Jim Fairchild

Europa Awakens Jim Fairchild

The year is 2297. Arroyo Bronson works for the National Science Welfare Foundation, hauling cargo to Europa's research camps. He has just returned from R& R on Ganymede. The subsurface science station of McMurdo is descending into pandemonium. The Senate back on Earth is at a budget impasse, and a government shutdown is looming. Most of the scientists and workers on Jupiter's frozen moon will go into stasis if the shutdown happens. Although his memory is strangely faulty, Arroyo senses that things are awry on Europa. He discovers that he has been implicated in two fatal accidents. And powerful political forces are trying to cover up discoveries about the moon's two exospecies, the Deltas and the Tetras, and their genetic links to Homo Sapiens. As Arroyo uncovers the truth about Europa, he also regains memories from Earth. Earth's population has collapsed and is in a perpetual state of religion-stoked war. As Arroyo discovers the truth about Europa, he must also grapple with memories of loss and sorrow on Earth. In the end, the burden of protecting the truth about Europa falls upon Arroyo's reluctant shoulders, and he must make a final perilous journey across the frozen moon. The author spent seventeen seasons working in Antarctica. He traversed more than 7000 miles in a tractor across remote stretches of Earth's icy southern continent. He uses those experiences to extrapolate what living and working on a frozen Jovian moon might be like.