Chapter 29 Chapter 27 Ice and Vacuum

"This is Dr. Chang, calling from Europa, I hope you can hear me, especially Dr. Floyd - I know you're on board the Leonov... I may be running out of time... I'm going to put the universe The antenna on the flight suit is facing where I think you are... Please relay my message to Earth. "Qian Xuesen was destroyed three hours ago, and I am the only survivor. Use the radio on the space suit - don't know if the range is far enough, but this is the only chance. Please listen... "There's life on Europa. Repeat: There's life on Europa...   "We landed safely. Checked all the systems and pulled out the hoses and immediately started pumping water into the propulsion tanks... in case we had to hurry away.

"Everything went according to plan...unbelievably smooth. When Dr. Li and I went out to check the insulation of the water pipes, the tank was already half full. The Qian Xuesen stopped at—it was about 30 meters away from the 'Grand Canal'. The water pipes come directly from the spacecraft and go down through the ice. The ice is so thin that it's not safe to walk on it. "Jupiter was like a crescent moon. We had five kilowatts of lights hung in strings on the spaceship that looked like Christmas trees—beautiful, with reflections on the ice... "Dr Lee saw it first - a large dark mass floating from the depths. At first we thought it was a school of fish, but it was too big to be a single organism - and then it started breaking through the ice , and headed towards us.

"It looked like a large wet clump of seaweed, crawling along the ground. Dr. Lee ran back to the spacecraft to get the camera, and I stayed behind to watch and report back by radio. The thing was moving so slowly that I could easily Run away. I was more excited than alert and thought I knew what it was - I'd seen pictures of kelp forests off the coast of California - how could I have been more wrong. "...I can see it's in trouble. It's 150 degrees below its normal surroundings, and it can't survive. It's freezing hard as it moves—shattering pieces like glass—but Still it kept heading toward the spaceship, like a black tide, moving slower and slower.

"I'm still very surprised, can't think about it, can't imagine what it's trying to do. Even if it's heading towards the Qian Xuesen, it still looks completely non-threatening, like—well, a small piece of moving forest. I still I remember smiling because it reminded me of Berne Woods in Shakespeare's Macbeth... "Then, I suddenly realized the danger. It wasn't malicious at all - but it was heavy - and even in this low gravity it must have had tons of ice on it. It was slowly, painfully Climbing on our landing gear...the racks start to deform, all in slow motion, as if in a dream - or rather, a nightmare...

"I didn't understand what the thing was trying to do until the spaceship started tilting, but it was too late. We could have saved our lives - just turn off the lights! "Maybe it's optically active, driven by sunlight penetrating through the ice, and its biological cycle is driven. Or maybe it's attracted to it like a moth to a flame. Our spotlight must be brighter than anything on Europa." Be brighter than even the sun... "Then the spaceship collapsed. I saw the hull crack and the moisture condense into a cloud of snowflakes. All the lights went out except one, dangling back and forth on a cable a few meters above the ground.

"I don't know what happened next, but the next thing I can remember is myself standing under the lamp, next to the wreck, with freshly formed snow falling over me like a fine powder. I can Seeing my own footprints printed on it very clearly. I must have run over, maybe it's only been a minute or two... "The plant—I still think of it as a plant, didn't move. I don't know if it was bruised; a large fragment as thick as a human arm, split like a branch. "Then the subject moved again. It pulled away from the boat and started crawling towards me. That's when I finally determined that this thing was photosensitive. I was standing right under this one kilowatt lamp, and it stopped shaking .

"Imagine an oak tree—more like a banyan tree, which has countless branches—slumped on the ground due to gravity, and is still struggling to crawl on the ground. It moves to less than five meters from the light, and then starts Disband until it forms a perfect circle around me. It must be the limit it can endure-at this time, the attraction of light becomes repulsion. "It didn't move at all for a few minutes after that. I wondered if it was dead or not - it finally froze. "Then I saw large buds on many branches, like watching a slow motion video of flowers blooming - I thought those were flowers the size of a human head.

"Delicate films of brilliant colors began to bloom, and even at that moment I thought no one—no 'thing' had ever looked at the colors until we put the light—our damn light— brought into this world. "It was a tendril or a stamen, and it was wiggling feebly... I went to the living wall that surrounded me, so I could see what was going on. From the beginning to the end, I didn't think the creature was scary at all. .I'm pretty sure it's not malicious - if it's conscious. "There are many flowers, all in different stages of bloom. Now they remind me of butterflies, newly fledged butterflies - with wrinkled, still fragile wings - and I'm getting closer and closer to the truth.

"But they froze! They formed and died. Then, one by one, they floated down from the buds of the mother. They danced around like fish stranded on land—and I finally understood what they were." ...those membranes aren't petals—they're fins, or something like that. Swimming larvae of the creature. Maybe it spends most of its life clinging to the sea floor, and then sends off these mobile offspring to find new Like corals in Earth's oceans. I knelt down to look closely at one of the tiny creatures. The brilliant color had now faded to a lifeless brown. Some of the petal fins had snapped off, and the Crunchy shards. But it's still wriggling, trying to avoid me as I approach. I don't know how it's aware of my presence.

"Then I noticed that the 'stamens' - as I called them - had blue highlights at the ends. It looked like a pocket star sapphire, and also like a scallop's set of blue eyes, which sense light but not Forms a real image. As I watch, the vibrant blue fades, and the gem becomes a dull, ordinary stone...   "Dr. Floyd, or whoever is listening, I don't have much time; the life support alarm just went off, but I'm almost done. "That's when I knew what to do. The cable hanging from the light bulb was almost down to the ground, and I pulled a few times and the light bulb went out in a burst of sparks.

"Don't know if it was too late, but for the first few minutes, nothing happened. So I went to the wall of tangled trees that surrounded me and kicked it. "Slowly, the creature disbanded on its own and started to retreat towards the canal. I followed it all the way to the river, and as soon as it slowed down, I kicked it a few more times to encourage it, and I could feel the ice being crushed under my feet... Gradually approaching the canal, it seems to have regained its strength and energy, as if it knows that it is approaching its hometown. I wonder if it can survive and sprout and bloom again. "It disappeared through the ice, leaving only a few freshly dead larvae on the alien land. The exposed water bubbled for a few minutes, and finally formed a protective scab and was sealed off from the vacuum. I did. Then I walked back to the spaceship to see if there was anything I could salvage - I don't want to mention that. "I just have two requests, Doctor. I want the taxonomist to name this creature after me. "Also, when the next spacecraft returns to Earth, ask them to bring my bones back to China. "Within a few minutes, I'm going to lose motivation - wish I knew if anyone got my message. Anyway, I'll repeat it over and over as much as I can...   "This is Professor Zhang on Europa, reporting the destruction of Qian Xuesen's spacecraft. We landed on the edge of the Grand Canal and set up air pumps on the edge of the ice—"