Due to die of radiation poisoning before they reach Earth, the crew’s only hope seems to be to find another ship that can rescue them. Salvation appears in sight when the ship’s radar picks up a signal, but Thondup, maddened and hallucinatory, comes to believe that aliens from Titan have stowed away in the hold, and he threatens to crash the ship to prevent “the invaders” from reaching Earth and taking it over.
‘Gema! Gema!’
The voice roused her from her slumber.
‘What is it, Isanusi?’
‘I can see a ship on my radar.’
Gema stiffened.
‘Have you gotten in touch with them?’
‘There’s no reply. Perhaps it’s too far away; I’m trying to work out the distance.’
‘How do you know it’s a spaceship?’
‘It’s changed course twice, so it can’t be a comet…’ The intercom fell silent. ‘It’s too distant to hear us; it’s in the planetary plane.’
‘Can’t you steer towards it?’
‘No. It’s travelling away from the sun, in the opposite direction as Sviatagor. I would have to slow down, then accelerate again. I would lose its position during the maneuver and wouldn’t know where to head.’
‘Yes, I understand; it could change course again. Won’t its radar pick us up as well?’
‘Possibly… It could even be they’re looking for us. But they won’t be expecting to find us in this direction, Gema.’
‘What if we changed course two or three times… ?’
‘I’ll give it a try.’
A confused voice came from the other pod:
‘Gema, what has happened?’
She replied in an urgent whisper:
‘Isanusi has seen a spaceship. He’s trying to establish contact with them.’
‘Another ship? What’s it doing here?’
‘It’s probably looking for us, Thondup.’
The sudden thrust of the engines pushed Gema’s shoulder into the soft side of the pod. Thondup asked anxiously, ‘What’s that?’
‘Isanusi changed course; perhaps that will make them realize this is Sviatagor and not a comet.’
‘Why don’t we call them on the long-distance transmitter?’
‘Have you forgotten? The directional antenna is broken, Thondup. You yourself checked it…’
Another thrust, this time in the opposite direction, so that Gema’s shoulder lurched away from the pod wall.
‘I don’t understand… Can you please explain what another ship is doing in the neighborhood of Titan? Are they extraterrestrials?’
Gema stared at him.
‘Don’t you remember what I’ve already explained to you?’
‘No… The last thing I can recall is that we were appro…’ He broke off, waiting for the new thrust of the engines to finish: ‘…that we were approaching Titan, and I had gone to lie down so that I would be wide-awake when we entered into orbit around it. Why are you and I here?’
He tried to get up from the pod but gave up. ‘I feel very weak, Gema. What’s happened to us?’
Gema waved at him impatiently.
‘I’ll explain later.’ She spoke into the intercom: ‘Isanusi, have they shown any sign they have seen us?’
She waited a long minute for the reply. Sviatagor changed course a third time, and then the intercom spoke:
‘I don’t think so. They have changed course again, but not towards us. It’s likely their radars aren’t as powerful as ours…’ The intercom fell silent for a moment. Then it announced: ‘It’s gone out of range, Gema.’
She turned to face Thondup.
‘Alright… I can explain what happened to us now.’
Still staring up at the ceiling, Thondup asked, ‘And did they succeed in finding life on Titan?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a shame. I remember that Pavel and Kay were very excited by that possibility. The number of dead worlds keeps growing, Gema.’
‘We can’t say that for certain, Thondup.’
He looked at her with surprise.
‘Didn’t you yourself tell me we didn’t find life, Gema?’
‘Life as we understand it on earth, Thondup; life based on carbon.’
‘Is there another sort?’
‘There could be. It’s true it hasn’t been found yet, but the exobiologists refuse to rule it out.’
‘But if there had been another kind of life on Titan, we would have found it, Gema.’
‘It’s not as easy as it seems, Thondup; in fact, if we don’t know the specific characteristics of that life, it’s very difficult. We need to start from the thermo-dynamic principle of life: a living being is a system that lessens its entropy by absorbing energy from its surroundings… but that is a principle that’s too general to be of any use to us.’
‘But we spent six months there…’
‘It would take years rather than months and a much more varied team than we had if we wanted to be able to dismiss the existence of another kind of life on Titan, or to prove it does exist. I’m surprised you don’t remember anything about all this, Thondup: Kay always liked to talk about it.’
Thondup said nothing and did not try to renew their conversation. Gema looked at him closely out of the corner of her eye. “He’s thinking… What about? I’d really like to know.”
ARTISANRay 