The God Experiment

Chapter No.23. Far Out!

Chapter No.23. Far Out!

James answered the phone and held it up. "Hey Dad, it's NASA."

Robert accepted it. "Hello." After several minutes of listening, Robert replied. "We'll be there."

Janet came into the living room. "What's up?"

"NASA has a job for us," Robert said.

"What sort of a job?"

"It has something to do with one of their rovers shutting down."

"Oh wow!" James blurted. "We're going to go to Mars!"

"I don't think it involves Mars," Robert said.

"Where else would they have a rover?" Janet asked.

Robert smiled. "Let's go check it out."

They appeared in the Mission room at JPL and were greeted by Jason, the administrator, Ralph, the astrophysicist, and a woman who appeared to be in her early fifties.

Jason gestured to the woman. "This is Marion Wells, Enceladus Project coordinator. She can fill you in on our problem."

Marion stared at the three. "How far can you teleport?"

"Actually, it's not like the Star Trek transporter. It appears that we exist everywhere, but are only visible in one location, which means we can instantaneously be anywhere we visualize."

She continued to stare at Robert for a moment before continuing. "Enceladus is a moon of Saturn. It's not very large and it's extremely cold, like -198 degrees Celsius at best. At its present location it's 1.5 billion kilometers from Earth."

"What exactly is the problem you want us to rectify?"

"We sent a rover there to explore the southern hemisphere where there are water jet eruptions. However, it has ceased sending data."

"So, you want us to go there and repair it?"

"We don't have any other method available to do it. Another mission is out of the question."

Robert turned to Ralph. "We'll need to see the engineering diagrams and a list of possible reasons for the failure. We can transport the candidate replacement parts with us."

Ralph motioned to Marion and she began making inquiries at a computer terminal to bring up diagrams and parts list for the rover. Robert turned to his wife and son. "Memorize all of this." He turned to Ralph. "We'll need those spacesuits again."

"I don't think they'll be adequate for Enceladus. It's extremely cold out there."

"Don't worry about us. We can handle it."

Ralph turned to Marion. "Get all of the possible parts and assembly tools here."

She hurried off.

"As you may or may not know, we sent that rover to Enceladus to determine if there is evidence of life originating there," Ralph said. "If there is life there, it would be a game changer."

"We'll keep that in mind," Robert replied.

After being suited up, Robert, Janet and James appeared on Enceladus near the failed rover.

"Oh my God!" Janet exclaimed looking out at space. "What a spectacular view of Saturn!"

"Yeah, Saturn certainly is amazing," Robert said.

James started walking toward where several large jets were shooting out of fissures.

"Hey, what the heck are these things crawling around?"