Europa Mon Amour

Chapter 15

Saturn is more foreboding than Jupiter. The rings make it look sinister in an aesthetic way. Looking at it gives one an unnerving feeling of desolation. But, the good news is that it means that we are nearing our destination.

“Enceladus looks a lot smoother than Europa,” I said.

“That’s an illusion,” Marie said. “Enceladus has craters. The smoothness is because its surface is mostly ice and at this distance from the sun, ice reflects light much better than rock.”

“That probably means that the ice layer is much thicker than on Europa.”

“That’s probably true, but we won’t know until we can get some readings close up.”

“We’re a day from orbital insertion, but I’m thinking that we should not get into an orbit next to Enceladus because it’s orbiting too far inside Saturn’s E-ring. I think that would be too much for the collision system to handle.”

“I agree. The plumes emanating from Enceladus are feeding the E-ring. The only problem with orbiting further out from Enceladus’ orbit is that the ship will progress away from the moon and we’ll be out of communications range for some time when we’re on the surface, at least until the ship realigns with the moon again, that is."

“That’s a chance will have to take,” I said. “What I don’t like is the fact that we’ll have to dig down through twenty miles of ice to get into the ocean.”

“Maybe we can find a fissure that will make the job easier.”

“I hope so. Even though they increased the battery power on the submersible, it won’t take kindly to digging through hard ice for that long.”

“I think that we should try the south polar region of the moon. That’s where they’ve seen waterspouts. We might be able to find a vent there that would make it easier to get down to the ocean.”

“You’re the astronomer,” I said. “I’ll go where ever you choose.”

“You make me feel as if I should reward you for saying that, Ryan Taylor,” she said grinning.

“Being with you is reward enough, my dear.”

She pulled her tee off and tossed it.

I looked around. “Ah . . . they’ll see that.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I want you to enjoy seeing me in my true form.”

Her true form, as she called it, was definitely a unanticipated gift so I smiled. “Thank you.”

She giggled. She seemed to be doing impulsive things like that more often. It was as if she has regressed and was behaving like a young teen again. I didn’t mind. The scenery was definitely easy on the eyes.

COMA fired the breaking rockets in order to pull us into an orbit about a few thousand kilometers further out from Enceladus’ orbit. The image of Saturn dominated the main screen. The detail in the rings was exquisitely beautiful this close, but what grabbed our eyes was the little moon Enceladus. It gleamed like a polished gem in the blackness of space and it seemed so peaceful.

“COMA, send out a probe into a low orbit around Enceledus.”

“I am detecting an appreciable atmosphere of water vapor, Ryan. It has small amounts of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane.”

“So, what do you suggest, COMA?”

“I would keep the probe at least ten kilometers above the surface, Ryan.”

“Make it so, COMA.”

Marie gave me a smirk. “Very funny, Jean Luc.”

I chuckled.

The sound of the probe’s launch echoed in the crew compartment as a loud swishing noise. It took twenty minutes for the probe to get into a stable orbit around Enceladus before any data began streaming back. We would only have a few hours to get data from the little probe. After that, we would be out of range because of Enceladus’ orbital progression.

“The surface temperature is only 75 K,” Marie said. “That’s cold enough to freeze ice to the consistency of steel.”

“You were right about the craters,” I said. “In a way, this looks like a typical moon.”

“Yes, but as you can see, there are many signs of tectonic activity, mostly of the cryovolcanism type. The south polar region is currently venting ice and salt crystals into Saturn’s E-ring; although, most of the salt crystals rain back down on Enceladus.”

“Interesting cracks,” I said.

“Yes, they call them tiger stripes,” she said

I pointed. “What’s that?”

She manipulated a joystick to magnify what I was pointing at. “I’m not sure. It appears to be a round bulge in the ice with a long scrape trailing . . . Oh my God!”

“What?”

“That is not a natural artifact.”

“You mean it’s . . . alien?”

“Yes. It has to be.” She paused. “COMA, turn on the X-ray instrument.”

“Yes, Marie.”

After several minutes of studying the scans, Marie had a report. “I’m getting peaks that indicate titanium, iridium, and platinum. There’s no way those elements are endemic to Enceladus.”

“If that’s an alien craft, it must have crash landed. The scrape is at least four hundred meters long.”

“Obviously, venting has covered the craft in ice, but it’s not that thick, maybe a few centimeters.”

“That would indicate that it hasn’t been here that long,” I said. “Someone beat us to the punch.”

“We must report this to Earth Control,” Marie said. “This could change our mission plans.”

“COMA, establish communication link with Earth.”

“Link will be established in five point six minutes.”

“They’re going to freak out about this,” I said.

“Yes, but they’ll come up with a plan for us.”

I wasn’t as confident in them as she was, but I didn’t want to upset her.

The time passed quickly and a green light indicated that COM was ready.

“We have reached orbit around Saturn and are positioned a thousand kilometers further out. We’ve launched a probe and have discovered an alien artifact, possibly a craft that has crashed near the South Polar Region. We will send the data we have acquired.”

“COMA, send the probe’s data.”

“Yes, Ryan.”

I turned to Marie. “We may as well relax. We won’t get a response back for at least two hours.”

“Hopefully, we’ll still be in range to receive the signal.”

“You will, Marie,” COMA said.

When the reply arrived, we were both astounded, especially since it came from Dr. Kensington.

“We have reviewed your data and are changing your mission. We want you to go down and investigate the alien craft. You will not need to use the submersible. We don’t want you to attempt a penetration into Enceladus’ ocean. The alien craft is much more important at this juncture. We await your report.”

The transmission ended and I gave a reply. “We will do as you wish.”

“COM is no longer possible,” COMA informed us.

“Thank you, COMA,” I said. I turned to Marie. “Well, we may as well get busy.”

“We have several hours to get ready,” Marie said. “We won’t be in opposition until then.”

“This should be an easy task compared to going down into the ocean,” I said.

“An easy task is never a guarantee,” she replied.

I took that to mean that she is wary of going down to the moon’s surface. I certainly am.