White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The stillness on Mahaha's surface does not abate as Liu and I speed over hills and through winding, blue-ice gulleys. Every time I've been out here before, the moon has felt like it's breathing. Its valley sides creak, and snow always sprinkles down from all the miniscule motions of its ice peaks. The landscape itself normally feels alive.

Today there is none of that. Nothing moves, even in my peripheral vision, and the purr of the snowmobile's hydrogen-electric engine is louder even than the utter absence of wind. The ice isn't even poised like I would expect if Mahaha were waiting to pounce on us the moment we made a wrong move. It's just... dead.

After getting so used to the living version, it's eerie.

We're about fifteen minutes in when I spot the first butterfly. I slow drastically as it hovers up over a ridge not ten meters ahead. Liu's hands tense, then ease when she spots it.

"Thoughts?" I say.

"It's acting like the first one Tobias and I saw..."

The butterfly backs away as we continue to cruise towards it. At five meters' distance, it flips its wings and dives for the snow. It shatters before it reaches cover. I keep our pace easy as we near the spot where it disappeared. We pass less than three meters from the ridge. Liu twists behind me, looking over her shoulder again and again as we move away.

It's only been another two minutes when her arms tighten around my chest. "On the left."

It's another butterfly. This one behaves even more skittishly than the first; it's gone again before we get half as close. Liu spots the third one, too, lurking under the curve of a tall snowbank. It shatters when she points to it.

"It just reassembled," she murmurs as we move onward. She's at the right angle to see it in the snowmobile's handlebar mirrors. "It's following us."

"How far behind?"

There's a pause. "Ten meters?" says Liu at last, sounding less than confident. Estimating distances is a skill we're going to have to work at. "It keeps hiding."

"So we're being watched."

Better than being stalked, unless Mahaha just has a very nervous stalking technique. The butterflies put me on heightened alert, but none of them are giving particularly alarming vibes.

"I don't think they want to hurt us," says Liu, confirming that intuition. "And I think they're getting more scared this time. Not less."

"You think it's the snowmobile?"

"Try speeding up."

I rev the motor, and the vehicle jumps forwards.

"It shattered," says Liu.

"See if it reassembles again."

It's another minute before she says, "It's back. It's a lot further back now, though. And still hiding."

For the briefest moment, I almost feel sorry for the moon. It likes Krüger, or at least wants him for something, and now we're coming to take him away again. I'm not sure yet whether a callous "Tough luck, buddy" or a more sympathetic approach is the right one, but it's a reminder not to dismiss either option.

The butterflies disappear as we close in on the mini-probe's signal. When the receiver begins its hundred-meter beeping, I pull up in an open valley. "I'm wondering if it's better to approach on foot."

"That might be a good idea." Liu reluctantly lets go of me and waits for me to jump down first. With the snowmobile's motor off, the silence is now louder than any sound we make.