BENEATH - A Novel (45 page)

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Connelly sat down to the right of Harris and buckled herself in, pulling the strap as snug as she could manage. The outer hull of the command center was still clear and she had a clear view of the swath of ice laid out before Surveyor. It was a jumble of crags, nooks, towers and humps, far from smooth. A chill shook Connelly's body. This was their airstrip.

"Thrusters to maximum," Harris said as he worked the controls, prepping the ship for lift off, something it was not designed to do…especially not in a rush.

"Thrusters at maximum," Choi replied. She was a model of cool efficiency, as usual.

The shaking grew worse. Connelly could feel her teeth clattering together. She clenched her jaw tight and kept an eye on the view. A slight distortion in the ice crust caught her attention. She watched, waiting for it to repeat.

Then it did. The ice rose subtlety as something from below pushed up. A thick crack began to spread towards them. "It's coming!" Connelly shouted. "Get us in the air!"

Harris slapped a few more buttons and switched on the internal com system. "Emergency lift off in ten seconds. Robert, Willard, buckle up or hold on. Five…four…three…two…one…" Harris activated the engines and then slammed the rear thrusters to full speed. They shot forward, sliding across the ice.

The shaking produced by Surveyor's balloon coated hull sliding over the tumultuous ice concealed the tremor created by whatever was coming up through the ice. But Connelly could see the ice rising and splitting directly in front of them. Their path was being blocked.

The weight Connelly experienced as her body was pressed into her chair was intense and she found it difficult to breathe. It was hard to believe that this acceleration was just a fraction of what would eventually propel them through the solar system and back to Earth…if they survived that long.

"Vertical thrusters!" Harris shouted over the cacophony of jolted metal joints and tumbling equipment throughout the ship.

"Vertical thrusters!" Choi returned.

Connelly saw Choi move as a blur. The thrusters engaged with a sudden upward motion that lifted them off the surface of the moon. The smoothness of frictionless travel instantly quieted the ship. The shaking was gone. The noise was gone. Peace had returned to the interior of the Surveyor, but outside—on Europa—was something else entirely.

The ice split open like a festering wound, a streak of red lunged out, launching toward Surveyor. The massive tendril had the thickness of a 747 and God only knew how much strength. Connelly was sure it would be strong and flexible enough to wrap around Surveyor like an anaconda and crush the life from her before dragging them all back into the Europian ocean below.

Connelly was about to scream, but Harris's voice cut her off. "Jettison the balloons!"

Choi didn't bother responding. She just acted. Connelly felt a sudden surge of upward motion.
 
She was feeling the Surveyor blast up, pushed by the detaching balloons. Each explosive detachment provided more lift to the Surveyor…and there were thousands.

As the Surveyor lifted further off the ice and away from the tendril, the balloons rolled forward across the ice like a horizontal avalanche. The tumbling balloons distracted the tendril. It snapped back down toward the ice, impaling one of the balloons and bursting several others beneath its weight.

The blackness of open space came into view as the Surveyor pulled up into the sky, approaching orbit. Proximity sensors revealed that the tendril had lunged up again, but missed the Surveyor's back side by thirty feet.

But there was no time to celebrate. "Incoming!" Choi shouted.

A cloud of charged particles shot out in front of Surveyor. It was just the beginning of a thicker, impenetrably thick mass that was sure to tear the ship apart. Harris yanked the controls to the left and the Surveyor leaned and continued to climb. "Damn this moon!" The first of the charged particles shattered against the outer hull, echoing concussions throughout the ship, but Surveyor continued to rise, pulling away from the barrage.

In less than thirty seconds, they were through the worst of it. Complete silence enveloped the ship. Connelly let her breath out. Not only had they traveled further than anyone had before…not only had they made the most important scientific discovery of all time…not
only
had they been attacked by a raw and powerful alien intellect.

They had also survived.

The face looking back at Connelly was a stranger. A thick bruise on her cheek glowed purple. A scrape across her forehead might leave a scar. Connelly's face, reflected in her private bathroom mirror looked nothing like it had a day earlier. But more than the injuries, which would fade in time, Connelly couldn't stop peering into her own deep blue eyes. She had taken her dark brown eyes for granted and could now hardly remember what they looked like.

Her corneas had been transformed from the color of rich soil to that of the endless ocean. Connelly decided she liked the change. Images of her strange visit with the blue Europhids filled her mind. The research boat, the kiss with Robert, the strange explanations…her mind drifted back…back to the tiger shark. It had bit her with such force, such raw power.

Connelly let her hand drift down her naked leg. She felt the staggered scar run across her calf and around to her shin. Odd, Connelly thought, that an incident which should have caused her to fear the creatures of the ocean, instead invoked a love of them. She realized why the Europhids were interested in the memory. It was that single moment in time that redirected her life and eventually brought her to Europa. Connelly snickered. If that shark had passed her by for a fish, she might have ended up a supermarket cashier.

Stepping back, Connelly inspected her naked body. She had bruises from head to toe, but was otherwise intact.

A knock at the door made Connelly jump. "Who is it?"

"Robert."

"Give me a second," Connelly said as she slid into her underwear and strapped on her bra.

"Don't trust me not to look any more?"

"Not a chance," Connelly said. "There's too many mirrors in here."

Connelly threw on her grey jumpsuit. "Coast is clear."

The door slid open and Robert entered, dressed in a similar jumpsuit that fit slightly less flatteringly. He entered and walked past the bathroom where Connelly was still fixing her hair. "Enjoy the view while it lasts," she said.

Connelly had left the exterior wall of her quarters clear. Outside was a close up view of Jupiter. Surveyor had been orbiting Jupiter on the opposite side of Europa since their escape. The red, orange and yellow swirling clouds filled the entire view. Connelly wondered how long it would be before mankind returned. She hoped never. Returning to Europa would be disastrous for anyone foolish enough to return. The Europhids had grown more and more adept at defending themselves from the human threat. They'd probably continue to refine their abilities until they were effectively immune to the human disease.

"Ready for our farewell dinner?" Robert asked.

"Just about," she said. "A girl needs to look pretty you know."

Robert appeared in the doorway, his face stretched in a grin. "Hairdo or not, Jupiter has nothing on you."

Connelly let her hair fall, wrapped her arms around Robert and kissed him hard on the lips. He moaned with ecstatic pleasure. She pulled away and quickly put her hair up. "You mentioned dinner?"

"It can wait," Robert said with a wry smile.

"But the ship can't," she said. "We head home in a few hours. This is going to be our last meal for three months."

"I suppose we will be waiting for each other on the other side." Robert wrapped his hands around her waist.

Connelly kissed his forehead, took his hand and pulled him toward the door. "C'mon, let's go eat with the others. The fact that we all survived is miraculous. I think it's fitting that our last memory of this voyage should be with the entire crew."

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The crew sat around the table enjoying a meal of fettuccini alfredo and blackened chicken, served with spinach salad, garlic bread and ice water; all compliments of Harris, who was as good a cook as captain. The conversation was relaxed and full of laughter. Even Choi had let herself go. Connelly had heard that near death experiences could bring people together. It appeared to be true. Though she had met some of these people only months ago, they all felt like family now.

Only Peterson remained distant. Connelly wasn't sure if he was still groggy from his long sleep or if he was feeling guilty for the crimes he committed while under Europhid control…but she knew it wasn't either of those. Upon waking, he had requested to see Connelly. When she entered the med-lab, he reached out to embrace her. Connelly had dodged his advance and quickly said, "What happened between us was a mistake."

That's when he had noticed Robert waiting outside the door, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. "Moved on while I was out?" Peterson asked.

"Just opened my eyes," she replied.

Connelly left Peterson alone to lick his physical and emotional wounds.

"Pass the greens, please," Willard said, bringing Connelly back to the present.

"On a diet?" Robert asked and handed the salad to Willard.

"I don't trust those impact chairs to give me all my vitamins." Willard heaped a large portion of the salad onto his plate.

"The impact chairs are flawless and they were not damaged," Choi said. "You'll be fine."

"As long as you're tucking me in again," Willard said with a grin.

"Whatever it takes to get the job done," Choi said with a straight face, then broke into a smile.

Harris shook his head at the antics of the crew and stood up, reaching out for a collection of empty plates. "You guys seem more like…sib…lings…than…."

The world around Connelly froze. Everyone had stopped moving and talking in the same instant, as though they were animatronic puppets and someone had pulled the plug. "Guys?" No one moved.

Connelly stood, but before she could take action, her head burst with a flash of pain so brilliant she thought it might blind her. After the brightness faded, she began to see things again, but her vision was tinted blue. She thought about moving to Robert, but her body had other plans. She watched as her arms fell to her side and she slowly walked for the door. She could her the crew stand and shuffle out the door behind her, following her lead like the Pied Piper's mice.

For several hours, Connelly had no control of her body. She could only watch as she and the rest of the crew scoured the ship's labs, eradicating every single sample of Europian life. In one fatal burst, all the samples were blown out the airlock. Next, the crew set to work on the computers, erasing all data, video, images, personal files and logs. Their entire trip from beginning to end was erased.

Connelly realized that this was the blue Europhids. Somehow, they had left behind enough of themselves in Connelly to exact their will on the crew. Their intentions were not violent, but self preservative.
 
By erasing the files and samples, the crew had no evidence to support their claims of life on Europa. But she knew the word of every crewmember would be enough to convince the world of life on Europa and a second mission would eventually be launched.

But Connelly intended to refute the crew's claims. She knew such an action would make her extremely unpopular with Harris, Choi and Peterson, but she also felt confident that Willard and Robert would back her up. The existence of life on Europa would become a long standing debate…she hoped…and humanity's return to the frozen moon would, at the very least, be delayed.

To further refute the claims of the crew, Connelly and the crew wrote corresponding personal logs about the journey. Subjects ranged from a damaging solar storm funneled through the system by Jupiter's gravity, to TES malfunctions and ultimately their failure to find any life on the moon. The logs mentioned the physical realities that could not be hidden; TES was destroyed and one of the landers was lost on the surface. The story ended with them retreating from a second solar storm that caused them to crash on the surface of Europa. After losing communications, they decided to return home before the storm finished them off. The entire story was incredibly detailed, fit the physical evidence and was corroborated by every single crew member. The written accounts would prove any verbal testimonies to be false.

Still unable to move, Connelly watched as the Surveyor was set on autopilot and programmed to make the jump back to Earth. Countdown, ten minutes Slowly, calmly, the crew all returned to their quarters, stripped nude and climbed into their impact chairs.

As the liquid metal of the chair oozed up over Connelly's eyes, the last thing she saw was a blue tinged view of her quarters.

Her vision turned from blue to black as she fell asleep.