Soul Solution

"Well, we can’t sit here."

"How far are we from the target?"

The habitat had been sent ahead, automated with droids to erect the structure and tend to it six months before. Cassini was to perform a flyby of the inner moons and dip into the upper layers of Saturn’s heavy cloudbanks. Because Titan had swung outward in her orbit in comparison to Cassini’s inward trajectory, she was too far away for immediate drop-off. In the interest of saving fuel, Cassini had dumped them by the outer moons and they had to fly their way in. After a fourteen-month tour, Cassini would pick them up on their way out.

Six kilometers, said Piers from his virtual beach, blonde hair wriggling in a sea breeze.

"About six kilometers."

"We’ve got to get to the habitat and start her up." Anya started to get up. "In forty-three hours we’ll need air. Now, let’s pop this top and get outta here."

* * *

Maria stood upon the surface of frozen Titan.

The ship lay flat upon the ice in a trench dug by the sliding and grinding of the hull upon impact. They had emerged from a top hatch and climbed down. The emergency lights were on and glowed an eerie red, and the light was quickly swallowed barely six meters out by the absorbing haze, providing little comfort. Above, the deep dung-colored clouds of nitrogen and hydrocarbon smog moved like a thick soup, with sudden surges curling across the sky. The temperature registered at 95 degrees Kelvin.

"Aw, shit!" Anya was exclaiming. "Would you look at that? I don’t think the insurance is gonna cover that!"

The ethane mist floating through the air had clouded her vision. Maria reached up and wiped her helmet faceplate with her gloved hand. A bio-chem researcher for twenty-four years, this was her last field excursion before accepting a lectureship at Cambridge.

This is an interesting way to end my career, she mused, glancing at the wrecked V-wing.

"The company should have chartered a military ship," said Anya, scornfully. "Something heavy and bulky."

"Yeah, well, they didn’t. And anyway, I thought you were supposed to be good!"

Anya looked up, eyes drawn sharp. "You need the right ship for the right conditions. Every good pilot knows that." She slid down from the top of the ship. "Damn it all!"

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she replied. "I just landed in something soft." Maria could hear her heaving as she walked out of it and around the nose of the ship. "Just some methane slush."

"Great. Care for a slushball fight?"

"Cute. Any news from Piers?"

Anya could never get comfortable with the link-up idea, and so left all the communication with the bio-bot to her. Many others felt the same way about interacting with the bots, the freakshows, as they were called. Maria thought it all rather macabre herself, but someone had to do it. Well on this mission, anyway.

Piers had once been an atmospheric scientist. A crash on Callisto sixty years lost left him dying. Rather than having his damaged areas regrown, he gave permission to expire and have his neural patterns downloaded into a bio-bot’s main core, which was organically grown and maintained by nanos. He had become one of the thousands of humans impressed into bio-machines, where specially designed nucleic acids and replicated RNA mimic the higher brain functions. With access to any desired upgrade, they were able to learn any trade or profession in a nano-second. Unhindered by flesh, they could perform tasks that Biologicals couldn’t perform, or at least not as efficiently.

Debates leaned toward the notion that bio-bots were merely reflections, images of true Biologicals once impressed in human flesh, now uploaded into organically grown brains.