Soul Solution

Warn them off."

Maria bit her lip and linked with Piers. He sent all the information they had on the contagion. "It’s done," she said, weakly.

"Good. Now look. I’m in pain. You will be soon. Horrifying pain. Slow, drawn out...."

Maria conversed with Piers in the link, and while Anya pleaded for her attention, they’d decided on what to do.

* * *

Cassini’s proximity beacon was moving farther away. They had changed course and were heading back with the news. Although they had been close enough for Piers to download the programs he would need. Some of the medical equipment could be modified, and Anya’s geo-tools might just suffice.

There were procedures to follow and Titan would be quarantined, fenced-in, left untouched. The price of failure at Mars, for the death of a fragile ecosystem, would be that any plausible candidates for life would have immediate protection until such life could be studied under controlled conditions without risk to either side.

Anya Pushkin had completely succumbed less than an hour later. In her last moments, she had spent most of her time vomiting her decaying insides out, and babbling. Finally she had been reduced to a semi-catatonic state, curled up in the fetal position, shaking violently.

Maria, unable to watch her suffer any longer, managed to drag her out of the habitat. Cradling her head in her arms, she cried.

Shit! Shit! Okay. Okay. Ready? Do it!

Choking back her fear for only a moment, Anya’s helmet latches undone, she twisted the bubble off and let Anya drop to the ice. There came a gagging sound, muffled and distant through her helmet: the sound of Anya Pushkin dying. Maria turned her back, the acid of her own bile rising in her throat. She wished her helmet were soundproof.

Maria dropped to her knees, hugging her stomach and rocking herself back and forth. This has to work. God, please let it work!

There was no way of knowing what the effects would be on her psyche should she go through the entire process while still alive. The procedure of nano-transference was done only after the patient had expired, and in the interest of preserving her memories and cognitive abilities as best they could, that was exactly what she had to do: expire, to die, if only for a brief moment.

The nanos would then spread out enmass, jolting the specified areas of brain tissue with electric surges to reanimate them just enough to remove and record what was needed. And after the nanos had collected and uplinked her memories from her still uninfected mind and into Piers’ spare organic casing, she would be alive.

And eventually they would come back. Not Cassini but some other ship. Eventually. And she would be waiting.

Am I like this tiny granule? she thought. Changing form, adapting, acquiring a new function....

An ocean of possibilities swam before her, licked at her mental heels with each new wave of thought and speculation. The fuzzies, the underground ocean, the hydrocarbons, the tholin pools of black death, of life, all teetered in her mind’s eye.

Maria Osbourne was still kneeling in the slush and ice. Dancing around her were the rolling clouds of hydrocarbons, moving sinuously, changing form. The patter of ethane rain sounded against her faceplate. Nearby, the med-bots waited....

She undid the first latch on her helmet. A red warning light came on.

This is it, she thought.