Destination Europa: Chapter 9

Fellowship

This is Destination Europa, a psychological sci-fi thriller set aboard the R. G. Leifr, a colony ship headed towards Jupiter to establish a settlement on the ice moon Europa.

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Previously, Quill discovered that one of the printers aboard the Leifr had been using much more polymer powder than would have been expected. Meanwhile, he still hasn’t had a chance to discuss the oxygen imbalance with Tark, and he’s still waiting to hear back from his brother about Priska.

Quill shut the secure shell and sat staring blankly at the surface of his desk. Still nothing from Archie. Give him time, it’s only been two days. You know what he’s like. He looked up at the photo he’d stuck above the desk. His brother, two years older to the day, was one of his dearest friends, but he’d be the first to admit he wasn’t the best communicator. I miss you. I miss you all. Heaviness roiled in his belly, and even with gravity lower than half-g, Quill felt anchored where he sat, unable to lift his hands or head or feet from the floor. He stared at the smooth silver-birch grey of the desk, and the grass-green floor, eyes defocused. 1911. Don’t know anything that happened then. One thousand, nine hundred and eleven days, maybe, until I’m home. Five years, two months, twenty-something days. Lord, from the depths I call to you. At least there haven’t been any more dreams or visions or aikonless figures in the corridors. Priska’s probably fine. Just give him time.

He checked the ship’s time in his visuals. 17:02. Just under two hours until he was scheduled to meet Jörg for their first fellowship meeting. To Quill's joy and surprise, Tark had also agreed to come along and see what it was about. Perhaps I should prepare somehow. But we haven’t discussed what we’re actually going to read. I should go to the mess, eat something. But I’m not hungry. He sat and stared for another quarter of an hour. I should do something. I should write that letter to my supporters. I’m on the edge of a black pit, a bottomless abyss. If I don’t get up and do something, I’ll fall off the edge. After another ten minutes, he became aware of the dryness of his mouth. Get up. Get some water. Too heavy. Can’t move. Get up.

A ping chimed in his ears, startling him out of stasis. Tark. She’s going to cancel. He opened the message. She was asking if he had time to meet with her privately before the meeting with Jörg.

“So what shall we do now?”

Tark looked at him over the rim of her cup of tea as she posed the question. They were on the opposite side of the mess from where Quill and his friends usually ate. She had just finished describing a failed attempt to get more data on the ship’s air circulation system by chatting up one of the FSS technicians.

Quill ate the last bit of his crispy oyster mushrooms, teasing out the savoury salt-and-pepper flavour. “I don’t know,” he said uncomfortably. Hang it, may as well tell her about the other stuff. “But, uh, well, now this might sound a little odd…”

“What?” asked Tark. “Spit it out, Dr. O.” There was a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. Quill straightened his fork on his tray.

“The oxygen isn’t the only anomaly there’s been recently.” He told her about the Deck 11 printer, and the missing strawberries, and the escaped bee. He didn’t tell her about the things only he had seen: the ghostly vision of Priska, the shadowy figure in the corridor. “They’re probably all completely unrelated,” he finished. “I’m probably putting two and two together and getting two thousand. Overthinking.” He gave an awkward little laugh. Should I be telling her these things? What if she feeds back to SymbioNor that I’m being weird? Paranoid? What if I am being weird and paranoid?

“You’re probably right,” said Tark cheerfully. “But a good engineer doesn’t ignore that funny feeling in the gut, right? I’m pretty sure that’s something you said in class at some point.”

Quill gave a wry smile. “I guess.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Safira sit down at a table with Alex, a little distance away. He didn’t think they had seen him. What’s she doing here? What’s she doing with Alex?

“Right,” said Tark. “I’m going to start with the printers. I think there are two others?”

“Sounds right,” said Quill, still thinking about Safira.

“Though I’d guess Engineering would do a lot more printing anyway.”

“That’s for sure.”

A group of FSS crew clattered into the table next to them. Quill recognised Benny, the guy who had given him aggro the other night, and smiled nervously. Benny ignored him. The volume in the air around them rose, the metallic slam of trays on table, the repetitive squeak of someone’s leg jiggling their seat, the gusts of crude jokes.

“Dr. O?”

Quill’s attention snapped back to Tark. He tweaked his aural filters to try and reduce the interference. “Sorry. What was that?”

“I said, shall we get going? It’s almost time to meet Jörg.”

Jörg was already waiting for them in the meeting room he had reserved on Deck 5. Tark and Quill slipped into the room and the door slid shut behind them. They anchored themselves to the table in the centre of the room; in the Yellow Ring, it was all too easy to accidentally send yourself soaring if you weren’t careful.

“So good to see you guys,” said Jörg.

“Good to see you too,” said Quill, shaking his hand. Jörg’s palm was soft and damp and oddly cool, and Quill was reminded of the pale flesh of the oyster mushrooms growing in the Farm.

“Would you pray to start us off?” asked Jörg.

“Sure,” said Quill. His eyes glanced towards the door.

“Don’t worry,” said Jörg. “It’s very quiet around here at this time of day.”

“Why would he be worried?” asked Tark, eyebrow raised.

“Because this isn’t a DPS and, uh,” started Quill.

“Because what we’re doing isn’t exactly welcomed by the authorities,” said Jörg quietly. “But seriously, it’s OK. I actually designated this room a temporary DPS, for this hour.”

“You can do that?” said Quill.

“Sure,” Jörg shrugged. “This meeting room comes under Personnel jurisdiction, so I have the authority to temporarily designate it as private space. Maximum one hour, just while I have the booking. So shall we get started? Quill?”

Quill nodded and ran his tongue over his dry lips, recalling the Norsk forms he had learned back in Tromsø, then closed his eyes and said a short prayer. When he opened his eyes, he saw Tark looking at him with an unreadable expression, eyebrow still raised, and Jörg’s pale lids still closed, face raised devoutly.

“Amen,” said Jörg. “Very good. Now, I thought perhaps we could start with the good news of John. Since our friend Tark hasn’t studied the Word before.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Quill, though he’d have liked to have more discussion first.

“Anything’s fine for me,” said Tark. “I’m just here as an observer, really.”

“Great.” Jörg rubbed his hands together. “How about we take turns to read the text, then we can talk about what it means?” He projected the words onto the table between them. “Shall I start?”

Jörg read the first ten verses or so, in a slow and serious cadence that reminded Quill of an old preacher he had heard when he was a child. Something about the words puzzled him, though. It was his turn to read next, and as he read out loud the words that should have been familiar, he suddenly stopped.

“Jörg, uh, if you don’t mind my asking, what version is this?”

The Earther hesitated for a fraction of a second before replying. “The New Heaven and Earth version, of course.”

Quill crinkled his forehead, trying to remember what he had heard about that version. He couldn’t quite place it, and carried on reading. Only when it was Tark’s turn to read, towards the end of the chapter, did the realisation creep like dark tentacles into his consciousness.

“Wait a minute,” he said, as Tark finished and Jörg added a reverential “Amen.” “Wait a minute, brother. I think there’s something we need to get clear, before we go any further.” He felt his face flush. Don’t mess up. Don’t cause unnecessary conflict. I might be wrong here. “Jörg, maybe we’ve misunderstood each other. I thought you were, ah, Christian.”

“I am,” said Jörg. His pale cheeks were blotching pink. “What are you saying?”

“The New Heaven and Earth version… Am I right in thinking that’s the version Eastern Lightning uses?”

“We don’t go by that name,” said Jörg stiffly. “I’m a worshipper of Almighty God. As are you, or so I thought.”

“Sorry. Almighty God, of course. I mean…” How do I say this without hurting his feelings and confusing Tark? “I mean, there are some fundamental differences in what we believe, you know?”

“We also believe in Jesus the Messiah,” protested Jörg. “Sure, maybe there are small differences in our traditions, but at the core…”

“I’m not so sure about that, Jörg. Don’t you believe that Jesus came back as a woman in China somewhere back in the late 20th century? And then again as a Peruvian dude a hundred years later? And now, you’re waiting for his next, what, reincarnation?”

“But you also believe the Messiah is preparing to come again, surely?”

“Of course. But not like another, I mean a different human being this time, I mean, he’s already man and God. He can’t be another different person again now.”

Quill felt his heart racing like a pulsar, waves of stress radiating through his body. He glanced at Tark, who was watching with intense curiosity.

“Well, let’s talk about it. I don’t see why we shouldn’t study together. Debate these important questions,” said Jörg smoothly. “After all, think of all the debates the early church had before and around the Council of Nicea, and the Council of Chalcedon. Debating the identity of the Messiah. But we’ve never really had that kind of debate in modern times. Maybe it’s time for that.”

“That’s because these questions were settled at those councils, once and for all,” argued Quill. “That’s why what you’re saying is heresy, by the standards of the historical church through all the ages.”

“I’m just saying let’s talk about it, then,” said Jörg. “Maybe we can read each other’s versions, even, discuss the differences.”

“Maybe,” said Quill slowly. This is a bad idea. I know this is a bad idea. But I can’t really refuse, can I? What would Tark think? And, perhaps this is an opportunity. Even an Eastern Lightninger might come to true faith, in time.

That was a disaster. Quill waited for the opening to the Leifr’s central shaft to align with the hatch where he stood at the top of the Yellow Ring. Tark had gone the other way, saying she wanted to walk the Blue Ring corridor, and Jörg had gone to his office, which was somewhere nearby. That was your actual grade-A top-gun top-notch top-drawer disaster. Eastern Lightning! He raked his memory for what he knew of the sect. Although they had become more respectable in the last hundred years or so, he knew that in their early days they had been regarded as a particularly dangerous cult who kidnapped, blackmailed and brainwashed people. They were relentless in their pursuit of new adherents. And Jörg was planning to stay on Europa for the long haul - he wasn’t just there and back again on the Leifr. He could cause all sorts of mischief. He’s in Admin.. He could be fatal to my work. I need to stay on his good side. I should write to my supporters about this, ask them to pray. Lord, from the depths…

The hatch rotated round and opened onto the zero-g central shaft. Quill propelled himself up and out into the ship’s axis. As he oriented himself, preparing to launch himself aft, he caught a glimpse of someone passing in the Yellow Ring corridor that was now below him. The hatch rotated out of line of the shaft entrance before he had time to see clearly, but the dark curly hair and the pale blue SymbioNor overalls looked very familiar. Very like Safira's.

Quill lay flat on his bunk, still in his day clothes, too weary to move, too unsettled to sleep. Was Safira following him? If so, why? But if she was following him, surely she’d be more careful. The glimpse he’d seen through the hatch that evening, the awkward encounter near the Deck 3 coffee cabin, neither had seemed like she had been aware of him in advance. Perhaps frequenting the forward decks, Admin and Navigation and FSS crew quarters, was part of her normal routine. But why was she having dinner with Alex? Were they in a relationship? Did Bowen know?

A new thought came to him, sparking him to his feet in a galvanic burst of fear. Perhaps she’s an FSS mole. Perhaps she’s selling us out. I shouldn’t have got involved with Demas’ letter. I should warn Demas. And I need to speak to Tark, explain about Jörg and the Eastern Lightning. Why? Why is everything going wrong?

Sleep was a long time coming.

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Cover image of Jupiter © National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, colour modification by SDGL.

Divider image: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M. H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team, adapted by SDGL.