Naserian sat in the cramped cockpit of the research exploratory vessel Marco Polo. Her eyes flicked over its displays as the teardrop-shaped craft, half the size of a school bus, drilled down through Europa's ice crust.

"How are we doing?" Speaking over the cyclic thrum of the Marco Polo's fusion powered laser drills, Solomon came up behind her and rested his large work-roughened hands on her shoulders.

"We're dropping one meter per second," said Naserian. She leaned her head back, pressing her close-cropped black curls against his thick chest. Solomon massaged her shoulders.

"We're down three kilometers," she said. "Twelve more until we hit liquid water."

"We hope," cautioned Solomon. "Might be a layer of slush down there. Might be slush all the way to the bottom. We don't know."

"Unlikely," called Frank from the rear of the large single cabin where he and Tanya were analyzing ice samples. "The tidal stresses are pumping far too much energy into Europa's core. My money’s on liquid salt water just below the ice."

"We'll know in five hours," said Tanya, practical as ever. "There's no point arguing about it now."

* * *

Tick-Ping-Click-Buzz floated in the surround, his hundreds of tentacles extended straight out from his nearly spherical body. All his senses — hearing, big flow, small flow, smell, warmth, touch, and magnetic — were on high alert. Something was coming. Something unknown.

Tick-Ping waited until he was sure. Absolutely sure. Then he blast-chirped.

"Crack-Click, are you there? Crack-Click, come to me. You won't want to miss this."

Hundreds of reaches away, Crack-Click-Crunch-Warble heard her friend's excited chirps, but she finished her meal of polypoids before responding. After all, it was just Tick-Ping, probably excited about nothing. As usual.

* * *

"Two hundred meters to go," said Frank. He leaned forward in the cockpit seat, thrilled he'd drawn the watch when they would finally break through the ice.

"We're definitely approaching the interface," said Tanya, examining the sonar imaging.

One minute later the Marco Polo dropped below the solid ice into a layer of slush.

Everyone's eyes remained fixed on the sonar imaging display. Then Solomon straightened up, his broad face split in a grin.

"Liquid water in ten seconds," he announced.

Amid the cheers of the others, the Marco Polo continued down toward the great saltwater ocean of Europa.

* * *

By now, every member of the pod had assembled just below the Squishy, alerted by Tick-Ping's and Crack-Click's frantic chirps. The surround filled with chirped conversations and imaging pulses.

Tick-Ping floated next to Crack-Click, far enough apart for social decorum, but close enough so the extreme tips of their stretched lateral tentacles touched in a way that made Tick-Ping shiver in anticipation of their first mating dance.

The entire Pod listened to the growing thrums of the Unknown Something.

"It could very well be the Creator of All," chirped one bombastic Pod Elder.

"Or it could be Something coming from beyond the Hard," chirped Tick-Ping's favorite teacher.

"Beyond the Hard?" scoffed the Elder. "There is nothing beyond the hard. It goes on forever."

"Perhaps not," chirped the teacher. "It has long been theorized that the Hard is just another layer, like the Surround and the Squishy."

"What if it really is the Creator of All?"

Crack-Click's chirp was so soft, Tick-Ping only sensed it through their entwined tentacle tips.

"I don't know," he answered, and listened as the thrum thrum of the Unknown Something grew louder.

* * *

"Drills off," called Frank as the Marco Polo dropped out of ice slush into the liquid ocean.

"Activating external sensors," said Tanya. "I'm patching the hydrophones on full volume to our speakers for our first listen to an alien sea. Cross your fingers, folks."

She tapped her screen. An ear melting roar erupted from the speakers.

* * *

Chirping and clicking warnings, the pod scattered as the huge Unknown Something dropped down from the Squishy. Tick-Ping did not flee. He was too amazed. He directed an imaging pulse at the shape. It was enormous, fully thirty reaches long, at least ten wide, and smooth. So smooth.

"It's a giant egg!" Crack-Click chirped. "It must be the egg of the Creator of All."

* * *

"Life!" Frank, giddy with excitement, watched the creatures, like so many beach balls covered with tentacles as they spurted all around the Marco Polo. "Multicellular life! We need samples."

"I can deploy a collector," said Tanya.

"Do it," said Frank.

"No," said Naserian. "We can't. What if they're intelligent?"

They stared at the screen. The creatures drifted closer.

"No one thought this was possible," mused Solomon. "At most we hoped for some single-celled amoeba or bacterial equivalents. Not large, complex creatures."

"So what now?" asked Tanya.

"Now we try to communicate." Naserian spun toward the compact workbench halfway down the cabin.

* * *

"The egg is hatching," chirped Crack-Click.

"No, it's not," Tick-Ping corrected her. "But it ejected something."

He squirted forward, his ranging clicks homing in on the object tumbling in the water, and caught it in two tentacles.

"What is it?" clicked the Elder as he and other Pod members gathered. "Hold it out, youngling."

Obediently Tick-Ping held it clear. The pod members inundated the engraved polished alloy disk with multiple sonar pulses and occasional tentacle touches.

"These are physical images," clicked the Teacher.

"But of what?" asked a pod member. "These images are not pod folk. They only have four tentacles."

"Five if you count the round blobby one at the end," offered another.

Crack-Click chirped, "See how their tentacles sometimes curve over their blobby parts, and sometimes stick straight out?"

"I know," chirped Tick-Ping. "It's obvious."

Then he explained. And they agreed.

* * *

"No samples," said Frank, his voice wistful, watching his screen.

"No samples," echoed Solomon and Tanya.

Naserian said nothing. She smiled through her tears and watched the swirling and spinning Europans, especially the pair holding her engraved drawings, as they danced their welcome.