From Europa with love

From Europa with love: Part III

THREE

As soon as the shuttle pushed off from the surface of Europa, Belle pressured Kulcin to continue his account of the incident.

"So?" For the most part, it drove her crazy, his stoic personality never indicating if he was listening or not. She was settled into her seat and slid the thrusters gently forward, her delicate fingers wrapped around the joystick, rotating the shuttle around. Kulcin had been looking out of the cockpit window, regarding the wash of snow appearing like a sheet being pulled over the bodies below.

"Sorry... you mean about my report?"

"Yeah," she replied mockingly.

"It didn't happen that way."

"I was right," she said, peering through squinted eyes. His helmet was off and she noticed the stubble of his beard like he hadn't shaved in a week. "So, what really happened?"

He briefly held back his response. "If I tell you, and I hear this from anyone else, I will know it came from you," he warned, turning and making eye contact, something he seldom did with anyone.

She was unnerved by his good looks and steel grey eyes. "What do you mean by that?" she responded. "Who am I going to tell, Stevie, Nadia? I wouldn't tell them squat!" She became defensive. "Why would you think I—"

"Ok, Ok," he said, "sorry, I just wanted to make sure," he said turning away and leaning back in seat. "After I returned to my shuttle—"

"Returned from where?" she cut in.

"I'll get to that in a minute.... After I returned and submitted my log entry, it wasn't long before I received a dispatch... from Nadia."

Belle scoffed. "I knew she had something to do with this! What did she want?"

"Apparently," he continued, "profit forecasts are not where they should be and any negative publicity would not be good for her career, nor mine. She went on to say that if I didn't change the entry or if I tried to go around her, I would face a battery of psycho-testing back in Orlando. She's not one to make threats, only promises."

Belle looked away, her arms straight and her fingers dangling above the icons with her head tilted down as if ready to charge. "You know what I'd like to say to Nadia if she tried to pull that stunt on me?"

"Get away from her, you bitch!" Kulcin recited and then laughed at Belle's obsession of taking on the mannerisms of Ellen Ripley, having seen the Alien series for the first time a week before.

"Well, yeah! I'd say that to her," the wind now let out of her sails. "So what happened?" she pushed. "What's not in the entry?"

"Everything up to where the shuttle burst through the ice, all that was accurate." Then he stopped talking and turned away as if he were recounting the sequence of events for the first time. "I remember looking up through the windows as we were shooting toward the ice, waiting for the shields to crash in, but it never happened." He turned to see if she believed what he was saying. "The shuttle slipped right through and landed smoothly." He looked away, his hand sliding down the stubble on his chin, seemingly puzzled by his own thoughts. "I was expecting to see a hole in the ice where we passed through, but there was no hole, just swirls of snow."

Belle took note of his far-off stare. "Keep talking?" she nudged and set course for the Tokamak gateway, their relay station back to Haven.

Accelerating away from Europa with nothing but pinpoints of stars before them, like sequins pinned to the fabric of space itself, Kulcin continued, "The swirling got faster and began to pull water up from below, forming a column as wide as a sequoia, rising three or four meters above the surface. The whole thing seemed lighted from below the ice. I remember getting up from my seat, trying to get a better view." He stopped talking as if he were seeing it now.