The Girl and the Moon Worm
Bored girl takes a walk on icy moon & finds surprising signs of life
Content warnings1
Ellen hasn't written in two weeks.
Two weeks of not knowing how the races are going, who is in the lead, who has had mechanical or AI mishaps, who might have crashed their ship already. Ellen, who lives on Mars, knows how crazy Ling is for the races and should have sent daily reports to her friend.
She hasn't sent anything--not even an apology for not sending anything!
On the morning of the fifteenth day, Ling storms into the kitchen as her dad is about to go to work. Her dad manages Titan's Huygens Station: little more than a glorified gas station offering fuel, resources and repair to spaceships on the way to more exciting places. As his daughter and only family, Ling has moved with her dad when he got offered the position two years ago. She knows he couldn't refuse the pay and benefits but she still wishes they moved somewhere else. It didn't have to be Mars, just anywhere but Titan.
"Bad news?" he asks as she slams her cup into the coffee machine.
Ling scoffs. "If only."
He nods, knowing how desperately she has been waiting for news. "Why don't you go outside for a bit, take your new umbrella for a walk? It might get your mind off things."
"I don't know," Ling says but by the time she has finished her coffee, she is sick and tired of obsessively refreshing her inbox. Suddenly a walk on the surface doesn't sound too bad.
In the changing rooms, she yanks her exploration suit out of the cupboard and puts it on. She fumbles with jittering fingers, trying to fasten all the clasps and zips. Reigning in her impatience, she checks the entire suit and the oxygen supply twice over. When she walks over to the airlock, the light suit hugs her like a second skin. The airlock sensors determine that Ling and the black umbrella in her hand are appropriately prepared for the surface of Titan. A green light blinks once and the elevator starts ascending.
"Huygens Station: Surface exit," the system informs her as the doors hiss open.
The first thing Ling notices is the cold. It seeps through her suit and numbs her skin within seconds. Then a strange smell filters through her mask, a mix of rotten eggs and methane. Finally, she looks up at the otherworldly landscape: The light on Titan's surface is orange and diffuse through a thick haze of smog. Gigantic dunes made of ice crystals stretch out as far as the eye can see. In the distance, icy mountains rise up, their peaks hidden in the clouds.
She takes a few steps forward, testing her footing on the unfamiliar ground. She feels like she's walking on a gravelly frozen sea. Every few steps, there are small ponds that jiggle like spongey marshmallows when she pokes them with the tip of her umbrella.
Then she sees it: a small, wriggling creature, half-buried in the muck. She bends down to take a closer look. It is a moon worm!
In her two years here, Ling has only visited the surface once or twice and only briefly. While she has heard that moon worms are common on Titan, she has never seen a living one up close. Carefully, she scoops it up in her gloved hand and carries it back to Huygens Station. Once inside, she sets the moon worm down in an empty fish tank and gives it some food pellets to eat. She names him Houdini after her favorite racing ship model.
The moon worm is about two feet long and a tan color with a single black stripe running down its body. It smells earthy but not in a bad way, more like a fresh-baked loaf of bread or a cup of coffee. It is not a bad smell, Ling thinks as she observes the moon worm in his tank.
On the next day, there is still no message from Ellen. After sending another row of question marks, Ling thinks she might as well take another walk. Houdini is crawling in circles around his fish tank when she feeds him so she decides to take him as well.
She puts the moon worm into the front pocket of her suit where he wriggles around in a bewildered sort of way. "Where should we go?" she asks. After all, he knows his home better than her. "What would you like to see first?"
He slithers to the left in her pocket, where the giant dunes loom in the distance.
"You want to see the big dunes, huh?"
They walk to the dunes together. When she looks around, she starts to understand why Houdini wanted to see them. The dunes go on forever! They're made of ice crystals that must have collected over thousands of years. They walk to the edge of a neighboring ridge and Ling looks out at the landscape: The hills stretch far into the hazy distance but they are colorless and hard, with not a single leaf or creature in sight. The bleak atmosphere intrigues Ling.
"Houdini, your instinct is amazing," she says, taking the worm out of its pocket so he can see it too. "Thank you."
Houdini seems to blush.
She resettles him in her pocket and adjusts her black umbrella. They venture on, two lone explorers on the frozen desert of Titan.
Like all deserts, however, Titan is only dead at first glance. Under rocks, Ling finds not only moon worms but also other critters, even insects. When she observes one of the jiggly pools, she notices growth like lichen or moss at its edges and when she squints, there is tiny squiggling and undulating in the pale cushions. Life, even here.
Ling wonders if she should cut her walk short and get Zain, one of the attendants and a former biologist, to explain the research suits to her. She is itching to look at this weird fauna and flora up close and take samples to bring back to the station. It is like nothing she has ever read or heard of.
A beep beep beep and flashing orange light in the upper right corner of her display dispels her musings: a new message.
Ling trudges back to the station, patting the pocket with Houdini reassuringly. They will be back soon.
Ling. In the video message, Ellen's brown eyes are wide but she is also beaming.
Ling, you won't believe this. Sorry for not writing sooner but it's been absolute chaos these past two weeks. I haven't even had time to breathe!
She runs a hand through her chestnut hair. As a Martian, residing on the decadent capital of interstellar racing, Ellen is always perfectly styled and poised. Today, however, her hair is disheveled and her face bare of make-up, as if she is asking for Ling's sympathy.
Okay, so… the races were delayed because of strikes. Mechanics were demanding better pay and accommodation. While they were negotiating, the strategists went on strike too, claiming they felt undervalued in their racing teams. Ellen sighs, then waves her hands. And then the strikes turned into demonstrations through Romulus Hangar. They even damaged some ships!
"What? Which ones?" Ling cries at the recording.
Having anticipated her question, Ellen rattles off a short list that thankfully includes none of Ling's favorites.
So the races were delayed by a week. The mechanics got a pay raise and the strategists were coaxed back to their screens. Everything was starting.
Ellen pauses.
That wasn't the end though! Halfway through the first morning of the race, the Velociraptor just blew up over the lake! They had to fish parts out of the water. I mean, can you imagine? Security has been the worst all year long and now this! It's outrageous. I don't know… it feels like waking up from a long dream. Like, Mars always felt like the safest, most advanced place in the solar system to me but is that even true? I wouldn't want to move out to your tiny moon but… at least nothing gets blown up there, y'know?
Ling stares at her friend. Is she being serious?
Ellen's laugh is shrill over the tinny speakers. Aaanyway, I thought you might appreciate the update. Communication's been tight. People have been whispering the T word. Can you believe? Scaaary times! She doesn't look scared, only excited. Alright, gotta go. Don't reply to this! I'll update again when I can. Stay safe.
These last words, and her fake serious tone, stay with Ling. She checks the net but there is no news, nothing unusual from Mars. She is caught between fear and disgust for her friend. Is Ellen even her friend?
"How do you know if people are being honest to you?" she asks her dad at dinner.
He cocks his head. "Did something happen? Is Ellen alright?" On a station as small as Huygens, the manager misses nothing. He would've seen the incoming interstellar message on the protocol.
"How do you know?"
He considers. "Most of the time, you can't know for sure. You just have to trust your gut and make a decision."
Ling gnaws at her lip. This is not the answer she was hoping for but her trust in her dad is as solid as the ice dunes of Titan. She vows to think about it.
In the meantime, she explores. Every day, she takes Houdini, puts him into her pocket, and wanders around the surface. Zain fits her suit with various alterations and plugins, among them a crude pocket microscope and some vacuum containers. Ling takes over an empty storage room in hydroponics, crams it full of discarded equipment and soon has a healthy specimen collection going, presided over by Houdini in his fish tank. She downloads books on chemistry, botany and zoology. She experiments with water, light, soil, different feeds and starts keeping a research journal.
She does not think about Ellen's message.
When another one arrives, Ling is so engrossed in her lab work that she doesn't notice it at all until she surfaces for dinner. It is a lengthy play-by-play of the races, interspersed with political commentary and names Ling doesn't know. That evening, she tries recording a reply but gives up when she cannot muster any enthusiasm for what is happening on Mars.
The next day, she ascends to the surface to inspect the hydrocarbon lakes and forgets all about replying.
Zain, the former biologist, often comes by her lab to watch or help with small tasks. One evening, Ling is updating her journal on her worktable when there is a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the room.
"Ling! Did you see this?"
When she looks over, the stylus slips from her fingers. One of the lichen she is growing in a terrarium has sprouted several tiny orange dots. Rushing to Zain's side, Ling realizes they are… "Flowers?"
He confirms and ruffles her hair. "Not bad, girl! You have a knack for this sort of work."
Ling's heart takes a leap into her throat. "Really?"
"You'd make a fine biologist."
She beams. Her lab and everything in it has grown inexplicably dear to her in just a few weeks. Every day, she is excited to learn more about what grows and lives on the surface. Titan has always been little more than a lonely gas station in the middle of nowhere--there is little documentation on its wildlife because nobody thought to look for wildlife in the ice before. Which is silly, Ling thinks. Even back on earth, there was life on the icy poles and in glaciers.
Her comm pings. Zain leaves the lab, waving, as she opens the message.
Ellen looks disgruntled. Ling, what's up with you? You've never left a reply this long, even accounting for the time it takes messages to travel to your terrible little outpost. Are you sick? Well, I bet a little racing news will cheer you up…
Ling pauses the message. She doesn't want any racing news, not anymore. The realization is sobering. Without noticing, she has grown distant from Ellen.
She hesitates before she starts a new recording. "Hey, Ellen, sorry for not replying. I've been busy. See, I recently went out to the surface and found this whole new world! This place is way more alive than anyone even knows…" She walks around her lab, showing off the blooming lichen and some other specimens she is especially proud of.
When she sends off the recording, it is barely ten minutes long, as opposed to Ellen's 24 minutes. Shrugging, Ling goes back to work and stays in the lab until dinnertime.
Ellen doesn't reply for several days. When she does, she claims to be excited for Ling but her message is short. Ling cannot help her sad undertone when she tells her father about it over breakfast.
He squeezes her hand. "Sometimes friends grow apart. That's just life. I'm sorry there are no people your age here on Huygens. Do you want to look for others interested in biology on the net? It might be fun to share your research."
Ling shrugs. "Maybe I will." In truth, this is the first time since their move that she is not glued to the screen waiting for news from elsewhere because there is nothing to do on boring old Titan. She loves Houdini the moon worm, her lab and Zain's occasional visits.
She thinks of the orange flowers and smiles.
Mentions of social unrest, explosions