Mara’s Moon

 

Oxygen must be a lonely element. It can’t exist by itself - it needs to bond with another one of its own atoms in order to be balanced, to be stable. O2 for a reason, you know, not just O. I personally don’t care about its lack of independence, as long as it’s here in the air. And according to the three green LEDs on my multimeter, the machine that regenerates it is doing its job just fine. A huge surprise to my still-breathing self.

 

I stick the meter back on its velcroed place on the tool dock, yawn, and stretch my crouched legs. It’s hard to do in the ship’s cramped engineering bay, made harder by the joke that is gravity out here. I stretch too hard and that’s all it takes to make my feet lift from the bay’s composite floor. I reach up to stop my head from bumping the panel and accidentally swipe my tablet and its list of morning check-ups off its stand. It cartwheels through the air down the corridor as I land back on the floor again, eyes narrowed. Just awesome. Enjoy your trip down to mess, you piece of —

 

BEEPBEEPBEEP!

 

My head turns to the sound coming from the main corridor. It’s time. I slap the regenerator door closed and bound out of Engineering, round the corner and kick myself off the main corridor’s handrail, sending myself gliding in a long parabola to the last room on the right. I enter my code with sloppy fast fingers, which of course I fuck up and so I do it again, hurry - the keypad finally chimes and the pneumatics hsss as they slide the thin metal door out of the way, letting me into my quarters. I reach out to swipe my alarm clock’s beam as I rush into the tiny space, tipping over my pile of empty energy drink pouches. I bound over them and hit the hull wall at the foot of my cot. My head is positioned perfectly in front of the viewport. It’s time!

 

I smoosh my face against the plexi, quick breaths slightly fogging the view as the show begins. Outside is an endless icy expanse, crinkled and cracked by shifting water way below. Soft translucent blues from the tips of the ice sheets that stick up from the surface blend into deep opaques as it thickens to the glacial ground. The blues get sucked into blackness down in the crevasses that fall all the way to the ocean floor. My breath catches. The top pieces refract the rising Sun’s weak light and send it glittering across the mirrorball moon, warming the landscape before reaching my smiling eyes. I close them and sigh. Good morning, Europa.

 

-----

 

“The hull of the ship is designed to deflect 99.98% of the alpha and gamma rays you will be exposed to on your journey. Tell me, in the event of a hull breach, the emerg— Mara? Are you following?”

 

Mara blinks quickly and focuses on the woman walking beside her. She has to crane her head to meet her eyes, and when she does she feels like she should stand a little straighter. She flashes her a smile. “Yes, Commander. Sorry.”

 

The older woman releases Mara from her gaze and continues on to their destination ahead. “You are not up there yet. Keep your mind grounded. Do not waste your efforts and training now when you are so close to clearance.”

 

Mara nods. She looks down, watches her black boots take her along the stark composite floor. Mara’s boots squeak. Bellefleur’s stilettos click. By the time the two have walked to the end of the hallway, Mara has perfectly recounted the emergency procedures for a hull collapse, power failure, and critically injured crew member.

 

Stopping at the large metal door before them, Bellefleur turns and glances down at Mara. Her short white bob gives little contrast to her skin or sharp eyes. “Act naturally. This is merely a formality.” She gives Mara a brief grin. Mara looks away.

 

“Yeah, I know. I mean, thank you, Commander,” Mara says, and looks up as Bellefleur leaves back down the hallway, heels echoing on the tile. Her fingernails dig into her palms and for a moment the anxious black hole in her stomach opens too wide and she imagines running to her and hugging her, thanking her for her help, her charity, begging her not to leave - then cringes.

 

Instead she faces the door and with a start, notices her distorted reflection on the polished steel. Her eyes narrow as she looks herself over. Her tanned skin looks almost light in contrast to her carbon-dark hair, which she desperately tries to smooth down with her palms. She picks off wavy strands from her neatly pressed uniform, a darkish shade of green that matches her too-big, scrutinizing eyes. A green that could maybe be warm in the right light, and quite cool in others. She considers them for a moment. Then with a deep breath, she announces herself. The door swishes open and Mara enters the brightly lit examination room.

 

-----

 

“Hey Njeri! Top o’ the mornin’ to ya Rowan!” I cheer as I half-walk-half-bounce down the main corridor to the mess hall. I wait for a bit with a stage smile when I enter, then drop it.

 

The two are sitting at the teensy three-seater table in the middle of the room. Rowan’s red head is bowed over his tablet, totally fixed on whatever’s on there. I look to the woman next to him, who I realize is staring right at me with her big arms crossed over her chest. That can’t be good. Once she knows she has my attention, she reveals the tablet she had hiding in her lap. It’s got a spiderwebby crack in one corner of the display. “This yours?” She says with a raised brow.

 

Of course it’s mine. It’s got my name engraved on the back, stupid. “Hey yeah, big thanks! So crazy how that happened!” I say, trying the stage smile just once more.

 

Njeri’s stare holds as she places the tablet on the table. God, I hope it’s not bricked, Command is gonna give me so much shit for that.

 

Trying not to bump into either of them, I grab the tablet and shuffle around the bolted-down table toward the hydrator. I take the chance to peek over Rowan’s bony shoulder when I get close — is that a personnel report?

 

He snaps his head around and brings the tablet to his chest. His face scrunches as he looks up at me, which hooks his nose even more than usual. I press my lips together and continue on to make some breakfast. One minute ‘til it’s ready. So, like, an eternity. I summon the courage to speak. “So guys, how are you feeling after yesterday’s landing?”

 

Rowan pretends I don’t exist while Njeri gives me side eye and mumbles, “Well, I like the bit of gravity.”

 

“Oh my God, me too! I hated how my boobs floated around in space!” I say so fucking enthusiastically.

 

No one says anything after that. At the ding I take my mushy oatmeal out of the hydrator and leave them alone. Just how they like it, I guess.

 

-----

 

Perched on a metal stool in the far corner is a thin, contemplative-looking man, diagnostic note-tablet in hand. He smiles as she sits on the bed by the window, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

“So, what do I call you, Doc?” Mara says with a smirk. “Are shrinks even considered doctors?”

 

He stands and smooths invisible wrinkles in his scrub-style uniform, placid face unwavering. He extends a hand and Mara shakes it with narrowed eyes. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Doctor Lei, Chief Psychologist of the Tellurian Space Exploration Alliance.”

 

“And I’m Mara. We done?”

 

“Ah, but it’s not just Mara, is it? You are the Mara who’s first in her class, the personal protegee of Commander Bellefleur, and top pick for the coveted Europa mission. Despite just turning nineteen.”

 

She keeps eye contact. “Yup. Want an autograph?”

 

“This is all quite a feat. Why don’t you begin by telling me about the ship?”

 

Mara reclines and kicks her feet onto the bed. “The Perseverance II, only the most advanced spacecraft in the entire TSEA, baby. It’s named after the old-ass rover NASA sent to Mars forever ago. Way back when NASA was a thing.”

 

“And how does it make you feel, knowing you could be spending the next year confined to this vessel, with only two other people?”

 

“Everyone loves me. I’m charming.”

 

“And if they don’t? They would be older than you, having worked much longer to even be considered a candidate for the mission.”

 

“They better get over it.”

 

“And if they don’t? How would that make you feel?”

 

“I’ll get over it. We done yet?”

 

“Mara. How does this session make you feel?”

 

“Oh, fuck me.”

 

-----

 

Another day packed with experiments ends with a night of doing the same exact thing. I sit in the Persey’s stuffy lab, analyzing the most recent samples of ocean water our mission drone brought me. We have the atmosuits that would let us go onto Europa’s surface if we needed to but that’d only happen if we were super fucked and needed to evacuate the ship. Anyway, although the moon’s crust is made of ice kilometers thick, its crevasses give us access to the liquid water that exists deep down there. The Persey’s landing zone is actually right next to one, for easy sample collection by our brave little drone.

 

I remove my pipette from the sample tube and rub my eyes. The lab boasts the largest viewport in the entire ship, as if the designers sympathized with the poor scientists that’d be trapped here for hours and hours and decided to give them something big to daydream out of. It’s where I’m drawn to now, happy to focus my eyes on something in the distance. Europa has a consistent colour scheme, very aesthetic in its cool blues and crackled landscape. It’s easy to imagine the possibilities in an environment like this. Liquid water, a thickish atmosphere, enough sunlight… Maybe, somewhere, there’s something worth finding. It doesn’t need to be big, I don’t care if I need to see it with my scope, I just need it to happen. It just needs to be worth bringing back to the Commander.

 

Thoughts have inertia. I remember the first time I met her, when she visited the organization that raised me. The rest of the gifted kids spent the meet and greet kissing ass for her attention, this tall woman who clearly preferred sticky fingers off her milky pantsuit. So I left. On her way out, she spotted me in the solarium, tinkering alone with the antique glass-lensed telescope I had pointed at the Moon.

 

“Child, do you know how to operate that?”

 

I looked back at her and nodded, prepped to take my usual scolding. Among other rules, I didn’t really care for bedtimes. But she just entered the room and crouched by my side. “What is the experiment?”

 

I stood with my hands by my sides, wondering if maybe she was spying for the headmaster so he could finally expel me. But then, of course, he’d lose his best student, and although he was dumb he wasn’t stupid. “There are animals on it, I think,” I lisped through the gap where my big teeth were coming in. “I wanna find ‘em.”

 

She looked into my eyes, hers squinted as if she was trying to find something in me. “There is no extraterrestrial life known to exist in the solar system, child.”

 

“Well maybe we jus’ haven’t looked hard enough yet.”

 

SNAP!

 

Shit. I look at the pipette in my hand, its glass tip splintered so all that remains is a long sharp shard. I must have been twirling it in my fingers and smacked it into the desk, dummy, that’s what you get for daydreaming. I pull out the lab vac and make sure to suck up the little pieces that are now floating to the desk. I take a deep breath and sigh. I’m gonna have to ask Njeri for a spare tip. In less than a minute I’m outside her quarters.

 

“Um, hey, Njeri, could you open up? I really need a favour.”

 

I hear shuffling before the door swishes open halfway. She pokes her head out the door. Her hair looks mussed. “Mara. What do you want?”

 

“Uh, I um, need a pipette tip please. I just broke my last one, and--”

 

A third voice whispers from behind her door. “What does she need that for? Her experiments are fucking child’s play. Tell her to bugger off, Jer, and come back to bed.”

 

I stare blankly. Njeri turns for a second to wave a shushing hand at Rowan while my face gets hot. She looks back to me with a smirk and shrugs. My eyes sting. Not bothering to hide her giggle, she shuts the door. I’m left in the corridor alone.

 

I can only do what I do best. I bury myself in my work. The days become a blur of data collection, analysis, interpretation, repeat. I leave my quarters to grab rations early in the morning before anyone gets up. I relocate my labspace beside my cot. I trade sleep for caffeine. I just need to stay focused. I’m close to something, really really close. I nibble my nail as I wait for the drone to exit the airlock. With a hsss the hatch opens and I retrieve the latest sample. I have it under the microscope in a flash, knee bouncing as if it also feels we’re on the verge of a breakthrough. I adjust the light intensity. Fix the colour filters. Up the magnification. And I see it. Moving.

 

-----

 

“What do you hope to achieve from this mission, Mara?”

 

Mara cocks her head and stares down her nose at Lei. “I’m planning on becoming Earth’s leading astrobiologist. I will discover alien life.”

 

He grins. “I mean personally.”

 

“Nobel Prizes. Plural. Fame, fortune, the works. Boys.”

 

“Boys?”

 

“Yup. At least six-foot, with all the matching accessories.”

 

Lei raises an eyebrow but continues. “You really are quite young, Mara. We want to ensure you are comfortable embarking on this mission.”

 

Mara sits straight now. Her lips curl. “You know my age doesn’t dictate my capabilities as a scientist, right? And if anyone needs a reminder of who the fuck I am they can drool over my degrees. Plural.”

 

-----

 

No one can know. They’re mine. And now I get to study them.

 

I rest my elbows on the desk and rub the bleariness out of my red eyes in preparation. Where first, physiology? No, xenophysiology. That’s a word I made up, because no one but me has ever gotten to do it. I switch on the microscope display and see their gooey see-through bodies wiggle. I press my face against the display. “You’re so cute, little guys,” I coo.

 

Thank you.

 

I snap my head up. Did I accidentally activate the computer? “Computer, on silent,” I make sure.

 

Oh, Mara. You know we are not the computer.

 

I gape at the display. “...Sentient?”

 

Alive, conscious, aware. See what you have discovered, you brilliant scientist.

 

I press a hand to my forehead. Sentient microlife, capable of inter-species communication… This is uniquely Jovian. This is the type of discovery that would make me a fucking legend on Earth. I would be a god.

 

I giggle. I guess I’m the one who gets to name them. Mara-ites. Europmaras. Minimar--

 

Knock-knock. There’s someone at my door. I take my cot blanket and toss it over the scope. Have a nap, Minimaras.

 

I open the door a sliver, just enough to see Njeri and Rowan waiting on the other side. Njeri steps closer and says, “Mara, I think I should apologize. We should apologize. We haven’t seen you in mess in a week, and we—”

 

I shake my head. “A week?” I look at the floor around me. Many dirty pairs of underwear. At least I remembered to change them. “Okay, Njeri. Bye.”

 

“Mara, we’re worrie—” She tries to speak but I had already pressed the shut button and the door cuts her off. I turn back to my makeshift lab when I hear pneumatics whine. Njeri has her hand in the door. She uses her body weight to push it open again and before I can reach her she’s stepping into my little room. She stands there like a big stupid child, hands by her sides and jaw slack. Her eyes widen as she sees the obviously covered scope, and looks back at me.

 

“What are you doing…” She says with furrowed brows.

 

Fuck no. “Get out, get OUT!” I say as I shove her hard out the door. She stumbles over a pile of my clothes and Rowan reaches to catch her. Even at low G, he’s so scrawny that he folds under her weight and the two hit the corridor wall with a thud. The last thing they see before the door slides shut is my middle finger.

 

There’s not one doubt they’re gonna want to tell Command about this. But when a formal investigation begins, do they really think they’ll be able to keep secret the fact that they’re fucking? Don’t think so. That gives me time.

 

I need a plan. But what I want is to see the Minis. I rush to the scope and uncover them. They’re waiting for me.

 

Mara, they do not wish us well.

 

“You can tell? I’m sorry, I should have stopped her, I—”

 

You are strong, Mara, and you have found us.

 

“Yes, yes, it’s me, I did.”

 

You deserve recognition, and praise, Mara.

 

“Yes!”

 

Not. Them.

 

I sit back, look away from the display. It’s so clear now. Meeting me at my door? Feigning concern? Who the fuck do they think I am, a child? They’re scared! They knew my research was the most promising, they were scared I would find life first. And now I have.

 

But now they know I’ve found something.

 

Clever girl.

 

“I promise you, Minimaras, they will not find you. They will not harm you. We’ll go back to Earth together. With them, or without.”

 

-----

 

“What if you die?”

 

The Sun has set. The sterile lights in the examination room glow from above, hollowing Mara’s eyes and casting them in a cool tint. Lei sits with his ankles crossed, patient.

 

“When I die, I hope it’s with dignity.”

 

He makes a note on the tablet.

 

“Aren’t you scared? This type of journey has never been attempted before. So many things could go wrong. You could be hurt. Physically,” He looks up. “Mentally.”

 

Mara keeps her eyes on his. A slow scowl creeps over her face.

 

“I need you to be on my side. I deserve this.”

 

Another note.

 

“Mara,”

 

“I NEED this!”

 

Lei stands. “Mara. Thank you. This examination is complete.” He docks the tablet and escorts her out the door. It shuts, and she’s left alone, a small, dark figure in the bright empty hallway.

 

The black hole finally rips open and its gravity sucks her in. She puts a hand over her mouth and braces against the wall but it’s too strong and her knees buckle as she slides to the floor. Her cries escape from her fingers and she brings her knees to her chest, rocking slightly as her tears darken her crumpled uniform. She holds her breath. Buries her face.

 

When she can no longer take it, she exhales shakily through wet pursed lips. And the solution becomes clear.

 

She looks up. There’s determination in her bloodshot eyes. She jogs to the closest washroom, picking up speed until she’s sprinting into the facility. She locks the door behind her, looks in the mirror. At least she won’t have to fake the tears.

 

She pulls out her communicator. Dials.

 

Mara sniffles. “Commander?” A sob. “Yes, I just - oh Commander, I need help!”

 

Her eyes twinkle.

 

“Commander… he kissed me…”

 

She stifles a giggle. Regains composure.

 

“Oh yes, Commander. Who in their right mind would do something like this?”

 

-----

 

The alarm beeps softly. I sit up and swipe the beam: 2:33am. The Persey is silent. I get out of the cot and stand over my desk’s lab setup. Wink at the Minimaras.

 

Good luck.

 

I pick up the broken pipette. Tie my hair in a knot above my head.

 

So pretty, Mara, how are you so pretty and so smart?

 

I manually slide open my door and step into the corridor. My socked feet pad along the floor to Njeri’s quarters. Invisible, of course, without a live camera feed. Too bad that happened to cut out. I insert the emergency master key into the door’s slot to override the pneumatics. I slip through the opening before it hssses closed again.

 

She’s asleep on her cot, drooling on her pillow. I watch her for a while. She’ll never know. I get bored and walk into her washroom, keep the lights off, crouch by the door.

 

“Come on back, Jer!” I whisper, hoping she won’t hear the smile in my voice.

 

I get a sleepy “Huh?” in response.

 

Njeri stumbles into the washroom, rubbing her eyes and squinting around in the semi-darkness. I clasp my hand over her mouth before she can scream. I wrestle her into the shower stall.

 

I get behind her and slip the broken pipette out of my sleeve. I drive it under her ribs to the right of her spine, pointed up to make sure it gets good and deep in her kidney.

 

I pull it out and put it in the side of her neck so I won’t need to use my hand to keep her quiet. She’s getting limp now. Pretty slippery. I pile her on the floor of the shower so she drains neatly. She just stares and paws at her throat.

 

Gross. I shut the shower door. She slams her face against the plexi, face smooshed and wet and so red. She goes still.

 

It’s time. I scream a very good scream.

 

Within seconds Rowan is bounding into the washroom. His eyes pass over me and land on Njeri.

 

“WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK WHATTHEFUuu--”

 

I jump around his neck. Together we launch up and hit the ceiling of the washroom in a tangle of limbs. He writhes. Grapples, desperate. But it’s not easy on such a little moon. I tighten my grip as we reach the floor again, his face almost as red as his hair. Finally his bulging eyes close, and I release him. He’s all blue now.

 

I take Rowan by the hair, drag him to the airlock. Shove him into his atmosuit.

 

I take Njeri’s atmosuit back to her so she doesn’t drip all down the corridor.

 

I slip mine on. Join them in the airlock. Wait for pressure stabilization. At the green light, I take them on a Europan stroll.

 

The cold is intense. The wind is strong. The weight of the crew barely keeps my feet on the ground. I’m panting as I make it to the crevasse. Is my oxygen tank functioning? I peer over the edge. I can’t see the bottom. I can’t catch my breath. I look at the crew beside me, facedown on the ice— why can’t I breathe?

 

I look over my shoulder at the Persey. Through my plexi porthole.

 

Come back soon, our Mara.

 

I turn back. Bend down, grab each of them. I take a deep breath. They disappear into the darkness not long after I toss them in.

 

I sigh with a smile as I return to my friends.

 

-----

 

—BREAKING NEWS—

 

TSEA MISSION CONFIRMS ALIEN LIFE

 

Hero astrobiologist survives after tragic accident on moon’s surface kills crewmemb…