In the Dark of Noon

"In the Dark of Noon" is included as prelude No. 9 in *The Juno Contingency (novel).*

## Teaser

A scientific expedition to Io encounters unexplained phenomena during the daily two-hour eclipses.

## Plot

### 1. Vacuum Humor

A scientific expedition lands on Jupiter's moon Io to investigate the "vacuum thorns" discovered on its surface, vine-like lifeforms that are the only advanced extraterrestrial life in the solar system. During daytime on Io's 42-hour orbit of Jupiter, the vacuum thorns are observed to grow and photosynthesize. This continues to a lesser degree at "night" when the surface faces away from the sun, as even then Io is illuminated by the bright face of Jupiter. The only true darkness comes when Io passes through Jupiter's shadow at noon and experiences a total eclipse lasting over 2 hours.

At a research meeting, neurobiologist Dr. Samantha Strickley presents new satellite data showing complex EM readings originating from a large knot of vacuum thorns near Io's equator. The readings show the greatest spikes occur during the daily eclipses. Samantha proposes to the Commander to equip a small mission to take closer readings from one of the largest thorn nests. The Commander okays the mission but assigns rival researcher, Dr. Kines, to head it.

After the meeting, Samantha confronts the Commander about sending Kines to study her find, accusing him of retaliating against her over the aborted relationship they had on the long space voyage out from Earth. The Commander counters that Kines has far more leadership experience than her, so it would really be showing her favoritism if he assigned her over Kines. The two escalate into a small row.

Over the next few days Samantha makes a show of diligently helping Kines to prepare the mission, including suggesting many research methods to employ and asking him to consult with her every day on their findings. On the morning of the mission, however, she surreptitiously poisons Kines's breakfast and he comes down with food poisoning. The Commander suspects Samantha's interference, but because of her familiarity with the mission he has little choice but to substitute her onto it, and the team departs.

### 2. Into the Dark

Samantha's four-person team heads out in a small rocket jumper towards Io's equator. The rest of the crew is apathetic about Kines's replacement, though Specialist "Ski" Wierzbowski secretly thanks Samantha for bumping Kines from the mission since he "hated the old zoomer."

Their jumper lands amidst a city-sized patch of vacuum thorns where the vines grow up to a meter thick, weaving in and out of the planet's dun-yellow dust. In this distance thorns culminate in towers a few stories high that bristle with meter-long razor spikes. In the daytime the crew explores the thorns and Samantha finds a good spot 500 meters away from their landing spot to set up the monitoring equipment.

The crew staffs the equipment as the first eclipse nears. Once the Sun goes behind Jupiter, the temperature drops rapidly and the EM readings start climbing. After a half hour the crew starts seeing strange lights in the sky, which eventually manifest into a constant meteor shower. Samantha radios back to home base, which assures her there is no space weather or meteor showers expected. They check their rocket jumper's cameras, however, which confirm the meteor shower.

The meteors grow dramatically bright until the crew is stunned by one that flies right overhead and crashes mere kilometers away, causing an earthquake. Samantha orders the crew to take shelter in the rocket jumper and they run back in near panic. On the way Specialist Rouge loses his balance and falls down a ravine formed by shifts in the vacuum thorns. The fall in Io's weak gravity is not dangerous, but at the bottom his leg is impaled on a large thorn. Samantha repels down and renders first aid while the rest of the crew makes it back to the jumper. Eventually sunlight streams down on them as the eclipse ends, and the meteor shower quickly dissipates.Samantha reports their status back to the Commander, who instructs them to collect Rouge and head back. In case they need support, he has recalled another rocket jumper back to base to be refueled so that it can join them in 48 hours, after the next eclipse.

### 3. What Lives Beneath

The rest of the crew returns from the rocket jumper with climbing equipment and medical gear. Medic Trang triages Rouge and decides they need to remove the thorn before extracting him, which requires surgery. They rig a small pressurized tent around him so that they can extract the thorn and patch up his spacesuit under normal atmospheric pressure.

Samantha and the crew investigate the meteor shower, which the rocket jumper's cameras now show never happened. They wonder how they could have all hallucinated the same thing, including what was on the cameras last night. Samantha reviews the EM data their sensors captured, which shows far more complexity than she was expecting from their orbital scans.

Rouge's surgery takes most of the time till the next eclipse, so the crew decides to hunker down in the ravine during the eclipse in case another meteor shower occurs. As the eclipse falls, no meteors appear for well past a half-hour. The crew initially relaxes, but then is horrified to discover white, eyeless, cat-sized insects starting to slither out of the vines deep in the ravine. Ski kicks one of the insects away, and it explodes in a hail of pus that boils off in the vacuum.

The surrounding vines dehisce with hundreds of other insects, many larger with pincers and reaching limbs. The crew fights them off with their digging tools and scalpels, but they swarm over Rouge and Trang, who scream horrifically as the insects devour them. Samantha and Ski retreat down a ravine and ignite a navigation flare, and the insects are unexpectedly cowed by the brilliant sapphire light. This holds them at bay until the eclipse ends, whereupon the insects burrow back into the vines.

The survivors find Rouge and Trang, who are dead, though their spacesuits look like they were punctured by their own knives and tools, and there is no trace of the bugs. Samantha cuts deep into the vines but all she finds is fibrous meat, with nothing buried inside. They climb out of the ravine back to the rocket jumper.

### 4. Lucid Breathing

They report back to home base about their casualties, and the Commander instructs them to evacuate immediately. When they get back to their rocket jumper, however, they find the vines have grown over their ship's landing gear, preventing takeoff. Samantha fears they're hallucinating this, however, so she orders them to board the ship and tries to take off anyway. The vines prove to be real when their takeoff is arrested.

Hours later the Commander radios from the other rocket jumper saying he is inbound. Samantha and the others go outside to greet them, relieved that rescue is at hand. When the Commander's jumper touches down, however, a burst of vacuum thorns wells up and consumes the jumper. The inhabitants inside scream and their life readings all individually cut out as the ship is crushed.

Samantha is in shock after the Commander's death. Ski communicates with base, but the deputy commander says they can't risk another rescue unless their party gets clear of the vacuum thorns. They suggest heading fifty kilometers northeast in order to be safely clear. Ski ejects the jumper's rover and loads up the last of their supplies. He and Samantha board the rover and drive away.

Samantha is roused from shock when she realizes that they won't make it to the evacuation point before another eclipse descends. She dives into the data she's captured to try to figure out what is causing their hallucinations and the strange occurrences. In the thorns' EM readings she sees some basic similarities to coma brain waves, but she has no good theories. They drive the rover nervously as Jupiter looms overhead, gradually starting to block out the sun. They resolve to watch each other closely and keep driving no matter what.

The eclipse sets in and the terrain goes pitch black. Nothing happens for the first half-hour, and they nervously imagine they may be safe. Then they start to see bluish light all around the horizon. Eventually planet-sized apparitions arise floating in the space between Io and Jupiter. The ground swells with electromagnetic currents and reaching shapes that meld and morph in and out of the terrain. The two are unable to speak and remain captivated by the wondrous apparitions.

Once the eclipse ends, they gradually revive from their lucid hallucinations. They find that, instead of keeping on driving to their objective, they've been driving in a circle during the eclipse. Once they resume driving to their rally point, they find a wall of vacuum thorns has grown to bar their way, and an encircling wall lies in the distance enclosing them in a ring. Samantha calls to base, and the deputy commander says they can't risk another rescue when they're surrounded by hostile vine activity, yet their air won't last past the next eclipse.

*Read the conclusion "5. Communion" on Amazon.*