DEPARTURE DAY had come at last. Vikki and Hal were about to board the ground-to-orbit shuttle along with a very excited Lorna, now fifteen months old, toddling all over the place, and thrilled to bits: she already knew the word ‘spaceship’—although she couldn’t pronounce it better than “shpuh-shup”. All the other cosmonauts, and children, were there except Joachim and Ranjan, but Vikki naturally assumed they’d gone up to the orbiting Christa earlier.

  Winifred was in charge of the boarding. She seemed in a fairly affable mood, and was chatting light-heartedly with all the others of the team—but she wasn’t giving much away. All Vikki got from her was that once everyone and all the supplies were safely stowed aboard the Christa, she would boost to escape velocity and enter the transfer orbit to Jupiter in about twenty-four hours.

  Vikki once again sensed that there was something being kept back from her and the others. No matter: no doubt all would have to be explained once the long voyage was under way—and, importantly, when there was no opportunity for any of the crew to back off. Crafty devils, these SSSA big shots!

  The children were all introduced to each other before boarding. Little Lorna, the youngest of the five, shed a few tears when she realised Terri wasn’t among them: she had after all been staying at Alex’s and Jo’s for the past two months. But she was soon comforted when she realised that little Octavia, Estella’s granddaughter, who was a little over a year older than Lorna, was to be her new playmate. Indeed it didn’t take long for the two to become fast friends. Meanwhile, the three boys, Estella’s Mark and Judy’s twin boys Saul and Jake, all of whom were aged around four-and-a-half, were busy chasing each other all round the departure hall.

  If there was ever to be any friction between the children, it wasn’t showing itself yet.

  At length the time came for everyone to board the shuttle and strap themselves in, and the shuttle began its long roll down the runway. No longer were crew and passengers expected to feel the harsh three-gee-plus acceleration of the mid twentieth century rockets: the shuttle’s acceleration was a gentle 0.5 gee and it took nearly half an hour to reach orbital velocity. Then the main drive shut off and the passengers experienced weightlessness for the first time. The children took it surprisingly well, and there were no ‘accidents’.

  It took another two hours for the shuttle to successfully dock with the orbiting Christa and for all the crew and passengers to be trans-ferred to the interplanetary ship. As expected, Joachim and Ranjan were already there to welcome the rest of the ship’s complement. After everyone had been guided to his or her individual cabin (far more luxurious than the cramped quarters on the Valentina, Vikki noted with some relief), and been given time to settle in and stow their belongings, Joachim summoned everyone to the centrifuge which was already rotating. The transfer between the non-rotating fuselage and the centrifuge was quite straightforward, involving a kind of escalator to match speeds: no-one had to jump! Soon everyone was assembled to one side of the centrifuge, so they could all see one another.

  Vikki, Hal, and several of the others, were of course quite accustomed to the centrifuge experience, and noted that this model, being more than twice the diameter of the one on Ceres, was much more comfortable to ride in. But, looking round, Vikki could see that all was not well with some of the newcomers. In particular, she noticed that Christopher looked rather uncomfortable: he was tight-lipped with a pained expression on his face, and indisposed to join in the conversation. Hal noticed his predicament too, and could barely suppress a chuckle. Here was a giant who could face up to any man the fearsome Wallabies or the mighty Springboks forwards could throw at him, and who had completely demolished the Scots three-quarters at Murrayfield—and yet he was barely able to handle it in the centrifuge.

  “You OK, Chris?” he asked. Christopher nodded out of politeness, but evidently this was far from the truth. He started to speak but gagged on his words.

  “Here you are,” said Hal, reassuringly, plucking a sick-bag from a pocket on the wall and tossing it to Christopher, who received it gratefully and was soon occupied with retching and heaving into it. “It’s because of the tidal effect in a centrifuge,” continued Hal, by way of explanation. “Your head is nearer the centre line and so feels less weight than the rest of you. And of course you’re a lot taller than the rest of us, so you feel the effect more. I think if you lie down for a spell,” indicating one of the couches set against the wall, “you’ll get over it. Don’t worry: one soon gets used to it!”

  Christopher couldn’t speak but nodded by way of thanks and made for the couch. Casting a sympathetic eye upon him, Vikki once again set herself wondering what his role in the mission was. She noticed that within a few minutes he seemed to have recovered from his nausea.

  Sensing that the brief disturbance was over and everyone was settled, Joachim stood on a bench and began his briefing. That he was making a speech in the first place came as a surprise to Vikki, recalling him as a man of few words and with a taciturn manner on the Valentina mission—but then she realised that he was reading from a prepared script. Quite a long one, as it turned out. She couldn’t help but wonder who had really written it.

  “First of all,” Joachim began, “you will realise that there are two distinct objectives to this mission, and they are—in a sense—conflicting with one another. The first is to find out more about the native, albeit primitive, life which has been discovered beneath the icy surface of Enceladus—and which we hope to encounter also on the other icy moons of the outer Solar System. The second is to make further contact with the mysterious extraterrestrial intelligence which we have named the ‘Bala’.

  “With regard to the Enceladus life, all we have so far is a very incomplete sample of life elsewhere in the Solar System—and our exobiologists—represented here by Annemarie and Jaleh here—” with a nod to the two crew members “—are very anxious to fill in the gaps. It is vital that we learn more about the early stages in the evolution of life, both on Earth and on other worlds, and the existence of very primitive, early-stage, life-forms on Enceladus and other icy moons gives us an opportunity to establish an evolutionary process between these organisms.

  “Unfortunately our exobiologist team here—” another nod “—have too few specimens, and of too few distinct species, to be able to construct evolutionary links. It has been deemed essential to carry out further collections in the hope of recovering a wider spectrum of species—”

  “Essential to whom?” Estella interposed, speaking for the first time.

  It was Annemarie, the exobiologist, who answered for her. “Ah, I see. Our esteemed technical writer—” (she markedly emphasised the word ‘technical’) “—is querying the value of any basic scientific research that appears not to carry a cost benefit of some sort.” She was speaking in perfectly fluent and idiomatic English, but with a slight accent—probably Dutch, Vikki thought—but not as marked as Murielle’s had been—thankfully. She could see Estella scowling—and was beginning to think that she too wouldn’t get on very well with the opinionated Annemarie. Ah well: better hope for the best! But Annemarie was still speaking.

  “Maybe I should remind you about the pandemic of 2065-66?” she continued, her patronising stance unremitting. “Before your time and mine, of course. The pandemic that killed off nearly half of the world’s population—but could have been mitigated if research into virus propagation and reproduction—research that at the time was deemed purely abstract by some—had sufficiently advanced—”

  “Of course I know about ’65,” retorted Estella, petulantly. “I probably know more than you do, since I majored in History and English. And that’s hardly the same, is it? Of course we’re talking about essential research, not abstract: essential to the survival of our species. And if the governments of the day hadn’t been so incompetent and so short-sighted as to foreclose on the vital research in that field, many lives might have been saved.

  “Besides, if you’d read any of my books you might know that one of them is indeed set during that awful episode in Earth’s history. An apocalyptic fiction: Earthbrink, for your information. Inspired by one of Nevil Shute’s—”

  “Actually, I have read that book,” snapped Annemarie. “Along with others of your novels. I am not so ignorant of literature as you might suppose. I quite enjoyed Dawn of Phobos.”

  “Ladies, please!” interposed Joachim, plaintively. “We are steering off topic. May I please continue?”

  Vikki could see that a row was still simmering—and she could sympathise with both sides of the argument. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a quiet word with Estella when she got a chance. Annemarie—that would be best for later. She did not want to re-awaken the memory of her feud with Murielle. She noticed that Christopher, now standing up and seemingly recovered from his nausea, was about to speak, but she silenced him with a gesture.

  “Now—if I may—to proceed,” remarked Joachim, and resumed reading from his script. “—in the hope of recovering a wider spect-rum of species. It is unfortunate that Enceladus, along with the whole of the Saturnian system, is inaccessible to us at present because of its inconvenient position in its orbit. We cannot carry enough fuel to reach the system safely. But Uranus, despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun, is well placed at present and can be reached in ‘cruise’ mode with little expenditure of fuel, although the voyage will be long. But I shall come to that later.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “We had originally planned to visit Miranda, the innermost of the main moons of Uranus, but we have now determined that Titania, the largest moon, offers better prospects. Moreover, its gravity at 0.04 gee—over three times that of Enceladus and five times that of Miranda—makes it a better prospect for drilling—and safer for the crew. We cannot, of course, be sure that any life exists beneath the ice of Titania, and no crew has yet set foot on that world—but the data we have been able to gather looks promising. So Titania is our prime target moon on this voyage. Any questions so far?”

  “What difference does 0.04 gee of gravity make?” asked Hal, with a note of scepticism. “Not much different from Enceladus, is it? We were all but weightless there—had to lash everything down.”

  “As the drilling expert, I’d have thought you could answer that question yourself,” retorted Winifred, answering for Joachim. “Even a fraction of a gee makes it that much easier to control the drilling, does it not?”

  “All right: point taken” continued Hal. “But what about Europa? A lot easier to get to, surely. And a nice comfortable 0.13 gee, if I remember right: almost as much as our Moon’s 0.16 gee.”

  “True,” replied Winifred. “But we already have three teams probing Europa at widely separated points, and sadly none of them has discovered anything resembling life. We are beginning to think that at Europa we will draw a blank, and SSSA has deemed that a fourth team would be superfluous.”

  “Thank you Winifred,” added Joachim, stifling with a gesture Hal’s attempt to prolong the argument. “Exactly so. Now, if I may continue?” He resumed reading from his script.

  “Now we turn to the more—shall I say?—dramatic objective of this mission—the objective which will no doubt be more effective in stimulating the interest of certain members of this crew.” He nodded to Vikki, but then cast an eye on Estella. “We intend to rendezvous with one of the sapient beings or artefacts known as the ‘Bala’. Luis Mendés mentioned this briefly at the pre-launch presentation, but it was decided not to give out full details at that moment in time.

  “The particular Bala that we propose to intercept is the one which is free-floating in a separate orbit around the Sun, a short distance outside Saturn’s orbit. To be more specific, it is following not a circular or elliptical orbit, as was at first thought, but a more com-plex ‘horseshoe’ orbit taking in the Lagrangian L3, L4 and L5 points of Saturn’s orbit. We have been able to plot its movement with reasonable precision, and provided it does not use its inbuilt thruster to substantially alter course in the meantime (so far it has shown no sign of doing so), we can rendezvous with it and even match speeds without the need to expend much fuel nor to seriously disrupt our voyage to Titania. We should get a time window of about fifteen days during which we shall be close enough to the Bala for detailed study. Any more questions?”

  Vikki could not contain herself. “You mean—close enough that we can make physical contact with our friend? Even venture inside, should it choose to create an internal cavity for us? Like the one on Enceladus?”

  “The answer to the first question is, yes,” replied Joachim. “As to whether any cosmonaut will be permitted to enter the alien’s body—that’s not yet decided as of now. Please don’t speculate further on this.”

  It was Christopher who put the next question. “I’ve been through the astronomy and orbital mechanics courses, fine, but what on earth is a ‘horseshoe’ orbit?”

  It was Qiang, the navigator, who took it upon himself to answer. “More or less a broad description of the object’s path. The orbit shaped rather like a horseshoe, in which the smaller object (the Bala) spirals around the larger object’s (Saturn’s) orbit, sweeping from the L4 point (60° ahead of Saturn), via the L3 point (opposite Saturn), to the L5 point (astern of Saturn)—then it sweeps back retracing its steps. In this way it will never collide with, or even come close to Saturn. But the whole cycle takes many years. We needed many observations spaced several years apart, to work this out.”

  “Most extraordinary,” remarked Vikki. “And there we were thinking everything goes around the Sun in an ellipse with the Sun at one focus. Kepler’s Laws and all that...”

  “Yes, it is strange,” added Qiang. “Kepler’s Laws only work if none of the planets and other orbiting bodies perturb one another. But in reality there are several asteroids working their way around just such a horseshoe orbit: some even accompanying the Earth. Not to worry: none will ever collide with us.”

  “So no dinosaur-killers there, then,” said Vikki. “Although we shouldn’t be complacent. Remember 2105.”

  The year 2105 had seen a kilometre-sized object plunge into the southern Atlantic, raising tsunamis which had ravaged the coasts of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, and to a lesser extent South Africa and Namibia—causing many thousands of deaths. The biggest strike since the Tunguska event of 1908, and far more deadly. Since that date, SSSA’s activities had been greatly ramped up, with the signifi-cant objective of identifying comets and asteroids that might pose a threat. Several had been successfully diverted in the following years.

  “You are right,” continued Qiang. “The asteroids that were once called ‘Trojans’ do not threaten our planet, but other asteroids and comets on less predictable, more chaotic orbits are still a potential danger. As 2105 showed us. And SSSA is hard at work tracking them down.”

  “Are we done yet?” interposed Joachim, his impatience clearly showing.

  The gathering fell silent.

  “Very well, then,” he continued. “All I have to add is that we shall be leaving Earth orbit in about eight hours’ time. I ask everyone to prepare themselves for the long voyage: the first leg to Jupiter will take about seven months. That is all, and thank you for your attention.”

  ---§§§---

  Vikki knew that her first duty was to ensure that little Lorna was safely deposited and settled in at the onboard crèche which had been set up in another part of the centrifuge. She found that the other children were already there and that it was well equipped with toys and activity equipment. How long before the children get bored with all this? she wondered. It’s asking a lot, taking such young children on such a long and arduous voyage, with no opportunity to go exploring anywhere.

  But she was pleased, and somewhat relieved, to observe that Estella was busy organising the facility—and was presumably set to become the teacher or supervisor.

  “Yes—my secondary duty on board, besides that of chronicler,” Estella replied in answer to Vikki’s question. “And I should explain that I was a nursery school teacher for several years before I took up writing. I’m sure I can manage these little ones. Mark and Octavia here, my own little ones, know me of old of course!”

  Vikki recalled Estella’s earlier remarks about her grandchildren. Glancing round to see if anyone else was within earshot, she quietly asked: “Your daughter, Estella? You were going to tell me about her earlier, but—” She stopped, noticing tears welling up in Estella’s eyes and running down her cheeks.

  There was a long pause. “You’re right, Vikki,” Estella finally managed to say. “I didn’t want to talk about these things before. And please don’t pass this on.”

  “Not even to Hal?” queried Vikki.

  “Oh all right—Hal.” Estella let out a sob. “But no-one else.”

  “I assume your daughter died.”

  “Yes. Let me explain. Do you know about the history involving ethanol?”

  Vikki was beginning to guess where this was leading up to. “I know that it was once used as a component of certain drinks. And that it had adverse—even fatal—effects on the human body. Like opium. But it’s been outlawed for many years now, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes—in most countries, at any rate. It used to be called just ‘alcohol’—though that’s strictly speaking a generic term covering a wide range of compounds.” Estella paused for a moment, again seeming visibly upset. Then she composed herself and continued. “Many different drinks, called beer, wine, gin, whisky, rum, brandy, vodka, and many others. Perhaps with your Russian heritage you’ve heard of vodka?”

  “It does ring a bell. My granddad, who came originally from St Petersburg—yes he used to say something like—he moaned that he couldn’t get his favourite ‘vodka’ any more. Of course I was only a little girl at the time, and I didn’t understand what he meant. Why would he have enjoyed it, if it was harmful?”

  “Harmful or not, it was one of the strongest drinks around: forty or even fifty percent ethanol mixed with water and very little else. The first attempt to outlaw drinks containing ethanol occurred in the early twentieth century in the USA—but it didn’t last. There was too much underground production of the stuff—‘bootlegging’ it was called—and a lot of criminal activity. The second attempt, at the end of the twenty-first, was far more successful, and most of the world’s population are now ethanol-free, as I’m sure you know. I doubt if anyone on board here has ever tasted the stuff.”

  “Certainly not me—but, your daughter?” put in Vikki, tentatively.

  “Several people tried producing drinks containing ethanol illegally. Chloe—my daughter—and her partner were doing just that. I didn’t know until afterwards—at the inquest. Octavia here—” she patted her little granddaughter who’d just come up to join them “—she was only six weeks old, poor thing.” Another sob.

  “So they were poisoned with this—ethanol?”

  “Not ethanol: methanol. Yes, very similar name: another type of alcohol, but far more deadly. Trouble was, poorly controlled fermentation done at home, illegally, it can sometimes produce the wrong sort of alcohol. That’s what happened.”

  “ ‘Fermentation’? What’s that?”

  “Best if I say no more. It’s painful to remember all this—forgive me!”

  “Of course—I understand. I’m very grateful to you, Estella, for confiding in me. I promise I won’t say a word to anyone—except Hal, and I’ll make him promise, too. And if you ever want anyone to open your heart to—well, we’re here for you.”