Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The vibration of the silent alarm on her tablet woke Anita up. It was still pitch black inside the tent, and she knew it would be almost as dark outside, save for any light still reflecting from Saturn’s rings. The other three in the tent were beginning to stir, too. It had been a short night, but they wanted to make good time toward the old abandoned base.
Anita turned on a dim red light of the type she had used on many field missions: it would give them enough light for the scouts to see her signs and for them to gather their belongings, but it would preserve their night vision. There was no time to allow for anything else. She hurriedly signed to the scouts, directing the packing up of the camp. Once again, the webbing was spread out in a circle with the cables trailing from it. Once again, Anita stepped into the middle of the net and braced for liftoff.
After an hour or so in the air, Anita had almost forgotten about the few hours sleep in the tent. It felt as if they had been flying for days through the unending night. Most of the residents of Titan had been issued lights to help with seasonal affective disorder through the long nights of the moon, and many used them during both light and dark periods since the sun was so distant. Anita had never felt she needed to use the lights, but she wished she had one now. The darkness felt suffocating.
She could barely see the mountains and valleys below, though the lakes shone with reflected light as they passed by them. One of the classic views of Titan, she mused, the light reflecting off the lakes and back through the atmosphere. That moment when knew for ourselves that there was liquid here. Not just from the data, but because we could see it with our own eyes. It’s part of what keeps driving us forward to the edges of space, simply wanting to see with our own eyes and not through numbers alone.
At least Titan’s colors were familiar, the warm reds, oranges, ochres not too different from Mars. Anita didn’t know how she would feel on a green and blue world, or a grey moon. Even in the darkness of the night, the blacks were the right shade of black to convey the warmth of the daylight colors.
The scouts tried to keep quiet during the flight, but they talked when they could no longer take the silence. They had been a close team before, but a trial like this was bound to bring everyone closer together.
“We’ve still got an hour or so before we can take a mid-day stop and eat something,” Capheus said, voice quiet over the comm system. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m about to fall asleep in the air. Let’s swap some stories to stay awake.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for us to be talking much? We can’t risk giving ourselves away,” said Nada.
“Just as dangerous as trying to fly sleepy,” Sergei said. “Just make sure we’re broadcasting on the short-range channel, and dial it in to 100 meters. That’ll be harder to track. Capheus, your idea, you start.”
“I knew I was going to regret that. Ok, where to begin. Have I told you why I came to Titan in the first place?”
There was a murmur over the comms; it seems a few people knew bits of the story, but no one knew all of it. “That seems like a good starting place, then. So I was a pretty good student on Mars, but not great. I spent more time playing rugby than studying, which might have been part of it. I was always really into physical stuff, sports, gymnastics, extreme climbing, all that. And I thought there was no better place for me than Mars. The city domes are big enough that you don’t have to wear a suit every time you want to get some climbing in, but there’s plenty of wild space left if you want to climb out there, as long as you stick to the designated areas. Earth’s too heavy, Venus is too hot, but Mars is perfect. So I was happy. Until I started talking to Frida at school, and she was so excited about these new flight suits someone had developed for Titan. Not your suits, doctor, this was about a decade ago.”
“Right, that engineer who developed that first exosuit for her wife, who had some kind of genetic condition. The suit first, to help her deal with the chronic pain, and then the first wings to let her fly on Titan. Doctor, if I remember right, you worked with her on another iteration of suit, and that’s what your work was based on,” Steven said. Anita nodded.
“I kept watching these videos of the early suits,” Capheus continued. “And the footage was just incredible, almost unbelievable. I tracked down a few scouts when they came back from their residencies and talked to them about the suits. Most hadn’t actually flown, but quite a few had been around for some testing. I started working out more in the gym, focusing on upper body and core strength, trying to get myself into ideal shape for a suit. And eventually, they did start looking for candidates from my school. I managed to make it through the written tests, and just absolutely aced the physicals. They asked me to sign on as soon as I came out of the showers afterward.” He grinned at the memory.
“I nearly lost my mind on the way over, being cooped up in that ship for months. But when I got to the base, and finally got to look out the windows at Titan, that’s when I knew I was in the right place. I got here on a sundown day, when all the shadows were long and dark, and you could see how different it was than Mars. And then that first time I strapped wings on and took off, that was unlike anything else I’d ever experienced. It was like everything else I’d done had been a poor replacement for flying, like I’d been searching for flight my whole life.”
“You were a natural at it, too,” commented Frida. “I got here about two months after you did, and got to watch your first flight, and everyone was talking about it. You were like some sort of weird native bird on a planet with no native life forms. It was like the wind knew what you wanted it to do. So freaking cool.”
Capheus laughed. “Enough about me. Someone else tell their story. Frida, you go, since yours is tangled up with mine. I’ve already given the context for some of it.”
“Fine by me. So yeah, I went to college with Capheus, though I was a year ahead. I was one of those kids who just always made stuff. Paper, metal, wood, you name it, I tried to take it apart and make new things with it. Nearly destroyed my house a time or two, but fortunately my moms were patient and just tried to direct me rather than stamping that creative bug out. When I discovered engineering in high school, it was like a fire in my brain. There were people who made stuff for a living! Totally my thing. So picking a major in college was easy, but then I just kinda got bored. I mean, I love Mars, I miss it, I’m sure I’ll be glad to go back once my residency here is up, but it’s...tame. Everything has kinda been done there. Engineers get boring steady jobs. I mean, the pay is good and everything, and of course there are problems to solve, I don’t want to knock the people that went that route, but I wanted something more to explore.” A gust of wind blew through the group, and Frida went silent until everyone had stabilized their flight.
“So yeah, I saw those early flight suit videos, and I thought, ‘That’s where it’s at.’ This is, like, Kitty Hawk stuff. Yuri Gagarin stuff. Early days of something completely new in exploration history and technology. That’s where I gotta be. There’s not only new problems out there on Titan, but whole new types of problems. So I did the same thing Capheus did, except I focused on my engineering skills and showing how I could come up with creative solutions in stressful environments. I got here a few weeks after he did, and started flying a few months after that.”
Anita tried signing in response, telling the others how Frida’s comments on the suits’ functionality had been the source of a great number of the changes she had made to the design and controls, but it was too dark for any of the scouts to see her words. Dejected, she shifted in the net, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit. I should have told Frida before, she thought. I should have told her how valuable her feedback was to me. How much she influenced the suit designs. And now I can’t say anything to her without endangering her career at the very least.
When she turned her attention back to the scouts, Sergei had just begun his own story. “I was born on Mars, too, but only just barely. My parents were from Earth, and I was conceived just after they landed on Mars. They tell me that it was because they had gotten used to not needing birth control on the journey to Mars, and that they forgot, but I think they truly did want a child. At any rate, it was a happy childhood, for me. I spent a great amount of time reading long books, of the sort that required maps and character lists. I began to collect old maps, starting with some of the maps created for the first Mars rovers. I was fascinated with how human beings hundreds of millions of kilometers from the surface of the planet they were studying could create such detailed maps. I wanted to know how satellite data was combined with pictures from cameras on rovers close to the ground. When I could, I went to some of the sites myself to try to navigate from those old maps. Not so easy, I can tell you, when hundreds of years have passed. The terrain changes a little bit in that time. Not to mention that most of it is off-limits as historical legacy sites. But even then, if I could get up on a high place near the old rover paths, I could see well enough. I practiced making my own maps, and my father found a cartographer who took me on a few trips out into the Martian wilds. I have an excellent memory, which can help, as well. I made games for myself, to try to create a map from only my memory of an area, then go back and see how much I’d gotten right. All that walking and climbing put me in pretty good shape, too, even though it wasn’t my intention. When time came for the physical tests for the Titan crews, it wasn’t too difficult for me to pass. The cartography was the real value though, I think. There are so many worlds to be mapped, and Titan is a very difficult place. I’d like to think the Siberian in my blood helps me deal with the cold and dark.” She couldn’t see him, but Anita would have bet money Sergei was grinning. He was another who never seemed bothered by the long nights on the small moon.
“Who’s next?” Sergei asked.
“I’ll go,” Nada said, her voice quiet as usual. Of the team of seven scouts, she was the one who spoke the least. “I’m a little different from most of you., I’ve never felt like I belonged here, and I am very eager to go home to my partner. I miss them very much. But the work here is so important, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be part of it. I am a dancer back home, something that requires a great deal of training and work, and that made it easier for me to be assigned to a flight team. I love computers and how they think, how we train them to think like we do, but faster. I wanted to see if I could take a small computer system, like the ones we have as scouts, and get it to work in greater sync with me so that we could accomplish more during our times flying over the surface of Titan. The more efficiently we can work, the less time we would need to spend on the ground, and the less we would damage this moon. I am so proud to be a part of that, and I hope that my work will prove useful in the future.”
It has been useful, Anita thought, once again regretting her laxity in telling her team how important their work was to her. Nada’s programs have changed so much about how we gather data, and if anyone can figure out a way to keep Perses out of the computer systems at the old base, it will be her.
“Alice, what about you?” asked Capheus, after the team banked slightly to make a correction to a course that Anita could not see.
“You know me, I’m all about the rocks. I like seeing the big picture, how stuff formed. When I was a kid, my folks used to take us to vacation in this lodge on the edge of Valles Marineris every summer, and I got obsessed with all the geology of it. I’d beg and beg until they’d plan their vacations around whatever geological feature I was obsessed with at the moment. When I was a teenager, they stopped giving in to my requests, said it was time my siblings got to choose places that interested them more. They were probably right, but I took it pretty hard. I saved up for my own trips, anywhere I could afford. I drained all my college savings just to get out into the field and see the rocks for myself. I ended up going to a cheaper school and working my work through, just to get a degree. But it had a real geology program and I got some great experience that way. And waiting tables at night wasn’t the worst job I could have had. It got me through. And then I saw the recruitment postings for the Titan jobs. I love Mars a lot, but I wanted to be out on the edge, where we were still discovering so much stuff every single day. I wanted to be in on that stuff! So my advisor pulled some strings, got me into the scout track, and boom, here I am. Tohru, why don’t you go next?”
“Actually, let’s save that story for a while. We need to land and get some food in us if we’re going to make the next stop on time,” Steven said. Anita looked at the time, and saw he was right. It had been over four hours since they’d eaten a hurried breakfast before taking off. If they didn’t eat soon, they’d never be able to stay in the air, especially not the her extra weight.
Slowly, they descended. The landing was a little easier this time, Anita noted. We’re getting better at this. Not necessarily a skill I wanted us to have, but I’m glad they adapt so quickly. A temporary camp was set up quickly, with one tent set up and a shielded red light at the center of the tent. It would cast light as high as their faces, but no light made it directly up into the sky, making it harder to spot should a satellite cross by. Tohru had timed the reported cycles of the Perses satellites, but it was impossible to know if those were correct. They could only spare enough time to eat before getting back into the sky.
It was a quiet meal for the others, but for the first time, Anita could communicate with them. She signed hurriedly, between bites of food. Anyone who was expected to spend time on Titan’s surface spent months learning sign language, in case of the failure of other communication equipment, and Anita mentally thanked whatever administrator had made the decision to provide the training.
“How close are we to the base,” she asked.
Steven checked the map on his computer. “Still at least two days out. Sorry, it’s just slow going by arm power. We’ll camp tonight, tomorrow, and one more night after that, then we’ll get you all set up. We should be able to make it back faster, since we won’t be carrying anything apart from our gear. We’ve got everything set so we can say we were doing extended field tests of the suits. In fact, Dr. Knowlton set it up so we each have an official message asking for more data on the original suit designs. All totally aboveboard and clear.”
Anita smiled. Of course Jay would have thought of that. No one she knew was better at dodging regulations and finding loopholes. Some might suspect that the scouts had been involved in Anita’s disappearance, but it would have been hard to prove, without the trackers Perses had programmed into the newer suit designs.
“I want you all to know just how much I appreciate your work. Not with this escape, but your everyday work with the scouting missions. The unique things you all bring...” Her hands fell silent for a moment, trying to find the words to convey her gratitude and appreciation. “You have all worked so hard to be here, and given us so much of yourself. I want you to know that I see it, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
There was a murmur of acknowledgement, but Anita could see her outburst of affection had made things a little awkward. Best to deflect with solid questions that could be answered with facts, she thought. She signed, “What are the plans once we arrive at the base?”
Tohru swallowed a bit of food, then responded. “First, Nada is going to check the computer systems and see what we can keep safe from Perses and what we have to be careful with. We won’t know any of that until she and Frida can see what kind of shape the base is in. Frida can do most of the repairs that should be needed, unless something is seriously wrong with the structure itself, but that’s unlikely. Steven and Capheus will work on increasing the camoflauge from the air, if needed. We’ve got an oxygen supply that will keep you going for a week, until one of us can bring more. Two weeks of food. Heat, too. We’ll set up a schedule for supply runs; Dr. Knowlton is helping us find ways of getting you regular supplies without being obvious about it.” She bit her lip, then looked directly into Anita’s eyes. “The thing is, we need you to continue your work. Our work isn’t safe until we have flight suits we can trust. You’re the one who knows the suits. All of the designs have been in your head, and we all have faith you can recreate them. We’ll bring what supplies we can, but I don’t think we can get a full-sized printer out here.”
Anita’s mind spun with the enormity of the task. Seven fully complete flight suits and wing sets, with no plans or written designs, with no printer to run new suits quickly. It was massive, likely impossible. Her eyes were drawn to the team of people around her, all getting their wings back on and packing up the small camp to get back into the sky. Seven people who had left behind everything they knew for the chance at learning or doing something new, and then had left all of that to get her to safety on the tiny chance that she might be able to finish her work. If they had gone to those lengths, surely she could do her best to give them the tools they needed to do their own work. She nodded, and Tohru smiled. “I know you can do it. We all do. Now let’s get you back on your way.”
When the group was in the air again, and the netting Anita sat in was stable, Tohru started her own story. “I grew up on Earth, actually, until I was about eleven. I used to go camping all the time. I loved the forests of Japan, and how quiet they are. I learned a lot about how to survive on just what was in the forest. Then we moved to Mars and I hated it so much. All the colors were wrong, it was just red and brown everywhere, with no green or blue, except sometimes in the sky. No trees, no forests, and if you wanted to go outside the dome, you had to seal yourself up in a suit. I think I cried for the first year or so. But then I made a friend at school who really loved Mars. Her name was Keri, and she wanted to go out on the surface any chance she could. We were too young for most things except school trips at first, but then as we got to be sixteen or so, we were able to make arrangements to go out on the surface with smaller groups. I learned how to survive without the trees and water that Earth had, how to survive on what I carried with me and what Mars could provide. And I found out it wasn’t as empty and dead a world as I had thought. I never really learned to love Mars, but I learned to appreciate it. And I found out I liked the challenge of trying to survive on as little as possible. I started setting tests for myself, going out into the Martian hills with less and less, staying longer and longer. I always had someone I could call for extraction if the situation got really bad, but somehow I always figured something out. Keri and I went into college together, took all the same classes, until she signed up for a research trip to Europa. She’s still there, I think. I get messages from her every year or so. Last I heard, she was having a great time in the base under the ice there. She sent me a bunch of pictures of the floor of the ocean there in her last message; she knows I still miss the water.”
“Why didn’t you go with her?” asked Nada.
“I don’t know. I think an ice world was just too much emptiness for me. I know they’re hoping to find some lifeforms under the ice, but it’s such a long shot. And under that ice shell, it’s just dark the entire time. I have a hard enough time with a week of night here, I don’t think I could do that. I came to Titan because it was like a new challenge for me: can I do with less than I did on Mars? But it’s got some familiar elements, like the color. I still miss my blues and greens, but red is better than white and grey. And Titan is so active. The wind is nothing compared to Earth’s winds, but it’s so much stronger than the little whispers of breeze on Mars. It can actually move some stuff around here. And then there was the flying. I think that was a big deal for most of us. I like the freedom of the suits, too. On Mars, the pressure suits are still pretty bulky and not as fun to move in. Here, we just have to keep warm, no need to protect from any atmospheric pressure or lack of it. It’s almost as free as wearing regular clothing, so hiking and climbing are a lot easier. But just that feeling when you first take off in a suit… It’s like being a kid again, except now when you flap your arms, you actually do take off. It’s a rush.”
Must be better than being carried in a net, Anita thought, stretching her legs and arms as far as they would go against the webbing. She could feel one foot was already asleep and the other was tingling. This couldn’t be good for her circulation. If only she had designed one more set of wings… Oh well. Nothing to be done about it now except to bear it.
The group was quiet for a while, soaring silently through the night. Saturn shone faintly, casting a hint of silver light over the landscape below. It was a view she would never quite get used to, Anita thought, staring at the nearby planet, the swirls of storms and vortices swarming its surface. If you looked at them too long, you might begin to think you saw them move, though it was only an illusion. Very few of the cloud systems moved at a speed the human eye could detect. There was something about the sheer vastness of the planet that Anita found both awe-inspiring and terrifying. The largest thing in the Martian night sky was a tiny moon only eleven kilometers around. But it wasn’t her Martian upbringing that made the giant planet so strange; Jay had told her it was unsettling for them as well. Earth’s moon was smaller than Titan itself, and appeared to be the size of a coin in Earth’s sky. Saturn rose over the horizon, gigantic and unknowable, the surface of the planet forever a mystery in the depths of its swirling atmosphere. Perhaps the explorers on Europa and Enceladus felt the same way about the sight of Jupiter rising over their own small horizons. Humanity might make it to the edges of the solar system centuries before more could be known about these giants.
She turned back toward the course ahead, putting Saturn out of mind except for the light it cast on their path. Finally, Steven broke the silence. “I guess it’s my turn to tell my story. It’s not as interesting as some of yours. Born on Mars, like most of us. I was always good at school, and mostly kept indoors. I loved seeing Mars’ surface, but only from inside the dome. I got special permission from school to spend extra time in the chem lab at school. No chemistry sets allowed in homes, of course, the danger to the atmosphere inside the domes was too high. But students with high enough grades could get access to the lab outside normal hours, as long as there was adequate supervision, et cetera. I used all the hours I possibly could, until even my teachers told me to scale it back a little bit. It was stressful for their schedules to keep coming in for extra hours to supervise me, even though they loved my passion for chemistry and my desire to advance. They gave me access to online journals and simulations, though, and that helped. I wasn’t a popular kid, I didn’t really know how to relate to others. I was a little boy-crazy and had a million crushes. Never told a single one how I felt, of course. It wasn’t until I went to college that I started to find myself, a little. I went on a few dates and started learning how to open up. And then I met Samir. He wasn’t a bookish guy, he was a photographer. Fashion photos, mostly. He loved that I was into science, and I loved that he loved everything. One of those people who just embrace the world, you know? He loved dressing me up with different outfits from his closet, trying out ideas, taking photos of me in every possible arrangement of clothes and accessories. I thought I would hate it, and I did at first, but I loved the attention. Eventually, I learned to love being able to express myself with clothes, to make an impression instead of hiding in the shadows.
“Samir and I parted ways shortly before graduation. It had been a good relationship for both of us, but our paths were starting to diverge, and staying together would have destroyed both of us. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt like hell, and there may have been a few nights of drunken texting, but we eventually became good friends. I still hear from him every week or so. He had his first gallery exhibit last year, and I’m so proud of him. He’s proud of me for being here. He said he’ll buy me my first drink when I get back, and insists on doing a photo session in the wing suit if possible.” Steven smiled. “I miss him, and I probably always will, but I’m so grateful that he opened up the world to me.”
“We’re glad, too, Steven,” Tohru said. “I can’t imagine not having you here with us.” The others agreed, and Anita could almost feel the bonds of friendship and passion thrumming through the cables that connected them.
She could not share her story with the others, not now, but she couldn’t help thinking of it. Of how she had created outfits and spacesuits for her dolls by the age of five. How her aunt had taken her into her shop and shown her how to create circuits and program a computer. How her best friend had stood up for her when the other children laughed at her overly ambitious science fair project that had failed spectacularly. The joy of her college admissions letter, her parents rejoicing as much as she did. The stress of that first year, of no longer being the best student in the room without even trying. Of coming across the first papers proposing designs for flight suits that could be used on Titan, and trying to recreate the math herself. Of the late hours in the lab using a simulated Titan atmosphere to test different wing shapes. The first big test she had failed, and the teary sleepless night she’d spent wondering if she had any skill in engineering at all, if it might not be better to drop out and get a practical job.
The night felt very cold and dark as the group flew on. Not being able to communicate with the others, to share in their stories, made Anita feel more alone than she had felt in her life. As the group descended to their landing site for the night, she could feel the building pain in her arms and legs. Once again, her limbs had gone to sleep. She would have to remember to stay alert and stretch periodically. Reverie was bad for circulation.
Dinner was a quiet affair, after the exhausting journey they had made. Two more days of this, Anita thought. Can we do it? Will we be too tired to finish the journey, or have to sleep more and risk being spotted? She decided not to think about it: nothing else could be done at this point, and worrying would dull her mind and spend her energy. Best to just commit to the course of action.
Anita took another piece of dried meat substitute, and turned it over in her hands. How long might she have to live on rations like these? The old base wasn’t likely to have a hydroponics setup ready to use, and even if she could get one up and running, it would be months before anything fresh was ready to eat.
Existence is so fragile out here, she mused. I’m so used to Mars, where there are entire networks of support for every life, and multiple fail safes. Out here, if one link in the chain of supply breaks, it can be the difference between life and death.
Another restless night followed, and another cold dark morning. Her computer still told the time perfectly, but it seemed to belong to another life. Her existence was flying through the dark over the surface of the moon, cold wind rushing by, strange landscapes passing below, punctuated by short periods on the ground in a cramped tent. Time made no sense anymore. Her arms and legs hurt a little more every day, and every day it took longer to work the blood flow back into them.
One more night after this one, she told herself. One more night in a tent, then you can sleep in the base and stretch out whenever you want to. One more night, and you can distract yourself with work. One more night, and you can pretend you’re safe with no one out to get you so they can strip a world of its resources more easily.
Her stomach heaved, and she grabbed the packaging the meals had been in, and vomited. The tent was in an uproar, with the other three scouts stepping over themselves to help and everyone getting in everyone else’s way. Anita felt dizzy, and vomited once more before setting the bag down. She felt someone taking the bag away from her, and another wiping her mouth and helping her sit up straight. “Be careful, here, drink this. Get it all away from your throat, then let’s get you down.” Frida, she thought. The red light made everyone look strange.
“No,” she signed. “I’m ok. It just… I let everything get to me for a minute. I’ll be ok. I’m so sorry. We’ll have to dump the bag in a lake, I can’t think of anything else to do with it.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. You need to rest.”
“Lay down, Dr. Sensharma. Please rest.”
One more night, she told herself. I just have to get through this one and one more. Eventually, exhausted, she dozed off.
It felt like only seconds before someone was gently shaking her shoulder to wake her. “I’m sorry, doctor, we let you sleep as long as we could. But we need to go.” Nada’s eyes belied her concern.
Anita nodded, and got up. As soon as she had eaten a few bites of breakfast and put on her helmet, the tent was packed away. The net was spread on the ground as usual, waiting for her to step inside. It felt more like a trap than ever, like some waiting spider’s web that the trusting fly stepped into only to be devoured. She shook her head. No. This was just perception, not reality. This was the only way out, regardless of how it felt. She stepped into the net and sat down.
The day passed slowly. They were in the middle of Titan’s night now, and exhaustion had set in. There was very little chatter, no sharing of stories, just silent flight through the darkness. The ground passed under them, barely discernable in the reflected light from the gas giant. So much unexplored land, Anita thought, so much we could be doing instead of running out of fear. When will we next get a chance to be here, to see this?
They flew over the largest methane lake Anita had yet seen for herself. The scouts slowly glided lower, until they were just above the surface of the pool. “We thought you might like a closer view,” Sergei said, whispering through the comm. “Plus, Steven’s been dying to see one of these up close.”
The surface of the lake was so strange, Anita thought. The ripples they caused as they fly by were too peaked, too high for the base of the waves. The weakness of the gravity made things so strange here. Ahead, the lake was calm and still, almost like a mirror. After they passed, the ripples would die back down and everything would return to this quiet stasis. She was overcome with a childish desire to throw a rock into the lake to see the ripples spread out across the surface.
And then the lake was behind them, and the scouts flapped their wings to regain their cruising altitude. Anita looked over her shoulder, and through the netting, she could see the lake, and even see the path they had taken above it, marked by the subsiding ripples.
When they finally stopped at the end of the day’s flight, Anita almost cried when she uncurled her legs. Her joints hurt so badly she almost couldn’t stand it. It took several minutes before she could walk again, and the team sent her to walk around the camp to restore her circulation while they set up the tents.
She trudged over a small hill and into the depression on the other side. For a moment, she was completely cut off from every human being in existence. In the shadow of the hill, Saturn was blocked out, and the surface of Titan rolled away from her in every direction, dim, dusty, fading into the gloom with every meter. She suddenly missed the clarity of Mars, the distant horizon against the sky. Titan’s horizon was hidden, but she knew it would be too small if she could see it. The entire moon had rejected her, and she felt lost in it.
Then the comms came to life, and she turned to see Capheus on the crest of the hill behind her, waving for her to rejoin the group. She struggled back up the hill, muscles still screaming. She took a few painkillers with dinner, and the aches lessened, but she knew they would be back by morning. The only consolation was that she dropped into a deep sleep almost as soon as she laid down.
The last day of the journey was the worst, by far. Anita felt her mind drifting every few moments, and struggled to keep her focus. She gave in and closed her eyes, picturing her home back on Mars. The sunlight bright on her face, the air of the dome warm around her, the feeling of sunlight on bare skin. She pictured the view from her favorite lookout spot in the Spirit City dome, right there against the clear walls of the city itself, looking across the open red sands. When the little daredevils whirled by, the spiral tracings on the surface were like magic, the red fines siphoned off by the dervishes, leaving darker basalt curls behind.
Anita mentally walked through her neighborhood garden, letting her hands brush the leaves and enjoying the bright colors, the smell of produce and flowers. The remembered scent of basil brought another memory to the surface, of sitting in a restaurant, table full of fragrant pasta, herbs, bread. She had gone with two friends from college, all three of them embarking on new lives. One had just gotten married, and was having her first night out with friends since the ceremony. The other was going on to graduate school, furthering a promising academic career. Anita could picture the scene in its entirety, the candles, the food, the wine, the laughter.
“I still don’t quite get why you’re so eager to get off Mars, Anita,” Kala stated, spooning a heaping serving of pasta onto her plate. “It’s going to be cold, dark, and you’re going to spend all your time cooped up in a suit or a lab. I don’t get the appeal.”
“Don’t listen to her, it’s an amazing opportunity, and you know you’d hate yourself forever if you didn’t go for it.” Ffion’s ring flashed in the warm light from the candles. “Besides, you’re going to be amazing at it, and we’re going to be reading about you in the history books someday.”
Kala shrugged. “Maybe. But most of us go without any huge discoveries or big awards. Most academic careers, whether in the field or not, are quiet affairs without much in the way of recognition. You’re doing good if your own colleagues respect you. Though you do have one advantage in your field, Anita. Field work on Titan is so new, there just hasn’t been much done. It’s easier than trying to find a unique thesis about Martian soils.”
“True, but it also requires going to Titan, rather than enjoying a cozy little existence here, so it’s a significant trade off.” Anita dabbed her bread in the plate of oil and vinegar. “And not that many people get to go to Titan, so if I do make it out there, at least I get to do some stuff very few people get to do. Imagine seeing Saturn that close!”
The trio had been temporarily interrupted by Ffion’s husband calling to ask her a question. Anita had never pursued relationships with any seriousness once she had decided to try for a Titan posting; no point in getting attached to someone and then leaving them behind for goodness knew how long. But the look on Ffion’s face when she heard her husband’s voice had made her momentarily question that choice. Had she missed out on something?
In the night of Titan, Anita held onto the memory for a few moments, enjoying the warmth and light, and the presence of old friends. The question came back to her: had it been a mistake to forgo attachments in the name of science? Perhaps she had missed something, but then there was no one that Perses could use as leverage against her, no one waiting in fear for a message. Having a partner would have been a mistake, given how everything had played out.
The cold and dark slowly drove out the memory of warmth, and Anita was back on Titan again. If she had known then where her path would lead, would she still have fought so hard to get here? Would she have settled into a more comfortable job back on Mars, found a tiny niche to specialize in, and lived there in quiet contentment? She had no answer for herself. Neither Ffion’s nor Kala’s paths were hers.
The midday meal was quiet and tense. Sergei perused maps of the last leg of the journey, and Frida and Nada compared notes about the likely state of the base when they arrived. Anita walked while eating, needing every spare second to keep her muscles moving before she had to get into the netting for the last time. Her feet were a blaze of pinpoints, every capillary screaming as blood worked through them again. Without the blood pressure assistance of the suit itself, she likely would have even worse problems, she realized.
When everyone had eaten, stretched, and had some water, the tents were packed away for the last time, and the odd little group took to the air again. Sergei had warned her that this would be the longest leg of the journey yet, but that everyone had agreed to push on without stopping. They could spend a full day and night resting at the base before heading back.
They were definitely flying slower, Anita noticed, and gliding more. Sometimes she would hold tighter to the net and let one of the scouts loose their cable for a half hour or so and fly without her weight. She flexed against the netting as much as she could without disrupting the flyers, straining to keep her joints and muscles from locking up. She shivered almost constantly now; her suit could protect her from dying in Titan’s cold, but it wasn’t warm, either. If she could walk around, or better yet, take to the skies in a wing suit, she would be able to raise her body temperature considerably, but sitting still was a cold business.
The night seemed to go on forever. It had taken a few flights for Anita to realize that one of the subtle things she found so disconcerting was the lack of stars; none could shine brightly enough to penetrate Titan’s murky atmosphere, and the night sky was pitch black and empty except for the gleam of Saturn and its rings.
Finally, Sergei spoke over the comms. “We’re coming up on where the base should be. I’ll guide us in low over the coordinates, but it should be fairly difficult to spot from the air. Which is good news for us, if we can just find it the first time.”
The ground got closer and closer, and Anita could see the shapes on the ground in greater definition. They passed over one hill, then another, almost scraping the rocky outcroppings at the top, then a valley opened up, and straight ahead, she could see a small mound with a metal door set into it. She barely repressed a cry of relief.
The ground landed with a bump just in front of the door to the abandoned base. “Doctor, walk around for a few moments to get your muscles loosened up. We need to restart the generator and get the oxygen hooked up to the base before you go inside.” And you want to make sure Perses hasn’t booby-trapped the place before you let me set foot in it, Anita thought, but silently began to walk around the base, limping as the pins and needles returned to her extremities.
Anita could feel herself bracing for a blow, either news that the base was uninhabitable, or for a physical explosion, but nothing came. Her team bustled around for a while getting the oxygen they’d brought hooked up to the base’s system and bringing the power back online. Finally, Frida waved to Anita and beckoned her into the base.
When everyone was inside and the door closed and sealed, the team took off their helmets. Alice shook her pink hair, wet with perspiration, and ran her fingers through it. Frida exhaled deeply a few times, then turned to Anita. “First of all, the bad news. Nada and I went through the systems with a fine-toothed comb, and checked against our knowledge of what Perses is capable of. I’m so sorry, doctor, but we don’t feel we can adequately shield your voice from their tracking. If you speak out loud, they will be able to find you.”
The vibration of the silent alarm on her tablet woke Anita up. It was still pitch black inside the tent, and she knew it would be almost as dark outside, save for any light still reflecting from Saturn’s rings. The other three in the tent were beginning to stir, too. It had been a short night, but they wanted to make good time toward the old abandoned base.
Anita turned on a dim red light of the type she had used on many field missions: it would give them enough light for the scouts to see her signs and for them to gather their belongings, but it would preserve their night vision. There was no time to allow for anything else. She hurriedly signed to the scouts, directing the packing up of the camp. Once again, the webbing was spread out in a circle with the cables trailing from it. Once again, Anita stepped into the middle of the net and braced for liftoff.
After an hour or so in the air, Anita had almost forgotten about the few hours sleep in the tent. It felt as if they had been flying for days through the unending night. Most of the residents of Titan had been issued lights to help with seasonal affective disorder through the long nights of the moon, and many used them during both light and dark periods since the sun was so distant. Anita had never felt she needed to use the lights, but she wished she had one now. The darkness felt suffocating.
She could barely see the mountains and valleys below, though the lakes shone with reflected light as they passed by them. One of the classic views of Titan, she mused, the light reflecting off the lakes and back through the atmosphere. That moment when knew for ourselves that there was liquid here. Not just from the data, but because we could see it with our own eyes. It’s part of what keeps driving us forward to the edges of space, simply wanting to see with our own eyes and not through numbers alone.
At least Titan’s colors were familiar, the warm reds, oranges, ochres not too different from Mars. Anita didn’t know how she would feel on a green and blue world, or a grey moon. Even in the darkness of the night, the blacks were the right shade of black to convey the warmth of the daylight colors.
The scouts tried to keep quiet during the flight, but they talked when they could no longer take the silence. They had been a close team before, but a trial like this was bound to bring everyone closer together.
“We’ve still got an hour or so before we can take a mid-day stop and eat something,” Capheus said, voice quiet over the comm system. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m about to fall asleep in the air. Let’s swap some stories to stay awake.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for us to be talking much? We can’t risk giving ourselves away,” said Nada.
“Just as dangerous as trying to fly sleepy,” Sergei said. “Just make sure we’re broadcasting on the short-range channel, and dial it in to 100 meters. That’ll be harder to track. Capheus, your idea, you start.”
“I knew I was going to regret that. Ok, where to begin. Have I told you why I came to Titan in the first place?”
There was a murmur over the comms; it seems a few people knew bits of the story, but no one knew all of it. “That seems like a good starting place, then. So I was a pretty good student on Mars, but not great. I spent more time playing rugby than studying, which might have been part of it. I was always really into physical stuff, sports, gymnastics, extreme climbing, all that. And I thought there was no better place for me than Mars. The city domes are big enough that you don’t have to wear a suit every time you want to get some climbing in, but there’s plenty of wild space left if you want to climb out there, as long as you stick to the designated areas. Earth’s too heavy, Venus is too hot, but Mars is perfect. So I was happy. Until I started talking to Frida at school, and she was so excited about these new flight suits someone had developed for Titan. Not your suits, doctor, this was about a decade ago.”
“Right, that engineer who developed that first exosuit for her wife, who had some kind of genetic condition. The suit first, to help her deal with the chronic pain, and then the first wings to let her fly on Titan. Doctor, if I remember right, you worked with her on another iteration of suit, and that’s what your work was based on,” Steven said. Anita nodded.
“I kept watching these videos of the early suits,” Capheus continued. “And the footage was just incredible, almost unbelievable. I tracked down a few scouts when they came back from their residencies and talked to them about the suits. Most hadn’t actually flown, but quite a few had been around for some testing. I started working out more in the gym, focusing on upper body and core strength, trying to get myself into ideal shape for a suit. And eventually, they did start looking for candidates from my school. I managed to make it through the written tests, and just absolutely aced the physicals. They asked me to sign on as soon as I came out of the showers afterward.” He grinned at the memory.
“I nearly lost my mind on the way over, being cooped up in that ship for months. But when I got to the base, and finally got to look out the windows at Titan, that’s when I knew I was in the right place. I got here on a sundown day, when all the shadows were long and dark, and you could see how different it was than Mars. And then that first time I strapped wings on and took off, that was unlike anything else I’d ever experienced. It was like everything else I’d done had been a poor replacement for flying, like I’d been searching for flight my whole life.”
“You were a natural at it, too,” commented Frida. “I got here about two months after you did, and got to watch your first flight, and everyone was talking about it. You were like some sort of weird native bird on a planet with no native life forms. It was like the wind knew what you wanted it to do. So freaking cool.”
Capheus laughed. “Enough about me. Someone else tell their story. Frida, you go, since yours is tangled up with mine. I’ve already given the context for some of it.”
“Fine by me. So yeah, I went to college with Capheus, though I was a year ahead. I was one of those kids who just always made stuff. Paper, metal, wood, you name it, I tried to take it apart and make new things with it. Nearly destroyed my house a time or two, but fortunately my moms were patient and just tried to direct me rather than stamping that creative bug out. When I discovered engineering in high school, it was like a fire in my brain. There were people who made stuff for a living! Totally my thing. So picking a major in college was easy, but then I just kinda got bored. I mean, I love Mars, I miss it, I’m sure I’ll be glad to go back once my residency here is up, but it’s...tame. Everything has kinda been done there. Engineers get boring steady jobs. I mean, the pay is good and everything, and of course there are problems to solve, I don’t want to knock the people that went that route, but I wanted something more to explore.” A gust of wind blew through the group, and Frida went silent until everyone had stabilized their flight.
“So yeah, I saw those early flight suit videos, and I thought, ‘That’s where it’s at.’ This is, like, Kitty Hawk stuff. Yuri Gagarin stuff. Early days of something completely new in exploration history and technology. That’s where I gotta be. There’s not only new problems out there on Titan, but whole new types of problems. So I did the same thing Capheus did, except I focused on my engineering skills and showing how I could come up with creative solutions in stressful environments. I got here a few weeks after he did, and started flying a few months after that.”
Anita tried signing in response, telling the others how Frida’s comments on the suits’ functionality had been the source of a great number of the changes she had made to the design and controls, but it was too dark for any of the scouts to see her words. Dejected, she shifted in the net, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit. I should have told Frida before, she thought. I should have told her how valuable her feedback was to me. How much she influenced the suit designs. And now I can’t say anything to her without endangering her career at the very least.
When she turned her attention back to the scouts, Sergei had just begun his own story. “I was born on Mars, too, but only just barely. My parents were from Earth, and I was conceived just after they landed on Mars. They tell me that it was because they had gotten used to not needing birth control on the journey to Mars, and that they forgot, but I think they truly did want a child. At any rate, it was a happy childhood, for me. I spent a great amount of time reading long books, of the sort that required maps and character lists. I began to collect old maps, starting with some of the maps created for the first Mars rovers. I was fascinated with how human beings hundreds of millions of kilometers from the surface of the planet they were studying could create such detailed maps. I wanted to know how satellite data was combined with pictures from cameras on rovers close to the ground. When I could, I went to some of the sites myself to try to navigate from those old maps. Not so easy, I can tell you, when hundreds of years have passed. The terrain changes a little bit in that time. Not to mention that most of it is off-limits as historical legacy sites. But even then, if I could get up on a high place near the old rover paths, I could see well enough. I practiced making my own maps, and my father found a cartographer who took me on a few trips out into the Martian wilds. I have an excellent memory, which can help, as well. I made games for myself, to try to create a map from only my memory of an area, then go back and see how much I’d gotten right. All that walking and climbing put me in pretty good shape, too, even though it wasn’t my intention. When time came for the physical tests for the Titan crews, it wasn’t too difficult for me to pass. The cartography was the real value though, I think. There are so many worlds to be mapped, and Titan is a very difficult place. I’d like to think the Siberian in my blood helps me deal with the cold and dark.” She couldn’t see him, but Anita would have bet money Sergei was grinning. He was another who never seemed bothered by the long nights on the small moon.
“Who’s next?” Sergei asked.
“I’ll go,” Nada said, her voice quiet as usual. Of the team of seven scouts, she was the one who spoke the least. “I’m a little different from most of you., I’ve never felt like I belonged here, and I am very eager to go home to my partner. I miss them very much. But the work here is so important, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be part of it. I am a dancer back home, something that requires a great deal of training and work, and that made it easier for me to be assigned to a flight team. I love computers and how they think, how we train them to think like we do, but faster. I wanted to see if I could take a small computer system, like the ones we have as scouts, and get it to work in greater sync with me so that we could accomplish more during our times flying over the surface of Titan. The more efficiently we can work, the less time we would need to spend on the ground, and the less we would damage this moon. I am so proud to be a part of that, and I hope that my work will prove useful in the future.”
It has been useful, Anita thought, once again regretting her laxity in telling her team how important their work was to her. Nada’s programs have changed so much about how we gather data, and if anyone can figure out a way to keep Perses out of the computer systems at the old base, it will be her.
“Alice, what about you?” asked Capheus, after the team banked slightly to make a correction to a course that Anita could not see.
“You know me, I’m all about the rocks. I like seeing the big picture, how stuff formed. When I was a kid, my folks used to take us to vacation in this lodge on the edge of Valles Marineris every summer, and I got obsessed with all the geology of it. I’d beg and beg until they’d plan their vacations around whatever geological feature I was obsessed with at the moment. When I was a teenager, they stopped giving in to my requests, said it was time my siblings got to choose places that interested them more. They were probably right, but I took it pretty hard. I saved up for my own trips, anywhere I could afford. I drained all my college savings just to get out into the field and see the rocks for myself. I ended up going to a cheaper school and working my work through, just to get a degree. But it had a real geology program and I got some great experience that way. And waiting tables at night wasn’t the worst job I could have had. It got me through. And then I saw the recruitment postings for the Titan jobs. I love Mars a lot, but I wanted to be out on the edge, where we were still discovering so much stuff every single day. I wanted to be in on that stuff! So my advisor pulled some strings, got me into the scout track, and boom, here I am. Tohru, why don’t you go next?”
“Actually, let’s save that story for a while. We need to land and get some food in us if we’re going to make the next stop on time,” Steven said. Anita looked at the time, and saw he was right. It had been over four hours since they’d eaten a hurried breakfast before taking off. If they didn’t eat soon, they’d never be able to stay in the air, especially not the her extra weight.
Slowly, they descended. The landing was a little easier this time, Anita noted. We’re getting better at this. Not necessarily a skill I wanted us to have, but I’m glad they adapt so quickly. A temporary camp was set up quickly, with one tent set up and a shielded red light at the center of the tent. It would cast light as high as their faces, but no light made it directly up into the sky, making it harder to spot should a satellite cross by. Tohru had timed the reported cycles of the Perses satellites, but it was impossible to know if those were correct. They could only spare enough time to eat before getting back into the sky.
It was a quiet meal for the others, but for the first time, Anita could communicate with them. She signed hurriedly, between bites of food. Anyone who was expected to spend time on Titan’s surface spent months learning sign language, in case of the failure of other communication equipment, and Anita mentally thanked whatever administrator had made the decision to provide the training.
“How close are we to the base,” she asked.
Steven checked the map on his computer. “Still at least two days out. Sorry, it’s just slow going by arm power. We’ll camp tonight, tomorrow, and one more night after that, then we’ll get you all set up. We should be able to make it back faster, since we won’t be carrying anything apart from our gear. We’ve got everything set so we can say we were doing extended field tests of the suits. In fact, Dr. Knowlton set it up so we each have an official message asking for more data on the original suit designs. All totally aboveboard and clear.”
Anita smiled. Of course Jay would have thought of that. No one she knew was better at dodging regulations and finding loopholes. Some might suspect that the scouts had been involved in Anita’s disappearance, but it would have been hard to prove, without the trackers Perses had programmed into the newer suit designs.
“I want you all to know just how much I appreciate your work. Not with this escape, but your everyday work with the scouting missions. The unique things you all bring...” Her hands fell silent for a moment, trying to find the words to convey her gratitude and appreciation. “You have all worked so hard to be here, and given us so much of yourself. I want you to know that I see it, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
There was a murmur of acknowledgement, but Anita could see her outburst of affection had made things a little awkward. Best to deflect with solid questions that could be answered with facts, she thought. She signed, “What are the plans once we arrive at the base?”
Tohru swallowed a bit of food, then responded. “First, Nada is going to check the computer systems and see what we can keep safe from Perses and what we have to be careful with. We won’t know any of that until she and Frida can see what kind of shape the base is in. Frida can do most of the repairs that should be needed, unless something is seriously wrong with the structure itself, but that’s unlikely. Steven and Capheus will work on increasing the camoflauge from the air, if needed. We’ve got an oxygen supply that will keep you going for a week, until one of us can bring more. Two weeks of food. Heat, too. We’ll set up a schedule for supply runs; Dr. Knowlton is helping us find ways of getting you regular supplies without being obvious about it.” She bit her lip, then looked directly into Anita’s eyes. “The thing is, we need you to continue your work. Our work isn’t safe until we have flight suits we can trust. You’re the one who knows the suits. All of the designs have been in your head, and we all have faith you can recreate them. We’ll bring what supplies we can, but I don’t think we can get a full-sized printer out here.”
Anita’s mind spun with the enormity of the task. Seven fully complete flight suits and wing sets, with no plans or written designs, with no printer to run new suits quickly. It was massive, likely impossible. Her eyes were drawn to the team of people around her, all getting their wings back on and packing up the small camp to get back into the sky. Seven people who had left behind everything they knew for the chance at learning or doing something new, and then had left all of that to get her to safety on the tiny chance that she might be able to finish her work. If they had gone to those lengths, surely she could do her best to give them the tools they needed to do their own work. She nodded, and Tohru smiled. “I know you can do it. We all do. Now let’s get you back on your way.”
When the group was in the air again, and the netting Anita sat in was stable, Tohru started her own story. “I grew up on Earth, actually, until I was about eleven. I used to go camping all the time. I loved the forests of Japan, and how quiet they are. I learned a lot about how to survive on just what was in the forest. Then we moved to Mars and I hated it so much. All the colors were wrong, it was just red and brown everywhere, with no green or blue, except sometimes in the sky. No trees, no forests, and if you wanted to go outside the dome, you had to seal yourself up in a suit. I think I cried for the first year or so. But then I made a friend at school who really loved Mars. Her name was Keri, and she wanted to go out on the surface any chance she could. We were too young for most things except school trips at first, but then as we got to be sixteen or so, we were able to make arrangements to go out on the surface with smaller groups. I learned how to survive without the trees and water that Earth had, how to survive on what I carried with me and what Mars could provide. And I found out it wasn’t as empty and dead a world as I had thought. I never really learned to love Mars, but I learned to appreciate it. And I found out I liked the challenge of trying to survive on as little as possible. I started setting tests for myself, going out into the Martian hills with less and less, staying longer and longer. I always had someone I could call for extraction if the situation got really bad, but somehow I always figured something out. Keri and I went into college together, took all the same classes, until she signed up for a research trip to Europa. She’s still there, I think. I get messages from her every year or so. Last I heard, she was having a great time in the base under the ice there. She sent me a bunch of pictures of the floor of the ocean there in her last message; she knows I still miss the water.”
“Why didn’t you go with her?” asked Nada.
“I don’t know. I think an ice world was just too much emptiness for me. I know they’re hoping to find some lifeforms under the ice, but it’s such a long shot. And under that ice shell, it’s just dark the entire time. I have a hard enough time with a week of night here, I don’t think I could do that. I came to Titan because it was like a new challenge for me: can I do with less than I did on Mars? But it’s got some familiar elements, like the color. I still miss my blues and greens, but red is better than white and grey. And Titan is so active. The wind is nothing compared to Earth’s winds, but it’s so much stronger than the little whispers of breeze on Mars. It can actually move some stuff around here. And then there was the flying. I think that was a big deal for most of us. I like the freedom of the suits, too. On Mars, the pressure suits are still pretty bulky and not as fun to move in. Here, we just have to keep warm, no need to protect from any atmospheric pressure or lack of it. It’s almost as free as wearing regular clothing, so hiking and climbing are a lot easier. But just that feeling when you first take off in a suit… It’s like being a kid again, except now when you flap your arms, you actually do take off. It’s a rush.”
Must be better than being carried in a net, Anita thought, stretching her legs and arms as far as they would go against the webbing. She could feel one foot was already asleep and the other was tingling. This couldn’t be good for her circulation. If only she had designed one more set of wings… Oh well. Nothing to be done about it now except to bear it.
The group was quiet for a while, soaring silently through the night. Saturn shone faintly, casting a hint of silver light over the landscape below. It was a view she would never quite get used to, Anita thought, staring at the nearby planet, the swirls of storms and vortices swarming its surface. If you looked at them too long, you might begin to think you saw them move, though it was only an illusion. Very few of the cloud systems moved at a speed the human eye could detect. There was something about the sheer vastness of the planet that Anita found both awe-inspiring and terrifying. The largest thing in the Martian night sky was a tiny moon only eleven kilometers around. But it wasn’t her Martian upbringing that made the giant planet so strange; Jay had told her it was unsettling for them as well. Earth’s moon was smaller than Titan itself, and appeared to be the size of a coin in Earth’s sky. Saturn rose over the horizon, gigantic and unknowable, the surface of the planet forever a mystery in the depths of its swirling atmosphere. Perhaps the explorers on Europa and Enceladus felt the same way about the sight of Jupiter rising over their own small horizons. Humanity might make it to the edges of the solar system centuries before more could be known about these giants.
She turned back toward the course ahead, putting Saturn out of mind except for the light it cast on their path. Finally, Steven broke the silence. “I guess it’s my turn to tell my story. It’s not as interesting as some of yours. Born on Mars, like most of us. I was always good at school, and mostly kept indoors. I loved seeing Mars’ surface, but only from inside the dome. I got special permission from school to spend extra time in the chem lab at school. No chemistry sets allowed in homes, of course, the danger to the atmosphere inside the domes was too high. But students with high enough grades could get access to the lab outside normal hours, as long as there was adequate supervision, et cetera. I used all the hours I possibly could, until even my teachers told me to scale it back a little bit. It was stressful for their schedules to keep coming in for extra hours to supervise me, even though they loved my passion for chemistry and my desire to advance. They gave me access to online journals and simulations, though, and that helped. I wasn’t a popular kid, I didn’t really know how to relate to others. I was a little boy-crazy and had a million crushes. Never told a single one how I felt, of course. It wasn’t until I went to college that I started to find myself, a little. I went on a few dates and started learning how to open up. And then I met Samir. He wasn’t a bookish guy, he was a photographer. Fashion photos, mostly. He loved that I was into science, and I loved that he loved everything. One of those people who just embrace the world, you know? He loved dressing me up with different outfits from his closet, trying out ideas, taking photos of me in every possible arrangement of clothes and accessories. I thought I would hate it, and I did at first, but I loved the attention. Eventually, I learned to love being able to express myself with clothes, to make an impression instead of hiding in the shadows.
“Samir and I parted ways shortly before graduation. It had been a good relationship for both of us, but our paths were starting to diverge, and staying together would have destroyed both of us. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt like hell, and there may have been a few nights of drunken texting, but we eventually became good friends. I still hear from him every week or so. He had his first gallery exhibit last year, and I’m so proud of him. He’s proud of me for being here. He said he’ll buy me my first drink when I get back, and insists on doing a photo session in the wing suit if possible.” Steven smiled. “I miss him, and I probably always will, but I’m so grateful that he opened up the world to me.”
“We’re glad, too, Steven,” Tohru said. “I can’t imagine not having you here with us.” The others agreed, and Anita could almost feel the bonds of friendship and passion thrumming through the cables that connected them.
She could not share her story with the others, not now, but she couldn’t help thinking of it. Of how she had created outfits and spacesuits for her dolls by the age of five. How her aunt had taken her into her shop and shown her how to create circuits and program a computer. How her best friend had stood up for her when the other children laughed at her overly ambitious science fair project that had failed spectacularly. The joy of her college admissions letter, her parents rejoicing as much as she did. The stress of that first year, of no longer being the best student in the room without even trying. Of coming across the first papers proposing designs for flight suits that could be used on Titan, and trying to recreate the math herself. Of the late hours in the lab using a simulated Titan atmosphere to test different wing shapes. The first big test she had failed, and the teary sleepless night she’d spent wondering if she had any skill in engineering at all, if it might not be better to drop out and get a practical job.
The night felt very cold and dark as the group flew on. Not being able to communicate with the others, to share in their stories, made Anita feel more alone than she had felt in her life. As the group descended to their landing site for the night, she could feel the building pain in her arms and legs. Once again, her limbs had gone to sleep. She would have to remember to stay alert and stretch periodically. Reverie was bad for circulation.
Dinner was a quiet affair, after the exhausting journey they had made. Two more days of this, Anita thought. Can we do it? Will we be too tired to finish the journey, or have to sleep more and risk being spotted? She decided not to think about it: nothing else could be done at this point, and worrying would dull her mind and spend her energy. Best to just commit to the course of action.
Anita took another piece of dried meat substitute, and turned it over in her hands. How long might she have to live on rations like these? The old base wasn’t likely to have a hydroponics setup ready to use, and even if she could get one up and running, it would be months before anything fresh was ready to eat.
Existence is so fragile out here, she mused. I’m so used to Mars, where there are entire networks of support for every life, and multiple fail safes. Out here, if one link in the chain of supply breaks, it can be the difference between life and death.
Another restless night followed, and another cold dark morning. Her computer still told the time perfectly, but it seemed to belong to another life. Her existence was flying through the dark over the surface of the moon, cold wind rushing by, strange landscapes passing below, punctuated by short periods on the ground in a cramped tent. Time made no sense anymore. Her arms and legs hurt a little more every day, and every day it took longer to work the blood flow back into them.
One more night after this one, she told herself. One more night in a tent, then you can sleep in the base and stretch out whenever you want to. One more night, and you can distract yourself with work. One more night, and you can pretend you’re safe with no one out to get you so they can strip a world of its resources more easily.
Her stomach heaved, and she grabbed the packaging the meals had been in, and vomited. The tent was in an uproar, with the other three scouts stepping over themselves to help and everyone getting in everyone else’s way. Anita felt dizzy, and vomited once more before setting the bag down. She felt someone taking the bag away from her, and another wiping her mouth and helping her sit up straight. “Be careful, here, drink this. Get it all away from your throat, then let’s get you down.” Frida, she thought. The red light made everyone look strange.
“No,” she signed. “I’m ok. It just… I let everything get to me for a minute. I’ll be ok. I’m so sorry. We’ll have to dump the bag in a lake, I can’t think of anything else to do with it.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it. You need to rest.”
“Lay down, Dr. Sensharma. Please rest.”
One more night, she told herself. I just have to get through this one and one more. Eventually, exhausted, she dozed off.
It felt like only seconds before someone was gently shaking her shoulder to wake her. “I’m sorry, doctor, we let you sleep as long as we could. But we need to go.” Nada’s eyes belied her concern.
Anita nodded, and got up. As soon as she had eaten a few bites of breakfast and put on her helmet, the tent was packed away. The net was spread on the ground as usual, waiting for her to step inside. It felt more like a trap than ever, like some waiting spider’s web that the trusting fly stepped into only to be devoured. She shook her head. No. This was just perception, not reality. This was the only way out, regardless of how it felt. She stepped into the net and sat down.
The day passed slowly. They were in the middle of Titan’s night now, and exhaustion had set in. There was very little chatter, no sharing of stories, just silent flight through the darkness. The ground passed under them, barely discernable in the reflected light from the gas giant. So much unexplored land, Anita thought, so much we could be doing instead of running out of fear. When will we next get a chance to be here, to see this?
They flew over the largest methane lake Anita had yet seen for herself. The scouts slowly glided lower, until they were just above the surface of the pool. “We thought you might like a closer view,” Sergei said, whispering through the comm. “Plus, Steven’s been dying to see one of these up close.”
The surface of the lake was so strange, Anita thought. The ripples they caused as they fly by were too peaked, too high for the base of the waves. The weakness of the gravity made things so strange here. Ahead, the lake was calm and still, almost like a mirror. After they passed, the ripples would die back down and everything would return to this quiet stasis. She was overcome with a childish desire to throw a rock into the lake to see the ripples spread out across the surface.
And then the lake was behind them, and the scouts flapped their wings to regain their cruising altitude. Anita looked over her shoulder, and through the netting, she could see the lake, and even see the path they had taken above it, marked by the subsiding ripples.
When they finally stopped at the end of the day’s flight, Anita almost cried when she uncurled her legs. Her joints hurt so badly she almost couldn’t stand it. It took several minutes before she could walk again, and the team sent her to walk around the camp to restore her circulation while they set up the tents.
She trudged over a small hill and into the depression on the other side. For a moment, she was completely cut off from every human being in existence. In the shadow of the hill, Saturn was blocked out, and the surface of Titan rolled away from her in every direction, dim, dusty, fading into the gloom with every meter. She suddenly missed the clarity of Mars, the distant horizon against the sky. Titan’s horizon was hidden, but she knew it would be too small if she could see it. The entire moon had rejected her, and she felt lost in it.
Then the comms came to life, and she turned to see Capheus on the crest of the hill behind her, waving for her to rejoin the group. She struggled back up the hill, muscles still screaming. She took a few painkillers with dinner, and the aches lessened, but she knew they would be back by morning. The only consolation was that she dropped into a deep sleep almost as soon as she laid down.
The last day of the journey was the worst, by far. Anita felt her mind drifting every few moments, and struggled to keep her focus. She gave in and closed her eyes, picturing her home back on Mars. The sunlight bright on her face, the air of the dome warm around her, the feeling of sunlight on bare skin. She pictured the view from her favorite lookout spot in the Spirit City dome, right there against the clear walls of the city itself, looking across the open red sands. When the little daredevils whirled by, the spiral tracings on the surface were like magic, the red fines siphoned off by the dervishes, leaving darker basalt curls behind.
Anita mentally walked through her neighborhood garden, letting her hands brush the leaves and enjoying the bright colors, the smell of produce and flowers. The remembered scent of basil brought another memory to the surface, of sitting in a restaurant, table full of fragrant pasta, herbs, bread. She had gone with two friends from college, all three of them embarking on new lives. One had just gotten married, and was having her first night out with friends since the ceremony. The other was going on to graduate school, furthering a promising academic career. Anita could picture the scene in its entirety, the candles, the food, the wine, the laughter.
“I still don’t quite get why you’re so eager to get off Mars, Anita,” Kala stated, spooning a heaping serving of pasta onto her plate. “It’s going to be cold, dark, and you’re going to spend all your time cooped up in a suit or a lab. I don’t get the appeal.”
“Don’t listen to her, it’s an amazing opportunity, and you know you’d hate yourself forever if you didn’t go for it.” Ffion’s ring flashed in the warm light from the candles. “Besides, you’re going to be amazing at it, and we’re going to be reading about you in the history books someday.”
Kala shrugged. “Maybe. But most of us go without any huge discoveries or big awards. Most academic careers, whether in the field or not, are quiet affairs without much in the way of recognition. You’re doing good if your own colleagues respect you. Though you do have one advantage in your field, Anita. Field work on Titan is so new, there just hasn’t been much done. It’s easier than trying to find a unique thesis about Martian soils.”
“True, but it also requires going to Titan, rather than enjoying a cozy little existence here, so it’s a significant trade off.” Anita dabbed her bread in the plate of oil and vinegar. “And not that many people get to go to Titan, so if I do make it out there, at least I get to do some stuff very few people get to do. Imagine seeing Saturn that close!”
The trio had been temporarily interrupted by Ffion’s husband calling to ask her a question. Anita had never pursued relationships with any seriousness once she had decided to try for a Titan posting; no point in getting attached to someone and then leaving them behind for goodness knew how long. But the look on Ffion’s face when she heard her husband’s voice had made her momentarily question that choice. Had she missed out on something?
In the night of Titan, Anita held onto the memory for a few moments, enjoying the warmth and light, and the presence of old friends. The question came back to her: had it been a mistake to forgo attachments in the name of science? Perhaps she had missed something, but then there was no one that Perses could use as leverage against her, no one waiting in fear for a message. Having a partner would have been a mistake, given how everything had played out.
The cold and dark slowly drove out the memory of warmth, and Anita was back on Titan again. If she had known then where her path would lead, would she still have fought so hard to get here? Would she have settled into a more comfortable job back on Mars, found a tiny niche to specialize in, and lived there in quiet contentment? She had no answer for herself. Neither Ffion’s nor Kala’s paths were hers.
The midday meal was quiet and tense. Sergei perused maps of the last leg of the journey, and Frida and Nada compared notes about the likely state of the base when they arrived. Anita walked while eating, needing every spare second to keep her muscles moving before she had to get into the netting for the last time. Her feet were a blaze of pinpoints, every capillary screaming as blood worked through them again. Without the blood pressure assistance of the suit itself, she likely would have even worse problems, she realized.
When everyone had eaten, stretched, and had some water, the tents were packed away for the last time, and the odd little group took to the air again. Sergei had warned her that this would be the longest leg of the journey yet, but that everyone had agreed to push on without stopping. They could spend a full day and night resting at the base before heading back.
They were definitely flying slower, Anita noticed, and gliding more. Sometimes she would hold tighter to the net and let one of the scouts loose their cable for a half hour or so and fly without her weight. She flexed against the netting as much as she could without disrupting the flyers, straining to keep her joints and muscles from locking up. She shivered almost constantly now; her suit could protect her from dying in Titan’s cold, but it wasn’t warm, either. If she could walk around, or better yet, take to the skies in a wing suit, she would be able to raise her body temperature considerably, but sitting still was a cold business.
The night seemed to go on forever. It had taken a few flights for Anita to realize that one of the subtle things she found so disconcerting was the lack of stars; none could shine brightly enough to penetrate Titan’s murky atmosphere, and the night sky was pitch black and empty except for the gleam of Saturn and its rings.
Finally, Sergei spoke over the comms. “We’re coming up on where the base should be. I’ll guide us in low over the coordinates, but it should be fairly difficult to spot from the air. Which is good news for us, if we can just find it the first time.”
The ground got closer and closer, and Anita could see the shapes on the ground in greater definition. They passed over one hill, then another, almost scraping the rocky outcroppings at the top, then a valley opened up, and straight ahead, she could see a small mound with a metal door set into it. She barely repressed a cry of relief.
The ground landed with a bump just in front of the door to the abandoned base. “Doctor, walk around for a few moments to get your muscles loosened up. We need to restart the generator and get the oxygen hooked up to the base before you go inside.” And you want to make sure Perses hasn’t booby-trapped the place before you let me set foot in it, Anita thought, but silently began to walk around the base, limping as the pins and needles returned to her extremities.
Anita could feel herself bracing for a blow, either news that the base was uninhabitable, or for a physical explosion, but nothing came. Her team bustled around for a while getting the oxygen they’d brought hooked up to the base’s system and bringing the power back online. Finally, Frida waved to Anita and beckoned her into the base.
When everyone was inside and the door closed and sealed, the team took off their helmets. Alice shook her pink hair, wet with perspiration, and ran her fingers through it. Frida exhaled deeply a few times, then turned to Anita. “First of all, the bad news. Nada and I went through the systems with a fine-toothed comb, and checked against our knowledge of what Perses is capable of. I’m so sorry, doctor, but we don’t feel we can adequately shield your voice from their tracking. If you speak out loud, they will be able to find you.”
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