Delight swelled in her as she watched the little ones discover something new. A Light Dancer. The adult female was nearly double the size of the largest, yet that did not deter their curiosity. Lights flickered and buzzed from one dorsal ridge to another, then rapidly danced along head prongs, finished with three solid blinks from the ventral ridges. Light Dancer talk. The little ones didn't understand yet, but she did.
It was a welcome to her territory. She was pleased by their visit. Her own little ones had recently become adults and left to find their own territories. She knew that they wouldn't understand and patiently allowed them to play, keeping her zaps gentle when they became brave enough to investigate her lights.
Above and behind, the rest of the pod laughed. Visiting the Light Dancers was always interesting. She was glad she'd convinced the pod to bring the little ones here today. The vast waters held many wonders, yet few were as incredible as other intelligent beings.
She broadcasted her joy and bathed in the reflection of it from her pod. A very good day. She would hold it close for many cycles.
Rekha sat bolt upright and gasped. She stared into the darkness of the room, panting until the cool of the air made her aware of tears drying on her cheeks. Light, she'd been crying from joy and now she was crying from the loss of it. When was the last time she'd been happy?
Noise from beside her had her holding her breath. When Venjie shifted and laid quiet once more, Rekha exhaled. She rose and dressed, her thoughts whirling. She hadn't been dreaming. At least, it wasn't her dream. It was a telepathic sharing. A sharing from the powerful presence that kept popping up and vanishing.
It answered one question. She was native to the planet. And there were other sentient species here as well! The Light Dancer? The electric fish that liked the cold waters. Ampeels, the PDA had named them. Ultra mind boggling. Their electricity was more than a hunting slash defense mechanism. Alandris would chomp at the bit to collect data on that. How many other intelligent creatures were out there? Was there more to the reapers? The ghost leviathans?
Rekha shook her head. Too much to do other than wonder about things aside from finding a safe way down to the next alien facility. She padded from the room and went about her new morning routine. Unload, hack up a bunch of phlegm, wash, do a self-scan, do stretches. She yanked the scanner back out of storage and scanned herself again. Extremely high levels of Kharaa bacterium. She rapidly flipped through previous results. They showed significantly less infection and were all the same. Exactly the same. Impossible. There should be minute changes everyday.
An hour later, diagnostics concluded that the scanner was fine. It was the PDA. An internal error had prevented her health file from being updated. A weekly system check and reboot had fixed the error last night.
Light. She'd forgotten about the scan she took before she and Venjie took that trip to the Aurora, the one that proclaimed an unknown infection. She cleared her throat. Oh. The dry throat and phlegm every morning. She'd attributed it to the cyclops' environmental system keeping the humidity lower than the hab's. It wasn't lower.
Damn. She should tell Alandris and Ve-
No! She couldn't! It would only add to the stress and tension. There wasn't anything anyone could do, they already had an impossible schedule to save Alandris, and Rekha couldn't stand the thought of Venjie's pity.
Needing hope, she reached for the voice. She strained and struggled, pushing herself to her limit, past it, until she thought her brain might explode.
Little one, soothing waves of thought washed over her. Do not harm yourself.
I needed to remind myself you're real.
I am not a dream.
Then what are you? Rekha demanded, the dream from earlier burning in her skull.
There was quiet. She almost thought the voice was gone, except that her presence remained strong in Rekha's mind. I am alive, came the eventual, unhelpful answer.
Are you one of the aliens? She was certain she wasn't, but she needed something to talk about.
Confusion came through the connection.
Are you one of the beings who brought the disease?
No. I was here before. I would have helped those with the sickness, but they could not hear me; they did not understand. There was a long, sad sigh. I am tired, little one. You must come to me.
I'm trying! But every step, there's a thousand obstacles!
A soft caress buoyed her. You are strong, little one. Your pod is strong. You will find me. She dropped the connection.
Rekha was left panting in the quiet of the garden. She heard Alandris cough thick phlegm from her chest, spit it into a cup that she would clean out at least twice a day. Venjie rose, probably wakened by the coughing. Their morning routines were seen to. Eventually, they found Rekha, still sitting in the garden on her mat.
"Rekha?" Venjie squatted close and put a hand on Rekha's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
She wiped at her face, discovered drying tears and a smear of blood. The steady drum of psi overload was pounding in her skull. "The voice isn't a precursor. She says she was here before them, and she wanted to help them, but they couldn't hear her. That must mean they didn't have any psi potential."
"Then I suppose we're lucky we have you with us." Alandris' voice was ragged and reedy and she wore her blanket tight around her shoulders, yet she managed a smile.
"I also think she's dying." Rekha added. Grief punched her in the gut as she did so. How was it fair that she would meet an incredibly powerful, friendly psionic way out here only for her to die soon after and leave Rekha all alone again?
"Dying?" Venjie asked. "What makes you think that?"
She fought back sniffles. "She keeps saying she's tired. She won't hold the connection long. If she was here before the precursors, she's ancient."
"Could she be lying?" Alandris scratched at her neck.
"Possibly." Rekha shrugged, not giving much to the thought. "But she's somewhere deeper, where we have to go anyway."
Alandris hummed. "Did you finish the depth upgrades last night, Venjie?"
"What I could. The Mark III has an ingredient we haven't come across. Our max depth is only 1300m." A hundred meters short of where the next facility was supposed to be.
"Perhaps it will be enough."
"It's the same for the prawn." Rekha added. "The next upgrade needs the same material."
Alandris nodded. "Venjie, I believe it's your turn on kitchen duty. Rekha, if you haven't already, start doing psi scans of the vicinity."
She did. There wasn't anything different. Point three kilometers, the tunnel remained the same except for the river shifting from yellow to green. Half a kilometer, it forked. Almost twin in size, and neither sensors nor psi could discern much beyond that one sloped down a little steeper than the other.
Rekha looked at her crewmates for their opinions.
Alandris coughed.
"Steeper one." Venjie said.
Alandris made an agreeing gesture.
Rekha nodded, directed the cyclops down the steeper tunnel. It began to curve, continued curving in what felt like a spiral.
"Sensors confirm." Venjie said. "Everything indicates that the tunnel is a natural formation, but it still feels deliberate. Stupid aliens." Her last came out as an annoyed grumble.
Rekha grinned at Venjie's discomfort. She felt similarly. The endless spiral was obnoxious. Limited view, limited psi reach, no knowledge of what to expect, except the worse this planet had to offer. It was easy to blame absent aliens for her uneasiness. Was the tunnel getting narrower? She glanced back, but her crew gave no sign it was. Only her nerves.
Silently, she swore and told herself that this was a job that had to be done. No time for fear. The blood rushing in her ears slowed, yet refused complete calm. Her headache threatened to beat harder. She sighed. What she wouldn't do for some painkillers, a stiff drink, and a beautiful sunny sky.
Two hours and four kilometers later, the tunnel opened abruptly into a large cavern. Not as big as the previous; Rekha could easily sense the opposite wall only a few hundred meters away. And a cliff -chimney- that delved deeper into the planet.
But it was dominated by a tree. A massive tree, old and twisted, like an ancient maple tree on Earth. And the river fell down a twenty meter waterfall, its color a vivid evening blue. It pooled into a giant lake, the glow of which lit the entire cavern.
Huge rays the size of seamoths swam lazily, singing a hopeful melody that was nothing like the haunting song of their mushroom forest cousins.
Rekha found herself relaxing and smiling at the little bubble of calm.
"Incredible," rasped behind her.
"Beautiful," came next.
Rekha nodded. She let the cyclops slow and stop while she watched the hypnotic motions of the rays. They danced about, occasionally brushing against each other, dipping into the lake, and through the tree's gnarled branches.
Her eye caught on the glow from the tree. No. From globes caught within it. The tree itself barely glowed, tendrils of green and yellow.
What were they?
Psi felt around, decided the globes were more oval than round, that there was life inside them. Life, almost sleeping, yet dreamless, unaware.
"Light!" She gaped. "They're eggs!"
"Eggs?" Alandris asked. "You're certain?"
She nodded. "I can sense the embryos." How had they gotten so tightly bound within the tree? Had the tree grown around the eggs? How old were they? How fast did the tree grow? Weeks? Months? Years? She thought back to the old voice, a creature that could potentially be millenia old. How long would eggs of her kind take to hatch? Did they come from eggs? Were there other species that lived hundreds of years too?
"Eggs that size must be from a leviathan." Alandris rasped. "Can you tell which?"
The embryos were soft, their forms indefinite. She didn't think she sensed giant mandibles. "Maybe the ghost."
"Why is one of the most beautiful things we've seen here the spawning grounds for one of the most terrifying?" Venjie complained.
"As much as I'd like scans, let's not linger in case a concerned parent comes to check on them. Forward to the cliff, pilot."
"Aye." Rekha directed the cyclops to the chasm on the other side of the tree.
Cameras on the cyclops' underbelly showed a cascading waterfall that disappeared into a dim red glow.
Sensors indicated an increase in sulphur and temperature.
"The volcanic region?" Venjie asked.
Alandris gestured around them. "Cyclops can handle the heat, correct?"
"Yes." Rekha said. "And we could fab an upgrade that will allow the cyclops to collect heat energy in lieu of power cells. Or at least reduce the drain on them." Constant use of silent running had already depleted five.
Alandris wheezed, the air rattling in her lungs. "Take us down."
"Aye." She glanced longingly at the corridor that sloped up, back to the world of sunlight, sucked in a brave lungful of air, and set the cyclops to descend.
Water temp steadily rose as the blue dissipated. When it was a vague notion above them, the red glow solidified into a river of lava at the bottom of a V-shaped chasm. The chimney through which they were dropping was 100 meters above the chasm's ceiling. The ceiling was 400 meters above the lava river. One end of the chasm was a wall that ran up to the chimney. The other was in gloom that neither psi nor sensors could reach. If there was another end.
The chimney was devoid of life. No rays, fish, or sharks. No leviathans either. It was the only place on this planet that didn't have life. Was that why the precursors built a base down here? The lack of things trying to kill them? She avoided thinking about the dangerous life she'd sensed below. Maybe it was down the other tunnel, the fork they hadn't taken. Maybe they weren't descending into literal Hell. Maybe Alterra would send help and decent comms.
Venjie was noting changes in the rocks that Rekha barely listened to until her voice pitched high. "Gods! Look at those crystals."
Crystals? Where?
"Along the riverbed. They're reflecting the glow."
Rekha squinted. Oh. There. What her eye had dismissed as glare from the boiling liquid was a massive formation of translucent crystal. It must be four meters high at the peak! Incredible. Now that she knew what to look for, there was a multitude of crystals, few as expansive as that first cluster, yet they dotted the landscape as far as she could see.
"We have to investigate." Venjie said. "They could hold the material we need for the final depth upgrade."
Rekha glanced at the depth gauge. It was already pulsing a warning red, that the sub was nearly at its limit already. The rock beneath was barely two meters away from being deep enough to crush the prawn. "We'll have to use the prawn. Before you harass me about taking risks when I volunteer to go, I am the most qualified. Not only do I know their workings inside-out, I also have hundreds of pilot-hours logged."
Only a few dozen of those were in prawns, on Alterran records. Surely her crew must have guesses about why she was this competent with the cyclops, a vehicle she'd never piloted before, would believe that she was capable of handling the prawn in an extremely hostile environment. They wouldn't need her to spell it out, would they?
Alandris waved an agreeing hand as she coughed into her other.
Venjie's eyes narrowed, and her lips thinned, but she nodded.
Relief puffed from her. "Given the lack of life around here, this might be a good place to rest after I finish my outing."
"We'll revisit that when the time comes," rasped from Alandris.
Venjie nodded again.
Rekha nudged the cyclops into a spot that would drop the prawn on solid ground, powered the engines down, locked her station. She refrained from checking Alandris' water. Venjie could do that. Would. She was as concerned and eager to help as Rekha.
She changed into her suit, pulled on gloves, made sure her mask and peripherals were serviceable. They wouldn't help much if the prawn's seal was lost. She might get five minutes before she was boiled alive. Or crushed. The depth limit on the suits couldn't possibly be accurate. She certainly had no intention of testing them.
In the garden, she opened the docking hatch and levered herself down into the prawn. Her aching feet cooed at the sitting position. She went to close the hatch, found Venjie looking down, her expression stony.
"Something else, Remus?"
"Be careful, Rekha." The prawn's hatch lowered. There came the sounds of the cyclops hatch being sealed. Readouts said she also primed the docking bay for release.
Heart fluttering, she went through pre-launch checks, nodded at the green lights. "Good to go." She reported. "Releasing docking clamps."
"Godspeed," came from Alandris.
The prawn's frame groaned at the sudden change in temp and pressure. Rekha held her breath, tensed to fire the boosters for a quick return to dock. Readouts stayed green. She let air hiss out through her teeth and focused on her landing. A little feathering of the navigation thrusters and she landed with a slight thud. Nice.
As planned, the crystals were only a few meters away, and she had scan results within a few minutes. "Scans say these are kyanite crystals." She reported. "Should I harvest some?"
"We read you. Hold for confirmation." Venjie replied.
Rekha eyed the lava river, the bubbles that formed, popped, spit globules of molten death into the water to flutter back down and start the process again. Occasionally, one would spit high enough to cool slightly. It would either fall back like the others or settle along the banks. Psi was ready to bat it away if it came too close.
"Confirmed." Venjie had only been quiet five minutes. Light, it'd felt like longer. "Kyanite has what we need. Harvest what you can from that outcropping."
"Aye." Rekha powered up the drill arm, let it come to speed before attacking the crystal. A shame to break down such a massive formation. It'd be more of a shame to let Alandris die for the sake of aesthetics. And this was much, much faster than drilling into rock, chasing veins of mineral twined with a dozen others, hoping to get a fraction of what was in front of her face.
Chunks and flakes broke off. Some spun far away, into the lava. Thankfully, most were gathered by the d-pocket's tractor field, saving Rekha the ultra headache of chasing them down later.
"Status report," came Alandris' rasp an hour later.
"Ten kilos collected, captain," was her automatic reply. "Exosuit readouts remain stable and green." A breath. "I don't sense any predators nearby."
"Venjie? Is that enough?"
"Checking." A minute went by. "No. Another ten for the cyclop's Mark III Depth Upgrade. Two for the prawn. I'd like another five for safety margin and possible other uses. While harvest remains a safe procedure, we should get whatever we can."
"I agree." Rekha said.
"As do I." Alandris coughed, spat. "It looks like you've got quite a bit of that outcrop left. Keep going, Rekha. If anything changes, report immediately, otherwise we'll contact you every half hour from here on."
Nothing interesting happened by the time the next report happened. A lava bubble exploded unpleasantly close to Rekha, scared her with a smoldering rock bullet that impacted the crystal, made half of it shatter and explode. The tractor field barely grabbed a third of it. Most spun off into the water or lava. A few attacked her prawn, left dings and scratches in the glass. Or would have. The marks on the glass were smudges. Kyanite wasn't hard enough to scratch a prawn's enameled glass.
She wouldn't report that. Alandris would proclaim the job too dangerous and recall her. There was an obvious, bubbling river right there. Alandris could be watching. If she didn't say anything, neither would Rekha.
Venjie asked for the next report. Harvest figures were given, lack of predators noted. Nothing was said about lava or exploding crystal.
Shortly after, Rekha's stomach began grumbling. It growled angrily during the next report.
"We have more than enough, Rekha. Come in and take a break." Venjie laughed. "I'll make something that isn't ultra gross."
"But there's at least another ten kilos I could h-"
"Get back up here." A sigh. "Alandris agrees. You're outvoted."
She flicked off the drill. "Aye."
"Red gods, she's a t-" the open comm was closed.
On the way back, she paused to pick up a few sizable chunks of kyanite from the earlier explosion. Was there a way to improve the prawn's hull enough to withstand a short dip in lava? Or was it magma? Wasn't the definition something about exposure to air?
Above her, the bay doors were open. She took careful aim and fired the boosters. Her trajectory was off a smidge. She had to use nav thrusters to line up enough for the cyclops' tractor field to capture her and bring her in.
Hmmm. Could the tractor field be reversed in some way to create shielding? Hadn't she read an Exosuit Today article that talked about someone working on that theory? In Delhi, there'd been discussion about amping an H-class enough to use psi as a temporary shield. Rekha had been on the lineup for testing before she'd run.
A rude grin slid across her face at the idea of telling her Martian crewmates that she was weak enough -expendable enough- to be used in experimental testing. Venjie would have an aneurism. Her inner ego argued that she'd been picked because her psi was versatile. Lightless bulkhead. Delhi didn't care about being able to juggle pots of water without spilling. The war machine wanted cannons that could rip into ships and their captains' minds.
Docking clamps locked into place, and the seals hissed. The hatched opened. She looked up at a continued hiss. Steam was billowing into the garden.
That was one way to add moisture to the system. No, it didn't need more moisture. Her itchy throat had a more sinister cause. She blinked, and a sudden sneeze tore out of her. Snot dripped from the prawn wall.
"Dammit."
"Was that a sneeze?" asked above her. Venjie's head peeked in.
Wiping her nose, Rekha sighed. "Must be from the steam." She wiped the wall.
Eyes narrowed, but venjie retreated. "Lunch is ready."
Rekha started to jump up, grab the hatch's lip, and haul herself out as usual. She'd half-jumped, hand up, when she took note of the air shimmering around the hatch. Right. Lava. Superheated water. Prawn hull must be hot enough to cook on. She used the ladder and shied away as the heat tried to singe her eyebrows. Quick as possible, she clambered through, glad for the cyclops' side that was cool enough to touch. Even through gloves, she probably would be singed.
She needed to make gloves and shoes that could withstand the temps, in case she had to take the prawn from lava water to alien facility. Entering and exiting would be brutal.
The smell of food had her hurrying to the hygiene closet. She unloaded, did a quick wash up, and zipped back into her suit. She intended to go back out after a rest.
A hot soup was waiting. It was even palatable, despite the ingredients.
"This is nice. Well done, Venjie." Alandris applauded.
"Not ultra gross," was Rekha's cheeky addition.
Venjie rolled her eyes.
Rekha shot her a grin and dug in. The meal was quiet, decidedly pleasant without the sense of leviathans and sharks right off their bow.
Venjie suddenly put her spoon down. She snapped her head up, spine straight. "I have something to report."
Rekha stared. What was this about?
"I should have this morning, but I," her eyes dipped. She swallowed, and her eyes came back up. "I was scared. My scan this morning reported the Kharaa bacterium in my system."
Rekha's spoon clattered to the table. Her throat tightened. No. Not Venjie.
Terror-filled eyes flicked to her. "It doesn't affect our schedule." There was a tremor in her voice. "We find a cure for Alandris, we find a cure for me."
Fear, despair, anger, they all boiled in Rekha's chest. Silently, furiously, she swore at any god she could think of that this was why she was keeping her own infection silent. Her crewmates didn't need the extra tension and heavy responsibility! Hot air seethed between her teeth.
She couldn't sit there while Venjie pretended bravery and calm, while Alandris tried to hide her sympathy. Her chair scraped across the deck. She stomped from table to prawn and began transferring crystals from prawn to fabricator. Questions and stares came from her crewmates, but she ignored them, kept on with her work until her PDA chimed that she'd provided enough kyanite, that she should begin feeding the rest of the ingredients in.
"What else do you need?" She poked at the list.
"Titanium ingots," came from behind her.
Squeaking, she jumped and turned to face Venjie, who was carrying a dense rod under her arm.
Her lips twitched. "Another ten ingots. We've got it in 'E' locker. Your suit's d-pocket will make the job faster." She brushed by and opened the fabricator's input tray. The rod was lowered in with a grunt. The things were small, yet ultra dense and ultra heavy. "I'll get the other materials."
She stared. Like herself, Venjie kept a short hair style. Shorter. Hers was clipped close all over her skull. It was a fuzzy, awkward mess now, the pinnacle of absurdly cute. It didn't fit this determined woman who stood in front of her, the survivor who'd braved the terrors of this world alone for weeks before finding and rescuing Rekha and Alandris from the wandering island. Who kept pushing forward no matter how terrible things became.
"Rekha?"
Light, she wanted her. Heat crawling up her chest, pricking her eyes, she let her breath hiss out and headed to the ladder.
She gathered the ingots and nearly ran into Venjie when she turned away from the lockers. Bottles clinked from an unsteady pile in her arms. How had she gotten those out without Rekha noticing? She hadn't been that absorbed in her job.
Venjie paused as though to let Rekha proceed her. When Rekha didn't, she shrugged and kept going.
Rekha frowned. Venjie couldn't possibly carry all of those up the ladder without dropping one or falling. "Let me help."
"I have it." Venjie muttered and put a foot on the ladder. The topmost bottle jumped.
Psi caught it before it could hit the floor. Rekha lifted it to read the label. Hydrochloric acid 30%. The bottles weren't likely to break, but could. She didn't want to think about the damage it could wreck on someone, especially Venjie. "Don't be a stubborn bulkhead. Why didn't you bring a crate?"
Venjie started up again. The bottles shifted dangerously.
Rekha plucked all of them out of Venjie's arms with psi and caught Venjie physically when she yelped and lost her grip on the ladder.
"Rekha!"
She ignored Venjie's yelling and her headache to float the bottles up the shaft to the main deck. She sniffed snot trying to escape her nose. "There. Don't have to worry about getting them up the ladder now."
Venjie shoved her away. Her eyes went cold. "Don't get so close. You might get infected." She stormed up the ladder.
Too late. She wiped her nose and frowned at the streak of red on the back of her hand. From psi overload or Kharaa sickness? Both? Growling in frustration, Rekha went up the ladder and focused on what needed to be done. Impossible odds and crewmates be damned.
A/N - Did I mention that I really loved the fanfic In Charge with its talking ampeels? I don't plan on featuring them. I just really wanted this planet to have multiple intelligent species -multiple sentient!- species. And it helped the scene be even more alien and exotic to Rekha with her background and hatred of this planet.