VIKKI KNEW that her ‘rustication’ could not last forever. She was an important member of the team, and the team could not afford to go without her skills outside the ship. She had filed her report, and she bided her time for a few days. After all, if the aliens had indeed intercepted the encyclopedia transmission as she hoped, they might need some time to decipher it. What would they make of it? Vikki was beginning to have misgivings about having given them the entire Britannica—too much information and not all of it pleasant reading!

At length Alex summoned her to the bridge. “Well, you seem in damn’ fine fettle to me, young Vikki!” was Alex’s first remark—evidently in the mood for banter and more friendly than she had been at their earlier confrontation. “So we’ll pass over, for the moment, getting to the bottom of what actually happened with you. I’m sending you to join Joachim and Gustave checking out the life-support in the base. You’ll just be offering them a helping hand when needed—doing what they tell you to do—you are not under any circumstances to work on the system yourself. I hope I’ve made that clear—and that’s an order. So go and suit up.” Alex clearly still suspected Vikki of tampering with her own suit, despite Vikki’s strenuous denials—and she was not about to relinquish her adherence to military-style discipline, not while she was in charge.

“Please, Alex, may I not have another look at the hummock. I’m sure there’s something strange about it. Why should a heap of snow—whether it be water or CO2-methane—form unexpectedly on an otherwise featureless ice plain? We’re a long way from the nearest vent or geyser.”

Alex thought about this for a moment. “Very well,” she said at last. “I suppose if I don’t let you go, you’ll be pestering me for the rest of the mission. But not until the work on the base is complete and we’re ready to move in—understand?” And just to re-emphasise her firmness, she turned and radioed Joachim and Gustave to expect Vikki within minutes.

Joachim Gröz, deputy commander of the mission and navigation officer; and Gustave Quincy, the chief engineer. Why not Dr Ye, the life support specialist—seeing as they were fitting out the life sup­port system in the base? But Ye would have declined the task—Vikki knew that. He’d say he was more needed on board ship for his medical skills—and he was right. Indeed: not only did Vikki think of him as ‘Bones’, but his rebuttal might very well have come from the very lips of that fictional medic: “I’m a doctor Jim, not an engineer…”!

No: Dr Ye would go over to check out the systems once the instal­lation was complete. Not before.

It took four more frustrating days before the base was pronounced ready for occupancy, and Vikki was able once again to put in her plea. In this she was backed up by Gustave, who had listened sym­pathetically to her continued insistence that she couldn’t account for her ‘disappearance’—whereas Joachim had been indifferent. Both of them had smiled at each other, but they hadn’t laughed at her.

---§§§---

Vikki knew that Alex would impose conditions on any future EVA. She would have to take a companion. To her relief, Alex didn’t nominate Murielle as ‘chaperone’: instead she proposed that Hal McManus, the mining, drilling, and excavation specialist, should accompany her. Vikki was rather disappointed at this: she would much rather have had Gustave, with whom she got on quite well. If there was anyone whom she felt she could trust with her great secret, and not to steal her moment of glory, it had to be Gustave. But Alex was adamant.

Still, there were ways round the difficulty. Hal was a rather stand­offish and impersonal individual, at age 43 somewhat older (but not that much older) than Vikki herself—whereas Gustave was in his late 50s. He was also fairly attractive. Perhaps she could use her charms to persuade Hal to do her a ‘favour’. Not by going too far, of course…

Sure enough, a couple of days later, just as Vikki was suiting up (under Alex’s supervision), Hal came limping up—as best one could limp in the almost zero gravity.

“Er, sorry, Alex: I seem to have badly banged my knee. Those damned wrenches floating about all over the place! Could someone else go instead of me?”

“All right. You can go with Gustave then, Vikki.”

Success! “Thanks, Hal,” Vikki mouthed when Alex had her back turned.

Once they were suited up and out of the airlock, Vikki quickly switched her radio to a private channel and gestured eagerly to Gustave, hoping he would get the hint. Gustave, being unable to hear her, soon realised what she’d done and flipped through the channels until he made contact.

“You know we’re not supposed to use a private channel for more than ten minutes, don’t you, Vikki.”

“Yes—I know—but Gustave, this is really important and it’s just between you and me for now. When we reach the hummock, I’m hoping to show you something absolutely amazing. Unbelievable, in fact. But I’ve not told the others—and I want to keep it a secret for now.”

“Well well, Vikki! A mystery, and I’m supposed to keep mum? I’m not promising anything, mind. If what you show me is important to our mission, I’ll have to tell Alex in due course. You understand, surely?”

“Yes, I understand.” Vikki was encouraged: Gustave wasn’t refus­ing point-blank to keep a secret. “I guess we’d better switch back to the Valentina channel, before Alex sends out a posse after us.”

They continued their trek to the hummock in silence. Once there, they made their way to the far side, out of sight of the Valentina: to what Vikki reckoned was the spot where the original ‘fissure’ had appeared. She tentatively prodded the surface of the hummock. It felt friable, just like partially melted and re-frozen water-snow. Indeed a handful of this snow came away in her glove. Nothing like what she had encountered earlier. Overwhelmed with disappointment, she turned to face Gustave: but he wasn’t there; he had moved to a spot about five metres to one side.

“Come here and take a look at this, Vikki,” he radioed.

What he was pointing at was clear footprints in the ice: crampon marks made by a fairly small pair of crampons. They led away from the hummock and looped around its far end, apparently curving back to the ship.

“Make a footprint next to these marks, Vikki.” Vikki complied, and Gustave brought out a tape measure and compared the new mark to the old ones. “Yes, they certainly look like your footprints,” he con­tinued. “They’re the right size. But here’s the strange thing. One of the footprints appears to be half covered by the edge of the snow­drift: as if you’d walked out of the drift—or rather, as if you’d walked away from something under the drift. But if the drift has been there all the time, how could that be?”

“This must be the spot!” exclaimed Vikki, eagerly, without answering Gustave’s question. Eagerly she prodded and prodded at the hummock, but still felt nothing but the same crumbly texture. She tried hard to suppress a groan. It seemed as if the hummock had somehow ‘sealed’ itself against all visitors.

Unless…

“Gustave, would you do me a big favour please? Just walk around to the other side of the hummock for a few minutes. Please!”

“All right. But only for five minutes, mind. And if I don’t hear from you, I’ll be back.”

As Gustave was rounding the end of the hummock, a patch of its surface nearest to Vikki shimmered slightly, as if it were enveloped in a heat haze. But there could be no heat haze in a vacuum. Some­thing was happening!

Sure enough, when Vikki prodded the hummock once again, it had changed its texture and become the familiar yielding ‘skin’. And then the familiar vertical fissure was there, just as it had appeared before. Not tentacles this time: just the opening. As before, just large enough for Vikki to squeeze through. Evidently the ‘aliens’ weren’t prepared to let in more than one ‘visitor’. Vikki couldn’t suppress a yell of delight—but then she realised that she couldn’t hear Gustave. Had she accidentally switched channel again? No: she was definitely still on the public Valentina channel. The hummock must be blocking radio signals.

Eager as she was to venture inside, Vikki wasn’t going to push her luck. No alien ‘conversation’ this time: she would have to work out a way to visit the hummock alone.

The scream. The Valentina’s crew had heard her screams when she’d been seized by the tentacle before, standing on this exact spot. So the hummock didn’t block signals all the time…

Best to get back to Gustave before he gets worried.

As she bounded or skipped round the hummock, she almost ran into Gustave bounding towards her. They narrowly avoided a collision. So Gustave had been getting worried. She watched as he flipped through the radio channels until he finally found the right one and spoke.

“I couldn’t hear you, Vikki. Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine, Gustave. Just that I need a really big favour now.” Vikki knew that she had no option but to tell Gustave the truth. But secretly! “Could you please…” She broke off and switched to the private channel again. Gustave took the hint and located the channel.

“Once again, this is strictly between us,” continued Vikki, once they had resumed contact. “This ‘hummock’—I discovered that it isn’t a natural feature at all. It’s an alien spacecraft or habitat. Yes—real live intelligent ETs! I’m almost sure they’re not native to Enceladus: they must have come from another world. I know this because I was taken ‘inside’ the hummock and held a sort of ‘conversation’ with the aliens. They appear to have learnt English somehow. And they kept me alive all those fourteen days—although for most of them I was unconscious.”

“Aliens? You’re kidding me surely! What did they look like?”

“All I saw of them were sort of black shiny tentacles coming out of cracks in a sort of wall. Never the complete being. Yes: I know it sounds corny—tentacular monsters from another world. Stuff of those historic pulp fiction mags! I’m only saying what I really saw, Gustave.”

“So these creatures actually—spoke to you?”

“Not with sound. They projected a sort of text onto the ceiling of the internal chamber. All in binary: I had a devil of a job figuring out what it said. But it was in English, all right. They must have been eavesdropping on the signals from the Valentina. So I contrived to ‘educate’ them a little…”

“Aha! The encyclopedia. Alex mentioned that you’d been playing silly-buggers with the link to Ceres, while Paul’s back was turned. So you thought these—aliens—might be able to ‘learn’ from an encyclopedia. Learn what? Absorb the whole content?”

“I probably shouldn’t have sent them so much: I admit it. I just wanted to teach them to improve their English, and to project proper text, not just binary code. But Gustave, we have to be quick. These aliens won’t open their ‘door’ if more than one person is standing outside—at least, that’s what I suspect. Could you wait here for about an hour while I go and try to make contact? I’ll be inside the hummock. And I’ll be looked after: I promise you that! OK: switching to the Valentina channel now. Please tell Alex that I’m all right: just investigating something.”

Gustave’s a brick, Vikki decided. Good man! It took him only a minute of pondering before he agreed to her request. “But not more than an hour, Vikki, please! Otherwise I’ll have to alert the ship, and then I’ll have to answer for your actions. And I need to see whatever you’ve seen for myself, if I’m to be convinced.” Since they were now on the open channel, he was careful not to hint at what they were looking for.

Vikki almost skipped round the hummock in her glee. At least, it was like skipping and one could perform impressive bounds. Luckily, since Enceladus’s escape velocity was over 860 km/h, there was no danger of launching herself into space. Landing near the spot she remembered, she searched carefully until she found the footprints outside the ‘entrance’. She prodded the surface and, sure enough, the aperture formed and, having switched on her chest lamp, she made her way inside.

---§§§---

image [https://i.imgur.com/yVMHJfQ.jpg]

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

Vikki could only laugh! Of course, she now remembered, the aliens would not have been able to figure out which was ‘right’ and which was ‘left’, merely by scanning the encyclopedia. And their earlier binary messages had been right-to-left oriented, so no doubt they had followed the trend. They could have worked it out by scanning her name written on her space-suit—or the lettering on the side of the Valentina—but evidently they had omitted to do that. She wondered whether this was a minor lapse.

This was the first message that greeted her as she entered the chamber, after she had waited for the aperture to close and the pressure to equalise. At least they were displaying text now, not binary. A huge improvement: so her ‘education’ ploy had worked! And the mirrored text was on one of the ‘walls’, not on the ceiling. Much easier on Vikki’s neck! Furthermore, there was a sort of keyboard in black symbols displayed on the wall below the text—a QWERTY layout indeed!—although this too was ‘mirrored’. Well, she could soon change that. She typed, rather clumsily with her gloved hand:

image [https://i.imgur.com/WiAlp0N.jpg]

After a few seconds the text faded and then re-appeared, correctly oriented.

◄ Welcome. You may remove your space suit.

along with her input:

► Please reverse left and right

The ‘keyboard’ also realigned itself. Now we are making progress! Vikki removed her helmet and unzipped her gloves, but kept the rest of her space-suit on: the room was still chilly. Time to start asking some questions.

► Why did you hold me prisoner here?

There was some delay before the answer came through.

◄ I only wished to make contact and greet you. I am sorry about the damage you and your space suit suffered. It was an accident. I had to suspend your metabolism until your body could be restored to its fully functional state.

Well! thought Vikki, these aliens sure have improved their English (even if it’s a bit stilted) and their knowledge. They must have gone through the whole of Britannica: my scheme has worked! Time to ask some questions:

► Who are you? And are you willing to show yourselves?

The answer came soon enough this time:

◄ I am showing myself.

That couldn’t be right. All she had seen were a bunch of tentacles emerging from various slits. And on this visit there wasn’t a sign even of them. She typed:

► I have only seen your tentacles. And how many of you are there?

◄ There is only myself. And you have seen the whole of me. The tentacles are a part of me. You are now in a cavity inside my body.

Whoa whoa! This, Vikki just couldn’t make sense of. She asked:

► You mean: the pile of snow that we can see from outside: that is the outer part of your body?

◄ Yes.

Vikki was thunderstruck. So she was inside the body of a living organism? Was the whole of the ‘hummock’ one living creature? Jonah inside the whale! Vikki couldn’t absorb any more information for now. She must share what she had seen with Gustave, waiting patiently outside. There was one question she had to ask. She typed:

► May I bring another of my species here?

◄ I cannot answer that question myself. I am only authorised to make contact with a single individual of another species. I shall have to consult with my superior.

► Your superior?

◄ Yes. The leader of our mission to this star system. He is in space, some distance from this world. I should have an answer in about one quarter of an orbit. Eight of your hours.

So there were more of these—behemoths—out there! Did they pose a threat to Earth? Vikki had already guessed that they were not of Enceladus, and may well have voyaged from another star system. Now she was certain. Interstellar travel! Humankind would be itching to learn their technology—if these beings were willing to pass it on. Gustave, the engineer, must be introduced to them.

But eight hours was far too long to wait. And Gustave was waiting outside in a suit with only six hours’ oxygen. Vikki typed:

► I would like to leave now. But I will return, and if you permit it, I shall bring a companion.

◄ Very well. Please put on your helmet and gloves.

---§§§---

When Vikki had rejoined Gustave—to the latter’s great relief—she signed to him to switch to ‘private’ yet again.

“You won’t believe this Gustave: I can hardly believe it myself. The aliens—correction: ‘alien’, singular—told me that there is only one of them here—and that that entire hummock is in fact its living body. And it comes from another star system. What are we to make of that?”

“First of all I need to know what to make of you, Vikki. Are you sure you’re not hallucinating?”

“Do I look and sound disoriented?” retorted Vikki, rather peeved.

“No—I suppose you don’t. But really: how can this be? If this ‘snowdrift’ is really one enormous creature, how does it survive in a vacuum? How does it feed? What ship brought it here—if it’s not native to Enceladus? Too many impossibilities, Vikki! Are you sure you aren’t pulling my leg?”

“That’s exactly why I want you to see for yourself. But the alien told me it’s not yet allowed to let two people into its—interior. It needs to seek permission—and that’ll take time. OK, let’s switch back to ‘public’: time we went back to base. Not a word, mind!”

---§§§---

Alex was clearly in a more congenial mood than she had been on previous occasions: possibly relocation from her cramped cabin on the Valentina to the more spacious quarters in the semi-permanent base had helped to raise her spirits and make her more amenable.

“So the two of you are requesting another EVA to that snowdrift? I can’t imagine what you find so interesting about it. Well—I suppose it’s your job, Vikki, so I have to let you go. But do you really have to take Gustave? I’ve got jobs lined up for him right here, and we’re already running behind. Wouldn’t Hal…?”

Gustave put in: “Vikki has a point, Alex. I can’t explain fully, not yet—but there are things to study, out on the hummock, that really will need my input. Not Hal’s—not yet. Mine. We shan’t be too long: we’ll promise to be back well before we run out of air…”

“If the two of you come even close to running low on air, you know full well what will happen.” Commander Alex was showing her irritability once again. “I’d send the crew to scoop you up and then confine you to your cabins for the rest of the mission,” she continued. “You know that full well, Chief Engineer Gustave Quincy! Or are you not the Chief Engineer we assumed you were?”

“Two hours, maybe three: tops. That’s all we’ll need,” put in Vikki quickly, before Gustave could react to the mild slur. “Promise! You know we came back in good time today.”

“So when do you want to go?”

‘One quarter of an orbit’, the alien had ‘said’. Allow them some margin. “Give us half a day—Earth days—then we’ll go.”

“Very well. Both of you, take some rest … catch up on your sleep before then.”

---§§§---

It was never completely dark on this side of Enceladus. Some at SSSA had suggested an expedition to the ‘far’ side of the moon—the side which always faces away from Saturn, where ‘night’ would be truly night—but that proposition had been firmly vetoed—for the current expedition, at any rate. So there was always some illumin­ation over the Valentina and the base, alternating between the weak­ened sunlight (a hundred times dimmer than it appeared on Earth, but still brilliant), and Saturn-light which, when Saturn was at full phase, was many times brighter than full moonlight on Earth. Saturn was never below the horizon, of course, and could never eclipse the sun in the present epoch, with Saturn currently close to a solstice. The Rings were barely visible since Enceladus’ orbit lay almost exactly in their plane: just a thin dark line appearing to cut across Saturn’s equator.

Having gone through their imposed rest, Vikki and Gustave stood once again at the point on the hummock’s far side where the old footprints emerging from beneath it were still visible. Would the aliens—no: ‘alien’—let them both in this time? Vikki hesitated for a long time before she tentatively extended a glove towards the ‘drift’. It still looked like re-frozen snow.

She gave a nervous prod.

Success! The familiar texture of slightly-yielding integument. “Wait!” she yelled at Gustave over the radio: he was standing a little way back from her, feeling a bit bemused. They didn’t have long to wait: the familiar slit-shaped aperture appeared within a minute…

…and also a couple of the black tentacles. These appendages had not put in any appearance since Vikki’s first visit. She was moment­arily terrified. The tentacles took no notice of her, but swiftly coiled themselves around Gustave’s torso, before he could leap back.

“Don’t struggle, Gus!” yelled Vikki. “This happened to me, first time here. And I think they’ve got the sense not to puncture your suit this time, as they did mine. Just let them draw you inside.” And indeed that was exactly what the tentacles appeared to be doing, gently lifting Gustave bodily and pulling him through the aperture. Vikki followed, by her own efforts, having once again remembered to switch on her chest lamp.

They were standing in the same chamber as before. No text was yet visible on the wall, but they could see their surroundings by the light of Vikki’s lamp. The tentacles which still wrapped themselves around Gustave’s suit were of the ‘fingered-and-suckered’ type, not the clawed type, Vikki noticed with some relief. The alien had learned by its mistake! After probing around the suit for a while, the tentacles released Gustave. Meanwhile the aperture had sealed itself and external pressure was building up.

◄ Welcome, visitors from Earth. You may now remove your space suits.

Vikki doffed her helmet and gloves and signed to Gustave to do likewise. As she waited, more text appeared:

◄ I am sorry that I had to manhandle the new visitor, but it is our standard practice to closely examine any alien whom we come into contact with for the first time. You have not been harmed. I observe that the newcomer is a male of your species, whereas the other one of you who came before is a female. Do you intend to demonstrate your reproductive process to me?

Vikki could not restrain herself from giggling and blushing. She glanced at Gustave. He appeared hypnotised—but through his helmet visor she could just make out a blush on his pale face too. Yes, she was fond of Gustave; they were good friends—but not that fond! And in public? Besides, he had a wife and family—grandchildren too—back on Earth. She merely typed:

► We are not paired for reproduction.

hoping that would explain things.

Then she glanced at Gustave. He had still not taken off his helmet. He was standing there, open-mouthed, as if hypnotised. Vikki tried the radio but it didn’t seem to be working here. She gesticulated frantically: pointed to her own unprotected head and hands. At last, Gustave seemed to snap out of his trance and get the hint. Slowly he unlatched his helmet and took several deep breaths in the thin atmo­sphere.

“You see, the air is good here. We can breathe. That’s how I survived so long,” explained Vikki.

It was a long time before Gustave spoke.

“We are actually inside some sort of giant—creature? How can it live? How does it eat … breathe? Is it planning to digest us?” It looked as if Gustave was about to panic. Vikki hastily put in:

“I’m sure it isn’t. It appears to be friendly. But you can ask it for yourself. Use the keyboard. It will answer in text.”

“Can it hear us, do you think?”

“I don’t think so. Its species seems to be able to survive in vacuum: maybe they live their lives in vacuum. But you can ask it that—and anything else you like.”

Gustave collected himself, recovering from his paralysis at last. He stepped in front of Vikki so that he was facing the keyboard, and typed:

► Who are you? Where do you come from? How do you survive here, unprotected against the vacuum?

The alien answered after a pause:

◄ I cannot express my name, or the name of my species, in your language. My companions and I come from a world orbiting another star, some distance from your sun. My kind, unlike you, do not need protection against vacuum. The world we come from has no atmosphere and low gravity.

Gustave continued:

► But where is the spaceship you came in?

The alien replied:

◄ We do not use spaceships. We are fitted with an implant that enables us to traverse large distances in space.

Both Gustave and Vikki were thinking, Wow! What amazing tech­nology these creatures must possess! But Vikki now took over the typing again:

► Where is the star you come from?

◄ I cannot give you a catalogue number in your databases, but I can tell you that it is a Red Dwarf, about sixty of your light-years distant, and lies in the direction of the constellation you know as Auriga.

Sixty light-years! Impressive indeed! Vikki typed:

► What is your reason for coming here?

◄ The same as yours. To seek out life on other worlds and to make contact with any that may be intelligent. In that we appear to have both succeeded. I expect to have a fruitful exchange of information with your species.