Taking Her Out

Abstract

Feeble morning light cast a rusted pall across the mountains of Titan. The methane drizzle had stopped, but Titan’s weather conjured another form of precipitation. “Soot fog,” Abby said as Troy helped her hitch a boat trailer to a rover. “You say it like it’s something refreshing, like it’s not a greasy microscopic hail of black cinders.” “You’re a hopeless romantic,” Abby said. “It’s weird, but it’s natural, for here. You should be used to it by now.” “I still think it’s disgusting. I remember a C. S. Lewis book about Hell, and he described this greasy rain falling all over everything.” “Lovely. Can you stop being literary long enough to help me get your charming yacht onto our trailer?” The two picked up the inflatable raft easily in the low gravity. Climbing into the rover, they switched off their helmet lights. Abby flipped on the rover’s headlights, and they bounced across the alien landscape toward the dunes and the lakes beyond. “Ten minutes in the Zodiac ought to do it for today,” Troy said. “I’ll just calibrate my spectrometers and we’re good to go.” “Then switch to the sub?” “Yep. I’d like to really put her through her paces. Maybe an hour’s worth?”