Chapter 1

The glider feathered across the caramel-colored sky, and Anita watched. She would have gotten a clearer image of it if she had pulled her enhancers down to her eyes, with their infrared and ultraviolet and other capabilities, but she preferred to watch with her unaided vision. It made the scout look less clearly defined, almost painterly, as she flitted above the icy sands of Santorini Facula. For a moment, it might look like she was on a slow collision course with the surface, then with a flap of carbon fiber wings, she took to the skies again, momentarily blocking out the faint and distant sun.

Noticing a slight adjustment that could be made to the controls of the flight suit, Anita turned to her tablet and pulled up her design notes, recording her observations and sending them back to the base at Kerguelen Facula. The computer there would draw up the altered designs and have them ready for review and printing long before she got there.

She closed the tablet as the scout came to a landing nearby, almost skidding across the surface of the moon for a few seconds. It made Anita think of a few of the precious birds she had seen in the biological preserves back on Mars.

“How was it?” She heard the faint click as the microphone in the scout’s helmet activated. “I really like the new controls, but I still think they’re not attuned as well as they could be.” The scout’s face was barely visible through the faceplate on her suit, but Anita could see the grin on her face. “Even with that complaint, there is just nothing like being able to use these things. I think I could stay in the air all day.”

Anita returned the smile, and began scanning the scout for initial signs of trauma or stress. The facilities back at Kerguelen would do a more thorough job, and she would scour those reports before committing to any design tweaks, but so far everything looked good. There was always the chance of microfractures too small for her scanner to detect, but it was unlikely. For all intents and purposes, the flight suit design was done. Everything else was just details.

Kerguelen was always cold, but it seemed colder than usual when Anita returned to her lab. Established solely as a scientific outpost in the late 2440s, the ever-growing reach of business had begun to take notice of it. Titan initially held little value to those who saw only fuel and force as goals, but new technologies developed to assist the researchers had caught certain eyes.

One pair of eyes belonged to Emmett Holder, who held an office job that Anita never quite understood, only that it often required him to be out of his office and trying to get into hers. The biolocks on the lab doors would never allow him access, but it never kept him from trying, anyway. Never with violence, or like a common thief. But her assistants had many stories of Holder trying to gain their sympathy for some cause or other and angling for access to the laboratory. Anita had never taken the efforts seriously, since her assistants were all loyal to the pursuit of science, but it could be disconcerting.

There was no sign of Holder as she palmed the lab door open, but the air had an odd feeling, as if he had recently been there. Anita turned on the heating system and pulled up the flight suit designs. Yes, here were the updates the computer had programmed. All the health scans had come back completely normal. Time to print the next iteration with the updated controls. The printers hummed to life. Anita locked the lab behind her: it would be hours before the suit would be done. After weeks in the field, it would be good to spend a little time at home.

“Home,” like most housing in Kerguelen Base, was a small apartment set into the wall of a wing of the base. Anita had been lucky enough to get one with a window. Not everybody liked to look out on the barren landscape of Titan, but she did. She could spend hours staring out the window, a map of the tiny world beside her, day-dreaming about all of the discoveries still to be made. Only a tiny portion of the surface had been mapped in any detail, and it was still so strange. The base was nowhere near any of the lakes of liquid methane, for obvious safety reasons, but Anita had seen enough of them to be able to picture one just behind the nearest hill, glinting in the weak sunshine that seeped through the swirling layers of clouds.

Her computer beeped, and Anita jumped. She tapped to accept the incoming call.

“Hey, I heard you were back in town.”

Anita smiled. Jay’s face was far too close to the screen as always, face half obscured by dark curls.
“Hey Jay. I missed you, too.”

“Damn right you did. I’m a delight. You free for coffee this afternoon?”

“I have approximately eleventy billion things to do to get this design ready for the next series of tests.”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you in the commissary in 10.”

“See you there.”

Jay Knowlton was one of the most brilliant people Anita had ever met. Jay had been the first to greet her when she landed on Titan, showing her over the features of the base at a breakneck speed. Anita had liked them immediately, though she felt Jay could be exhausting from time to time. Today, Jay was waiting for her at one of the nondescript tables in the small dining area in the base. Only small success had been had with hydroponics in the base, and Titan was completely unsuitable for attempting to grow anything outside of the base walls, so what might look like fresh vegetables were usually anything but. Jay lifted a spoon from a bowl of soup that appeared to contain several unidentifiable colors and textures. “We can take people millions of miles from the planet that brought them into existence in the first place, but we can’t make a decent clam chowder once we get them there? Science is some weird shit, man.”

Anita laughed, and grabbed a bowl of soup for herself. It tasted much better than it looked, but Jay had a point. “Don’t knock a hot meal after you’ve been eating from packets for two weeks.”

Jay shrugged. “So how’d it go? Did you get the controls calibrated the way you wanted? What did the scouts say?”

“The controls are ok, but they needed some more fine-tuning. I’ve got the next iteration of suit printing in the lab right now.” Anita took a moment to swallow a spoonful of soup. Her breath steamed slightly in the always-chilly air when she spoke again. “The scouts were really happy with the suits. My design has a bigger wingspan than any other suit has been able to achieve in a practical way, and it’s keeping them aloft longer with less flapping on their part. I based some of the design elements on albatross wings. Several biologists on Earth sent me detailed info and videos of birds in flight to help.”

“That’s one thing I do miss,” Jay commented, pushing their mostly empty soup bowl away. “Animals. I mean, we’ve got animals back home, but not like it was on Earth where you could just walk outside and BOOM! Animals! It’ll be hundreds of years before we can even think about having them outside of controlled circumstances back home. It’ll never happen here at all.”

As she often did, Anita looked at her friend and marvelled at the set of circumstances that had brought them to this remote corner of the world. Anita had been born and raised on Mars, like most of the scientists and engineers who explored the outer solar system. But Jay had been born on Earth, and had only moved to Mars in their late teens.

Jay continued, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I left, for a lot of reasons. They’re still repairing the damages from the first years of the millennium, and even then, it’s only fixing stuff. Everything we do out here is new. I’m about moving forward. Plus, way too many of those jackasses thought I wouldn’t be able to handle this gig. Too dense for my height. I heard one or two call me Earth Bones behind my back.” They smacked their forearm with the palm of their hand, making an echoing retort ring through the room. A few people looked up from their meals, but Jay paid them no mind. “Bones were formed under Earth gravity, you know. Denser. Weightier. Mars-born folks have bird bones. You weigh less there, so your bones don’t have to support as much. Hell, you’re short for a Martian at five-eleven. Biology’s a bitch.” Then they grinned. “So I did it anyway, half out of spite. It’s a powerful motivator. Now they’re all back on Mars, and I’m here on the edge of human exploration, enjoying terrible soup with a brilliant engineer who’s changing exploration forever. So they can kiss my heavy Earth-bred ass.”

Anita couldn’t help but smile. “I’m glad you’re here, Jay. Your work on the atmosphere was invaluable in designing the wing suits.” She glanced at the time, and sighed. “But I’ve got to get back. I haven’t even had time to clean my clothes from the field, and you know how the dust just gets into everything.”

“Hey, it was good to see you. Let me know when you’ve got your dates for your next fieldwork, I’ll make sure to take you to lunch before then.”

“You got it.”

A message was quietly dinging its alert when Anita stepped through her door. Technically, she was supposed to have all messages forwarded to her personal device, but she only did so when heading into the field. She deeply disliked being interrupted by machines at every moment, and preferred to answer messages in her own time. She tapped the screen and the message began. “Dr. Sensharma, we wanted to inform you as soon as possible about a change in the organization. Perses Unleashed, the mining and mineral extraction company, is now funding the majority of Themis’ field programs, including your own. This has solved our funding issues for the near future, so your work on Titan may continue without interruption. Perses has made it plain that they do not intend to interfere with or direct our research, though they may make requests from time to time, to be fitted into our usual work when possible. I know you will be concerned with the development, and there are many here who share your worries. However, without this funding your current work would be in danger of being cut off, and this does allow us to keep going. Steady heart, steady head, steady hands. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

Her voice was steady, but Anita could hear the concern in Dr. Harrington’s voice as the message concluded. Even if Perses never directly interfered with the research, they could make use of it in other ways. The battle had already been fought for Mars: several large sections had been given to corporations for mining, against the protest of many scientists and activists.

Titan is a fresh world, she thought. Not just a fresh world, but a world that could provide the keys to the beginnings of Earth itself. We’re doing enough damage having a human presence at all; anything more could destroy Titan forever. Still, they’re not attempting to land mining equipment here. Yet.

She walked back to the tiny bathroom and stripped down, stepping into the shower. For the millionth time, she whispered gratitude to the inventor of the modern reclaimed water shower. Many other forms of bathing had been tried, but nothing quite beat the feeling of hot water pounding down all over one’s body. Especially when said body had been cooped up in a suit or tent for the last few weeks.

Drying off after the shower, Anita slipped into a comfortable dress before heading back to the lab. It wasn’t so much that she liked dresses, she mused, it just felt so different than everything she wore during the time in the field that she liked the contrast. Flowy instead of fitted, soft instead of structured. Nice.

She opened the lab and got to work. First things first, some music. She cued up her favorite work playlist: upbeat, but not bouncy. Enough to keep her energy up without going manic. As the music filled the room, she heard the door open and turned around.

Emmett Holder stood silhouetted in the doorway, hand still on the biolock of the door. I must have forgotten to pull the door shut, thought Anita wildly, knowing full well that she never forgot to lock the lab. Her apartment, maybe, but never the lab. Surely they wouldn’t…

“Let’s cut to the chase,” he said, stepping fulling into the machinery-crowded room. “No, you didn’t forget to lock the door, and yes, I do have access. Perses assigned me to all survey activities, and that includes your flight suit designs and tests. I’d like to take a look and get up to speed on the project.”

Anita felt a shock run through her. She wanted to turn and run, or maybe shove him out of the door and brace it shut with every piece of heavy equipment she could move. Neither course of action would accomplish anything, of course. But this was everything she had feared from the message. Funding always came with strings, both obvious and subtle. The best you could hope for was someone who pulled you in the directions you already wanted to go.

“This lab is proprietary, and I was promised complete privacy when I signed on for this research assignment,” Anita said, keeping her voice calm and steady. “Hence the biolock on the lab door.”

“And you do have privacy. I am simply here to understand your work to date and see where our funding is best applied for future work. Perses has no interest in changing your work at all.” His eyes moved to the new suit iteration being printed in the corner. “I take it this is the new suit for your research scouts. Flyover scanning, isn’t it? Minimal impact on the surface, minimal heat signatures, minimal human presence at all, but still getting a human eye on the tricky details of the surface of Titan. Ingenious.”

“I didn’t come up with the idea.”

“No, but you’ve made it practical. Stronger suits, better wings, lighter materials. Ford didn’t invent the automobile, he just made it practical for more people. So he’s the one in the history books.”

“I don’t want to see my work being used to provide data for scavengers.” The last word came out before Anita could hold it back or soften it, and Holder’s brow arched.

“Scavengers? That’s...harsh. And incorrect. A scavenger picks over the leftovers. We prefer to get there first.”

“You’re not helping your case.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re funding you, I’ve been given access, it’s all completely legal and aboveboard. Now, will you show me your current work, or will I have to resort to digging through the computer systems myself?”

Anita froze for a moment, then tapped a quick sequence on a nearby keyboard. A hologram sprang to life above it, a map of Titan spinning slowly, with the current exploration sites listed. “Fine. Here are the basics. Titan is still less known than most other parts of our solar system, with the exception of the interior of the gas giants. We’ve been extra careful about Titan, because so much of what we want to know is right on the surface, and we can’t risk destroying it. How familiar are you with tholins?”

Holder shrugged. “I’ve heard the term. Some sort of prehistoric particle.”

“They’re a good bit more important than that. We can’t study tholins on Earth: they don’t form there naturally. We can recreate them in a lab, but seeing how they form and interact with other chemicals and situations in their environment is crucial. Tholins are named after the Greek word tholos, or “muddy.” That haze you see over the moon upon approach is a massive cloud of tholins. They still form here. When they come in contact with water, they can facilitate formation of prebiotic chemistry. We’re talking origins of life here. And we need to touch them as little as possible so we can study them in their natural elements.”

Holder frowned at the projection of the moon’s surface. “Your scouts stay out for weeks at a time. Clearly, they’re not in the air all of that time. How are you accomodating them in the field? Are you taking samples from the surface?”

“We send them with specially designed tents. As heat-shielded as we can make them, so the body heat of the scout doesn’t affect the surface any more than is strictly necessary. The tents are suspended above the surface and only rest on small pegs, so very little actually comes into contact with the moon’s surface. The scouts do land to take samples during the day, but their boots are shielded and they all go through intense training to minimize their contact with the surface. Each scout and all their equipment is scoured as they leave the base to prevent transmission of human bacteria and other particles to the moon’s surface.”

“That’s not foolproof, as I’m sure you know. Every morning when they suit up, they’ll be leaving small particles and bacteria on their suits as they exit the tents.”

Anita nodded. “They do. And we’re still working on ways to minimize that. But this system is the most effective way of keeping our effect on the moon as minimal as possible, while still allowing us to scan and map the surface with the strengths of both technology and human perception. Our scouts are faster than rovers and touch much less of the surface while recording more of it.”

Holder studied the globe for a few moments in silence. Bright spots of light denoted the location of scouts, flight paths, areas surveyed, and more. To Anita, it looked like a delicate lace, carefully drawn together from the efforts of humanity, a lattice of ever-increasing knowledge and understanding. It was beautiful. She wondered what Holder saw in it.

Finally, he broke his silence. “I’m well aware you don’t care for my company, or for me personally. I don’t care. But I have been authorized to make you an offer. No one knows more about the practicality of scouting the surface of Titan than you do. Perses would like you to be part of our team. You would continue the same work, but your pay would increase substantially.” He pulled out his tablet, typed a number into it, and turned it so she could see. There were substantially more zeroes in it than she had expected. “This is a one-time offer. I can give you some time to think about it, but things are beginning to move faster out here, and we need a decision soon.”

It was tempting. It was so tempting. She’d never had a salary anywhere close to what was being offered. Full funding was one thing: actually making money was quite another. Think of what you could give to your favorite foundations. The young scientists you could help fund.

At what cost? What good would it do to fund a young scientist’s work if her own laid the foundation for destroying an entire field? What good to give to foundations while knowing the hands that paid her worked against those same foundations? It might as well be her own hands destroying the world she had travelled so far to get to.

“No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No. It’s a generous offer, but I can’t take it. It would go against everything I’ve worked for. I won’t sell myself or my colleagues out like that.”

“Selling out? That’s a very juvenile response. All corporations are evil and all that?” Holder chuckled.

She shook her head. “I never said that. But Perses is. Do you think I don’t follow the news? That I don’t vote? That I haven’t seen the wreckage you leave behind? I see the asteroids you’ve exploded and ground to dust while blocking scientific access. I see your lobbyists in every government, blocking bills to fund cleaner energy so you can make your arguments about how you provide power to the worlds. Many of these issues are complex, but Perses is not. That--” she jabbed her finger at the salary displayed on his tablet, “--that is blood money as far as I am concerned. I would make myself into an intellectual cannibal if I were to take it. I do not know if souls exist, but regardless, I will not sell mine.”

She could feel her cheeks burning, but maintained her eye contact with Holder. He held her gaze for a few moments, then smirked and turned away. “Have it your way. Either way, I need a full progress report so we can see exactly what it is we’re funding. Just upload it to this hard drive and I’ll get out of your hair.”

Anita took the drive and examined it. “Check it if you want to,” Holder said. “It’s clean.” Anita put the drive into a slot on her tablet and opened it. No sign of files or folders. She formatted the drive, just to be sure, then uploaded the files she had prepared to send up the chain in Themis. No nitty-gritty details, but a lot of information to sift through. Hopefully it would be enough to keep them off her back while she and her team of scouts did the real work. Without a word, she handed the drive back.

Holder nodded, and turned and left the room. Anita let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The lab seemed to have been drained of breathable air, and she felt lightheaded. “This dream job is turning into a nightmare,” she muttered, and then turned back to her work.