Rescue at Io

A Salvagers Series Prequel

By John Michael Godier

© 2013. Chalin and Harris Books.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover image copyright © 2013 M. Godier

Chapter 1              May 18, 2441. Io, Jupiter System.

“They should call it 'Hell Moon,'” I said as I glimpsed a yellow landscape dotted with wafting columns of volcanic ash and sulfurous fumes. I moved on quickly to make room for Daniel to evacuate. We wanted our feet on solid ground rather than on a ship that was in the process of tipping over. At what I thought was a safe height I jumped from the exit ladder into the sea of yellow powder below. I didn't expect to sink deeply into it. When I did, I realized that something was very wrong.

“Danny, this stuff is wet,” I announced. “It feels like mud.”

“Don't be silly, Laz. Io is dry as a bone. There's more water on the surface of the sun,” he said confidently. “The ship has become really unstable now. Get out of the way. I have to jump.”

I made way as best I could. He jumped from a greater height than I had and penetrated well past his knees.

“Jesus, you're right. It is wet,” he exclaimed.

“In fact it's not wet,” I reassessed. “It's dry. I can see it clinging to my suit.” I took a handful of the dust in my glove. “It's only behaving as a liquid when it's in contact with the surface. I've heard of this. During an earthquake otherwise solid ground can behave like a fluid.”

“It's got to be volcanic tremors. We've got to get out of here. I'm sinking further,” Daniel said in alarm.

“Over there I see some basalt cliffs. That area is our best bet for finding solid ground.”

I unintentionally neglected Daniel while I concentrated on trying to walk. My boots sank inches deep with each step. In the cumbersome bulk of my moon suit, extracting them from the muck took every ounce of strength I could muster. The only choice I had was to try to keep moving to avoid sinking more deeply.

“Hey, how are you doing?” I asked on the communications link after finally thinking to check on Danny. He didn't answer. I stopped to look back. He wasn't far behind, but he was struggling harder and making less headway than I was. I could see our ship behind him. We had thought that it had merely broken a strut on landing and become unstable. We were wrong. Our only transportation away from Io was sinking fast.

I focused my attention back on walking but turned up the volume of my comm link as high as it could go so that I could hear Daniel. He was breathing very heavily, which worried me. I tried to move more quickly, hoping that if I found solid ground I could do something to help him. But the faster I tried to go, the deeper my feet sank until I was so mired down that I stumbled onto my hands and knees. I found some relief in a sliding crawl, but I was rapidly growing as exhausted as Daniel sounded.

“Danny, try crawling!” I yelled.

“I am, but I can't make any headway. I'm losing, Laz,” he wheezed. “I don't think I'm going to make it.”

“Keep going, Danny. Stay with me. Fight it with everything you've got. We're not that far away now.”

I didn't want to demoralize him, but it didn't look as though we were making enough progress. The dust seemed to liquify more as the tremors grew worse. I was too drained to keep fighting on my knees, so I resorted to lying flat and trying to pull myself along, slowing me down even more. I realized that it wouldn't be long before we would both go under and experience a slow, crushing death from the pressure of the dust.

In what I thought would be my last moment of seeing sunlight, I felt my hand hit stone. I pushed forward with everything I had left until I could discern pieces of gravel beneath me among the dust. The farther I crawled, the harder the pack became. Then I stopped sinking altogether. I was able to stand up and stagger along until my feet finally rested on a solid volcanic outcropping.

I turned to look for Daniel. He was shoulder-deep about ten meters out and struggling with his hands over his head. He had been following a course slightly to my left and did not appear to be hitting the gravel. I reached around and opened my pack—not an easy thing to do in a moon suit—and spilled most of its contents onto the basalt. I saw a rope and hoped it was long enough.

I threw one end to Daniel, but it landed beyond his reach. I pulled it in as fast as I could and tried again. This time he caught it. Tying my end around a rock, I began to pull him with all my might. It was no use. He was still sinking.

“Danny,” I yelled on the comm. “Pull yourself along the rope!”

“I'm trying,” he gasped.

Attempting to haul him in directly wasn't working, and I could see that the dust was now at the base of his helmet. I was running out of time and had to try a different approach. I walked into the tightened rope and pushed while Daniel held on until I was dragging Daniel sideways through the dust. I kept on until he found the gravel bank. He emerged slowly from the muck, brushing off the yellow sulfur dust.

“That was close,” he said, collapsing onto the rock. “I thought I was going down for good.”

“We'll have to stick to these basalt highlands,” I said. “We can't risk walking on anything that isn't solid rock. I doubt that any of this dust is safe given these constant tremors.”

“I don't understand it,” said Daniel. “That sulfur plain returned a radar signal as though it were as hard as concrete. There was no way to know it wasn't stable when I plotted our landing. It just looked like a nice flat spot.”

“Look,” I replied, pointing. “Our ship is going down.”

We rested on the basalt outcropping and watched the last few centimeters of the transport slip beneath the dust. Moments later the surface flattened smooth again, betraying nothing about the presence of a twenty-meter vessel below it.

“There goes my command,” Daniel lamented. “I don't know how I'm going to explain this to Admiral Hanson.”

“Don't worry, Danny. I'll back you up. The word of a junior UNAG Intelligence Officer goes a long way with those Admiralty types,” I joked. “And you never know. With as much traveling as we do we might run across a shipwreck some day. No one's ever found the Cape Hatteras and all that gold it was carrying. Imagine that.”

“Finding that derelict would take more than luck. I'll bet it doesn't even exist,” he quipped. “Lazarus, we're trapped here. What are we going to do?”

“The only thing we can do. We have to head toward the position of the crash and wait for someone to rescue us along with the survivors,” I said while collecting my gear and activating an emergency beacon. “They should be able to pick up this signal on Callisto or the new Europa colony.”

“But they didn’t hear the downed freighter's distress beacon,” Daniel said. He meant the signal that had brought us to Io in the first place.

“It was a very weak signal, Danny. We're lucky that we detected it.” We had picked it up by chance while passing through the Jupiter system on our way to Mars. We thought that it would be a simple matter to land, pick up survivors of the crash, and be on our way again.

“I'm not sure I'd characterize us as lucky,” he said.

“Their signal was far weaker than this megawatt beacon. They can hear ours on Earth, but these Galilean moons are weird. If they line up the wrong way, they can block signals from each other or slip behind Jupiter altogether and drop out of radio contact for days. The survivors must have been transmitting for weeks in the wrong geometry and run low on battery power. We may not find anyone alive. By the way, how much oxygen do you have?”

“The meter is reading a little over five days’ worth.”

“Same here,” I said. “We'll be fine. They've probably already picked us up on Callisto. I can see it right there in the sky, that bright pinpoint a few degrees from Jupiter's limb. It’s a straight shot for the  radio signal.”

“How do you know that's Callisto?”

“I don't,” I said with a smile, “but we're standing on the only Galilean moon that doesn't have a colony. One of them is bound to hear us.”

We stayed put for several hours. Daniel was mostly silent. I think he was still trying to fathom the loss of the ship. He was twenty-six, and it was his first command. Even though it was just a small transport, he was proud of it. I was more interested in contemplating how close to death we had just come.

“Let's get moving,” I said, breaking the silence. “We've got to get off this rock.”

“I can see why Io is the last place in the solar system anyone wants to be,” Danny replied. “Along with the survivors we're probably the first people to set foot on it in thirty years.”

“It's no garden spot,” I agreed. “No wonder a colony was never established here.”

“The crash site is at most two days to the north in a straight line according to the last position reading I saw before we left the ship,” Daniel remarked, “but these unstable sulfur pools are going to cause problems for us. I don't know whether we can get past them.”

“We'll go around them. We'll be alright. Trust me. Have I ever been wrong?” I said, trying to reassure him. Daniel always did have a defeatist streak.

“Often,” he jibed.

We were forced to backtrack regularly as we wended our way through the volcanic hills. It seemed as though everywhere we turned there was another pool of that damned dust. After a day and a half of walking without any sleep, it was clear that we weren't getting anywhere.

“I don't see a way through,” said Danny. “Can they pick us up from here?”

“They'll detect our beacon,” I replied, “but that's not going to help the people stranded in that freighter. We need to know where the survivors are before their signal dies completely. I've caught it a few times on my suit's receiver, but it's very weak, and we're practically right on top of them. Besides, where would a rescue ship land? All the suitable flat spots around here are liquid dust. They'd sink just as we did.”

“It's getting dark. We should get some rest. Let's try climbing one of the hills in the morning,” Daniel suggested. “Maybe we can spot a path from up there.”

We slept as soundly as we could under the circumstances. Even during the night of Io's forty-two-hour diurnal cycle a constant red glow emanated from all directions. The ground’s vibrations rose and fell in intensity but never completely stopped. It was relentless, and we were cold. Even though Io had no shortage of heat, its atmosphere was too thin to retain it. Our moon suits had trouble maintaining a comfortable temperature in the depths of the night. We gave up trying to sleep after six hours and began our climb in the pre-dawn’s ruddy volcanic light.

We reached the hill’s summit in time to watch the Io sunrise. Only a handful of people had ever seen one. Jupiter loomed as a great crescent covering a third of the sky. As the morning light passed through the clouds of settling sulfur dust, they glowed orange and then yellow. Then the sun rose into a black sky surrounded by stars. For all its harshness Io is surreal, a place of clouds but no atmosphere.

We looked out across the plain that stretched before us. As the dust clouds settled, the landscape revealed itself to be a mostly impassable sea of powder before new clouds obscured it again. Then I spotted the freighter in the distance and what looked like a clear course to it, though the immediate surroundings were obscured.

“I see a course,” I said. “It looks dark, as though it’s solid rock, but I can't make it out completely.”

“I see it too,” Daniel replied.

Then came a big letdown. The beginning of the path looked good, but as the clouds cleared we saw that it passed next to a caldera full of roiling molten rock with a fountain of lava at its center. Even worse, it appeared to be spewing out volcanic debris. If we were going to get to that downed ship, we would have to pass along the edge of the caldera.

Chapter 2     The Dusts of Colchis Regio

Dangerous as we knew our path ahead would become, we were just happy to know where we were going for the first time in two days. With a sense of direction the going was easy, and we resolved not to think about the caldera until we reached it. Perhaps taking our situation lightly was a natural reaction to stress, a way for our minds to deal with the danger that awaited us, but it led to overconfidence.

“Yankee Doodle went to town,” we sang.

“And stuck a feather in his cap,” Daniel continued.

“You forgot a part,” I observed.

“No I didn't. Wait, on second thought I might have. Something about macaroni. Bah! It's an ancient song from four governments ago. Who cares if we get the order of the lyrics right?”

“I always liked UNAG the Brave. The government stole that one from. . . .”

Just then my attention was captured by the path ahead. It was shimmering like a mirage. It shouldn't have been.

“Danny, what's going on up there?” I asked. He was standing closer to it.

“I don't know. It looks like some kind of gas seeping up from the ground. It's all around me. We’d better. . . .”

Before he could finish speaking the shimmering gas flashed into flame and engulfed him. It happened very fast. An instant later he was still standing, his suit blackened, and trying to figure out what had just happened.

“It's some kind of natural gas,” he said. “I guess the static electricity in the dust ignited it, but I don't know what gas could burst into flame in this environment.”

“It's happening all around us,” I answered as another area not far away flashed into flame. “Are you alright?”

“I think so,” he said. “Wait, hold on. Damn it. I'm leaking.”

I instinctively bolted toward Danny to look at his oxygen gauge. It was dropping rapidly.

“There's a patch kit in my pack. Get it quickly,” he said.

I maneuvered around him and took it out. “Where's the leak?” I asked as I unwrapped it.

“I don't know! Look for it.” He was beginning to panic.

I examined his suit thoroughly. “I don't see anything, Danny. Wait, I've thought of something. The dust. Come on,” I said, motioning him to the shore of one of the sulfur ponds. I took handfuls of the powder and spread them across his suit until I saw the leak blowing the dust away. It was a pinhole in the middle of a burn on his suit's upper-arm segment. I mixed the adhesive, slathered it on, and affixed the patch. I then tested it with more dust. The hole seemed to be sealed, but the only way to know for certain was his gauge’s reading.

“How's your oxygen?” I asked.

“Stable as far as I can tell. I'll have to watch it over the next few hours, but I've lost almost a day's worth of air. I've only got two days’ left.”

I had three.

“We've got to move faster. Come on, Danny.”

I was worried about him. The loss of a full day's air could prove critical to whether Daniel would survive. We had no idea when rescue might happen, but it was probably going to take a few days for a rescue team to travel from Callisto to Io. It all depended on where they were in their orbits. As we progressed closer to the caldera amid frequent detonations of the gas, the lava fountain loomed large, but it was difficult to determine just how distant  it really was. We found out shortly thereafter.

“Laz, watch out,” Daniel yelled.

Right in front of me fell a large encrusted blob of molten lava. Upon impact its shell shattered, and liquid magma splattered, spread out, and solidified. If I had been under it, I would have been burned to death.

“We're going to have to keep an eye out for those volcanic bombs,” Daniel cautioned. “We're lucky because in this low gravity they fall slowly. We'll have to keep an eye out for them while they are in the air and dodge them as they drop.”

As we approached the caldera’s rim, we occasionally altered course to avoid the lava bombs. On one side was a sheer drop into the lake of molten lava. One the other was a sea of dust. Our path narrowed to just a meter of basalt. Finding room to dodge became more difficult, but we managed so long as we kept a watchful eye on the sky. The ground vibrations seemed to have calmed, leading me to wonder whether it had become safe to walk on the dust.

“Do you think it's solid now?” I asked, looking at the dust. “We could use more room to get out of the way of these bombs.”

“I wouldn't bet on it,” Daniel said.

No sooner had he said than a blob of lava landed nearby. We had been distracted and hadn't traced its trajectory. We cringed, waiting for it to splatter and melt holes in our moon suits, but it was promptly swallowed by the dust.

“There's the answer to your question,” remarked Daniel. “We can't go jumping into the sulfur.”

We trudged onward for most of the afternoon as fast as we could manage. The lava fountain seemed to slow, and the bombs stopped, at least for a while. We took no chances, though, and kept a close eye on the sky.

Eventually the path’s width narrowed to just a few centimeters. We were stepping on the yellow dust for lack of room to walk. I could see Danny's footprints disappear as though he hadn't just stepped there a moment before. Occasionally one of our feet would sink, and we would have to stop to extract it.

Avoiding the dust, I stupidly walked on the verge of the caldera, noticing that it was no longer a sheer cliff below but a slope. My boot hung partly over the edge, and I began to walk it like a tightrope. Then the rock gave way. In the low gravity of Io it seemed to take forever for me to fall. I hit the slope and slid toward the lava on the loose gravel and dust. With not much room to spare, I caught myself on a protruding rock and pulled myself up.

“Laz!” Daniel yelled.

“I'm alright, though I melted the tread off my boots. Throw a rope down,” I replied.

Daniel complied. I twisted the rope’s end around my glove and began to scale the slope. When I stopped for a moment to look at my surroundings, I noticed something strange. In the cliff wall a hundred or so meters away I could see an object. It was shining in the sunlight like a faceted diamond, almost too bright to look at.

“I see something,” I said.

“What is it?”

“I don't know. It's something reflective sticking out from the caldera wall. It's not far away.”

“I can't see it from up here,” Daniel replied. “It's probably just some crystals or volcanic glass.”

“I'm not so sure. We have to pass by it anyway,” I said. “We should check it out.”

I wasn't certain why I wanted to spend time chasing a shiny object. I just felt compelled to do it. The wreck site was now very close, and we were picking up the distress signal more strongly. The patch on Daniel’s suit was holding, and his air supply seemed stable for the moment. Surely we had a few extra minutes, I thought.

Our path widened again as we continued toward where I believed the object was. I stopped periodically and poked my head over the cliff, but my view was blocked by an outcropping. Finally we stopped at about the distance that I had estimated. Daniel held the rope while I rappelled down the caldera wall. I paused to search for the object.

“I see it, Danny,” I said. “It's about twenty meters west of me. I can't make out what it is yet. Walk further along the crater rim, and I'll rappel over to the site.”

As I moved closer to the object, it grew so bright that I had to pull my visor down to see better. After the next few bounces the identity of the object started to become clearer. I wasn't prepared for what I was seeing.

“Danny!” I yelled. “Stop!”

“Are you there?”

“No. It's still about ten meters away. It’s not a natural object, Danny. It's made of polished metal.”

“Can you identify what it is?”

“Not yet. Move me in slowly,” I said. I inched closer. “It's oblong. I'd say about half of it is buried in the caldera wall, and the other half. . . . “

“Yes?”

“It looks like a torpedo. Jesus, it's an unexploded piece of nuclear ordinance. One of the unions must have used Io for target practice before the switchover to laser cannons.”

“You mean we've found a nuclear bomb?”

“I think so,” I said.

“And it's right next to a volcano. Could it still explode?”

“No, I don't see how it could,” I said after thinking for a moment. “Those things were very complicated, and it would have to be nearly a century old. The core would have degraded enough to be no longer fissile, but it's probably still radioactive as hell.”

“Your suit should protect you, Laz.”

I don't know why he said that. It was true that our suits shielded against radiation. After all, space is a very radioactive place. But if you don't need to take a chance like that, you shouldn't. At that moment, however, for some reason, I agreed with Danny.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I'd like to take a closer look.”

I still had enough presence of mind to be cautious in my approach. There were many different designs of bomb in those days, and I was no expert in antique weaponry. Some of them used conventional charges to begin the chain reaction, and such detonators could still explode. I had to wonder, though, why the object was lodged twenty meters below the rim of the caldera. That's awfully deep for a weapon to penetrate and still remain intact.

The closer I came to it, the stranger the object seemed. An array of antennae protruded from the end. I could see only plain polished metal where the typical radiation warnings invariably appear on bombs. I could make out some kind of riveting, but I hadn't ever seen anything like its irregular pattern.

“Danny,” I reported, “this doesn't look like a normal torpedo. I can see an optical array of some type and a bunch of antennae. It might be a probe. I've never seen metal like this. It's reflecting the sunlight like a rainbow. There are no markings to indicate which government made it. The technology looks very advanced. I've never seen anything like it.”

“Laz, do you see any access panels or any way to get inside it?” Daniel now seemed inordinately interested in the object.

“Yeah. There are some tabs around what looks like an access plate, but it's not shaped in a rectangle or circle as a normal one would be. It's irregular, and the tabs are in bizarre positions. I'm not sure I can get my fingers on all of them at once, especially in these gloves. I'll see what I can do, though.”

It took what amounted to acrobatics to get a finger on each of the tabs. Every time I managed to get into a position to depress all of them at once, it seemed as though I just couldn't exert enough pressure to pop the access plate open. When I pushed with as much strength as I could summon, the panel finally yielded. I peered inside in open-mouthed amazement.

“Well?” asked Daniel after my prolonged silence.

“Danny,” I said quietly. “This is a piece of alien technology.”

Chapter 3     Trash from a Civilization of Fools

“Humanity has been in space for over four centuries, and we've never detected the slightest hint of intelligent alien life,” Daniel said skeptically. “Anything that could be proven anyway. It's probably just some top-secret project that one of the unions built and then abandoned. You're in intelligence. You know we've got advanced black projects that boggle the mind.”

“No, Danny, this is something on a whole other level. I've got a background in reactor physics. I can't explain what I'm seeing inside this thing. Tie the ropes off and come down here and take a look for yourself.”

Daniel started climbing down on his own rope. A navigable ledge extended from the probe, so with a camera from my pack I took a series of photographs of the object before Danny took up position next to the probe. His skepticism vanished instantly when he peered inside.

“You're right,” he said in obvious awe. “This was not made by man.”

“There's no way this should be here,” I observed. “Not like this. This isn't something that was shot from orbit and penetrated into the ground. Those antennae would have been destroyed. This object landed here intentionally and was buried by volcanic ash long before this caldera formed.”

“Imagine it,” Daniel mused. “We're the first people ever to see an authentic piece of alien technology. It could be from halfway across the galaxy for all we know. What do you think it does?”

“I don't think it does anything now,” I said, maneuvering in beside Daniel. “It's got an active power unit, but it doesn't appear to be functioning otherwise. Maybe it accomplished its mission and shut down. All these antennae and optics look like standard equipment for a probe. I can't see its propulsion system because it's buried in the caldera wall, but we know that faster-than-light speeds are probably not possible. It might have taken thousands of years just for it to get to our solar system. How long did it take to accumulate all these layers of volcanic ash? A hundred thousand years? Humans may not yet have evolved when this thing was watching Earth.”

“If it was watching Earth at all,” Daniel said. “Io is an awfully faraway place to use as an observation post. Why not just land on our moon and take a close look?”

“Maybe Earth wasn't interesting,” I said as I peered into the probe's interior. At its heart was the  power unit. It was made of the same rainbow metal as the rivets, but its surface was glowing bright blue with no visible source for the light. There was a mesmerizing effect to its glow, a soft rhythmic pulse that seemed like a kind of visual music. Its beat echoing in my mind, I slipped my hand inside and touched its surface. I felt an electric twinge pass up my arm. I drew away out of reflex and held my glove up. It was glowing with pulsing flickers of residual light.

“I don't know what's causing this glow. Maybe an electrical discharge like St. Elmo's fire or possibly Cherenkov radiation. Either way, whatever is inside that box is extremely energetic.”

“There are more tabs around the edge,” said Daniel. “See whether you can remove the panel.”

I should have realized then that something was wrong. I must have been badly compromised. No one in his right mind would open a power source of unknown origin outside a laboratory, yet I didn't think twice about it. I didn't even perform the usual hazard check for sharp edges inside the probe's housing. If there had been any, I could have cut my glove and fatally depressurized my suit. Something about that probe was affecting our judgment, and we were incapable of being aware of it.

“I'm depressing the tabs,” I said. They were close together, so it was easier than the outer panel had been. As I pressed them, I felt a series of rapid force feedback responses. It felt something like the way Morse code sounded. “It's tapping back. The tabs are active somehow. It's some kind of message.”

“Maybe they communicate through physical stimulation. I don't see any writing inside,” Daniel said.

“There are theories that physical contact could be a universal form of communication,” I said. “Not everything in the universe might have needed to evolve ears and eyes, but it's hard to survive without a sense of touch.”

“What do you think it’s saying?”

“There's only one thing I can think of, Danny. It's a warning,” I replied. I instantly regretted having said that because I didn't want Danny to oppose my opening the power source. I felt compelled to see what was inside. Before he could speak, I lifted the plate free, and we both looked inside.

At the center was a small crystal. Irregular, shiny, and dark black, it was surrounded by an array of cables and leads. A series of holes had been drilled through it. Within each hole was a metallic rod that appeared to be adjustable as if to control some sort of reaction. A crust of sulfurous powder had formed over the exposed areas of the rods, corroding them in place.

My thoughts suddenly grew irrational. The rods seemed to hurt the crystal, like harpoons impaling a whale. It was vulnerable, injured. I felt a sudden urge to liberate the crystal from the probe. I then began to sense a presence. The crystal was alive in some way. It was a sentient entity, and I knew that it was preparing to communicate.

“Laz?” Daniel said. “Lazarus!” He finally slapped me on my shoulder.

“What?” I blurted in annoyance at the interruption.

“You were somewhere else while staring at that crystal. I've been trying to get your attention for over ten minutes. We've got to move on. The volcano is becoming active again.”

Already back to staring at the crystal, I didn’t acknowledge him. I didn't care that the volcanic bombs were falling again and that the tremors were growing more severe. The crystal was too important.

“Lazarus!” exclaimed Daniel, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me away from the probe, causing us both nearly to fall off the ledge.

“I'm sorry, Danny. I don't know what's happening to me. I get lost in thinking about that crystal when I look at it. I think it's alive and trying to communicate.”

“Alive?” he said incredulously. I think he was trying to return to his normal state of skepticism, but instead he looked into the probe.

“Danny?” I asked. He didn't respond. “Daniel! Get away from that probe.”

It was obvious that he was now the one it was trying to ensnare. I pulled him away, but I didn't do it for his safety. I pulled him away out of jealousy. That crystal had spoken to me first.

“What the hell is going on here? What do we do?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “If it is alive, we can't leave it here. It’s only a matter of time before erosion of the caldera wall causes the probe to fall into the lava. Worse, we may have jarred it loose by messing with it.”

“We don't know that it's alive. It could be some kind of a machine designed to control our minds. It's interfering with our thought processes, Laz. I think we should leave it and move on. We need to resume the rescue mission and get the hell off this moon.”

“No, Danny. We've got to remove it. Imagine Admiral Hanson's reaction when we bring it to him. He won't care that you've lost an expensive military transport. Think of the possibilities.”

“I don't think that's a good idea, Laz. Something's crazy here. It's affecting you. We can write a report about it when we get home, and then they can send someone with the proper qualifications to retrieve it.”

“It's got to be saved,” I said. “Now.”

“How? How are you going to do that, Lazarus? We can't lift it. This probe must weigh two tons.”

“The probe is meaningless. Trash from a civilization of fools. It's the crystal we have to save.”

“‘Civilization of fools’? What? How do you know that?” Daniel asked.

I didn't know how, but I could see the aliens in my mind's eye. I could see one of them holding the crystal. I could see it drilling holes in the crystal, torturing and enslaving it. And then the alien imprisoned it in that probe to steal its energy for what seemed like an eternity.

“Filthy animals,” I said. “A race of vermin that should be eradicated.” I was filled with the crystal's hatred for that alien species.

“What's wrong with you? You're talking crazy, Lazarus.”

“Go away if you're not going to help me. Get yourself rescued,” I yelled as I pushed Daniel. “I've got to liberate this crystal.” He drew back in astonishment and sat down.

I didn't have to work at removing the crystal. I was on autopilot, pulling the rods and wires from the crystal in a proper sequence that I couldn't have known. My mind was lost in a torrent of silent communication with the crystal. For a time I could see everything, understand everything. I saw hydrogen atoms and helium atoms taken apart and put back together. I saw how they really exist in a universe of pure energy and probability smeared across the fabric of space time. I felt as though I were being shown the secrets of the cosmos by the universe itself as a gift that only I deserved to receive.

“Lazarus, that thing glows brighter with every rod you remove. I can't let you go any further,” Daniel said, standing up. When he tried to pull me away from the probe, I reacted by pushing him away. He came at me again.

“Daniel, I swear to God I'll kill you if you come any closer. I will throw you into that lava, and no one will ever know what happened to you.”

He hesitated. I could see an expression of shock on his face through his helmet. Daniel and I were best friends who had grown up together. When we were eighteen, we joined the UNAG military on the same day. We were paired together for missions because we could work in close quarters for long periods without friction. Yet now I was threatening to kill him.

“Alright, Lazarus,” he said. “You win. Die here if you want. I'm going ahead, or I'll run out of air. I'll find the downed freighter for us. If you want to live, you'll need to rendezvous with me when I tell you to. I'll radio when the rescue ship arrives. You got that?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” I replied.

I was down to the final three rods. The visions had abated, and I could see clearly again. When I removed the first rod, I felt the glory of the crystal returning. It was growing healthy again, healing itself. The radiation was no longer a glow but a ring of energy surrounding the crystal. Then I extracted the second rod. The ring's center began to blacken. Like a kind of x-ray machine, within the ring I could see the crystal as it really was. I was seeing it as it existed somewhere not in our universe. I understood why it seemed alive. Enraptured by a universal understanding to which I alone was privy, I prepared to pull out the final rod. And then the entire probe jolted downward.

In climbing to the rim of the caldera, Daniel had jumped on top of the probe. His weight had caused it to dislodge from the caldera wall. Holding his climbing rope tightly, he started hammering his feet on the probe.

“Stop it!” I shouted.

“No! It's going to kill you,” he said.

I grabbed a piece of basalt and threw it him. I saw it bash against his helmet, but still he kept trying to work the probe loose. Resolutely intending to kill my best friend, I began to climb my rope. Just then the ring of energy expanded to the size of a man and drew Daniel into itself. In a flash it collapsed, and he disappeared without a trace.

The crystal's self-defense actions were too late. The probe broke free and slid into the lava, taking the crystal with it. Its spell over me broke in an instant. I now recognized that I had been in great danger the entire time I had been near the probe. Areas of my suit had partly melted, and I was near the point of decompression.

Daniel was dead, and I was alone on a ledge over a hot lava caldera in a failing moon suit. I was marooned on Io. After climbing the rope back to the rim, I fell to my knees and cried.

Chapter 4     Rescue

The last thing any of them expected to see was a lone man, especially one wearing a blackened moon suit with areas so melted that it was a wonder it still held air, walking across the hostile volcanic plains of Io toward their ship. He looked as though he had just been through the hot volcanic plumes that Captain Yates had so desperately steered to avoid when he was crash-landing the freighter.

To the captain's credit he had managed to ditch the craft in a gravel bank at such an angle that the emergency landing had neither decompressed the ship nor damaged the oxygen generator. In the beginning they took that as a blessing. Everyone had survived, and a speedy rescue was expected. But as the days wore on and the food supply shrank, it began to seem more like a curse. A quick death on impact might have been preferable.

At first the survivors enjoyed ample rations. After a week came subsistence. Finally it was a matter of dividing and micromanaging supplies with no one receiving quite enough. Thirst and hunger do strange things to the human mind. To the four people trapped on that freighter, the man approaching them looked like no rescuer they'd ever seen. In fact, he looked as though he had been through a crash worse than their own. So when he knocked on their airlock, no one was certain what to do.

“Imagine the luck,” Captain Yates said. “A rescue mission comes only to crash, and the one survivor knocks on our door wanting food we can't spare.”

“We can always eat him,” Mr. Hobbs observed.

No one was sure whether Hobbs was joking. He'd been the quiet black sheep throughout the journey, a man who seldom spoke and seemed uninterested in socializing with anyone. The few things he did say had been on the odd side. As a result, no one knew him or trusted him. He was just the kind of person, they thought, who might engage in cannibalism. Such suspicions often have a basis in guilt, and while they were not yet in the mindset of planning how to do so, the concept of eating each other had crossed every one of their minds—except Mr. Hobbs’s.

“Let the poor man in,” Mme. Laurent said in her heavy French accent. “We may be starving, but we're still civilized. We should behave like human beings.”

“My wife is right,” Monsieur Laurent, her husband, concurred. “Let's not become animals. When they do find our bodies, let's be remembered for being men and women instead of savages.”

Of course, the Laurents had long realized that they were the likely first course given the physically strong Yates and the frightening Hobbs. A weak and exhausted man aboard the ship might change that equation.

Captain Yates looked at his companions and made the decision. After he opened the airlock, the man climbed in and awaited pressurization. When the cycle was completed, he took his helmet off for a welcome breath of fresh air after five days in an environment suit.

“I can still depressurize the chamber and kill him,” Yates said. “One more mouth to feed means less time left for us all.”

“Stop acting like a fool and open the hatch,” Hobbs demanded.

Now outnumbered in opinion, Yates complied. The man climbed into the ship and rubbed his face. He looked nearly as bad as his moon suit.

“My name is Lt. Lazarus Grenville,” he said. “I picked up your signal as I was passing through the Jupiter system, but my ship was destroyed when I tried to land.”

“It seems you've called on us at a bad time, Lieutenant. Having you with us leaves us less than two days of food and water on minimum rations,” Yates said. He had no interest in mincing words.

“Then I have good news for you,” Lazarus said. “My pack has enough food and water to last a man two weeks. Assuming it's just the five of us, that makes three extra days per person. My problem is oxygen.”

Mme. Laurent smiled wryly at her companions. Her ploy of humanity had bought everyone more time, or so she liked to think.

“Our oxygen plant is functioning,” said Captain Yates, “but our batteries are running low. I'm not certain how much longer we'll have air.”

That came as news to everyone. They had been led to believe that they had an infinite supply. He must have kept it secret to maintain morale, the Laurents thought. Hobbs didn't buy it, nor did he trust Yates.

“Your reactor is out?” Lazarus asked.

“It went offline during the crash. I wasn't able to get it back up and running.”

“I may be able to help,” Lazarus offered. “I'm an intelligence officer, but my degree is in reactor physics. I've also been transmitting a megawatt distress beacon for several days. It's far more powerful than your weakening transmission.”

“Another symptom of the batteries running down,” Yates said. He was conflicted about Lazarus’s checking the reactor. Captain Yates may have been a great crash pilot, but his technical abilities were quite limited.

Lazarus had the reactor running again in just a few hours. He instantly became the most popular person on the freighter with everyone except Yates, but he wasn't interested in their plaudits. He simply smiled and then claimed that he was tired and wanted to rest. In truth he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The reactor repair had reminded Lazarus that twice that week he had needed to safeguard someone's air supply.

Hobbs found Lazarus staring blankly out a window on what was left of the bridge. He had wanted to chat privately with Lazarus ever since he had come aboard. Hobbs had once been a military man himself, and while he saw little point in debating with the Laurents and the Captain about the proper way to die, he saw great value in exploring with a UNAG officer how to ensure everyone’s survival.

“That lying bastard Yates,” Hobbs began. “How long would it have been before the batteries failed and we ran out of air?”

“Less than a day,” Lazarus responded. “Your problem was never food and water. It was those dying batteries.”

“Our problem was Yates. He has been using the food-supply issue to keep us distracted from his inability to repair his own reactor. He's a man who would rather keep up the appearance of being in control rather than reveal himself to be an idiot.”

Lazarus smiled. It had been an easy repair.

“I wanted to thank you personally,” Hobbs continued. “Your ingenuity has bought us a significant amount of time. Any idea of whether we've got a real chance of rescue?”

“I think so. Bringing that reactor online also powered up the freighter's transmitter. There are now two strong signals broadcasting from Io. That can't go unnoticed. By now Earth would have received the message even if none of the Jupiter colonies have. They would have relayed the message to Callisto. If it takes them two days to get here, we'll survive. It's just a waiting game now.”

“After the last three weeks I'm used to waiting,” Hobbs said. He hesitated because there was no telling how Lazarus might react to the bombshell he was about to drop. “You might want to know that Captain Yates considered killing you in the airlock.”

Lazarus looked Hobbs in the eye. He appreciated the truth. “I know,” he answered. “I could see his hesitation while I was standing outside the airlock. It wouldn't have mattered to me if he did.”

Hobbs recognized the attitude.

“Is there something wrong, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“No, nothing wrong. I'm sorry. I'm just tired and have been under a lot of stress.” Lazarus felt the natural desire to confess to another person, but he realized that doing so would accomplish nothing.

“Something happened out there, didn't it? Something bad,” Hobbs said.

Lazarus didn't answer.

“I can recognize a man who’s just been through a certain kind of hell. I was a Eurorussian Army Major in the joint action on Triton.”

“That was a terrible war,” Lazarus said.

“Bloody governments couldn't leave those people alone and let them have independence from Earth. They had to attack just to maintain their control,” Hobbs said. “But that was thirty years ago.”

“Well, at least the Triton colony won in the end. Maybe that's something to be hopeful about,” Lazarus said quietly. He now understood Hobbs better than anyone else on that freighter.

“Am I right?” Hobbs asked.

“Yeah. Something bad did happen,” Lazarus acknowledged.

“I won't ask you about it,” said Hobbs. “You'll either tell the story or you won't, but you'll never be the same. Your experience will eat away at you, just as mine eats away at me.”

“I expect it will,” Lazarus replied.

“Look, if we get out of this predicament, I owe you one. When you muster out, I want you to look me up. My name is Robert Hobbs. I'm a vice president of G. Edward Iron Industries. I booked passage to Europa on this freighter to finish a deal for a group of habitat domes for the new colony there. We're always looking for resourceful men like you. Contact me, and I'll make sure they hire you.”

Lazarus nodded. Hobbs felt it was best to leave him alone with the thoughts he needed to begin sorting through.

Two days later Mme. Laurent was awakened by stronger than normal tremors. Through a window she saw two UNAG troop ships landing. Her cries of joy alerted everyone else to the rescue. They cheered and waved as the freighter was rapidly surrounded by their deliverers.

Radio contact was established quickly, and five new environment suits were placed in the airlock to facilitate rescue of what the media later called the “Yates Party.” They had survived an impossibly long time on Io. It was one for the history books and the talk shows, but the real hero never broke his silence. Unsurprisingly, Yates filled the vacuum and gained both fame and fortune. Within a few months no one remembered Lazarus Grenville's role, but that was fine with him.

Lazarus reported to Admiral Hanson that Daniel had died on impact, his body swallowed by the dust along with the ship. Recovery of his remains was considered impossible. For Lazarus, Io was to become a place that no longer existed. It wasn't “Hell Moon” or even the mythological lover of mighty Jupiter. It simply wasn't there. And that's how he coped.

But there was one inconsistency that only a historian interested in the ambiguity that surrounded the incident at Io would care about. As the rescue ship was taking off, the commanding officer asked Lazarus, “Were you alone when you landed? Is there anyone else we should look for?”

Lazarus paused. “No, sir. I was alone when I landed,” he answered.

Chapter 5              Supplemental Letters

November 4, 2441. Union of North American Governments (UNAG). Admiralty Building, Montreal, Province of Verbec. Letter from Vice Admiral Harold L. Hanson, Acting Director of UNAG Intelligence, to Fleet Admiral Roland Mai. Eyes Only, HALCYON Clearance Required.

Admiral Mai,

I trust that this letter finds you in good health. It is imperative that the information contained herein be held confidential according to the highest security protocols.

I am writing in regard to the discovery and subsequent loss of an alien relic on Io. As you are aware, the only evidence brought back by Lt. Lazarus Grenville was a series of photographs of the object’s exterior. None were taken of the power source. As a result, its nature remains a mystery, but it may in some way be related to Project HALCYON. We may never know for certain.

From the photographs we have been able to identify the functions of the object’s various antennae. There can be no doubt that the probe's purpose was exploratory in nature. Most of the instruments were similar to those we use in our own probes. However, the choice of instrumentation strongly suggests that Earth was not the intended subject of study.

We believe that the true target was Jupiter's moon Europa. As has been known for some time, Europa has an ocean of liquid water and primitive life forms. A second item of significance was also found. Based on a study of the orientation of the probe's antennae, we were able to conclude that their data transmission would have been directed toward the constellation Libra, specifically a sun-like star known as HDE 402881 located about 30,000 light years from Earth. Furthermore, we identified a secondary communications array that was not directed into deep space but instead at Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Due to this discovery all plans for the exploration of Enceladus have been suspended, and it has been placed under a strict landing interdiction. The public is to be led to believe that the moon may harbor life and is being kept pristine until it can be properly explored when technology develops enough to avoid a repeat of the contamination incidents at Europa. No radio emissions have been detected at Enceladus, nor is there any indication of an object on its surface.

Finally, we were able to determine the age of the Io probe based on geological strata in the caldera and the distance from HDE 402881. This is the most alarming aspect of the case. The design of the probe's housing is consistent with that of an object intended to travel at a velocity just below the speed of light. From that detail the age of the probe was determined to be about 70,000 years. Assuming that the alien civilization intended to colonize our solar system, their arrival could reasonably be expected at any time. Since they never initiated radio contact with us, we can only assume their intentions to be hostile to the interests of Earth and our solar system.

Lastly, Lt. Lazarus Grenville is doing well and handled the situation with distinction. I see a bright future ahead for him in the UNAG Intelligence Services. The family of Lt. Daniel Thompson has been notified of his death.

Yours truly,

Hanson

Response from Admiral Mai two days later.

Admiral Hanson,

Thank you for your letter and your efforts in this matter.

It seems that the time for world peace is not yet at hand. My correspondence with Admirals Hamilton and Kim of the Eurorussian and Asian-African unions respectively, as well as with President Alvarado of South America, makes it clear that we are all in agreement. In order to justify a continued military build-up against this alien threat, we will maintain the status quo of cold war for public consumption and work in concert behind the scenes to prepare for the threat.

Yours truly,

Mai

The first novel-length installment of “The Salvagers” series is now available on Amazon in print and e-book formats. It will be available in all outlets at the end of August, 2013.