Looking down, Peterson caught a glimpse of his bandaged hand. Crimson foam was seeping through, spilling out onto the floor, mixing with his vomit. Without the control of his muscles, Peterson's body slipped over onto its back. He lay, gazing up at the bright lights of the ceiling, weeping.

"Damn this moon to hell," he said through gritted teeth.

"Hell is a human concept. You are human."

Peterson held his breath. Was there someone in the room or was he hearing things?

"Harris? If that's you, I need help! Harris?"

"Not Harris."

"Willard."

"No."

Peterson's eyes darted back and forth, but all he could see was ceiling. "Where are you?"

"I am everywhere."

"That's not possible."

"Through me, all things are possible."

With that, Peterson felt his will slip away. He watched through his eyes, but was unable to look. He was fully aware, taking in information through all his senses, but it was all he had left. The rest of him was floating inside his mind, like a detached soul, clinging to the body of a dead man.

It was then that Peterson saw his hands rise into the air. His fingers flexed several times. Something had control of his body! An arctic fear froze Peterson's thoughts. He was losing his mind—hallucinating—trapped forever within a useless shell of a body that no longer responded to his commands.

Still…was he speaking with his own deformed psyche? Or was the voice in his mind something more? He decided to ask.

Who are you? Peterson thought.

"Michael…I am God."

CHAPTER 15 -- INTELLIGENCE

The flight down to Europa's surface had been smooth, touching down on the frozen surface only ten minutes after leaving the Surveyor. While Lander One wasn't an elevator, the view from the window reminded him that if anything mechanical went wrong, Lander One would plummet to the moon's surface. Europa's gravitational pull wasn't nearly as strong as Earth's, but in a descent from orbit, the impact would be enough to transform the ship into a heap of metal, wires and human body parts.

Robert shook his head and focused on the task at hand. Tightening his grip on the support bar, Robert helped Connelly pull the TES sphere to the side of the watery hole, which had already frozen over. The sphere dangled only inches above the platform, held aloft by the three TES cranes. After pulling the sphere up, the cranes had moved it towards its locking position atop one of the TES panels. The final lockdown could have been done automatically, but Connelly insisted on guiding the sphere onto the base by hand. Luckily, the task wasn't as difficult as it sounded. Europa's low gravity made the monster-truck-wheel-sized orb much lighter than it had been on Earth.