Ganymede

This one's colder'n a witch's whatever.

Ganymede

“So there it is: the very last image received from Ganymede.”

Commander Cavanaugh sharply tapped his pointer along the wall screen, opening several smaller contiguous screens.

The specialists leaned in, their faces lit by scrolling text and flashing primaries.

Cavanaugh thereupon touched on three critical landmarks, each illuminated on the ground by dozens of reactor-powered field lamps. He double-tapped a black hump of what looked like sludge.

“There’s Brahe, or what used to be Brahe. And here’s Galilei.”

The commander drew a rough circle around Galilei’s colonized crater, now appearing as a black overflowing pool.

“And, of course, Copernicus.”

Copernicus, with its dozens of radiating pyrene tunnels, was a much larger hump.

Cavanaugh paused to stare wistfully out the command center’s main starboard viewport, visualizing Ganymede, the Solar System’s largest moon, on better days. He was remembering his honeymoon.

“That’s all. A black cloud rolling over everything it encounters. Like smoke, but far more condensed. It sticks to anything synthetic, and that means domes, tunnels, and miscellaneous equipment. Our only intel is an intercepted radio transmission from a squatter colony, sent directly to Copernicus. Pretty much incoherent, but the transmitter described a cloud of poisonous gases, most likely from a hydrocarbon vent, and what he called a ‘great light’.

“Now, we’re all in the dark about this. You three were hand-picked through computer résumé searches, and I’m assuming you’ve never met professionally.” He triggered an audio recorder and said clearly, “For the record:

“We have Michael Palomar of Jovian Security Services, who’ll be handling reconnaissance and communications.

“We have Doctor Gazelle Fischer, who’ll be in charge of all things medical.

“And we have synthetics engineer Riley Jaxx, who’ll collect samples and operate the pyrene assembler.”

Palomar, an impeccably dressed twenty-year-old with a blond military buzz cut, smiled and offered his hand to the slender brunet physician. “Hi, Gazelle! Such a pretty name. Your parents must’ve been crazy about you.”

Dr. Fischer, easily five years his senior, leaned back and rolled her eyes conspicuously. “Musta been.”

Cavanaugh appeared mildly peeved. Little Jaxx could only smile nervously and turn his modishly goggled head.

“That’s just…super!” said Palomar. “So what’s the story on the distress message?”

“There was no distress message, just a warning to stay away at all costs. Ganymede isn’t letting any ships through, and all normal communications have been disabled. But one ship will get through, to just outside Copernicus, and it’ll be carrying you three. You’ll be equipped with a pyrene assembler, so you’ll be able to burn your own connecting tunnels and command posts. Now, I’m certain we’re all familiar with the basics of pyrene technology, but I’ve been instructed to give you guys a quickie refresher course anyway.

“Okay. Before it was made nearly obsolete by cheaper synthetic polymers, pyrene was ideal for a developing world like Ganymede: it’s completely transparent, hardens immediately, and is all but impervious to cold.

“The particulars of any pyrene enclosure are pre-configured by computer templates--dome, tunnel, storage bin…whatever. But the programmer has ultimate say in height, width, and depth. Absolutely nothing’s hands-on; it’s all done remotely by computer.”

Cavanaugh indicated the centermost screen, where a three-dimensional diagram awaited activation. He tapped the screen and used the pointer to draw out the diagram. “As far as burning tunnels goes, this hoop here represents a programmable, infinitely flexible battery of polymer jets. This adjoining hoop detaches and is wheeled away robotically on a real-time track, ordering the lengthening product into a cylindrical shape with an ongoing flat floor.

“A virgin hoop can rest comfortably in the palm of your hand. But as its iris expands, the hoop will expand right along with it; theoretically without limit, in practice a couple hundred yards. Once the pyrene application process is complete, the iris itself contracts to nil width and the hoop dies. Hemispheres and blisters are made by an alternative method; rather like glass blowing.

“All prior burns and seals are digitally memorized, therefore any new breach can be closed to perfection--but that still requires a highly trained operator, meaning Mr. Jaxx here. He’ll be responsible for producing any enclosures, and making damned sure they’re correctly sealed…remember, on this chilly little world unprotected exposure is immediately fatal. So always double-check your equipment. Your suits are designed to auto-calibrate, but outside it’s cold beyond belief, the atmosphere’s practically nonexistent, and Jupiter’s magnetosphere is famous for playing tricks with transmitters and receivers.

“This is solely an investigative mission. Learn all you can and report back. Palomar, you’ve got the reins. Questions or comments?”

“Piece of cake,” said Palomar.

* * *

The security cruiser touched down awkwardly; crab-like legs seeking purchase on Ganymede’s slipping shelves of ice, external radiators beating back the black, infinitesimally billowing veil.

“Dimming burners,” Palomar said.

After a minute he reported, “Readings support traces of oxygen, methane, and hydrogen, but there’s a localized carbon component that suggests coal, or maybe even crude.” He double-tapped a screen. “Ice, ice, everywhere ice. Well, it looks like a ruptured gas pocket, with some kind of ignition factor. Maybe thirty miles northeast of here. Could be anything; nobody knows for sure what’s going on under all this frozen crud. Everybody suit up. Dr. Fischer, I want a full medical kit. Jaxx, get your equipment ready.”

Once they’d crowded inside the starboard airlock, Palomar double-checked all inner locks and seals. Jaxx took a seat on a wheeled bin and began tweaking his computer. Dr. Fischer stared out the wide porthole at nearby Copernicus’s sloping pyrene wall, streaked and smeared like a nicotine-stained smile.

“Those jets,” the little synthesist explained, pointing excitedly, “are connected to a highly magnetized hoop on the hull, forming a ring around the outside of this ground hatch. Special-built for this ship, and for this mission. Check it out, you guys: the tunnel we’re burning is pre-programmed, but any hoop can be calibrated as narrow or as wide as we want, depending on the amount of material available.”

Palomar displayed a limp wrist for Dr. Fischer’s sake, but she was spellbound, watching the guide hoop drawing out a flat-floored, perfectly rounded tunnel glinting with the reflections of field lamps near and far. In seconds the pristine outer surface was marred by an ugly archipelago of oily film.

Palomar tripped the ship’s outer hatch, and the gleaming bubble opened up to meet them.

Jaxx went first, the doctor and team leader just behind. Palomar secured the ship’s hatch remotely while the synthesist punched out a closure sequence that obliterated the original hoop’s iris, completely sealing the enclosure. With Jaxx’s polymer bin paving their way, the phalanx of three crept through a tunnel continuously extending along its guide track; a tunnel looking for all the world like a gigantic glass cigar tube containing a trio of clambering ants. When the tube’s nose kissed the high wall of Copernicus, Jaxx keyed a command that caused the tunnel’s fresh pyrene to bond with Copernicus’s old. A quick inner rim burn, and the new tunnel’s end plate dropped off cleanly, exposing a greasy disk of Copernican pyrene. Palomar sprayed and wiped off a large spot. The investigators found themselves trading stares with an anxious crowd of Copernicans, their noses pressed against the dome’s colossal inner wall.

Palomar placed a tympanic disk on the partition. “Investigative team of three out of Io. We’re here to gather data and offer any help we can.”

Now a silver-haired man moved through the crowd, furiously motioning them back the way they’d come.

Palomar shook his head. “Like this,” he enunciated, “you and I can’t exactly communicate.”

The man indicated the new seal with a circular trajectory of his forefinger, one eyebrow raised.

Jaxx nodded. Palomar passed the nod along, and the crowd was waved back. Jaxx duly collected data for the great dome’s curvature and thickness, ran a heat jet around the designated portal, and tapped until the filthy Copernican plate popped out. He parked his bin among a cluster of rechargers and replenishers. The investigators peeled off their helmets and sagged in the rush of recirculating air.

The silver-haired man grudgingly offered his hand. “We weren’t expecting visitors, sir. In fact, we explicitly demanded there be no approach without permission.”

“Michael Palomar, JSS. Doctor Gazelle Fischer. Synthesist Riley Jaxx.” He presented their credentials. “And you would be?”

“Gerald Stone, mayor of Copernicus. At your service.”

Palomar knew the type:

Administrative to a fault, the smile tightened and loosened by opposing screws on the sphincter.

The rubbernecks watched until Jaxx had completed his reseal. At last the four were able to move along.

“Our reactor,” the mayor noted, “hasn’t been affected, bless the stars. Heaters, overheads, floors--everything’s up to par.” Their eyes followed his waving arm.

Copernicus, a huge standalone shell lit by tiers of ascending fluorescent light rings, was part endless warehouse and part residential outpost. Scores of crisscrossing moving floors spanned a huge central grid; some of these carried pedestrians, others transported workers and emergency equipment. Every hundred yards or so a bubble-shaped pyrene station shone under the overheads--elevating floor to floor, swiveling side to side, electronically locking and unlocking contiguous floors. And all along Copernicus’s ever-unraveling periphery were the homes, parks, and tiered businesses; each sporting thermal pools and hydroponic gardens. Surrounding all this, the great black stain made cowards of outgoing men, made shut-ins of wives and children.

Mayor Stone escorted the investigators onto a broad north-running floor reserved for authorized personnel. He re-locked the handrails before entering a code on his handheld. The floor began rolling. Abruptly he canceled the flow.

“Where are my manners?” He punched in a new code. “Step back, please.”

A five-by-five section of floor collapsed, allowing a decked stainless steel table on a wide column to rise out of the opening. Four locking stools swiveled out from the column, one for each side of the table. The mayor sat first. When his guests were comfortable he re-entered the original code and the flow was restored. “A beverage?”

“Cappuccino,” Dr. Fischer said.

Palomar nodded. “Just a beer. Terran, if you’ve got it.”

Jaxx, captivated by the winking pyrene stations, mumbled, “I’m good, thanks.”

Stone swiped his print and spoke into a grille mounted on the column’s side: “Two cappuccinos and a mug of Irish pilsner.”

“Mayor,” Palomar interjected. “A lone radio transmission was intercepted by an Ionian cruiser on flyby. The message concerned some kind of ‘great light’ preceding this gas flow.”

The mayor’s smile tightened. “Of course, of course. Sent by a self-contained religious sect domed some miles northeast of us.” He nodded cynically. “You know the sort. Don’t want to contribute, don’t want to vote, don’t want to pay taxes. Anyway, bother all that; I’m supposing you’ll meet them soon enough. We’re presently on our way to a favorable embarkation site.”

A hollow column rose out of the tabletop, opening on hinges to reveal a steam-filled chamber. Metallic plates containing their orders swiveled out. The mayor served Dr. Fischer, then Palomar, and lastly himself.

Palomar nursed his brew. “Well, everything looks pretty nifty from here.”

“Not so. Please lean forward and hang onto your orders.” The mayor paused the floor to key in new commands. The five-by-five section folded back down. The table and chairs slowly descended with the sinking column. A moment of breathless disorientation, and the party settled smoothly on the halted lower floor.

Stone worked his fingers over his keypad.

The table and chairs swung ninety degrees clockwise, and the floor began accelerating toward the East Wall. “I’d like to show our good doctor something I’m sure she’ll find fascinating.” Ruby lights flashed on their handrails as the mayor triggered a diplomatic alert. The floor picked up speed.

At East Wall they boarded a VIP railed cart, and soon, at a particularly dark section of dome, had their attention directed to a tarry black streak in the smudge.

“That crooked line is a patched break, caused by an ejecta impact from an eruption several miles to the northeast. It must have been a spectacular event to hurl matter such a distance.”

Stone stared out through the blackened dome and into the stifling plume. “Long before we could seal the breach, that dark stuff came flowing over us. It penetrated the rupture, overcoming our citizens.”

“Overcoming them how?”

“I’m not a medical person, Doctor Fischer; I can only describe the most obvious symptoms. Episodes of uncontrollable coughing. Spasms. Nightmarish delusions. A bluing of the flesh, along with a tendency to bleed from the nose, mouth, and ears.”

“Signs of asphyxiation?”

“I would say so.”

Fischer traded glances with Palomar. “Hydrogen cyanide?” she wondered. “Carbon monoxide?”

“Carbon something,” Stone said.

“You see, there’ve always been indications of oil deposits below the ice; perhaps a breakdown of aqueous organisms from way back when. God knows. The subsurface is still pretty much unexplored.”

“Images of the victims? Eyewitness accounts?”

“I can do you one better.”

The mayor punched in a new command and the cart fairly flew down its track. After a quarter hour’s ride he led them on foot to a huge pyrene hemisphere obscured by hung blankets and drapes: a dome within a dome. The blankets and drapes were garlanded; decorated with strung flowers and homely objects, with family pictures and birth certificates. The entire area, cleared by a keyed mayoral command, was very quiet and still. A heat-cut portal served as their doorway. “No risk of contamination,” the mayor assured them.

Inside, hundreds of pyrene-encased corpses had been stacked against the walls: children propped against adults, mothers enclosed with infants, neighbors caught in spontaneous embrace. As in any human disaster, survivors had tearfully placed mementos, cards, and personal items around their loved ones. All those articles were now partitioned by zigzagging pathways formed of yellow cautionary tape bearing stenciled skulls and crossbones. For the investigators, fresh from their strenuous but practical lives, it was a most humbling and heartbreaking experience.

“No need for refrigeration,” the mayor explained, waving a hand. “These casings keep the bodies perfectly preserved.”

Dr. Fischer walked the maze shining a laser magnifier. As expected, all the deceased were gnarled by rigor mortis. Yet there was a curious purplish discoloration to the faces and arms.

“How long were these people exposed before they expired?”

“It varied. But all were immediately quarantined--at the first sign of symptoms. Right here, in this very warehouse. Doctors and nurses wore protective suits; suits not unlike your own. None showed symptoms.”

“I’d like a closer look at a number of these bodies. I’m not convinced toxins are solely responsible.”

The mayor wrung his hands. “My dear doctor, I am so sorry. As Mr. Palomar explained, yours is merely an investigative mission. So, without authorization, these poor souls must remain encased--believe me, I’ve had the deuce of a time fending off bereaved family members. But don’t worry; the material will preserve them for the foreseeable future.”

“I was thinking more about the safety of the unaffected, sir, rather than the preservation of specimens for medical study.”

“The unaffected?” Stone’s smile ratcheted down. “Another interesting aspect of this whole phenomenon, my dear, is that the cloud is chemically corrosive, and has in fact been eating away at our dome; it’s only a matter of time before the dome dissolves completely. Our one hope is to requisition enough pyrene to erect an interior dome, then shed the old dome like a skin. Sooner or later crews will cap off the poisonous flow--things will get back to normal. So kindly make your analyses and, please, relay our request with the utmost dispatch.”

“We’ll start with interviews at the colony,” Palomar said. “But we’ll need a vehicle specifically designed for navigating this terrain.”

“Of course.” They left the makeshift morgue and walked back. The mayor programmed the cart to a work station farther north, where he addressed a deferential foreman and crew. Additional polymer was quickly transported from a warehouse, along with a large conveyable supply and a loaner bin for Jaxx. A few minutes later an open, tank-like tractor was driven right up to the dome’s tarry towering wall. The mayor motioned his guests over.

“This vehicle was constructed expressly for ice fields. It is fully stocked for encampments and emergencies. The operation is pretty straightforward, but it requires periodic de-icing from burners mounted under the chassis. If it’s somehow disabled it’ll send out a signal we can respond to with any number of identical vehicles. In such a worst-case scenario, these fine men can duplicate your exit burn with their own equipment. During operation you’ll have access to state-of-the-art diggers and drivers. And you’ll be able to charge your personal equipment at any of these auxiliary ports. Anything else we can do for you?”

“You can take a step back, please,” Jaxx said. “This’ll be one humongous blister.”

The mayor watched anxiously as Jaxx’s equipment generated a tractor-sized bulge in the dome. Palomar hit the tractor’s headlights and gingerly rode the beast inside.

Jaxx’s newest, wall-rebuilding hoop, was now memorizing the parameters for curvature and thickness from Copernicus’s dome. Simultaneously, all coordinates for position and circumference were being entered and saved on his handheld.

He and Fischer stepped inside the sparkling new blister.

They watched the huge hoop’s iris contract, its encompassing jets spraying polymer in a rapidly closing spiral until the gap between Copernicus’s dome and the new blister was sealed over. The spent hoop, its critical data saved and its iris now technically nonexistent, popped off and expired at their feet.

Jaxx triple-scanned the convex replacement surface for the mayor’s sake, rapped his knuckles against the shiny new plate, and mouthed the word solid.

Stone mouthed back, Godspeed.

High in the driver’s saddle, Palomar used a spanner to attach the warehouse’s loaner bin to the onboard reserves. He lowered the bin hydraulically. Jaxx walked ahead of the track-guided tractor, the huge tube stretching out before him.

At forty feet Palomar disengaged. He then swiveled the twin spotlights, watching the plume streaming toward the glistening tube. “Okay, you guys,” he called. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

Jaxx burned out the far end and left the plate where it fell. He vaulted aboard in apparent slow motion, playfully grabbing shotgun beside Dr. Fischer. The tractor rolled out of the glimmering blister and onto the alien ice fields of Ganymede.

From Hell’s own bullhorn came the most godawful shriek:

“No way!” Dr. Fischer cried, throwing Palomar’s arm off her shoulders and climbing over Jaxx.

Palomar leaned across the scrunched synthesist. “Aw, come on, Gazelle. I was just goofing around.”

“I’m a professional, man, okay? I don’t ‘goof around’. Not on a serious mission.”

“It’s a serious mission on a cold, inhospitable moon, and we’re just three blind mice driving into a black fuming wasteland. We’re partners in the heart, sugar; we’re partners in the soul. And the moment we become too professional, well, that’s the moment we lose our humanity.”

“Whatever. Watch the road.”

Palomar hunched at the wheel, doing his best to make good. But controlling the machine became increasingly difficult--wherever the filthy black cloud wasn’t lazily billowing, it was rolling sleepily between Ganymede’s peaks and ridges, completely obscuring the view. Sometimes it loomed according to the laws of physics, impenetrable to the unassisted eye. At other times it came off as being in some kind of otherworldly sync with the three sky-hungry mice now skidding through the dark.

At such moments of human-Ganymedean synchronicity the pall would scatter just long enough to expose a scene of impossible beauty--the seemingly minuscule silhouettes of Thebe and Amalthea, daintily circumnavigating Jupiter’s complex pastel disk, now taking up fully three quarters of the Ganymedean sky.

Palomar gaped at the stupendous gas giant in all its glory, his expression humbled behind the visor. “How lucky are we all,” he wondered aloud, “just to be alive.”

“Not even on Callisto,” Dr. Fischer breathed.

“Oh? You’re Callistonian? Is it true Callisto women are, well, experimental?”

“Just drive.”

Easier said than done: due to the big moon’s frozen, basically smooth skin, there are few natural impediments; navigation’s only a problem when it comes to skidding. Yet a strange heaving fog rises off the ice, in every direction merging with the crawling black plume and confounding the tractor’s sensors.

There are even fewer artificial impediments.

Because Ganymede and Jupiter orbit the sun in perpetual locked orbit, the original terraforming developers were stuck with an option: an endless panorama of bitter, inhospitable space to one side, or the hypnotic, hauntingly painted face of Jove to the other. The Jupiter-facing side quickly became a work in progress; the other side was left to the scientists and scavengers. But the developed side of Ganymede was, and always will be, imperiled by a relentless ice desertification.

“No service stations, no restrooms, no pubs,” Palomar groused. “This godforsaken popsicle has a long way to go.”

“Someday it’ll all be domed,” said Jaxx. “The whole moon.”

Fischer tapped him on the knee. “Looks like you picked the right field, honey.”

Jaxx blushed furiously. “You too, ma’am. I mean, Dr. Fischer, ma’am. I mean, there’ll always be an urgent need, ma’am, for quality medical professionals.”

“Ha!” Palomar barked. “I can’t build anything or save anybody, and here I am in charge! Now there’s some irony for you. And who do you think gets the girl? It’s the geek in the goggles!” He leaned hard on the diminutive synthesist. “D’you follow sports, Jaxxy?”

“Some,” Jaxx mumbled.

“D’you know about the emotional give-and-take between victor and vanquished?”

“Some.”

Palomar punched him on the bicep. “Investigator, give me an E.T.A. on that religious colony, will you?”

“Half an hour, sir. That’s if we’re able to maintain this speed.”
“Betcha I can beat that clock by half.”

Palomar drove recklessly for five dizzying minutes, skidding the tractor side to side across the ice. Just as he was launching into a wobbly figure-eight the doctor leaned across Jaxx.

“You! Just stop it, damn you! The last thing we need is a jock for a team leader. Mister, I’ve been called a vicious and compulsive writer. Please don’t make me stink up my report.”

Palomar slowed and nudged Jaxx. “Gets ’em every time.” But over the next twenty minutes he was the consummate professional; speaking clearly and succinctly, constantly checking gauges, minding the grades and iced-over craters.

Those ubiquitous fogs grew and grew, morphing into plume-fouled curtains. One minute the riders were calling out promising gaps, the next they’d been claimed by the stuff.

Palomar wiped the greasy film from his visor for the thousandth time. “You’d better find me something pretty quick, six eyes. We’re just about as lost as lost can be.”

Jaxx goggled his screen. “There! The radium tag’s up, but I’m not getting a response to my signal.”

“Keep trying.”

After a long pause Jaxx emphatically shook his head.

“Okay.” Palomar took a laser sighting on the tag.

Ten minutes later they pulled up to an ice-locked habitat, maybe a hundred yards in diameter and forty feet high. The field lamps, still aglow, were all but lost in an ugly, inky haze. The dome was so blackened it appeared coated in soot.

Palomar swung out and rapped with his knuckles, smacked with his palm, pounded with his fist. Finally he rubbed a space clean with a fuel-soaked rag.

Inside it was pitch black. Palomar swung the spotlights in tight.

The entire colony was a frozen-over mausoleum. Dozens of pyrene-encased bodies were stacked against the curving wall; perhaps reverently, perhaps out of logistical necessity. Personal items lay about the floor amid kitchen utensils and religious articles. Dr. Fischer grabbed Palomar’s arm when her flashlight’s beam caught a child’s legs half-covered in blankets.

“This is a medical emergency. I’ve got to get in there. It’s a triage situation.”

Palomar was still simmering with jealously.

“Don’t even think about it, lady! There’s not a breath of life in that deep freeze, and you know it. I’ll call it in to Copernicus, and the cleanup crews can take care of it. But man, oh man! Don’t ever try to kid the kidder. Let’s go.”

They rode in silence for ten fuming minutes.

At last Fischer said, “There could have been survivors. We weren’t there long enough to find out.”

“Aww, go heal thyself.”

“And I,” Jaxx muttered, “could have burned us a hole.”

“And I said it’s none of our business! We came, we saw, we contacted base. And that’s the end of the argument.” Palomar consulted the gauges. “Christ, now we’re gonna have to de-ice. This is probably as good a place as any.” He parked the tractor in a promising vee of ridges, aimed a spotlight, and set the warmers to medium. “Jaxxy, blow us a bubble. I’m scheduling some quick shuteye. Gorgeous, help me tote in the equipment.”

Jaxx placed a virgin hoop on a level patch of ice and entered a tent template. The hoop steadily broadened, laying down a wide pyrene floor.

At the set diameter of forty feet, all the hoop’s computerized jets fired simultaneously in a rising and narrowing spiral, gradually producing a shiny, twelve-foot-high enclosure.

Jaxx now positioned a second virgin against the lowest part of the wall and keyed in an access command. The hoop’s iris expanded to specifications, its rim heating until a fresh plate detached. Jaxx stooped inside.

Palomar dragged in the climatizing equipment, the heaters, the pyrene-encased cots and blankets. Jaxx resealed the plate while the others set up heaters and ventilators. They all tore off their helmets the moment the place was breathable.

The doctor heaved her clinging suit aside. “I’d sell my soul for a shower.”

“Right after the Brie,” said Palomar, “and the Dom Pérignon.. But first things first. Jaxxy, you quadruple-check that seal. Sweetheart, you set up the nightlights and make sure we didn’t accidentally drag in anything from outside. And nobody jump up and down on the floor; that’s just ice beneath us.” He killed the tractor’s spotlight remotely as soon as the nightlights kicked in.

Jaxx set up his cot along the tent’s far curve, quietly watching Palomar and Fischer piling blankets on their own. Outside, the stain steadily built up on the frosted tent’s transparent skin. The lonesome dome grew deathly still. They could hear their bones settling.

Five restless minutes later Palomar sat up on his cot.

“You thought I was just kidding about the wine and cheese, eh, m’dear?” He opened his hands to reveal a couple of Mylar pouches; one containing grape juice, the other cheese substitute.

Dr. Fischer drew up her blankets. “My heart be still.”

“Oh, c’mon, Gazelle. We’re all just doing our jobs. There’s no regulation saying a man and woman can’t get cozy once in a while.”

“Security Specialist, I’m going to hazard a guess here. I’ll just bet that when you graduated from Horndog Academy you were first in your class.”

Palomar’s expression twisted in the nightlights’ shadows. He reclined on his cot and made a boisterous display of covering up. A minute later he said, quietly, “Goodnight, Ma’am.”

By now Jaxx’s eyes were burning. He’d been obsessing on an idea, and was only waiting for his companions to nod off. He began snoring gently and evenly, subtly encouraging their common drift into slumber.

And the lost little moon-bubble slowly turned to stone.

Jaxx tiptoed over to Fischer’s space, removed a needle and syringe from her medical kit, tiptoed back. In a minute light from his computer made a comfy study of his nook.

From his own kit Jaxx now fired up a pyrene probe. He gave it thirty seconds to heat before touching the tip to a sterilized section of dome by his shoulder. Once he’d punched through he set the probe aside, meticulously pushed out the needle, and worked the plunger until he’d captured a gas sample. He gently removed the needle.

The hole was closing slowly, so Jaxx, without thinking, plugged it with a gloveless forefinger. The hot pyrene burned his flesh; Jaxx intuitively stuck the finger in his mouth. He sealed the sample in a glass slide connected to one of his computer’s ports, fine-tuned his goggles, and leaned in.

The displayed dark smear was absolutely indistinguishable from burnt motor oil.

Jaxx magnified for spectral imaging…methane, ozone, traces of oxygen, along with what was certainly a viscous mix of hydrocarbons. He switched to electron magnification.

A tiny red blip appeared on the screen.

Jaxx’s goggles re-calibrated.

The spot kicked.

He zoomed in until he made out a multicellular microorganism with a concave head and tapering tail, oddly reminiscent of a Terran lamprey. The speck kicked again. Jaxx leaned back.

How could anything survive in such a medium? What were they? There could be billions out there, judging by the randomness of this sample. He coughed. How did they respire? Where in God’s name did they come from?

His expression rolled round and round until at last it settled on revelation.

Of course!

Panspermia!

Proven at last!

Jaxx could visualize it happening. The meteoroid slamming into the moon. The explosive ‘great light’. A local vent. A subsurface burn. A continuous stream of gases pouring out over the ice. Countless reanimated microorganisms released in the flow, their long journey through space concluded.

Jaxx crept over to Dr. Fischer and directed a penlight’s beam back and forth until her eyes popped open.

The anxious synthesist placed a finger on her lips. She followed him over to his alcove and immediately commandeered his computer. Jaxx didn’t have to explain a thing; the woman devoured the screen, intuiting everything she encountered.

“Riley, where did you get this?”

“From just outside,” he whispered.

“Riley. Let me rephrase the question. How did you get this?”

It was harder to explain than he’d imagined.

Upon his last anguished syllable the doctor got him in her unforgiving cross-hairs stare.

“Riley. Please pay close attention here. The next time you try that I’ll break your face in three places. If you ever need my assistance, you ask! It’s not that difficult.”

She brushed the subject aside. “I’ll need my syringe back, this slide, and these readouts. I can do a better examination with my own computer.” She copied his data onto a remote drive and cocked her head professionally.

“Riley. Your color’s off.”

“Must be the cold. It’s warmer on your side.”

“Then lay back and keep covered up.” In a minute she returned with her arms full of blankets. She tucked him in and pecked him twice on the cheek.

Jaxx closed his eyes.

His guts were on fire, his hands and feet freezing. He burrowed under the blankets, clutching his sides as a great wave of nausea swept over him.

Then it was all wildly surreal.

Jaxx, enclosed in a whirling pyrene globe, was being swept screaming down a foul black current among countless blood-red globules; all competing for space, all smacking into one another, all ricocheting like billiard balls. Jaxx was swelling inside his spinning polymer globe, engorging with his own fresh blood.

In a heartbeat the entire swarm was on him--lashing his shell with their waving flagella, breaking on through, plunging their long serrated probes deep into his gaping mouth and nostrils. They went for his eyes like piranhas, flailing and sucking. Sucking. Injecting and sucking. Sucking, and sucking. And sucking and sucking and sucking and sucking until the whole vile red blister just ballooned to the rafters and…popped.

Jaxx’s leg was kicked. He swam aside. The kick came again. He opened his eyes to see Palomar and Fischer; both fully suited, both staring hard.

Palomar toggled his external audio transmitter.

“Jaxxy,” he swore, “if you’ve infected me, man, I swear to God I’ll kill you if it takes my dying breath.”

Jaxx forced himself into a sitting slump. He wiped the drool and snot from his face. “What’re you talking about?”

Dr. Fischer bent down.

“I did a complete workup on your miniature sampled friend. Each of these things secretes its own casing, a transparent protein shell. As a pyrene specialist you should be right at home with that concept. The shell protects them from hydrocarbons. A given microbe will remain virtually dormant until it comes in contact with a host. The microbe enters by way of the host’s mucus membranes.”

Palomar kicked him again. “Jaxx, you little dickhead vector, those Copernican corpses weren’t poisoned--they were infected!”

Fischer moved her visor in close.

“As are you, Riley.” She studied his pupils. “I took a blood sample while you were sleeping. You were so out of it you never even noticed. Mr. Palomar and myself came out negative. Now, Riley, we know how this happened; I found a partly healed burn on your right index finger. I took a sample and discovered a clump of burned pyrene, dead white corpuscles, and…something new. Did you rub your eye? Did you wipe your mouth, did you pick your--oh, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get you to a hospital. But first…”

Palomar stuck a finger in Jaxx’s face. “But first we need you to cap off that vent. Gazelle and I discussed this all through the sleep cycle, buddy, and there’s no getting around it. There’s a pestilence on the wing out there. ‘Investigative mission’ or not, we can’t wait for it to burn itself out. We’re gonna cut it off at the source, and pray the rest of this frigid-a*s moon isn’t already contaminated. So put on your suit and get your equipment ready. Anything you touched stays behind in the ice, and that includes your computer. We’ll get by on Gazelle’s and mine. Now burn down that door plate, boy! Let’s go!”

The fully warmed tractor was waiting, all but lost in a ring of sooty fog. Jaxx fell into his old flanked position up front.

“Ought to have more sense,” Palomar mumbled.

This time there were no shenanigans or bruised egos; once the thermal sensors had defined a promising source they made straight for it. Palomar used the onboard infrareds to peer through the plume. “There! Looks like your cosmic theory, peach fuzz, was right on the money. It’s a young crater; must be a hundred feet in diameter.” He swiveled both powerful spotlights. The surrounding ice was coal black. “You got enough material for a good burn?”

“Should be,” Jaxx managed. “They packed us plenty.” His arms were trembling. “How hot do you make it?”

“Not so bad around the rim. It’s only cooking at the bottom. Toss me a virgin.” Palomar walked off fifty feet and placed the fresh hoop flat on the ice.

“No floor on this one,” he said. “We’ll use stakes.”

Jaxx now launched a modified tent template with Dr. Fischer’s computer. The template quickly produced a shiny ten-foot-high pyrene cap.

Palomar hooked this cap’s hoop to the tractor’s winch cable and slowly drove around to the crater’s far end, reeling in the cable until the cap completely cut off the ugly streaming flow.

The immediate result was breathtaking: the cap’s interior face went jet black.

The smothering gases dissipated, and just like that Ganymede had streaks of clear sky again.

Palomar used the tractor’s outboard pile drivers to force high-impact stakes through the hoop at twenty-foot intervals, seating the cap. He parked a ways off, fired up the warmers, and rejoined his team.

“Am I the Man,” he marveled, “or what?” He threw an arm around Jaxx’s caving shoulders. “So hey, little buddy, how long d’you think it’ll last?”

“The cap? A while. It should suffocate whatever’s burning in there, but we’ve still got to look for leaks.” He took an awkward step and fell back against the tractor. “Maybe you guys.”

Palomar and Fischer checked for seepage using Jaxx’s digital sniffers. The seal was immaculate.

The doctor took her colleagues’ gloves in hers.

“Stone was right to quarantine Copernicus, but for the wrong reason. We’ll demand a work party contain this properly pronto. With a little finesse we can blow it out at the source and still have samples for study.”

Palomar genuflected. “Anything for my queen of hearts.”

“Oh, please.”

She turned away.

Took a step.

Stopped dead.

“I’m disoriented…or maybe I’m--security officer, I thought you parked our ride over there.”

For half a minute they all stood like targets in a shooting gallery.

Palomar began stomping in ever-increasing circles, pausing when he came to a slight rise. Fischer, with Jaxx clinging to her waist, clambered up to join him.

The tractor was rapidly glazing over at the bottom of a deep ice sinkhole.

“Everything!” Fischer wailed. “Lost!” She was hyperventilating.

“Don’t breathe so fast,” Palomar ordered. “As of this command, oxygen’s our top priority.”

One side of the sinkhole caved in, then another.

The dumbfounded team was now treated to a spectacle unique to Ganymede: packed sheets of ice that had been seating for ages rapidly gave way, sliding in one atop the other, left and right, round and round, until there was only this crazy kaleidoscope of ice shelves reflecting their flashlights’ beams in all directions. Palomar cleared out a window with his boot. They could see the tractor far below, sinking erratically as its warmers melted the way down.

Fischer wailed again. “My notes. They’re irreplaceable.”

“Mine too; okay, Gazelle? But right now all that matters are our suits, our tanks, and our emergency packs. So I’m ordering y’all to not overexert yourselves. Consider that a direct order.”

“But my--”

“No! Absolutely no. We’re running on basic oxygen reserves, along with whatever’s left of the batteries in our heaters and radios. When those supplies run out we die where we fall. Copernicus will read our tractor’s disabled, and they’re sure to send out a rescue party on the double. So let’s move.”

They trudged along grimly, occasionally teaming up to support Jaxx.

“Specialist,” Fischer gasped, “my air…it’s going fast. I’ve got icicles on my eyelids.”

“That’s just delusion talkin’ to you, darlin’. You stick with the kidder and you’ll never be better.”

“I can barely hear you, kidder. Should we hike to our deaths with our eyes closed, or leave them open and risk going snow blind?”

“You,” Palomar grated, “just keep right on jawin’, honey. But you stay conscious! And don’t you dare get all hysterical on me again! Okay. We’re following our original tracks left by the tractor, and that’s all we can do. So to answer your question: yes, definitely keep those pretty green eyes wide open.”

“No more,” Jaxx moaned, slowly slipping through their arms like a sack of fish.

Palomar rolled him over. “Cut it out, Riley! Yeah, you’re sick and tired. We’re all sick and tired! But that’s no excuse to wimp out.”

“I’m freezing,” Jaxx chattered. “Get the hell away from me.”

Dr. Fischer crouched beside him.

“I can’t give you anything, Riley. Not with your suit on. And your suit definitely stays on.”

“What?” said Palomar. “You’re breaking up.”

Fischer checked a panel on her belt. “Batteries are going fast. If we want to continue communicating, we’ll have to tamp way down on the heaters.”

“Then everybody shut up and march.”

Palomar yanked Jaxx halfway to his feet.

“Leave me alone, man,” the synthesist snarled. “I’m warning you! Get your stinking pincers off me!”

Palomar took a knee. “You’re raving, son; your fever’s probably the warmest thing on this whole damned moon. And I don’t care if there is blood coming out of your ears. Because now you’re gonna have to help us. Did you copy that? There’s no stretcher. If you don’t get your belligerent butt up and start walking, well, we’ll drag you!”

Jaxx threw a feeble haymaker, managing only to cuff the side of Palomar’s helmet. Palomar immediately wrestled him down.

“Mister, that’s a punishable offense in a court of military law!” He nodded at Fischer. They each grabbed a wrist and began dragging. After only twenty feet Dr. Fischer hit the ice.

“I can’t move,” she whispered. “I’m freezing up.”

“What?”

Palomar dropped to his knees, his arms embracing his chest. “Say again?”

Jaxx rolled onto his side, hammering his fist on his emergency kit’s release lever. In one move he knocked open the lid, grabbed his flare gun, and shoved in a flare.

He placed the gun’s muzzle squarely between Palomar’s ribs.

Palomar facetiously raised his hands. “Oh no! I’m shaking! I’m shaking!”

“Burns a hole right through your suit. Then you’ll be shaking.”

In a move no less fluid, Palomar snatched the gun and placed the muzzle on Jaxx’s visor. “Burns a hole right through the suit, eh?” He yanked away the gun, aimed it high, and melodramatically shot off the flare. “The next time you try that, tunnel boy, my aim’ll be a whole lot lower.”

Fischer’s voice sputtered in his ear.

“Not now!” Palomar sputtered back. “I’m wracking my brain for a list of disciplinary actions in the field.”

The scratchy voice returned, barely audible.

Palomar whirled. “For Christ’s sake, woman…what?” She was pointing excitedly.

Drifting out of the sky a couple miles to the west were the incandescent tails of half a dozen answering flares, eerily beautiful above the chocolate-frosted moonscape.

“Ha!” Palomar hacked. “Light show! Light show!” He grabbed his team under the arms; Jaxx under his left and Fischer under his right. Then, a slobbering superman in a jam-packed stadium of howling fans, he heroically forced himself to his feet.

After only a few yards his legs gave out. Palomar hit the ice with his knees, his whole frame lurching forward. He pushed himself up with one foot, lost his balance, crashed back down.

Still dragging his team, he crawled along by heaving his weight left and right; a half-squashed cockroach on the off ramp to Hell.

“Get your hands,” Dr. Fischer cried,” off of me, you moron! All the machismo in the universe can’t change physics.”

Palomar swayed to his feet, fumbled out his own gun, and shot a flare high into the sky.

In seconds a compound burst of flares lit up the horizon, much closer now. Palomar collapsed on the gasping, retching pile of his team.

Fischer’s voice snarled in his ear: “Nice shooting, showoff!”

Palomar lifted his head to see half a dozen rescue vehicles streaming their way. They were going to make it; they were going to be all right. He placed his own helmet against hers so that his voice would carry.

“Piece of cake, babe.”