The stillness on Mahaha's surface does not abate as Liu and I speed over hills and through winding, blue-ice gulleys. Every time I've been out here before, the moon has felt like it's breathing. Its valley sides creak, and snow always sprinkles down from all the miniscule motions of its ice peaks. The landscape itself normally feels alive.
Today there is none of that. Nothing moves, even in my peripheral vision, and the purr of the snowmobile's hydrogen-electric engine is louder even than the utter absence of wind. The ice isn't even poised like I would expect if Mahaha were waiting to pounce on us the moment we made a wrong move. It's just... dead.
After getting so used to the living version, it's eerie.
We're about fifteen minutes in when I spot the first butterfly. I slow drastically as it hovers up over a ridge not ten meters ahead. Liu's hands tense, then ease when she spots it.
"Thoughts?" I say.
"It's acting like the first one Tobias and I saw..."
The butterfly backs away as we continue to cruise towards it. At five meters' distance, it flips its wings and dives for the snow. It shatters before it reaches cover. I keep our pace easy as we near the spot where it disappeared. We pass less than three meters from the ridge. Liu twists behind me, looking over her shoulder again and again as we move away.
It's only been another two minutes when her arms tighten around my chest. "On the left."
It's another butterfly. This one behaves even more skittishly than the first; it's gone again before we get half as close. Liu spots the third one, too, lurking under the curve of a tall snowbank. It shatters when she points to it.
"It just reassembled," she murmurs as we move onward. She's at the right angle to see it in the snowmobile's handlebar mirrors. "It's following us."
"How far behind?"
There's a pause. "Ten meters?" says Liu at last, sounding less than confident. Estimating distances is a skill we're going to have to work at. "It keeps hiding."
"So we're being watched."
Better than being stalked, unless Mahaha just has a very nervous stalking technique. The butterflies put me on heightened alert, but none of them are giving particularly alarming vibes.
"I don't think they want to hurt us," says Liu, confirming that intuition. "And I think they're getting more scared this time. Not less."
"You think it's the snowmobile?"
"Try speeding up."
I rev the motor, and the vehicle jumps forwards.
"It shattered," says Liu.
"See if it reassembles again."
It's another minute before she says, "It's back. It's a lot further back now, though. And still hiding."
For the briefest moment, I almost feel sorry for the moon. It likes Krüger, or at least wants him for something, and now we're coming to take him away again. I'm not sure yet whether a callous "Tough luck, buddy" or a more sympathetic approach is the right one, but it's a reminder not to dismiss either option.
The butterflies disappear as we close in on the mini-probe's signal. When the receiver begins its hundred-meter beeping, I pull up in an open valley. "I'm wondering if it's better to approach on foot."
"That might be a good idea." Liu reluctantly lets go of me and waits for me to jump down first. With the snowmobile's motor off, the silence is now louder than any sound we make.
I pull my pack off the back of the vehicle and heft it a couple times. I'm inclined to take our gear with us, if only to avoid leaving it unattended in case Mahaha decides to ambush it while we're away. I set the backpack aside, pull our crampons and ice axes from the snowmobile's small trunk, and toss Liu her set. We take turns sitting down to strap the lethally spiked soles to our boots. I stomp in a circle and kick the ice to test mine. Knowing the moon we're standing on is conscious makes it feel absurdly like kicking an oversized puppy. I hope the ice can't feel.
I'm acutely aware of the decrease in escape speed I'm shouldering as I finally sling my backpack on and fasten the waist strap. At least it's designed like a proper hiking pack; the weight is close enough to my body not to rob me of all my agility. Liu takes my cue and dons hers as well.
"Keep the whistle handy," I say, tapping the dual-purpose buckle on my chest strap. We've each got one around our necks, too. "Remember, one blow to call the other over, two if it's urgent, and three for an emergency."
She nods. She's visibly pale, despite the face-nipping wind of the drive. I clip one of my ice axes to my pack, but hook the other to my waist strap so I can pull it off quickly. I reach back and test that I can grab the defroster at a moment's notice, too. I want every tool or weapon we have here at my disposal.
When we're finally ready, I free the receiver from its mount on the snowmobile's handlebars and hand it to Liu. "Take us there."
She moves like the snow will give out at any moment. To be fair, she saw it give out on Krüger, so I suppose the concern is merited. I eventually take the lead and make her guide me, an arrangement that makes her ease up and focus better on the signal, rather than constant nervous checks for butterflies.
"I think I came through there," she says at last. She points up the side of the valley we're in, to a narrow but even-bottomed gully starting some ways up. "But I'm not sure we can climb up to it again... I slid down."
I smile and tap one foot against the ice. The crampons make a sound like sheathing knives. "You ever used these before?"
She shakes her head.
"Give it a try."
By the time we've reached the gully bottom, Liu has a new crampon crush. She stomps around in her newly spiked boots, makes little runs at the gully walls, and even chuckles when she jumps onto a patch of slick ice and doesn't slip at all. She immediately discovers that it's harder than it looks to pull herself free after driving in her boot-spikes with the full weight of her being. I offer her a hand as she goose-steps gingerly back to softer ground.
On the surface, it looks like she's fooling around, but I'm glad she's testing the unfamiliar gear. By the time we've reached the top of the gully, she's more confident in her motions, and has a sense of which surfaces will hold her and which ones won't. It's a long way from actual ice-climbing, but it's a critical start.
A small breeze brushes our faces when we emerge out the gully top. I immediately hold out a hand and stop Liu. She stumbles to a halt, confused.
"Do you notice anything?" I say. I'm looking, too, but I know a twenty-two-year-old's eyes will be sharper.
"Butterfly," she says a moment later.
It's up ahead. Beneath it is a snow pile unlike any on the surrounding landscape: three meters tall and just as wide, with none of the careful sculpting of glacial ice and blown snow that normally makes Mahaha so beautiful. It looks like the piles Yahvi and I would shovel together to make quinseys—snow caves—with trainees back on earth.
"I'll go first," I say, and get no objection at all.
We move towards the butterfly and the mini-probe signal like a pair of strange magpies edging up on a shiny thing we plan to steal. Liu is suddenly trying to make her crampon steps as quiet as mine, a useless endeavor given my weight advantage. At risk of looking threatening, I unhook my free ice axe and hold it lowered, but ready. My other hand itches to reach for the defroster.
The butterfly, like the others, starts to retreat as we near it. It flies in small, nervous loops, lower and lower. Finally, it too flinches away and shatters. The snow mound beneath it remains unmoved. Liu jumps like a nervous rabbit as the receiver in her hand shrills loudly. She silences it and gives me a wavering glance. I shake my head. I don't need to see where she dropped the probe to know where Mahaha pulled the ice out from under Krüger.
I take another step towards the mound, but stop as a warning pops up at the corner of my goggles. I retract the step again.
"Can you give him back?" I say to the snow ahead, though I doubt Mahaha has a means to hear me. What senses does a planetary consciousness have? I suddenly wish I knew.
I should have let Liu and Krüger study it.
The thought sweeps the cover off a whole wave of other what-ifs, an onslaught about as unhelpful in this moment as a plastic flamingo or an ice cube tray. I clench my ice axe and shift my weight from foot to foot, acknowledging each anxiety, possibility, and self-admonishment, and sending them back where they came from. The wave settles again. It's still there, simmering just under the surface, but I'll only let it out when I have time to deal with it properly.
There's still been no response from Mahaha. "I think we've got a few options," I say without removing my gaze from the miniature snow hill separating us from wherever this moon took Krüger. "One: we stand around here and try to find a way to talk to it. Two: we try to dig out that mound."
"That'll take a long time."
"Both of them would, yes."
"You said a few. What else can we do?"
I check the screen in my goggles. The warning pops up again as another light breeze blows towards us over the mound. Option three is risky, but less so than it seems at a glance. Part of me balks still. But if talking didn't work for Liu and Krüger and digging would suck precious energy—and time—it's at least worth running by our resident physicist.
I suck in a breath. "Option three: we throw an emergency flare at the methane leaking out from under that oversized excuse for a snowdrift."