“Along with Captain Coyle,” Mushran says.
We regard Mushran with more respect. This does not affect him in the least. “When we first explored the saline jungles, we thought some parts might still be alive—but there was no life. They were barren, populated only by electric currents and ionized, oxygen-free membranes, like cell walls but many kilometers across. Nothing like triple worms or spider castles.”
“What are those?” Jacobi asks.
“You’ll see them. Still, the jungles seemed dynamic—the way the purple discharges and exchanges moved. Some of our observers were especially interested. They formed a cadre within the battalion and called the purple flows inside the cities ‘I/O,’ without explanation. We thought they meant the Jovian moon. But later we learned they meant Input-Output. The saline cities might be dead, but they were still active—still very much in use.”
“By who?” I ask.
“We did not know,” Mushran says. “About the time of the sixth season, we heard rumors about the old mines on Mars. Our I/O experts were again interested. And when they heard that Antags were dropping comets to destroy the Martian mines, the old fragments of moon, our experts quickly returned to orbit. We were told to abandon the saline jungles and fall back to our fortified deep-ocean stations. Many of us returned through our few open vents to the surface and caught gliders back to Lady of Yue, which returned us to Earth. Some of our experts were already anticipating what happened in season seven. Kumarji referred to these new activities as a ‘war on information.’ But none of us knew whose information was being targeted. That’s when our stations began to get seriously pasted. And that’s also when we saw evidence that Antags were attacking not just us. They were going after each other.”
“We can’t know what we’re supposed to do here,” Jacobi says. “Who are we defending? What’s left to defend?”
The others murmur and nod agreement.
“What’s our mission, Commander?” Jacobi asks Borden.
“We have no combat orders,” Borden says. “Division Four tells us to deliver Corporal Johnson and Master Sergeant Venn to Titan, get them as close to the saline jungles as possible—and wait for results.” She looks exhausted and folds her arms.
The older pilot picks up the narrative. “Our last orbital season, we saw that Titan was being repeatedly bombarded by comets.”
“Antag?” Litvinov asks.
“We presume,” the pilot says. “Nearly hyperbolic orbits. The maps made for the previous season are useless. River networks, plains, and highland landmasses have been extensively reworked. Eleven out of twelve installations have fallen silent, presumably destroyed with all personnel. However, cap training—instructions for operating your equipment and weapons systems—is up-to-date. As for the strategic situation, and whether there are still Antagonists—nobody knows.”
Without farewells, the pilots depart. We’re quiet for a time. Then Joe taps Tak, DJ, and me, taking us aside, and pulls us in close. “Captain Coyle served on Titan years before she was sent to Mars,” he says. “She expressed her opinions and got busted down. When they sent her back to Earth, she promptly re-upped, went full MARSOC at Camp Lejeune, and rose to major in record time. Then she talked back some more and got demoted again, but they still gave her tough assignments. They gave her Mars. Anyway, Borden thinks you two might have a special connection with Coyle that could help us down there.”
“That would have been years ago,” DJ says.
“Even so, that’s a big reason you were plucked out of Madigan. Kumar and Mushran and Division Four believe in ghosts.”
“Do you, sir?” I ask.
Joe’s look is veiled. “Prove me wrong,” he says. Tak stands by looking rock steady. Bless Tak Fujimori.
STATS
Titan grows hour by hour. Bug and I like it in the bubble. Well—Bug doesn’t actually express an opinion, but I speak for it.
Borden and Kumar persuaded the other Skyrines to leave me alone. Borden wants me close to Titan. In full sun, the old moon looks like a big dusty orange shot a little out of focus. Dim at the edges (it’s not very bright out here), brownish in places. Foggy. Most of the details we see are the frilly, tortured edges of high methane clouds. Methane. Swamp gas. Right. There are methane oceans down there and methane rivers. Liquid methane falls as rain in drops bigger than marbles, slow and steady, washing down in rivulets from the waxy, sandy, icy land. Titan is orange and brown and frilly and mysterious.
Operations have come to a strategic halt. Ishida and Jacobi think we’re on the ragged edge of completely pulling out. They anticipate, they hope, that the entire mission could be aborted. Borden and Kumar know better. They say nothing. Litvinov is hiding somewhere with his troops. This waiting isn’t good for any of us. Hanging loose on Lady of Yue is really weirding us out.
Despite the survey that says half our seeds are damaged beyond recovery, I think we’re dropping soon. DJ agrees. Joe agrees.
No word from Captain Coyle.
Borden asked me a few hours ago if I felt a stir, like I was closer to something important. I don’t. Maybe we are, but I can’t force it. DJ and I don’t compare notes. Mostly we avoid each other.
JOE DISOBEYS BORDEN’S strong suggestions and visits me in the bubble. We don’t speak, just watch as the ship enters Titan’s long shadow. Saturn-shine partly fills the moody darkness. There’s lightning in the high methane clouds, dozens of silent flashes like giants trying to light cigars. Did I say Titan was big? Bigger than Earth’s moon, over half the diameter of Mars. Everything is poison down there. Atmosphere consists mostly of nitrogen. And it’s old nitrogen, maybe from the far reaches of the Oort cloud, that somehow drifted down long after Titan was formed. Titan’s nitrogen differs from that in the gaseous nebula that helped shape Saturn itself, which…
More useless crap? I don’t know. Bug likes it. Bug is compelled to acquaint itself with how much things have changed since his day. They’ve changed a lot.
To me, all by myself, listening to nobody and watching only with my own eyes, Saturn is a big piece of art glass dropped “swish” through a banded platinum hoop. Bug sees it different. He remembers Saturn as green with no ring. Something big happened a long time ago. Isn’t that what this is all about?
Did Bug come from around here? The rings are new, Bug decides. But yeah. This system is where home was, probably a moon just a little smaller than Titan. Then something big happened. I think it could have been another planet or a wandering dark sun. It shoved some moons out and pushed others into Saturn itself, changing its color and maybe helping create the fickle beauty of the rings. What I read back at Madigan, though, tells me the rings are fragile and maybe they just come and go. Bug doesn’t express an opinion. Neither does anyone else.
In brief, however, this is where we all began. Yada yada. One can only hear about the birds and the bees so long before it gets boring. Any thoughts, Captain Coyle, any guidance? Nothing. That’s okay, I can put that aside, because suddenly there’s a shitload of data pouring into our helms from Lady of Yue, supplementing cap learning. I drift in the bubble with Joe beside me, taking it all in.
The supplement is gentle at first, taking us back to basics—more detailed stuff about Saturn and its moons. There’s Iapetus, famous for being a yin-yang moon, white on one side, black on the other. Iapetus’s white is deposited water ice, its black is spray-painted by dust kicked up from impacts on another moon, Phoebe. Bug seems to remember Iapetus, but remembers it as neither so black nor so white. There’s Enceladus, which is pretty small but has a lake of water under one region. Bug doesn’t know anything about Enceladus. Or Rhea and Tethys and Dione and lots of much smaller moons.