Europa Mon Amour

Chapter 7

The sub sank down a few thousand meters below the bottom of the ice layer. We were unable to see anything on a screen that displayed video feeds from the outside cameras. Blacker than the ace of spades was what we were looking at. The effect was disorienting. In fact, we both felt anxiety.

I hate not seeing anything. It was as if we were in a trap without a means to find our way out. What’s even worse is that I had no idea which way to go. There were no visible features to determine our course.

“The sensors indicate a temperature of six point two degrees Celsius,” Marie said. “That’s relatively warm.”

“Yeah, almost thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit,” I said. “I would have assumed a temperature near freezing. There must be a source of heat more effective than mere gravitational interaction with Jupiter.”

“The salt content is about six percent,” she said. “That’s not too bad; although, it could vary quite a bit.”

“Let’s try the lights,” I said before pressing a button.

The view on the main screen was as if we were in a dim fog. Everything was blurry and hard to see.

“That’s not good,” I said. “We’re going to have to use the HRS unit.”

“What’s the resolution of the High Resolution Sonar?” she asked.

“I think it’s around a half a centimeter,” I said. I turned on the unit and a strange looking display appeared on the main screen, mostly sonar static that looked like sparkles.

“I don’t see anything,” I said. “Maybe we have to go lower.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “I’m reading a couple of thousand milli-Rems per hour at this level. That’s lethal to most known life.”

I moved the stick to send the sub lower, but after plunging to two miles below the ice layer, we found nothing.

“This is turning out to be a bust,” I said.

“Maybe this environment is too harsh to support life,” she said.

“Whoa!” I pointed at the screen. “What’s that?”

Marie stared at the screen for a full minute before saying anything. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s a form of eukaryote. See the flagella.”

“I don’t know what that means?”

“It looks like a big amoeba.”

“So, you think it’s alive?”

“Yes. See how it’s wagging its tail and changing direction.”

Suddenly, a larger thing with a big mouth swallowed it.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered loudly.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It looked like a large worm. I have no idea which phylum it belongs in.”

“First we see nothing and now we’re seeing all sorts of things.”

“I was right about the radiation levels forcing life down deeper,” she said.

“I can go lower,” I said, looking at her.

“Let’s try it.”

I dived the sub another mile deeper. We began to see all sorts of strange creatures swimming around. Some were long and filamentous, while others were short and globular. They all showed signs of life.

“I find it hard to believe that these creatures evolved in this god forsaken ocean,” I said. “There’s absolutely no light down here to create photosynthesis.”

“The thermal vents on Earth often have lots of life forms that don’t depend on oxygen nor photosynthesis.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. NASA will be happy to see life here no matter how it got here.”

“Hopefully, we’ll get back to give them our data,” she said sounding glum.

“We’ll get back if I have anything to do with it.” Both eyebrows shot up. “What is that?” I yelled.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s large.”

I moved the stick to move the sub toward it, but I had to dive down another mile before I leveled the sub out. The object was swimming fast and turning on a dime, so to speak. After a while, I decided that the creature was swimming too fast for me to catch up, so I backed off.

“It’s moving too fast,” I said. “I don’t want to overheat the engines.”

She pointed at the screen. “It doesn’t matter. It seems that we’ve picked up a group of them.”

The image was simply creepy. At least a dozen creatures filled the screen and appeared to be moving along with us like a pod of dolphins accompanying a ship.

“This is going to be hard to explain,” I said.

“We’re not here to explain anything,” she replied. “Our job is to record it and then get back with the data.”

“What are those things?” I asked, pointing at the screen.

“That’s a good question. I can’t really answer that until I get a better look at them. They appear to be some sort of fish with arms.”

“What you’re describing is a mermaid.”

“That’s a mythical creature. These things look more like a fish with arms instead of flippers.”

“Okay, so they’re mermen.”

She frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

“They look to me like the monster in the movie ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’ except that they don’t have legs.”

“I’m mot familiar with that reference,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. What we should determine is if this creature is intelligent.”

She pointed at the screen. “Maybe we have the answer to that.”

I stared at the image and shook my head. We had stumbled upon the mother lode of scientific evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life.