Titan gives up her secrets

The first few days on Titan had been quite difficult for the Heimdall team. The initial impressions of beauty and strange alien landscapes had been replaced with feelings of stress and to a certain degree, depression. Nascha and Tori especially found the dark cloudy days quite eerie and during the frequent excursions around the little island, more than a little treacherous. Titans atmosphere was rich in hydrocarbons and the sea around the island was largely composed of ethane and liquid methane. The slick colourless fluid behaved differently to water, being slightly thinner and the reduced gravity made it especially tricky underfoot on the loose shale beaches. Every now and then an especially dark cloud would skid by, unleashing a downpour of waxy flakes or sleeting rain. The rain was a particular problem as it penetrated deep into the shuttles engine systems and was a major hazard during lift off. However it wasn't all doom and gloom as Titans ecosystem was incredibly complex and threw up new discoveries daily. By the middle of the second day, Inga Skarvald was ready to explore the seas around the island and had gone over the ROV several times with Tom. The ROV was a small remotely piloted submarine vehicle, that would be used to explore the seas of Kraken Mare more closely, able to reach into the crevasses and caves beneath the shining waves. Now Tom was at the edge of the icy beach and had placed the ROV in the shallows as he made a final test of the systems. Back on the mobile laboratory, Inga sat at the sensor bay controls, manipulating the on board cameras. "ready?" called Tom over the com. "let her go, in three." replied Inga. "1, 2,3 go!" and the little craft edged off the ledge with a spurt of jets, disappearing into the dark sea. Tom trudged back to the Molab and was soon seated next to Inga at the controls. "she's performing well so far - take over." Inga moved across to the second seat and allowed Tom to take the remote controls for manoeuvring the ROV, while she switched on the onboard floods and sensor array. The screen lit up with an eerie yellowish green light, particles drifted past the camera in the 'head' of the ROV and the lidar and sonar on board, pinged back its position. For several hours, Tom piloted the ROV at Ingas' direction, following a shallow slope, deeper into the mare. For the most part, the view was unremarkable, particulate matter and floes of ice drifted by, but little else. As the ROV got deeper, the sonar note changed and indicated a large impact crater, deep below the sea, directly ahead. "this could be interesting.." mused Inga and directed Tom to follow the lip of the crater down into the basin. The colour of the ice and rock had begun to change, the dirty ice that they had seen earlier, was now streaked with colour, bright yellows and reds and metallic coppers. As the ROV neared the bottom, Inga suddenly told Tom to wait. "there - just at the edge of the light, go left a few degrees.." she breathed. Tom gently turned the ROV and Inga panned the camera around. A solid object bobbed in the current from the ROVs jetwash, larger than the drifting ice crystals and much different in colour. "look at that..." she cried and pulled in the focus to reveal the object on the screen. Floating in the dark fluid ahead was a strange, hexagon shaped lozenge of translucent material, darker than the surrounding ice, greenish gold in colour with a network of fine tendrils extending from its outer edges.

As the ROV moved closer, a central dark spot or nucleus could be seen and the veined, corrugated body of the lozenge showed that it was indeed organic. "looks like we found the natives!" said Tom, smiling broadly. "see if you can bring it in" said Inga, barely able to control her excitement. A sample arm extended from the ROV, with a transparent vessel on the end, designed to collect material from the sea. The edge of the container came close to the object, but as it neared one of the outstretched tendrils, there was a sharp 'click' over the intercom and a brief flurry on screen. The object had disappeared and the lights on the ROV abruptly faded. "what? ive lost power to the ROV!" exclaimed Tom as he frantically flipped switches and wrestled with the waldo controls for the vehicle. Then, as quickly as they had gone, the lights and power came back to the ROV and the picture onscreen, bobbed as the motors cut in and it righted itself. "wow..." breathed Inga. "its got an electrical defense mechanism!" Panning around again with the camera showed empty expanses of coloured ice. The Titanese creature had disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. Inga slumped in her chair with a mixture of disbelief and wonder. Mans first encounter with extraterrestial life had been brief, but very memorable!