Fallen Angel of Ganymede #SciFriday

Fallen Angel of Ganymede

https://www.wattpad.com/172770079-scifi-competitions-results-challenge-19 

Wattpad Contest Honorable Mention

The human visitors edged closer to the inhabited, rocky new world. With each step they took they had less understanding of what lay beneath. First to the moon, then to mars, then to Ganymede it's self with the crisp first foot print on the soiled snows echoed live round the solar system. To first base, first colony under Jupiter's fridge gaze. How were they to know that 100km beneath their feet was a salty dark ocean bristling with life? The people of Ganymede too were unaware of the world above.

Lena looked around herself carefully. Radiation particles shot through Ganymede, leaving a bright lightning contrail. As it passed through the water it gave a second or two of luminescence allowing her to see. What she saw wasn't reassuring. She was now in the middle of a huge sphere of squid like creatures. All she could really hear was own laboured breathing inside the space suit helmet , she could just make out high pitched squeaking.

Of all the things that had happened in the past five execrable hours since she had fell down the opening crack in Ganymede's ice this was the worst. In the hour she fell, Lena recalled that no one who fell down a crack lived. After low gravity sky diving through 10 dark miles of snow fall and cloud, she had dived in to a black ocean and survived.

Unconscious since impact, she had awoken with course tentacles wrapped around her legs. She was being towed deeper into the moon. Others joined. With the radiation bolts for lighting she saw what looked to be a city. She checked her suit display. The small atomic generator that recycled her air and heated her suit seemed intact. She could breath for weeks but without food starve.

"Our world is only 3270 miles across, and we know enough to know that no world closer to the sun could be cold enough to contain the ice shield floating on top of the ocean necessary to protect the planet against radiation." began Augustus.

His tentacles had an unnatural habit of forming complex symmetric shapes when he was excited.

"So where is the fallen Angel from? The creature shares lots of similarities with us. A single heart"

As he spoke the people of Ganymede began to look into the creature's heart. They were in many ways like dolphins. They used echolocation to view the world around them. This meant that they could easily see through most things. The language of Augustus also used echolocation. If he wanted to say the word 'fish' he just had to make the sound of a fish.

"However the temperature of the creature is much higher. This suggests that it does indeed come from the inner solar system"

Lena reached out and stroked the limb of the creature near her. Augustus suddenly froze and slowly turned round. Lena felt like she was going to die. The only thing she could think to do to calm herself down was to sing. The audience was motionless now but she heard an immense amount of clicking through her helmet. She kept singing. Augustus kept moving one tentacle forwards and backwards in time with her song then he stroked her arm.

'Citizens of Broken arrow' Augustus began 'I think you may be witnessing a miraculous event. I feel certain that the creature is trying to communicate with us.This concludes the presentation'.

It was a week later, they had worked without rest, trying to communicate. Augustus knew she was becoming weak and tired. Then one night he had entered the laboratory and unlocked the cage. She had been slow to move it first. Then cautiously emerged. Impatiently Augustus pulled her by the arms, to the waiting submarine outside. Within minutes he left the city behind, he hoping to decrease in pressure would tell the creature Lena what he was doing.

He piloted the submarine to the outer rock. Then he saw the site which he had been secretly told about. A huge kevlar cable hanging down the east crevasse into the sea. From it robotic lights searched highlighting the mile wide white cavern around them. Soon Lena was sitting waving in the spotlight. Augustus couldn't see much of the life beyond water but he could sense her stroking his tentacle. He felt she would be safe, and that would have to keep him, through all future punishments.

As she rose into the deep crevasse she watched Augustus sitting in the water getting smaller. She wondered at how different they were yet despite a million years of evolution so alike. Different yet capable of a universal single act of kindness. So Lena Jones rose to a hero's welcome and the position of first human to contact an alien intelligence.