On Enceladus

A microfiction inspired by a photograph I once took

We'd known since the days of the old Cassini mission that Enceladus had many of the right ingredients for life: water, complex hydrocarbons, the lot. But we also knew that any world this far from the sun would not harbor life as we knew it — perhaps rudimentary single-celled (albeit undeniably alien) organisms, no more.

So it came as quite a surprise when our drill bit punched through a wall into a hollow underground cavern, and the camera mounted on the tip saw what it saw: a creature — there was no other word for it — its forepaws raised in supplication, and audibly pleading, over and over: “Cooook-ie… Cooook-ie…!”