<What did you do, Rakunas?>
<Nothing! I moved a damned rock, just like you’re doing.>
Jian hopped over to stand next to Rakunas as they both watched the doorway. After a moment, the amber glow faded away. Jian cranked up his suit’s floodlight and leaned in for a closer inspection.
<Careful, sir.>
Jian stole a glance at Rakunas even as the rest of the team clustered around them. He took a deep breath, then reached out a hand and placed it on the door. It was hard to tell through his thick, heavily-insulated glove, but the surface felt a little less solid than he’d expected, almost putty-like. He pressed down a little harder and the surface gave way entirely, almost as if he’d broken its surface tension. In an instant, his hand sank into the door all the way up to his wrist.
<Oh fuck,> he blurted out. Reflexively, Jian put his other hand on the door and tried to push away, only to watch in horror as that hand sank into the muddy surface as well.
<Help!> Jian shouted as the sticky goop started to creep up his forearms. Rakunas got behind him, grabbed his suit, and pulled for all he was worth. But the material fought back, actively pulling him towards it instead of just immobilizing him.
<For God’s sake, help me!> Jian repeated as the surface drew relentlessly closer to his helmet.
<I can’t hold on,> Rakunas said, his voice straining with panic even through the plant to match Jian’s own.
<Forget it! Get back!> Jian ordered even as a black spot appeared on his helmet’s face shield where the amorphous material reached out and touched it. Tendrils snaked out from the spot, expanding its grip, connecting, interlinking, growing, until he could see nothing at all. Pressure built on his suit from all directions. The “Loss of Signal” alert flashed red in the corner of his vision as his plant link to the outside was severed. He struggled against the viscus mass pressing in on him from all sides, but it held him fast.
Jian’s heart pounded so hard he thought it might break his sternum. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit…” he said over and over. Was this a booby trap? Was he to be frozen in here forever? Digested like an unwary insect caught in a Venus flytrap? He checked his O2 and battery levels.
Three more hours of each. Well, at least he’d be long dead before any digesting occurred.
But then, the pressure on his fingers eased, then disappeared entirely. The relief traveled up his palms, wrists, and arms. Freed from the muck, his helmet’s floodlights bathed a new scene with their white light. One of Jian’s feet came loose from the wall, then the other. Off balance, he managed to catch himself before toppling over to the floor.
His plant link was still offline, but he was free. The space around him was little more than a tunnel with a small swelling in the middle. Circular supports built into the walls reminded Jian of a human windpipe. On a hunch, he cut off his helmet’s floodlights for a few seconds. Sure enough, as soon as his eyes were able to adjust, he saw the same dim amber glow coming from the ringed segments of the walls.
The tunnel was a good thirty or forty meters long, and angled further down into the crust before reaching what looked like a Y-junction. The inside surface of the tunnel itself looked like it had seen better days. Everywhere, flakes of paint or some other protective coating peeled free of the surface. Here and there, the ice outside had pressed in hard enough to dent the inner walls. Daggers of rock hard, razor-sharp ice pierced the walls themselves in several places.
Jian turned around to inspect the doorway that had just spit him out. His first guess had been right; it was an airlock after all, just not at all like those he was used to. It was better, in fact. For centuries, humans had used two pressure doors with a chamber in between to access space. The trouble was, you could never really pump all of the air out of the chamber between cycles, and even the very best pressure doors and seals, built to the very highest tolerances, still leaked air, even if incredibly slowly.
No solution to this had even been found. During its two-plus-century exodus from Earth, the Ark had lost nearly the equivalent of an entire habitat’s worth of atmosphere to these invisible thieves. This had been planned for ahead of time with air kept in storage tanks in the engineering module to replace the losses.
But with this… goo, the seal was perfect. Hardly a molecule or atom of atmosphere would be lost during the transition. Jian guessed the entire facility might be coated in a layer of it to preserve integrity against micrometeorite impacts or other unexpected visitors. He made a note to grab a sample of it before they left.
Much to Jian’s surprise, his suit’s pressure and atmospheric sensors beeped an alert and spit out a reading. There was an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere in here. It was only seventeen percent Earth sea level pressure and more than seventy degrees below zero, but both values slowly rose as he watched.
The facility was active. It had recognized his presence and prepared itself for use. The realization froze Jian in his tracks. There were really only two possibilities: either the facility was automated and still functional after hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, or someone else was already in here, perhaps still in here. He couldn’t decide which scenario was more unsettling, but at least whatever was in charge was working to make the environment more hospitable to their visitors, not less.
Still, Jian realized just how acutely alone he was. Well, if the airlock let him in, it stood to reason it would let him back out. He took a deep breath and put his palms flat against the doorway. As before, the surface responded, slowly at first, but then the wormlike tendrils laced their way up his arms more quickly. It probably needed to loosen up after sitting idle for so long. Jian could relate. Even a week away from the gym and he was stiff as a board.
The process felt faster the second time, although frankly the difference in perception could probably be chalked up to the fact his first trip through had been spent in paralyzing terror. It did feel slightly warmer this time, however. The pressure on his hands eased again and soon he stepped back out into the cavern. The “Loss of Signal” alert disappeared as his plant rejoined the local link.
<Stay where you are!> Rakunas shouted from behind one of the small piles of debris, holding a pretty sizable rock over his head in a threatening manner.
Jian put his hands up. <Whoa now, what the hell are you doing Rakunas?>
<Who are you?>
<Don’t be stupid.>
<I mean, how can we be sure you’re really the commander?>
<Of course it’s me, Rakunas. Who the hell else would it be?>
<I don’t know, a clone or something.>
<You think somebody grew a clone of me in two minutes?>
<OK, fine, but what about an android?>
Jian went to pinch the bridge of his nose, only to have his glove bounce off his helmet glass. <This isn’t some space horror movie, Rakunas.> He pointed back at the doorway. <It’s an airlock, just like we thought. It’s just a really clever one. There’s a tunnel on the other side that leads deeper into the crust. There’s a lot more beyond it, too.>
<What the hell is going on over there?> Kirkland said from her seat back on the shuttle.
<We’re good,> Rakunas said. <The commander has reappeared and he assures me he’s not a pod person or something.>
<And you’re just going to take his word?> Kirkland said.
<Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you two?> Jian asked.
<OK, that’s him,> Kirkland said. <Ark Actual is on the line. He’s freaking out.>
<No time for that now,> Jian said. <Tell Ark Actual I’m fine and that Rakunas and I are reentering the structure.>
<We are?> Rakunas said.
<Yes. We are. We’ve got enough charge and O2 to burn an hour down there, and I’m going to use it.>
<Let me know how that turns out,> Rakunas said as he turned towards the ropes leading back to the surface.
<Oh no you don’t.> Jian grabbed the recovery handle on the back of Rakunas’s life support pack and casually tossed him at the airlock.
<I’m quite certain this wasn’t taught in Officer Candidate School,> Rakunas said as he floated through the airless cavern before landing a meter away from the airlock.
<Commander,> Kirkland said. <Flight Control has issued a recall order. The mission is aborted, return to Atlantis.>
<Sorry, XO, but you lost your plant uplink with Rakunas and I before you were able to deliver the abort order.> Jian hurried over and pushed a still-reluctant Rakunas into the airlock.
<But I just delivered it!>
<What was that?> Jian said. <You’re breaking up.>
<I said you’re an asshole who’s only doing this to give your father a heart attack, and be careful, idiot.>
Jian smirked, then stretched out his arms and fell backwards into the gooey embrace of the alien airlock. <Roger that,> he said just before the “Loss of Signal” alert reappeared.
His third trip through was definitely faster than the first two, and warmer. Once on the other side, Jian found Rakunas staring down the tunnel. Their plants linked up automatically.
<Well, what do you think?> he asked.
<It looks like a colonoscopy,> Rakunas answered.
<Ugh. Thanks for putting that image in my head.>
Rakunas shrugged. <You asked. There’s air in here?>
Jian checked his suit sensors. Pressure was up to twenty-one percent Earth sea level and the temperature had climbed another six degrees. <Yeah, even more of it than when I was in here a minute ago. I think this place is getting itself ready for us.>
<Fuck that, I’ve seen enough sci-fi movies. I’m not taking this helmet off for anything.>
<Fair enough.> Jian started hopping down the tunnel.
<Where are you going?> Rakunas called out.
<Deeper. Where does it look like I’m going?>
<Deeper into an alien ass.> Rakunas sighed. <This was supposed to be a milk run.>
<We’re nowhere near where the milk comes from.> Jian started hopping down the ramp. Skipping, really. The truth was, now that the abject horror had passed, he found himself feeling excited, ecstatic, verging on euphoria. He hadn’t felt this alive since his first solo flight down and back the entire length of the Ark in an EVA pod.
They reached the junction at the bottom of the tunnel, where it split into two smaller tunnels, each heading off at forty-five degree angles, like a windpipe heading to a pair of lungs, just reinforcing Jian’s original impression, which he vastly preferred over Rakunas’s.
He pointed a finger down each passageway. <Two tunnels, two of us. Which one do you like?>
Rakunas’s shoulders slacked. <Have you seriously never seen a horror movie?>
<Not really my thing.>
<You never split up.>
<OK.> Jian paused. <Any other rules?>
<Don’t be the blonde girl or the black guy.>
Jian looked himself and Rakunas over. <I think we pass that test. So, which way?>
<Rock-paper-scissors?>
<Really?>
<Left I win, right you win.>
<Are you kidding me right now? We’re inside a hidden alien base hundreds of thousands of years old and we’re making decisions with an RPS game?>
Rakunas gestured towards the branching tunnels. <You favor one over the other?>
Jian regarded each tunnel with a critical eye, but it was no use. They were indistinguishable. <I suppose not.>
Rakunas held out a fist. <Then shoot.>
Jian was fairly certain that, based on his extensive officer candidate training, Rakunas was being an insubordinate little shit right now. But, everyone processes stress differently. So, he balled up a fist and started to shoot.
<One, two–>
<Wait!>
<Wait what!?>
<Shoot on three?>
<Yes, Goddammit. One, two, three!>
<Because some people do one, two, three, shoot!>
<On three, stop stalling. One. Two. Three!>
Jian’s paper suffocated Rakunas’s rock. <Ha! Right it is,> he said in triumph.
<Best two out of three!>
<Go to hell.> Jian started skipping down the right tunnel without looking back to see if Rakunas followed. The tunnel was level, as far as Jian could tell. It was also quite a bit shorter than the ramp leading down to it. Another round door with a diagonal slash across its face just like the airlock that had brought them here. But when he pressed a glove to it, instead of pulling him in, the door split down the diagonal and spread open with a hiss. Not an airlock, then, just a standard door. And why not? Beyond the open door, Jian’s floodlights shined into a spherical chamber.
An alert dinged in Jian’s suit. The local atmosphere had stabilized at ninety-three percent Earth sea-level and twenty-two degrees. A perfect spring day on Gaia below. The nitrogen/oxygen ratio had also normalized to Gaia standards.
<This place thinks we’re Atlantians,> Jian said.
<Well, it’s the safest bet,> Rakunas added while reviewing his own suit’s data.
Jian smiled. <It just happens to be wrong this time.>
That was when the bugs swarmed out of the door like a Biblical plague.
<What the shit!> Rakunas shouted as the flood of fist-sized, segmented, multi-limbed creatures came rushing towards them. For a brief, horrible moment, Jian remembered one of the few scary movies he had seen as a child, about an Egyptian mummy come back to life and the cataclysms that followed. An unfortunate background character had been eaten alive by a swarm of beetles, stripped to the bone in seconds. But Jian wasn’t a background character, was he?
That image was firmly burrowed in Jian’s mind as the swarm approached. For the second time in an hour, fear froze him solid. But as the revolting mass of creatures reached his feet, they ignored him and Rakunas entirely, flowing around them like water flowing around river rocks.
<They’re maintenance drones,> Jian said, hardly believing what he was watching even as he said it.
<Looks like they might be made of the same goop as the airlock,> Rakunas added.
<Programmable goop.> Jian marveled at the implications and potential. Humans had nanites, of course. They were used extensively in medicine and in the repair of nano-scale systems like computer components. But this sort of macro-scale application of microscopic machines had eluded them thus far. The bandwidth needed to keep trillions of individual machines connected, not to mention the noise and interference trillions of tiny wireless transmitters produced in such a small volume were huge problems that had yet to be cracked.
<This whole place is automated,> Jian said, <even the repairs.>
<Well then why are they only doing repairs now?> Rakunas asked, still on the verge of running back up the tunnel to the surface had it not been crawling with bugs. <This place has been beaten up for a long time.>
<It only just restarted,> Jian answered as a line of bug drones carried one of the chunks of ice they’d cut free away to… wherever they took such things. <It was in standby mode or whatever until just now when we showed up. It was waiting for us.>
<It was waiting for the Atlantians, you mean. To develop a space program.>
<Maybe, I don’t know.>
<The ceilings are awfully tall in here,> Rakunas said. He had a point. Jian hadn’t thought about it until just then, but an average Atlantian would fit perfectly in these tunnels, which were ju
st a bit oversized for him. Curiosity getting the better of him, Jian reached down into the stream of bug drones and grabbed one by the thorax.
<Commander! Touching creepy-ass bug things is definitely against the rules,> Rakunas shouted, but Jian held up a hand.
<It’s OK,> he said even as the little bug’s legs thrashed about, trying to regain its footing. Jian held his other hand beneath it, gently settling down into his palm.
<When that thing burrows into your skull and turns you into a space zombie, I’m giving my I-told-you-so to your father.>
<Shhh,> Jian scolded. The tiny drone reared up on its back legs and waved its pincer appendages. Jian held his hand further away from his face and readied to shake it loose from his glove, but it quickly settled down once more. Its… head, for lack of a better term… cocked to one side, and carefully regarded Jian with three green-glowing eyes.
Jian smiled at it. “Hello,” he said aloud into his helmet, despite the fact it couldn’t hear him through the glass, and didn’t speak English even if it could. “You’re a cute little creepy-ass bug thing.” Jian blinked.
It blinked back. Or, more specifically, turned its three little green eyes off, then back on again.
Jian blinked again.
It blinked again.
Jian winked his left eye.
It winked its left eye.
Jian winked his right eye.
It winked its right eye.
Then, it winked its center eye.
“Ah…” Jian said.
The little drone turned off all its eyes and waved its pincers around in the air.
<What’s going on, commander?>
Jian turned to face Rakunas and pointed at the bug drone sitting on his palm. <I think this thing is laughing at me.>
<Want me to smoosh it?>
<No!> Jian pulled his hand back protectively. The small drone took advantage of the proximity and jumped onto his shoulder, where it spun around in a circle before settling down. Jian’s helmet prevented him from seeing where it had ended up. <Ah, what’s it doing?> he asked.
<Just nesting on your shoulder, from the looks of it.>