2061 Odyssey Three

chapter 9 Mount Zeus
The survey satellite Europa VI had been in orbit for almost fifteen years, and had far exceeded its design life; whether it should be replaced was a subject of considerable debate in the small Ganymede scientific establishment.

It carried the usual collection of data-gathering instruments, as well as a now virtually useless imaging system. Though still in perfect working order, all that this normally showed of Europa was an unbroken cloudscape. The overworked science team on Ganymede scanned the recordings in 'Quick Look' mode once a week, then squirted the raw data back to Earth. On the whole, they would be rather relieved when Europa VI expired and its torrent of uninteresting gigabytes finally dried up.

Now, for the first time in years, it had produced something exciting.

'Orbit 71934,' said the Deputy Chief Astronomer, who had called van der Berg as soon as the latest data-dump had been evaluated. 'Coming in from the nightside - heading straight for Mount Zeus. You won't see anything for another ten seconds, though.'

The screen was completely black, yet van der Berg could imagine the frozen landscape rolling past beneath its blanket of clouds a thousand kilometres below. In a few hours the distant Sun would be shining there, for Europa revolved on its axis once in every seven Earth-days. 'Nightside' should really be called 'Twilight-side', for half the time it had ample light - but no heat. Yet the inaccurate name had stuck, because it had emotional validity: Europa knew Sunrise, but never Lucifer-rise.

And the Sunrise was coming now, speeded up a thousandfold by the racing probe. A faintly luminous band bisected the screen, as the horizon emerged from darkness.

The explosion of light was so sudden that van der Berg could almost imagine he was looking into the glare of an atomic bomb. In a fraction of a second, it ran through all the colours of the rainbow, then became pure white as the Sun leapt above the mountain - then vanished as the automatic filters cut into the circuit.

'That's all; pity there was no operator on duty at the time - he could have panned the camera down and had a good view of the mountain as we went over. But I knew you'd like to see it - even though it disproves your theory.'

'How?' said van der Berg, more puzzled than annoyed.

'When you go through it in slow motion, you'll see what I mean. Those beautiful rainbow effects - they're not atmospheric - they're caused by the mountain itself. Only ice could do that. Or glass - which doesn't seem very likely.'

'Not impossible - volcanoes can produce natural glass - but it's usually black... of course!'

'Yes?'

'Er - I won't commit myself until I've been through the data. But my guess would be rock crystal - transparent quartz. You can make beautiful prisms and lenses out of it. Any chance of some more observations?'

'I'm afraid not - that was pure luck - Sun, mountain, camera all lined up at the right time. It won't happen again in a thousand years.'

'Thanks, anyway - can you send me over a copy? No hurry - I'm just leaving on a field trip to Perrine, and won't be able to look at it until I get back.'

Van der Berg gave a short, rather apologetic laugh.

'You know, if that really is rock crystal, it would be worth a fortune. Might even help solve our balance of payments problem...'

But that, of course, was utter fantasy. Whatever wonders - or treasures - Europa might conceal, the human race had been forbidden access to them, by that last message from Discovery. Fifty years later, there was no sign that the interdiction would ever be lifted.