A Light In The Dark
Selected from Annex C-3537V.
Looking for the audio version? Scroll to the bottom!
The following is the continued account of Amina Munoz, astronaut on the Laelaps IV Mission to Europa.
Zhang and Thompson are arguing about the thing in front of us. Zhang trusts the sub’s instruments as they tell us that the orb is metallic in nature, not organic, a CONSTRUCT, while Thompson seems certain that such an assertion can’t be correct. There’s no way, he’s saying, NO WAY that the thing in front of us is anything but another permutation of the strange life we’ve already found here, deep in the oceans of Europa. I barely hear them. I don’t care. I’m staring, unbelieving, at whatever the hell this sphere is, with such a dumb look on my face that you’d never guess I have three doctorates to my name. The sphere’s lights shimmer and flicker in the dark, dancing across its surface in great swirling forms and periodically coalescing into a single great circle in its center. It’s hypnotizing and undeniably alive, in either the biological or mechanical sense. I’m completely entranced by it, and am only broken from my stupor by the sudden forward motion of our submarine.
Zhang asks why I’m moving us towards the orb, but I’m not. My hands have been limp on the controls for the last 15 minutes as they’ve argued and I’ve gaped, but now I’m pulling back on the sticks with all my might in an attempt to end our forward movement. The sub doesn’t respond, and as we’re drawn toward the orb the bickering of the two men seated behind me finally ends as they are stunned into silence alongside me.
We are pulled forward against our will, so close to the orb that we are sure we’ll crash into it - but we don’t. Instead, we pass through its surface, and are ushered into a brightly lit dome from within which we can see the deep sea of Europa all around us. It’s as though we’re in a vivarium on the bottom of the ocean. None of us speak, though Thompson lets out a whimper. It’s the sphere itself that breaks the silence when it patches into our comm units. At first the noise it broadcasts is just that – noise, beeps and whines like the ancient dial up-modems that I once saw in the Internet Museum back on Earth. Then it’s gibberish, something resembling words, but not comprehensible, until finally it organizes itself into a language we can understand as it greets us in perfect English.
“GREETINGS, DESIGNATIONS [MUNOZ], [ZHANG], AND [THOMPSON]. WELCOME TO ENGINEERING STATION 12-3. YOU MAY EXIT YOUR VEHICLE AND REMOVE YOUR HELMETS IF YOU WISH. YOU WILL FIND THE CONDITIONS WITHIN THIS STATION QUITE AMENABLE TO YOUR BIOLOGY.”