Chen was in his quarters waiting for a line of site to one of the Jovian relay stations. As soon as it was possible, he sent out a compressed data stream of their findings so far. He'd barely finished typing commands when there was a light knock on his cabin wall. He gave a command to the door to form a porthole and looked out at Muogo.
“Yes Mister Ningape?” His face was always composed and spoke of the comparative strictness of Chinese culture.
Captain Chen. Permission to put together the IEV and take a look in one of the holes.” His face looked hopeful and the captain didn't disappoint.
“Permission granted. See if Yolanda has time to help you, and if not then I'll give you a hand.”
“Very well.” His face disappeared from the window almost before he finished speaking.
It only took another five minutes before there was another knock on the wall. He opened a porthole to again see Muogo's face looking in.
“Captain, Yolanda is busy mapping nearby asteroids with the ships telescope and doesn't want to be disturbed for another three hours. She's worried about the possibility of something big flying our way. Would you be available before that time?”
“It would be my pleasure, to use an English term. Give me 10 minutes to finish the ship's diagnostic and I'll be right with you.”
Though his main duty was to keep tabs of all of the ship's systems and the health of the crew, once planetside his duties took little time outside of verifying the proper functioning of heating and life support systems. His secondary role therefore was to act as a fill-in for any tasks that the rest of the crew needed him for. This was especially true for any excursions outside.
The two of them spent the morning assembling the two IEVs or Independent Exploration Vehicles.
These were mainly composed of a triangular lattice supporting a tiny semi-enclosed cabin. At each vertice were three standard rocket motors, ion engines being unsafe at such close proximity. Even though the craft could easily carry a 500 kilo equivalent, they were required to travel in separate vehicles to add an extra margin of safety in case one of the IEVs malfunctioned.
Though Muogo was itching to go and see what the holes were all about, he had to wait until after lunch before everything was ready. They took off and headed out from the plain to the closest hole.
It was a huge rectangular cut with what must have been perfectly straight sides before time, erosion, and micrometeorite impacts weathered the edges. Chen and Muogo slowly flew over the edge and descended below the surface.
The rock glowed under the bright exploration lamps and showed precise vertical cuts all the way down. Muogo took measurements and used a manipulator arm to cut out a piece halfway down.
While they descended, he did some superficial analysis but found it to be ordinary rock with layers of frozen water, and traces of iron, silica, and magnesium.
They reached the bottom and found an even more strange environment. For as far as they could see, which wasn't far despite the immensely bright lamps, the space was perfectly flat and rectilinear. Muogo set a laser tape to measure the angle and found that it was exactly perpendicular to within a fraction of a degree.
“Muogo!” He heard Chen's voice over the radio and for the first time since he'd known the man, there was an element of excitement.
“Yes captain?”
“Please come here at your first convenience.” His voice still crackled with subtle excitement.
“I'll be there momentarily.” He quickly collapsed the laser tape and rocketed over to where the man's lights were shining.