Leaning against the ATV's seat, Choi let her muscles relax. The stress brought on by the bio-lab incident had been enough to knot her back into a minefield of tension. She had begun to think that her expertise in rare diseases would be of little use on the mission, but with Peterson's infection, if that's what it truly was, her skills had been called unexpectedly to the forefront of the mission. She believed the alien substance would have no effect—it wasn't designed for human physiology. But if it did, his life would depend solely on her ability to fix whatever ailments the Europhid sting caused.

What bothered her most was the knowledge that only she possessed—if Peterson's infection became deadly, she doubted there was anything she could do to save him. The time it would take to understand and study what the alien substance was doing to his body could only be completed post mortem. Her only consolation was that the infection seemed localized. Chances of the substance infecting another crew member were slim to none. Peterson might die, but the rest of them, barring another accident, would survive.

Choi sighed and looked up at Jupiter, watching the pink lightning flash. Every streak lit up a portion of Jupiter's surface, each the size of Europa itself, maybe bigger. She marveled at the raw power of the planet. If she had been any more entranced by the sight, she may not have noticed the flicker of motion at the edge of the Europhid field.

Whipping around toward the field, Choi's headlamp illuminated the area with a sudden brilliance that the Europhids seemed to lean away from. But other than that, nothing appeared to be moving.

Maybe they react to the lightning on Jupiter? Choi thought.

To test her theory, Choi extinguished her headlamp. The surrounding area plunged into darkness.  After a minute, her eyes began to adjust. The bright stars to her right and left seemed more brilliant and more numerous than ever. But the most astonishing sight was the flashes of light within Jupiter's clouds.

She gazed up through the darkness of space and saw more and more flashes of light. They were dimmer than the others, which she assumed was why she couldn't see them with her headlamp on—like looking at the stars in the city. Her bright light overpowered the distant dim light.

But the brighter flashes, the planet sized ones, were so brilliant that Choi felt herself occasionally squint from the light. She then noticed that the light from the brighter flashes of light, the pink, yellow and blue, all reached the surface of Europa. With each flash the ice and Europhid field were briefly and faintly illuminated.