Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary

  ***Dinosaurs…a diverse group of animals of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, 230 million years ago and were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for 135 million--***

  Winger had to laugh. “Okay, Doc…okay…I get it. You’re a walking encyclopedia. I was using a figure of speech.”

  The Doc III swarm face ‘frowned’ slightly, as it expressed some programmed module of confusion…or maybe it was disgust. A decent likeness, but Winger had seen better. Even Dana—

  “Doc, I feel like I’m riding my bike but I can’t control it. I feel like I’m hurtling down Highway 7 and I’m about to crash. You know the Corps has asked me to join another mission to Jupiter, actually to Europa. A mission to deal with the Keeper again.”

  Doc III considered that. Just like old Doc Frost, when it was thinking, its eyes narrowed, as if to shut out anything extraneous to thought. ***I have already downloaded your personal comms. The details of the Europa Forge mission are known to me. I detect concern about this mission, concern evident in ocular saccades in your eyes, pitch variations and other acoustic anomalies in your voice. Can you explain this?***

  That question made Winger think. He lay down on the sofa, fluffing a pillow behind his hand, Scotch on his chest. “Doc, I can’t even explain it to myself. Take Liam for instance. He thinks he wants to be an angel, join the Assimilationists, be taken up into the mother swarm. That’s insane. It makes me sad…and mad. He’s throwing away a perfectly good life.”