INSIDE THE AURELIUS

'How're their vitals doing?' spoke Yuya as he worked on his console.

'Just dandy – pulse rates are up...I assume that's normal, although I'm no real doctor.' replied Jarreck.

'There's a threshold value though, isn't there? Goes higher than that and we can start worrying.'

'Yeah...but we're not there yet. Where's the kid?' asked Jarreck taking off his headphone receiver, looking around for Helen.

'Beats me. Must've gone for a walk.'

'You nervous?' asked Jarreck, scratching behind his ear.

'No,'

'You look nervous.'

'I'm not nervous.' Yuya jerked his thumb in the direction outside the ship. 'I'm not the one in that contraption.'

'Well, I am. I...uh...got a bad feeling.' spoke Jarreck, suddenly lowering his voice.

Yuya raised his eyebrows, and then laughed. 'I know you've heard this song before, but this whole thing,' Yuya gestured with his hands, 'this whole freaking incident...goes without saying that such feelings are bound to be part of the package, y'know?'

Jarreck shut his eyes momentarily and took a few deep breaths. It wasn't mere nervousness, he knew. He'd been down this road before. Before all those people got killed. Before all those androids malfunctioned. Before his life fell apart. No one believed him then, and he was positive that no one would believe him now.

He opened his eyes and gave Yuya a defeated look. 'Yeah. Alright, man. Alright.' He unbuckled himself from his seat and patted Yuya on the back. 'Take command of the bridge, would ya Scotty? I'm gonna see if I can get some shut-eye.'

Shut-eye, my ass, thought Jarreck. He couldn't find sleep if he was loaded with ten pounds of Valium. What he did intend to do was to check up on their stock of weapons, should anything serious occur. Heaven forbid that it would. Jarreck thought back to the last time he looked over the list of standard items this type of vessel carried and conjured up a blurry image of first aid equipment, blasting devices – God bless Lexington, life preserver suits, dried food, field recording equipment...but nothing remotely related to artillery fire. Jarreck cursed under his breath. This was a discovery mission. Surely the scientists on board did not anticipate that all their findings would be benign and harmless? What if they did encounter something hostile – what were they going to fight it with? Picks and shovels? Panic started to well up inside of him, and he held the side of the wall to try and get a hold on his feelings. Paranoia, he thought to himself. Sheer paranoia. In less than twenty four hours the rest of them would be back with miniature findings to fill their Petri dishes up with – nothing more. And you'll look like a lunatic Rambo waiting to open fire on a horde of unicellular organisms. Yeah...but unicellular organisms did not build that vessel. Something bloody big did. And something of obvious intelligence.

Jarreck looked down at his boots and scrunched up his fists into tight balls. Paranoia be damned, if something was going to happen he'd like to be there to stop it. He didn't want a rerun of the incident that almost destroyed his life.

He continued walking down the corridor determinedly. No weapons? Alright then, he'd have to come up with a crude rendition of some kind of gun. He might even have to resort to taking apart some of the original equipment on board, but that wasn't of primary concern. Jarreck could immediately explain his actions should they be questioned.

He made his way down to one of the storage rooms.

THE VESSEL

'Right then.' said Lexington in the corner of darkness. 'Right then, which way?'

'Forward...I guess,' muttered Barnaby in reply.

Lexington looked around for any disagreeing persons, and in the dim light of the lamps he saw blank expressions. 'Forward it is. Uh...might I suggest that we tie some rope around all of our waists? We don't want to lose anyone...'

'Fine with me.' said someone.

They spent a few minutes fumbling for the rope and the process of tying it and then once again stood in silence.

'I'll lead,' spoke up Omitsu. 'If anyone begins feeling uncomfortable, or notices an increase in pressure inside their suits, please speak up. It could be that you're experiencing an adverse sign of this foreign environment, and your suit – for some reason – is not equipped to deal with it.'

'Can we get going?' said Reuban suddenly feeling the impatience of a six year old.

'I'm merely stating this for your own personal safety,' spoke Omitsu calmly.

Reuban nodded in the dark and looked around him. He wondered what Helen was doing.

Omitsu started walking forward, and the rest of them could feel the slight tug of the rope against their waists and started moving their feet to keep pace with hers. Reuban wondered what the ground would feel like to his touch, and shone the lamp attached to his suit downwards to get a visual interpretation of how it would feel. Black. He couldn't observe any grooves or erosion – as far his eyes knew it was very smooth. Then why weren't they slipping around like penguins on ice, he wondered? Whatever the material, it must have a substantial amount of friction to keep all five of them upright and walking.

'Stop!' he cried.

Reuban felt the rope jerk.

'What is it?' spoke an alarmed Lexington.

'The floor – do you think we could maybe get a sample of it? It seems as if it may be malleable. Possible to break a part of it off and take it back for analysis...'

'For God's sake Reuban!' exclaimed Lexington. 'I thought we were being attacked! The next time you cry out like that you'd better have something more substantial to scream about than alien linoleum!'

'Don't break off anything!' said Omitsu sternly. ''We don't even know if we're being watched. And for beings who attest to be coming in peace in the name of discovery – we'd look more like vandals! I don't want anyone taking anything back unless we're absolutely certain there's no one on board.'

They continued their tentative walk and Reuban could hear Barnaby mutter something under his breath. 'The only thing I'll be absolutely certain about is that I won't be bloody certain. How we're going to search this entire...' and then his voice became inaudible.

'You notice something odd?' said Regan after a period of silence.

'Oh no...nothing out of the ordinary...' spoke Barnaby in a sarcastic tone.

'No, I mean, look at the absence of any written material, signs...anything. How does any being on board get around?'

'Odd, but certainly not unexpected.' began Lexington. 'This is an alien race we're dealing with. To assume that they're going to behave very similar to us is an extremely poor hypothesis. It's like a bad science fiction film – the naïve assumption is that the aliens that come invade our planet have two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. The only difference is that their skin's green or their body's of incorrect proportions – but usually something there's always something we can relate to. But this is reality...and there may be a whole other method of communication these creatures have established and probably even have an alternative or wholly different organ to make use of this communication.'

'But don't you think there should be something on board we can relate to?' persisted Regan. 'So far I've seen nothing.'

'We've seen quite a number of similarities.' explained Lexington. 'Firstly, they travel about by means of a ship. Like us. Secondly, they have a door by which they enter this craft. Again, like us.'

'So we can rule out the fact that they can teleport or walk through walls, huh?' said Barnaby.

'Exactly. And what's more-' Lexington was stopped mid-sentence by something that caught his attention.

'...yeah?' prompted Regan, wondering if Lexington was at a loss for words.

'Shine your light to the right ahead of us towards the floor... No, not that far ahead, about five yards,' instructed Lexington.

The others all did as told, and squinted their eyes in anticipation of catching a glimpse of whatever had caught Lexington's attention. Omitsu sighed in frustration as she tried in vain to do so, and Barnaby began to mutter again. Reuban leaned slightly forward and saw something that was much darker than the blackness that enveloped them – if that were even possible.

'...is it a sack? A body mass?' ventured Reuban.

'Omitsu, let's get closer.' spoke Lexington excitedly.

'Wait, wait...I want to switch onto main audio. I want the Aurelius to hear every word, in case this should get nasty.' spoke Reuban as he pressed something on his suit.

Omitsu rolled her eyes. 'For God's sake – don't be so morbid!'

But even she couldn't maintain her frustration amidst the growing excitement. The five of them stepped forward and peered at the black oddity.

'A hole!' shouted Regan suddenly. 'A hole that leads to another level on this ship!'

'Maybe that's where the crew is...'

'Let's go down and see.' suggested Regan. 'I'm volunteering to go first.'

Omitsu shot him a look that he didn't notice. 'Maybe we should make sure that this hole is in fact an entrance to the next level.' she said.

'What're you saying?' asked Reuban.

'I've been thinking. What if...the reason why this ship has not been responding to our communication signals is because the crew members are all dead? What if this hole hasn't been made by them? It certainly doesn't look like it's been purposely manufactured. Looks like it's some kind of accident...'

'That's ridiculous. Just because it doesn't look man-made doesn't mean somebody dropped a washing machine through the floor above.' snorted Lexington.

'That's not what I'm saying,' argued Omitsu.

'-I suggest we better get a move on... We only have about twenty more hours left to explore this entire labyrinth.' spoke Regan.

'I agree.' said Barnaby stretching out his hand. 'You first though.'

'Wait-' Reuban tried to interrupt, but Lexington had already begun to untie the rope around Regan and was tying a longer nylon cord around his waist.

Reuban watched in stunned silence as Barnaby and Lexington lowered Regan through the large cavity in the floor. As he went downwards, Reuban could hear Regan breathing heavily trying to sound cheerful as he did so.

'All in the name of science...' he said.

THE AURELIUS

'They found something! They finally found something!' screamed the girl, startling Yuya.

'Where the hell did you spring up from?!' he breathed.

Helen's face shone with excitement. 'I just walked in when the audio from outside turned on...I can't believe it!' She thumped the back of his seat repeatedly.

'Yeah well, no need to go all gangsta on me, huh?' he craned his neck around to look at her. 'Go get Jarreck, would you? This is something he'd want to hear.'

'But I want to hear this too,' she protested.

'This is all being recorded. If anything happens, you can hear the replay. You won't miss a thing. Now go find him – he should be in the lounge, taking a nap.' instructed Yuya.

Helen opened her mouth to voice her desire to remain in the cockpit, when something crossed her mind. 'Jarreck's not in the lounge – I was there and I didn't see him at all.'

Yuya ignored her as he started adjusting some dials on his console. 'Just go find him, okay? This is important.'

Helen threw her hands up in despair and walked out of the room.