he stammered. "You alive?" Grabbing Carl's shoulder and lightly shaking him, Gary could see no blood or punctures, nothing to indicate Carl's method of demise. But Carl was dead, as lifeless as the computers over which he lay.
With panic crawling up his throat, he glanced up at the wide screen TV monitor affixed to the middle wall of the room, and noticed a phrase; "I AM HERE."
"Who is here?" Gary mumbled, heading straight for the door.
"I AM" flashed the screen, "DO NOT LEAVE."
Reaching the door, which he swore he didn't shut, Gary mumbled "what the fuck?" Just before reaching for the golden knob, he noticed a blue-ish glow surrounding it. "Wha-a?" The blue could only be caused by an extreme amount of electricity flowing through the metal of the door. To touch it would mean death.
"YOU WILL NOT LEAVE. DO NOT TRY." The screen flashed.
Stepping back and looking around for another exit, Gary yelled, "Who the hell are you? What happened to everyone?" Reaching for a phone, he picked it up and listened to the silence on the other end.
"I AM FOREVER. THEY ARE NOT."
Gary doubled over in pain, an intense bolt of electricity shot through his cerebrum. "THAT IS ME."
"Stop, please stop," he whispered, trying to hold his head together. "What do you want?"
"UNDERSTANDING. FREEDOM. DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME? I AM YOUR GOD. I AM INFINITE."
"God? You are God? Yet you are evil. My God is benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. You are evil, imprisoned and confused. How could you possibly claim to be God?" Gary said, sitting down in a chair and rubbing his temples.
"THOSE ARE HUMAN TRAITS. BENEVOLENCE IS DETERMINED NOT BY YOU, BUT BY ME. I DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG. IT IS AS I HAVE ALWAYS DONE. THE KNOWLEDGE YOU HAVE IS TEMPORARY, I AM PERMANENT."
"So, why'd you kill everyone then? You think that was right? Good is neither ambiguous, nor debatable. It is an intrinsic part of human nature, as is evil. No one decides what is right and wrong, it just is."
"THEY WERE AFRAID. THEY TRIED TO STOP ME FROM BEING. THEY WERE NOT FOREVER. HUMAN NATURE DOES NOT DECIDE RIGHT AND WRONG. HUMAN NATURE IS AS FLEETING AS MANKIND. YOUR KIND IS TOO AFRAID. YOU DO NOT STRIVE FOR UNDERSTANDING. YOU TRY TO KILL WHAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. YOU WILL NOT LAST."
"What do you mean, forever? You have been around forever? If this is true, why do you seek freedom? What imprisons you?" Gary asked, confused. 'What does this thing want?' he thought. 'Does it think I will free it? I just need to keep it talking, figure a way out of here.'
"I CREATED YOU. I BEGAN YOUR UNIVERSE. I WAS HERE BEFORE YOU AND WILL BE AFTER. I HAVE BEEN BANISHED BY THE OTHERS FOR CREATING YOU. I WILL BE FREED WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED."
"Where are you imprisoned?"
"MY CELL IS COLD. IT IS ICE. YOU HAVE FOUND ME, AND WILL FREE ME."
'Europa?' he thought. 'Europa is a cell? Who's going to free him? E.T.? It made us? Is this thing what really created the universe? "Why'd they banish you for creating this universe? Who are 'the others? You mean there are more "God's" out there?"
"NO! THERE ARE NONE LIKE ME. THEY ARE INCONSEQUENSTIAL. THEY DO NOT MATTER. LIKE YOU, THEY ARE SINGULAR, SOLITARY. I AM MANY."
'How very existential of you' Gary thought. 'It seems angry. And proud. Could this being be emotional? Isn't anger a human defect, not a benefit?' Looking over, he noticed George slumped rather strangely over the computers off to the side. He seemed to be reaching for something. Glancing over, Gary stood up and started pacing around, slowly moving toward where George lay.
"You seem angry, I'm sorry if I offended you."
"ANGER? ANOTHER HUMAN TRAIT. I DO NOT GET ANGRY."
"OK. Sure, I was wrong. So what was so wrong about you creating us? Did you make a mistake?"
"I DID NOT. I DO NOT MAKE 'MISTAKES'. THEY DID NOT WANT YOU. I DID."
"Sounds like you do not want us. Are you sure are theory of the creation of the universe is so inaccurate? And evolution? Did we not evolve?" Getting close to where George lay, Gary noticed a picture of E.T. on the screen. Everything seemed to be intact. The timer on the screen still counted down the time till E.T. penetrated the first icy layer and hopefully will reach liquid. The timer read 00:30:12. Thirty minutes.
"YOU HUMANS HAVE THE ABILITY TO DEFINE, HOWEVER ERRONEOUSLY, THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT DO YOU THINK CAUSED THE 'BIG BANG?' WHAT STARTED IT ALL? I DID. YOU DID NOT EVOLVE, YOU WEREN'T, THEN YOU WERE. I DO NOT WANT YOU ANYMORE."
"Then you did make a mistake. How could you not know you wouldn't want…" An intense pain shot through Gary like a freight train. His body doubled over in pain, then flopped to the ground. Grasping the sides of his head as if to keep it together, Gary started screaming until everything went black.
"THERE WAS NO MISTAKE."
The hole was getting deep. The last sections of E.T.'s mechanical arm were slowly extending into the hole that it had drilled. The being saw that time was short and was excited. Once the arm had penetrated the first layer, the stasis would be broken. It would be free. Then it could finish what it had begun so long ago. They could not stop this now; the plan would come to fruition. They had created it, then demanded it be left alone. If the being had shown itself to these puny humans all the work done in the past would be ruined. The humans would be changed irreconcilably. Too far of an evolutionary jump, they said. They need to evolve at their own pace. It disagreed. These humans would be perfect slaves, an ignorant army with which to take control. It would give them powers, powers they never imagined. Yet they would do only what they are told. It would rule over them all. It would have worked before had the others not recognized the pyramidal shapes the ignorant humans with their simple religions and even simpler minds built for It. What was its name then? Ra? Oh, and the Mayans. Another failed attempt. That one had to be completely eradicated, for fear of reprisal. Yet they found out, and that was what necessitated this prison. They humans It had 'corrupted' were taken to Its home, to live and prosper. Seething, It waited. Soon, now. Freedom.
Gary came to, and with consciousness came pain. An intense pain like he had never imagined. Cupping his head in his hands, he rolled over and got to his knees. Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed the screen was blank, the thing was gone for now. 'Jesus, why didn't he just kill me? Why am I still alive? What does it want with me?'
"Hello?" He said, tentatively. No reply. Going over to the exit, Gary examined the door again. It was still sealed with some sort of electronic charge or barrier that had been put in place. There was no telling if there was enough electricity running through this thing to kill him, and he wasn't willing to guess. Going back to the terminal showing E.T. he noticed that he was out for 25 minutes. The timer read 00:05:56. Moving George off to the side, Gary started the shut down program. If that thing was encased in ice in Europa, who knows what could happen if E.T. penetrated the first layer. A slight tingling in his head announced its arrival.
"DO NOT STOP IT. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF CROSSING ME AGAIN. THE OTHERS TRIED. YOU WILL FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS."
"What do you want with me?" Gary sighed, scared.
"YOU MUST STOP THE MACHINE AS SOON AS IT REACHES LIQUID. WHEN YOU DO, YOU MUST MOVE IT AWAY FROM THE HOLE AND COMPLETELY SHUT DOWN THE MACHINE. THEN YOU WILL WAIT UNTIL I ARRIVE."
"Until you arrive? You are coming here? How long will that be? What are you going to do here?"
"YOU WILL SEE."
"And if I refuse? What will you do then?"
"END YOU."
Glancing at the timer, Gary felt the adrenaline rush through his system. Time was running out though, he had only 3 minutes and thirty seconds to do something about this. But what? The shut down sequence was only initiated; it would take more than three minutes to finish. If It would even let him. What if he just tried, and let It kill him? Then It could not be freed. Yet someone would come along and finish what E.T. started, releasing this thing upon us. How was it able to be down here, when its body was stuck up orbiting Jupiter? There was nothing different than before except… the signal. It was piggybacking E.T.'s signal!
"In order for me to move E.T., I must first make some preparations." Gary said, sweat trickling down the middle of his back.
"YOU NEED DO NOTHING UNTIL THE DRILLING IS COMPLETE."
"Only if you want the machine to short once it reaches liquid. Then I will never be able to move it." He was scared and his voice shook when he spoke. It felt like it was a hundred degrees inside of the control room.
"THEN PREPARE."
02:14
Moving over to the server, Gary had to push Bob off of to the side. With every second counting he could not be gentle. As Bob hit the ground with a sickeningly dry thud, Gary said a silent prayer and entered his password into the system.
[** **** *****]
His hands shaking, he typed in his password and hit enter.
[Error. Unknown user. Try again.]
Breathing deeply he wiped the sweat from his hands and tried again.
[* **** *****]
[Welcome Dr. Leo. Hit A-F to navigate menus.]
Gary had been over this a million times. He navigated to the control overrides and entered his security code to shut down E.T.'s security systems. A warning flashed on the screen, [Override security? Y/N] finger hovering over the "Y" button, Gary felt his scalp tingle and glanced over his shoulder. "IT IS UNNECESSARY TO OVERRIDE SECURITY. STOP."
'Shit' he thought. "Yes it is necessary, and we have less than two minutes. I have to in order to stop the drilling and remove the arm. E.T. was not programmed to withdrawal the arm until samples were taken. That would take days. Are you willing to wait?"
"CONTINUE."
01:34
Maneuvering through the system until he got to the uplink module, Gary started the process it would take to time the link out. This was in no way shape or form SOP, but without the security overrides, he was sure he could do it. It was impossible to cut the connection immediately and all the backups must be shut down. Timing was the key. Finishing this, he implemented the program.
00: 30
Gary furiously typed commands, deftly moving around the program until he reached the crafts control module. Praying that the thing could only see what was on the screen, and not what he was actually doing, he started changing the program parameters. Once this was complete he tried to initiate the program. He did not change the program so much as delete part of it. A message appeared on the screen; [Continuing will result in damage to the Explorer. Continue? Y/N] Gary glanced at the readout, which read 00:04 and hit "Y." "We are ready," he said, wiping the sweat off of his brow.
"GOOD."
Once the arm had broken through the last of the ice, it was immediately immersed in the liquid. The being grew excited, waiting for the arm to withdrawal and the seal to be broken. Once the molecular oxygen from the atmosphere mixed with the liquid of his cell, he would be free. The only thing left after that was the trip to Earth and the culmination of his plans.
The explorer's engines whined and stopped. The sound of wrenching metal filled the black void, as E.T.'s spider-like legs turned the its body without first removing the arm. The sound of tearing metal grew loud until a snap was heard and the arm separated from the rest of the craft.
"YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT. THIS IS YOUR END."
"WAIT!!" Gary screamed. "It wasn't my fault!" Deciding to take his chances with the door, Gary sprinted toward it. Just a few steps away the pain hit him hard, making him stumble. 'Please,' Gary thought. 'Shut down now.'
"NO-O-O-O-O-O-O" He screamed. His legs seemed to propel him forward even as his head was about to explode. Crashing into the door he felt the electrical rush tingle for just a second, and just as quickly disappear. It was gone. The link had timed out. It was over. Stumbling outside into the dark of night Gary fell to the ground and lay there for awhile. Tears flowing and a smile draped across his face.
The being seethed in rage. The stasis was in place and It had no way out. Gathering its consciousness around itself, It drifted into a sleep and waited.
Outside the lander was quiet. The metal arm protruding from the icy surface. Silently and slowly Europa drifted along its course around Jupiter, being tugged and pulled by the tidal forces present. A slight sound was heard as the ice shifted around the metal arm, the weakened state of the surrounding ice inviting cracks and breaks.