2312

by Kim Stanley Robinson

Possibly the proposed ice palaces would be perfectly fine, with the life below completely sequestered by the ten kilometers of glaciosphere that lay between the moon’s surface and its ocean. On the other hand, life being life, spermatozoically wriggling into every place it could reach, contamination might almost certainly be assumed to follow any occupation of the moon. And yet, given that these creatures appeared to be cousins of theirs anyway, long separated by meteor voyage—and now already recontaminated by a visit—would living above them and continuing to be a minor contaminant clearly be such a bad thing? When there were already people out there swallowing the alien microscopic life, and shooting it into their veins? And when life had been bouncing around the solar system and interacting with its cousins all along? These were open questions, interesting and vivid to the Europans and the other Jovians, less so to the rest of the system.