“It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy….Let’s go exploring!”

–Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes”

“Ten unis that we find microbial life there, sir?”

“I’m not betting with you, Ted,” Cmdr. Tatenda Marechera chuckled. “Even if I win, what will I spend it on?”

“Hala? Viktor?”

“No chance, Ted,” Maj. Hala Nejem said. “One, my dad told me that gambling was bad, and even if I didn’t disagree with him, I’ve learned the hard way that gambling with you is bad.”

“I can’t help it. Born lucky,” Ted Martínez said, adjusting his heading slightly. “We’re at 17 kps, sir,”

“Hold that speed for the next hour, then begin deceleration.”

“Aye, sir. Viktor, you in?”

“I should bet against you,” Frieden said. “That way, at least if we find nothing, I get enough money to buy dinner when we get home.”

“Stop bugging Dr. Frieden,” Tatenda said, though he smiled as he said it. “The man’s only about to engage in an experiment that will define his career.”

“I will forgive Col. Martínez if he can give me time over the pole.”

“That I can give you,” Ted said. “We’re going to stop dead, use the gravitics to hold us in place.”

“If they can handle it,” Marechera said, turning an eye to Nejem.

“No reason they can’t,” Hala said. “Gs are very weak there, 0.112 m/s². I wouldn’t try it above Jupiter, but Enceladus? Piece of pie.”

“The expression is ‘piece of cake,’” said Martínez, adjusting his heading again.

“Yes, well, I like pie better. And what do you North Americans know, anyhow?”

“Oh, sure. Pick on the North Americans. ‘I’m from Qatar! We have so much solar power we don’t know what to do with it! We’re working on a space elevator!’ I know, it’s very exciting, but my country invented the transistor, basketball, Coca-Cola, and neural regeneration. You’re welcome.”

Hala stuck her tongue out at Ted. “You’re just jealous because they elected the Yemeni Secretary-General.”

“Who, al-Akbar? Seems like a nice guy. I’m from the U.S.A., I know Elaine Ridgemont, and I can tell you that anyone was better than her.”

“Pax, then?”

“Of course. Fighting would be ridiculous. Criminy, when’s the last time Americans and Arabs fought?”

“Been over a century,” Hala said, turning back to her station with a chuckle.

“Well we’re not gonna start back up now,” Martínez said. Then, checking his bearing, he added, “ETA four hours on my mark…mark.”

* * *

Dr. Niall Freeman checked his reflection in the mirror disconsolately. He was, he had to admit, getting old.

He looked to be almost 50, he thought, maybe older; his mahogany hair had long ago gone grey, and had he not had access to Titan medicine, he knew he would be sporting spectacles.

It shouldn’t bother him. Indeed, of all the things about his life he could complain about, looking 50 at 160-something was at the bottom of the list. He thought of the many things he could worry about, like the trip they were on to see their daughter, the daughter delaying college to go help Pryvani at her human sanctuary (though he couldn’t blame her; he’d thought about joining her more than once since she’d left. After all, the original reason he hadn’t wanted to go himself was so he and Nas could give her a normal upbringing. Well, normal-ish). Or the fact that his father-in-law’s health was failing. Not a surprise – Hussel was over 80 in Titan years, and while it was far from unusual for Titans to beat the century mark, it was by no means guaranteed, even with advanced medicine.

Or Niall could worry about his wife being roughly 120 feet taller than him, but he’d pretty much gotten used to that.

No, what was uppermost on the list of Niall’s worries had nothing to do with anything he could control. It was just a number – 142. 142 Earth years that he had lived in exile. (Okay, 142 years plus a day or two. Maybe. He thought there wouldn’t have been leap day in 2100 for some reason, but he wasn’t sure he remembered that right.) A little of that of that he had slept through, and part of that he had fought through, and most of it – the parts with Naskia and Sorcha and Loona and Nonah and the Basses and….

Well, he had a great many friends here, far more than he’d had on Earth, if he was honest with himself, and he usually was. But still…it bothered him. He was not even a second-class citizen on Archavia, for that would imply that he was a citizen. By law, he remained a pet, registered to his wife. He knew that was a legal fiction that Naskia would never, never use against him – they had been through far too much, and he trusted her with his life several times a day.

But living for over a century as a nobody, a pet – even with his job, even with his family, even with his friends – it wore on him.

“Brooding, are we?”

Niall spun. So wrapped up in his funk was he that he’d failed to hear Nas come into the cabin, which was nigh-impossible.

“It’s nothing,” Niall said. “Just figured out that I was picked up off of Earth 142 years ago.”

“Seems like only 20,” Naskia said, tousling his hair. She was in her mid-forties, and looked like she was in her early thirties, and to Niall, it would not have mattered had she looked to be in her late nineties; she was resplendent. Her porcelain skin was just now beginning to show the lines of age, but the lines traced all the familiar expressions that had been crossing her face since she took him in, a lifetime ago. She bent down near to him, and he could follow laugh lines taller than he, look at her eyes, circled by wrinkles that bore the echoes of a hundred thousand smiles. And Niall laughed, because the problem was not that he had been here 142 years; to be Naskia’s husband was worth 142,000 more years of being a pet. Add in that he was Sorcha’s father, and he found suddenly that he couldn’t remember why he’d been upset in the first place.

Niall walked up to her, and leaned against her cheek. “Do you remember when I told you I’d be your pet?”

“Hmm…you mean right after I did the second-worst thing I’ve ever done in my life? Yes, and thanks for reminding me of it.”

“You know, petal…if you had just said yes…I would have been the luckiest human in the universe. That you wanted me as an equal…I am so blessed.”

Naskia pulled back, just enough to brush her lips over him. “If I’d just said yes to that, sweetie,” she said, “I wouldn’t have deserved to have you. And if you hadn’t forgiv…if you hadn’t….”

It had been a long time, as long as a human lifetime, but the lump still formed in her throat.

“Shh,” Niall said, stretching to kiss her lips. “That is long past, and long forgotten.”

“You made me the luckiest Titan in the universe. You still do.”

Naskia leaned in and kissed him, hard; it seemed the thing to do. After a good long while, she scooped him up, and held him close to her breast. They didn’t say anything more; they didn’t have to.

* * *

“Titan Station, this is Shuttle Porfirayon; we are 1350 kilounits out from watchpoint one.”

“Affirm, Porfirayon. Proceed to watchpoint one and begin active monitoring.”

“Affirm, Titan Station, Porfirayon out,” Decanus Tigoni Belfsec said, flipping a switch and bringing up a new screen. “Captain, we’re cleared for observation.”

“Thank you, Ms. Belfsec. Decanus Salus, take us in, nice and steady,” Decurion Davora Jons said, watching her own screen, which was ticking off the distance between them and the landing site just north and east of Enceladus’ southern pole. From there, they could make detailed observations of the probe.

“Captain, based on last telemetry, we’re about four minutes away from the probe emerging from the other side of Saturn.”

“Excellent,” Davora said. “Ms. Belfsec, keep a close eye on it; we should be able to get preliminary readings very shortly.”

“I still don’t see what everyone’s so worked up about,” said Navir Salus, who adjusted his angle of attack slightly. “So the humans show up here. So what? Empire gets some more pets, and we don’t need that; everyone already knows to get their human contraceptive implants if they don’t plan to breed ‘em.”

“An intelligent species shows up on a spaceship, and your thought is, ‘hey, new pets?’” Tigoni said.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those ‘human rights’ activists,” Navir said, setting his course and glancing over his shoulder at Tigoni. “You ever have one as a pet?”

“Well, yes, but….” Tigoni choked herself off. “Sorry, Captain, I know I’m speaking out of turn.”

“How so?” Davora asked.

“Well, Decanus Salus does outrank me.”

Davora chuckled. She’d been in Tigoni’s seat not long ago. “Ms. Belfsec, the difference between a Dec-1 and a Dec-2 is two years and a helping of arrogance; frankly, had we been back on base, Decanus Salus would have been way out of line when he questioned our mission, and I would have told him so. But we’re not on base, we’re on a 3-person shuttle, and that operates just a bit looser.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Besides, I’m enjoying your rather sophomoric debate; Tigoni, you were saying?”

“Yes. Well…I mean, I did have a human pet when I was a girl. I used to read to him when I was learning to read – must’ve been three or four, I guess. Anyhow, he was young, my parents got him for me for a birthday present when I was two.

“I was too little to know that humans couldn’t read, so I would show him words as I was working through them, and he’d work through them, and together we got very good at reading. Of course, as I got older…I started to question what that meant. He picked up reading as fast as me – faster, sometimes. As I got older, he helped me with my homework. He helped me. I mean, he was as smart as I was – maybe smarter — so why did I get to own him as a pet? It made no sense. Still doesn’t.”

Tigoni took a breath. “I mean, have you ever read any of Nonah Armac’s stories? Or Yamma Neutha’s writings? They’re not stupid. They’re smart. As smart as us, I think.”

Navir scoffed. “Look, even if they’re as smart as us, and I doubt it, they’re too little. They’d just come running to us for protection first time we let them out into the galaxy. And I’m not saying we wouldn’t go, because who kicks a shaar when they’re hurt? But it’s easier for everyone if they understand their place.”

“Compared to a star, we’re all pretty tiny, Navir,” Tigoni huffed. “Compared to the universe, we’re barely quarks. I don’t think the humans being small means a gorram thing. Being bigoted, now….”

“Okay, that’s where I’m calling a stop,” said Davora. “Look, you two continue this in your rack tonight, probe should be coming around any second.”

“Sorry, Nav,” Tigoni said, quietly. “I….”

“Captain, permission to address my crewmate in a completely unprofessional manner?”

“Granted.”

“Tig, if you being headstrong and opinionated and a bit of a jerk at times bothered me, I wouldn’t be dating you.”

“Aw, gosh, thanks, sweetie,” Tigoni laughed. Then, sobering, she turned to her screen. “Captain, we have visual on the probe.”

* * *

“Sally Ride, this is the Lem, please acknowledge.”

“Roger that, Lem, good to see you again. Three more orbits, right Yelena?”

“Correct. Shang Xiao wants a sitrep.”

“Lem actual isn’t on the bridge? That surprises me.”

“Sally Ride, this is Lem actual,” Xú said. “Don’t want you to worry….”

“Lem actual, this is Sally Ride actual; good to hear your voice, ma’am!” said Tatenda with a smile. “We are currently inverted, 15 clicks above the southern pole of Enceladus. We’re holding true position with gravitic controls. We began collecting samples an hour ago, and we have already managed to secure half a kilo of ice and water.”

Xú mentally high-fived her executive officer. “Nice work. Anything of note in the samples?”

“Dr. Frieden is excited by the colors he’s seen so far. We’ll try to run a field test, but we’ll know more when we get a chance to look at it in the lab.”

“Of course. While you’re there, do you guys want to do a quick orbit, get some imaging work done?”

Commander Marechera looked over at Lt. Col. Martínez, who was currently sitting at the helm. “Ted’s giving me a thumbs-up, ma’am. We’ll do two quick polar orbits before breaking for Titan.”

“Roger that, Sally Ride. Look forward to seeing you guys in T-36 hours.”

“Affirmative, Lem. Sally Ride out.”

“She sounds likes she’s in a good mood,” Ted Martínez said, checking his altitude.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Maj. Nejem said, keeping both eyes on the gravitic output. “So far, so good. I got that one right, didn’t I, Ted?”

“We’re two days in, folks,” Tatenda said with a smile. “Don’t get complacent.”

* * *

“Well. Gorram.”

“Yes, captain,” Tigoni said, swallowing hard. “Twenty-four plasma thrusters. Three ion thrusters powered by an onboard fusion reactor. I think there’s a biodome on its dorsal side, amidships…okay, after compensating for that, we have seventeen…check that, eighteen life signs. Some localized distortion – captain, they have gravitic impellers! Sixteen gravitic impellers!”

“Are you sure?” Davora said, looking out in awe.

“Positive. Looks like they’re using the Pala technique.”

Decurion Jons whistled. “Gravitic impellers on a pre-warp ship. Very impressive. Most Class One species don’t think to use gravitics for thrust and control until they’ve seen someone else try it.”

“They aren’t Class One,” Navir said. “They’re Class Two.”

Jons shook her head. “This ship doesn’t lie, Mister Salus. And if the long-range scans on their Jupiter probe aren’t off, the dimensions are the same. They’ve got a fleet of these. If they aren’t Class One, they’re a Class One-Point-Oh-One.”

Salus checked his controls; they were locked on course. “Captain, seriously? My family had two humans. And I loved them! They’re adorable, always getting into trouble. But are you seriously saying that they’re as smart as us?”

“No,” Tigoni said, adjusting the port sensors. “We didn’t think to use gravitic impellers until eighty years after we developed warp drive. Score that one for the humans.”

Without thinking, Navir swung his chair around to face Tigoni. “So they’re smarter than us? Please.”

“Decanus Salus, watch your bearing!” snapped Jons.

Salus made a sound halfway between a choke and a cough as he realized what he’d done. As quick as he could, he spun his chair back around.

One second later, the alarm sounded.

“Collision. Collision. Collision,” the automatic warning system intoned, as Salus threw the controls forward on instinct. The Porfirayon dove toward the small moon, and above, the reasonably loud Whang! told its crew that they’d just barely missed catastrophe.

“This is why you don’t turn your chair around when you’re in the helm, Decanus!” Jons barked, refiguring their heading. “Looks like you clipped whatever it was with the aux antenna. Did you see what it was?”

“Dunno,” Salus said, as he tried to smooth the ship back on course. “Small meteorite, maybe. Couldn’t have been more than a couple units long. System didn’t catch it until we were right on top of it.”

Jons rose from her seat. “Which is exactly why you keep your eyes to the fore. Mister Salus, how in the Emperor’s clothes am I supposed to explain this to the Opito?”

“Captain….” Tigoni said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Salus said, downcast. He already knew this was going to be a downcheck. He wanted to pilot cruisers someday. Stupid!

“You should be sorry,” Jons said, angrily. “When we get back, you’re restricted to quarters for three days, and I’ll be putting a downcheck on your record.”

“Captain….” Tigoni said.

“I understand,” Salus said. “But that meteorite….”

“Captain!” Tigoni said once more, with more than a trace of alarm in her voice.

“Ms. Belfsec, this best be good.”

“No. It’s the opposite, ma’am,” Tigoni said, as she trained the sensors on the object. “That wasn’t a meteorite.”

 

 

* * *

The Sally Ride was falling.

Fortunately, on Enceladus, falling isn’t quite the same as it is on Earth. Had the collision happened above Earth, they would already have impacted, and the chances of survival would be nil. Here, they had ten minutes. Maybe.

“Get us under control, colonel,” Tatenda said, pulling himself into the relief pilot’s seat. The onboard gravitics were struggling to compensate for the uncontrolled tumble, and the crew struggled to strap in.

“Can’t, sir,” Martínez said. “We’ve lost gravitic controls. Valentine System is online, but I can’t get it to redirect to the side, aft, or ventral impellers.”

“Mayday mayday mayday,” Frieden called, grabbing control of comms. “This is the Terran Space Ship Sally Ride, we are in an uncontrolled tumble, and we are in free-fall. Current altitude is 12,400 meters and falling.”

“This is Lem actual,” Xú’s voice called back. “What the hell happened?”

“Something hit us. Hard,” Tatenda said. “I think it just glanced us, because it was enormous, moving fast. But it hit us hard enough to do serious damage.”

“Whatever hit us took out the dorsal impeller,” Hala Nejem added, as she looked desperately for a way to reroute power. “It’s locked open. We can’t engage other impellers due to safety interlocks.”

“Can you use thrusters?” Xú asked, knowing the answer.

“Not without stabilizing the ship, ma’am,” Martínez said, trying to use the short maneuver thrusters to at least gain some control. “We need gravitics. If we could get the ventral impellers online….”

“No way to do it,” said Mukta Chandrasekhar, the chief engineer of the Lem, who had joined the conversation. “Not without disengaging the dorsal impellers.”

“How do we do that?” Marechera asked. “Can we restart the Valentine System?”

“No,” Hala said, unstrapping and getting up from the station. She pressed a button on her chest, and felt her carbon flight suit pull itself tight.

“Where are you going?” Marechera demanded.

“It has to be fixed outside,” Nejem said, fitting her pressure helmet. “I’m going to take care of it.”

“Hala, no –”

“She’s right, Captain Marechera,” said Chandrasekhar. “It’s the only way.”

“There must be….”

“No, sir,” Hala said, fastening the oxygen tank. “If I don’t do this, we’re all dead.”

Tatenda Marechera steadied himself, and walked over, helping her strap in.

“Don’t worry,” Hala said, climbing into the airlock and giving the other three crew members a reassuring smile. “This is easy as cake.”

As the door shut, the smile faded. She knew well that this would be anything but.

* * *

“They’re in an uncontrolled descent,” Belfsec said, “They must’ve been taking samples, using an impeller to hold them over the caldera.”

“Of course they were,” Jons said. “Navir, hard about.”

“Captain?”

“We’re going to pursue. If they can’t right themselves, we are going to right them.”

“Captain, Regulation 14 –“

“I am aware of the regulations regarding contact with non-Imperial species, Decanus. But you already made contact with them. I will be switched if I make our error fatal for them.”

“Captain, you could be court-martialed. We all….”

“Decanus Salus, you are relieved. Move aft. I am taking the helm. Ms. Belfsec….”

“They are still in an uncontrolled descent, and an uncontrolled tumble. Three life signs aboard, and…by the Emperor!”

“Ms. Belfsec?”

“One more. Engaged in an EVA.”

Salus stopped halfway into his seat. “Wait…one of them is trying…they’re trying to fix it? In an uncontrolled descent?”

Jons nodded. “Gutsy little things, aren’t they?”

Navir Salus sighed. “Fine line between gutsy and crazy.”

* * *

Hala shut her eyes, and counted three. She had to concentrate. Look at the ship. Not the wild tumbling stars, or Enceladus zipping across every three seconds.

“Gool, vox, headsup, schematics, Tereshkova class, 1:1 scale, 3D, eyeview, orient based on referents.” It sounded like gibberish, but it gave Hala a reference point to start with. Her gool lit up with an overlay of what the Sally Ride should look like without massive damage to its dorsal gravitic impeller. She looked through it to the battered ship, and began talking herself through the repairs.

“Show me junction C-94. Okay,” she said, pulling open a panel. Carefully, she reached in and disabled a relay, taking care not to have her finger pulled off by the artificial gravity. She moved on to junction C-93, then C-92. Steady. Steady.

“Report, Hala?”

“I’m working my way through it, sir. Time check?”

“We need the dorsal impeller offline in five minutes in order to pull up and out.”

“Aye, sir,” Hala said, stomach twisting. Doing this manually would take at least seven. “Understood, sir. I’ll get it offline.”

She closed the junction box, and moved over to the impeller itself. It was battered, but that didn’t have to matter; the whole system could be removed. Four explosive bolts could be triggered. She’d just have to hit four switches, and she’d already hit one as she was thinking it through.

“Two minutes,” Marechera said.

“Tell me when we hit thirty seconds,” Hala said, as she reached the second. She looked at the remains of the impeller, and sighed. She’d been afraid of that.

Once the bolts were blown, the entire impeller array would be softly jettisoned. Okay, with the tumbling, it would more likely be flung off violently in a random direction, but still, it would leave the ship and take the fried relays with it. The system would automatically adjust; upstream relays would reroute gravitic power to the remaining impellers.

She reached the third, and hit it. And crawled into the wreckage.

The last bolt was obscured behind the damage. Ordinarily, she could walk over to it, but with the bent and twisted metal blocking her path, she had no choice.

To reach it, Hala would have to be on top of the array. She would be ejected along with it.

She didn’t like it, but Hala knew there was no other way. And if she died saving three good people, well, she thought that would get her decent marks in whatever afterlife faced her.

“Thirty seconds,” Marechera said.

“Captain?” she said.

“Hala?”

“Tell my family I died doing what I loved,” she said, and she flipped the final switch.

* * *

“Holy Emperor, they did it,” Salus said, as he watched the toy shuttle right itself, fire ion thrusters, and blast upward.

“Ma’am,” Tigoni said, quietly, “Three life signs on board the ship. The other….”

Jons was already altering her course. “He gave himself up,” she said, kicking in thrusters. “Brave little guy. We aren’t letting him die. Decanus Salus, do you have any objection?”

Salus looked out the front viewscreen. They were pets. Pets! Dumb animals, cute, goofy, smart, sure, but….

…but if a Titan had done that, they’d be inducted posthumously into the Imperial Clade.

“No, ma’am,” Navir said.

“Captain,” Tigoni said, quietly, “permission to go aft. I’ll operate the tractor beam. That…that crewmate needs our assistance.”

“Granted,” Jons said. “Decanus Salus, you take comms.”

* * *

Ted Martínez had felt the rush as he’d pulled the Sally Ride out of her dive, and on instinct, fired all thrusters, pushing them up and out. He had felt the rush, and he was glad, because it almost broke him out of the numb shock that had enveloped him.

“Can we…can we get a fix on her tracker?”

“I’m already looking,” Tatenda said. “A lot of debris out there.”

“We’re getting intermittent bio readings,” Frieden said. “She’s alive.”

“I’ll try a drunkard’s walk, see if we can get it triangulated.”

* * *

Hala bint Basir ibn Mohammed Nejem drifted through space.

She was disoriented and tired; the force of the impeller’s ejection alone had given her a concussion, and she’d slammed into debris hard, at over 100 kph. The outer lens on her helmet had shattered, and she expected the inner lens was cracked.

She was going to die here.

That was okay. She was going to die above a world where there may be life her species had never known. Going to die further out into space than humans had ever ventured on their own. She wasn’t happy about dying. She would prefer not to. But if it had to be here, let it be here.

“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un,” she said, softly, to nobody and everything. Surely we belong to Him, and to Him we shall return.

The sky suddenly turned very bright, and split in two, and she felt herself pulled up and into it.

And then Hala Nejem went to sleep

* * *

“We’ve got her,” Tig called, gently securing the broken body of the tiny astronaut. They had done this. If she hadn’t distracted Navir….

“Is she…”

“She’s alive. Barely. But she took a beating. We need to get her to a doctor – I mean, a vet….”

“I know what you mean,” Jons said. “Decanus Salus, call us in; priority one, medical emergency.”

Navir pushed two buttons on his console. “Titan Station, this is shuttlecraft Porfirayon,” he said, heavily. “Medical emergency, priority one. Request permission for clear traffic and hot landing. Request vet be on hand to render emergency aid.”

“Affirm, Porfirayon, we’ll…hold on, a vet?”

“Long story,” Salus said. “Long story.”

* * *

On the Sally Ride, the mood had gone from shock to a completely different kind of shock.

They had identified Hala’s signal. There was a lot of debris in the way, too much to fly through safely, but Tatenda and Ted had looked at each other and without speaking, knew that they had to try. As Ted was beginning bring the Ride about, however, they saw it. The thing they collided with.

The ship they collided with

It was bearing right for her.

They saw it hover by where the signal said she was, and for just a second, they saw a portal on the ship open. And then her telemetry disappeared.

And before they even had time to process this, the ship was gone.

“Did you get a bearing, sir?” Ted asked, weakly.

Tatenda drug a finger across the navscreen. “Yes,” he said. “They’re heading for Titan.”

The three men on board the Sally Ride looked at each other, and nodded. Ted began to turn the battered shuttle again.

“Lem, this is Sally Ride actual,” Tatenda said. “Maj. Nejem was picked up by another craft. I believe it’s the same one we collided with.”

“Say again, Sally Ride,” Xú said, wiping a tear from her eye. What she had just heard made no sense; she expected if she heard it again, she’d have to relinquish command due to insanity.

“Repeat – it was another ship. I’ve never seen the configuration before. Bigger than the Lem. We’re sending imaging.”

Xú popped out of her seat. “Commander…there are no other ships in this system. We’re the first.”

“There are no other ships from Earth,” Tatenda said.

Xú froze.

Was it an accident? Deliberate? Did they intend to give Hala back? Did they intend to take the rest of them?

Xú looked at the images that were being uploaded from the Sally Ride. And despite her attempts at cold reason, she was enraged.

“Go get the bastards,” she said. “We’ll join you ASAP.”

“On our way, Shang Xiao.” And the Sally Ride began its pursuit.