Chapter 9

We all gathered in the command centre and watched the error messages displaying on the main holo screen.

“It’s stuck”, Amin said, adding the images from the probe to the secondary screen. “All systems are operational, but the computer aborts the launch every time I try to bring her home.”

“Could it be a computer error?”, Eva asked, looking at the screen.

“I don’t think so”, Raul replied, bringing the probe’s diagnostics up on the screen. “And even if that’s the case, we cannot fix it from here. I tried”, he sighed.

“So…someone needs to go down there and fix it”.

Nhi’s eyes shone with excitement. Amin nodded and looked at me.

“You've never been there before, Rea? Want to come?”

I thought about it for a few moments, letting my systems analyse all the options before I spoke.

“Nhi should go.”

I estimated that a trip to Pluto’s surface would break the monotony and help reduce her boredom and restlessness. She smiled and shook her head.

“C’mon, Rea, it is your chance to see it.”

She took the pen from Sven’s hand and poked me.

“Go, go”

Sven nodded with a smile.

“Have some fun.”

“But..” I looked at him, remembering that I had promised to help him with the oven today, but he just shook his head.

“It will be fine, we have time…”

So, Amin and I started to prepare, creating a mission plan that would ensure the safe retrieval of the probe. We decided that Amin would be the pilot, so I could get a chance to get outside and see the snow-covered surface of Pluto with my own eyes.

It was the first time we had landed one of our probes on the frozen lake, hoping to find liquid nitrogen under the ice. But neither the GPR nor the acoustic sensors had delivered any conclusive results. Maybe the ice was too thick for the instruments to penetrate it, or there was no liquid nitrogen in the lake in this part of Pluto’s orbital cycle.

Raul suggested that the probe had frozen to the ground, forcing the computer to abort the launch. There was a 74% chance that he was correct. Ice composition varied from place to place, so there was a possibility that our probe had landed on an area less dense than we had expected, and its landing gear had sunk too deep into the snow and frozen, trapping it on the surface.

I sighed. In any case, his suggestion was the most likely cause, regardless of how it had happened. Eva reported that the shuttle was ready, and we headed to the airlock.

Sitting in the shuttle’s control with Amin and watching the black void of space through its window brought memories of the old Persian poems he used to sing with his oud. But this time we were wearing heavy and cumbersome suits that would protect us from Pluto’s harsh conditions that we would find on the surface.

“Are we ready?” he asked as I completed the preflight checklist.

“Yes”, I nodded.

“Mission control, this is Ceres DB49, ready for departure,” I could hear Amin’s voice reverberating in my headphones.

“Have fun”, Nhi’s voice echoed in the cabin.

“Ceres DB49”, responded Amin, chuckling at Nhi’s unconventional clearance, and I released the lock that connected us to the station, letting the shuttle take us to the ice-covered world that lay beneath.

We flew through the thin atmosphere, not experiencing too much turbulence. I admired the blue haze that surrounded the shuttle and the white and red world that opened up below, replacing the void of space that until now had filled the window.

“It is beautiful”, I whispered, and Amin nodded without taking his eyes from the flight instruments.

“Mission control, this is Ceres DB49, on final approach”

“Clear to land”, Nhi chuckled through the radio.

I couldn’t understand why Amin followed the radio protocol so strictly. There was no one here except us. My systems delivered an answer almost as fast as I raised the question: it was due to his prior military training.

Our landing gear touched the icy surface of the lake, and Amin turned off the engines. We sat in silence for a few moments, admiring the eerie quiet of the alien world, before we went through the mission plan once again.

I really liked working with Amin. His almost instinctive need to follow all the procedures, no matter how small and unimportant they seemed, resembled 68% of my own way of working. So even if the reason for us being this way was very different, we valued each other's attention to detail and the need to do things exactly as they were supposed to be done.

I walked to the airlock and checked my suit for the last time before opening the outer door and stepping into the ice.