Six Worlds

“Captain, I think you’ll want to see this. Sending images now.“ Dawson punched a few buttons on his data strap and held up his suited arm to confirm the images had made it over to the Holy Diver, his asteroid mining ship.

“What the hell is that?” came a voice from over the com channel.

“I’m not sure, Captain.” Dawson hovered over a pocked, craterous asteroid, smaller than he was used to, but rumors of this sector of the asteroid belt had told of several smaller rocks carrying substantial loads of rare earths and some heavy metals. He was one of the few drilling scouts sent about a small area where several asteroids clustered together in close proximity. It was more efficient to scout clusters than lone rocks.

This asteroid was a type M, only a hundred meters in diameter and half a kilometer in length. It was nowhere near spherical, but instead looked like a lone tower drifting slow through the depths of space. It was angular, with sharp edges and heavily pocked along its surface. Dawson hovered close to an area that originally showed signs of heavy metals through its visually bright appearance, a prime area to drill for samples and test the density of materials, thus the profitability of the asteroid itself. But when Dawson lowered down closer to the surface, something strange had caught his eye. A tunnel, square in shape and set deep into the rock. Was it possible another mining ship had already tested this particular rock? And who drills a square? Normally, a beacon is set on the surface to let others know of the asteroid claim, but none were in the near vicinity.

“Turn on your feed, Dawson.”

“Right,” he said as he thrust his chin and pressed a button inside his helmet to activate the camera.

“Strange,” said the Captain over the com. “Can you get closer to it?”

Dawson worked the thrust controls of his suit and slowly descended down towards the surface of the asteroid. As he moved himself directly over the hole, he could see that it was worked, carved, deep and dark. Dawson chinned another button inside his helm and a two bright lights shone out from both sides of his helmet, the beams illuminating the inside of the structure.

“Smooth metal inside, Captain. It looks like, like some kind of hallway.” Dawson hovered a few meters up from the rock strewn entrance, noting a metal-appearing lining halfway down inside the tunnel. It looked ripped away, the metal splaying and splinting in several places at the area where the metal began. Entering would be dangerous, with sharp shards of metal waiting to slice through Dawson’s suit. As the beams of light reached the bottom of the tunnel, Dawson lost his breath. The light reflected against a flat, metallic surface. It looked like a ship’s hatch.

“Dawson, come back to the ship,” said the Captain over the com.

“What? Captain! We don’t know what we’re looking at yet! There may be tech inside, or, I don’t know! Anything! We’d be rich if we discover signs of life outside of the Human race,” said Dawson, his voice excited, pleading.

“Assuming that’s even what this is, Dawson.”

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing. And I know you know there’s something here,” said Dawson. “Just, just let me check it out a bit, Cap.”

“There’s protocol for this kind of thing. And you know that,” the captains voice crackled over the com. “Come back to the ship and we’ll report the finding to the S.D.D.C. and let them figure this out.”

“But Cap, they’ll quarantine the area. We won’t be allowed anywhere near this sector. What if they find something? Shouldn’t we know about it? Shouldn’t we be a part of the discovery?”

“Back to the ship. That’s an order.”

Dawson loomed silently over the asteroid, overlooking the metallic structure down in the tunnel. The door, set deep inside, promised untold discoveries. Life, technology, interstellar intelligence. There could be anything inside. Dawson wondered to himself if this was how the old explorers felt when they stood in front of an old tomb, sealed and locked for millennia. Just the door itself was a discovery. And to be the one to open the door? He’d be the one the history books talked about. Gilbert Dawson, Space Explorer, Discovered Extraterrestrial Life. It’d be one hell of a tombstone.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing?” asked the Captain over the com.

“Sorry,” said Dawson as he unstrapped his anchor gun from his pack. He aimed it carefully a meter from the tunnel entrance and launched a harpoon, which embedded itself deep into the rock. He placed the gun back into his pack and clipped himself onto the steel rope that led down to the pocked surface. He pulled himself, hand over hand, until his feet rested onto the stone of the asteroid. His magnetic books clamped lightly to the rock, a sign that it was dense with metals. Regardless of the door, the rock itself would be valuable.

“Dawson, son of a bitch, get back to the ship!”

Ignoring the com, Dawson peaked over the edge, into the tunnel. No, into the hallway. The passage sunk deeper into the stone than he previously thought, but the anchor rope would be enough to get to the door. He slipped over the edge and began to lower himself down with light blasts of his thrusters, careful to stay clear of the sharp edges of metal reaching for his suit like barbarous talons ready to grab, pierce and cut. As he passed by the shards, his boots clamped hard to the metallic surface of the hall and he turned down the magnetics so he could walk comfortably along the corridor.

He noted the smooth walkway, built just like the interior of a ship or a tight building. The smooth metal appeared charred in some areas, scorched with long streaks of black. His boots made no noise in the vacuum of space, but he could feel the reverberation of the metal beneath his feet. Slow and with caution, he approached the door and its round hatch.

The door itself looked fairly standard. The metal, which appeared bright and highly reflective earlier, now showed its age as the door looked rough, like sandpaper. Dawson reached out and ran his hand across it, and something that looked of sand brushed away, yet still clinging to the metal. It was possible the magnetics of his boots were running through the metal hall and door, which grabbed the ionic dust in the near vicinity, magnetizing it to the door. He brushed more of the sand-stuff away, which revealed the coarse metal beneath. There were no markings, nothing that gave any idea to what would be found inside. Dawson’s heart thumped hard in his chest.

“Dawson,” the Captains voice crackled, his tone serious. “Come on back. Come back to the ship. Let the pros deal with this.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Dawson clenched his teeth together as he clasped the hatch, trying to turn it with all of his strength. He grunted past the commands of his Captain yelling at him over the com to return immediately, and his calls to send out a team to go get him. He struggled hard, yet the door did not budge. He thought to himself for a few seconds, calculating the time it would take for a dispatch team to come grab him, and turned back to the supply bag tied around his waist. He pulled out his torch and started working on melting the hinges.

“Dawson! You have no idea what’s in there! Get the fuck out of there! I swear, when you get back here, you will be decommissioned! You will never mine again! You will never click” The Captains shouting was cut short as Dawson turned off his coms. Another big offense. Never turn off your com. Well, the Captain is not going to take this one away.

The hinges of the hatch melted away with ease, one by one until all that was left was the middle hinge. Dawson brought his torch to it and started to work. It glowed bright red as it heated and it started to contort and bend. Dawson let out a yell of excitement. His breath heaved and his heart pounded as he thought of all the possibilities of discovery. His elation was cut quick, however, as he felt the sudden impact of the hatch as it blew open, launching Dawson back through the tunnel.

Red alarms lit the inside of Dawson’s helm, showing warnings of suit damage and low oxygen. He struggled to breath as the air left his suit, and his body heat was replaced with the freezing cold of the nothingness of open space. Dazed, confused, Dawson’s eyes flitted open, his vision blurred and unsteady. Through the haze of his sight, he could see his anchor line taut as he slowly spun on his tether above the asteroid. He reached around, grabbing the emergency suit binding and blindly applied the quick hardening gel to the suit around the areas where he felt extreme cold on his body. With luck, and prior training in these scenarios, the suits oxygens levels began to rise again, slow at first then quicker as the gel hardened itself over the rips in his suit.

Then, Dawson laughed.

He floated there for a few minutes, laughing at his escape from death, mostly stunned but also relieved. He was always the stupid one, doing things that put him at risk. It was the reason he was in space. The percentage of miner deaths was high, so becoming one was a risk. But a few good hauls and a miner could retire a rich man. So the risk was something he was comfortable with. Tit for tat. Plus, luck always seemed to follow him somehow, so the gamble only made sense. As he floated there at the end of the rope, letting the relief fill his body, he noticed something. It was a blue glow. And it was coming from the asteroid tunnel.

After a few tests of the suits thrusters, which were damaged in the hatch blowing, Dawson grabbed the steel cable and pulled himself back down towards the surface of the asteroid. He heightened the magnetism of his boots and used it to pull himself back into the tunnel, using the high metallic density of the surface rock to walk back down to the hatch, which now revealed a room beyond. Knowing this moment was important, to him and possibly to mankind, he steadied his breath and stepped inside.

The room was square, tall and wide. Items floated about the space around Dawson, bits and things he did not recognize. Something that could possibly be a chair wandered by his helmet, and he pushed it aside as he strode further into the room. There were large dark spaces on the walls, some cracked or completely shattered, like glass. There were areas of the room that had tall, angular objects that jutted from the ground and cut at an angle on top. They brought the vision of huge crystals jammed into the ground. All of these things were fascinating in their own right, but they weren’t what stole Dawson’s vision. His focus was on a lit up cylindrical case at the end of the room, set into the wall, glowing bright and blue. And inside the glass lay a figure.

Dawson nudged the com button in his helmet. The voice of his Captain crackled through.

“Dawson, do you read? Dawson, goddamit. Turn on your fucking com. Dawson, do you read?”

“I read, Captain. Are you seeing this?”

There was silence for a moment.

“Yeah, I’m seeing it.”

Dawson drew closer to the glass casing on the wall. The warm glow of the blue light filled his eyes as he scanned the thing inside the case. It was humanoid in shape, with a wondrous amethyst skin tone. Amethyst, because the skin seemed stretched and translucent, and beneath could be seen the slow working organs of whatever creature was inside. It’s arms were long and gangly, with a ridge all along the outer edge. It’s legs were even longer, the muscle beneath the translucent skin tight and withered. And it’s face; wrinkled, thin, gaunt.

Dawson stood still, just staring at the creature beneath the glass. His breath wavered and his knees felt weak. He managed a weak smile, if but for a moment, at the beauty of the thing. How long had this been here, drifting silent and patient through space? He reached his hand up to touch the glass but the Captain’s voice crackled over the com, stilling him.

“Dawson,” said the Captain, all anger out of him. “You found it. It was you. Now come on back. Please.”

He stood there, hand stretched out, the glowing blue light illuminating his surroundings. He pushed it this far, he probably shouldn’t push it any further. Maybe the Captain would go light on him. He put his hand back down to his side and stared into the long face of the encased creature, wondering where it came from, how long it’s been here, what secrets it knows. And then it opened its eyes.

Dawson froze, staring into the creature’s pure white irises. And it stared back, unmoving. Fear drove itself deep into Dawson’s chest, catching his breath and paralyzing him. His mind screamed for him to run, to turn, flee, but his eyes were locked deep into the creature’s own. He could hear the faint crackle of his com unit but it sounded far away, fleeting. Darkness closed in around him, the blue glow fading, fading, until all that existed was him and the creature.
Images of Earth filled Dawson’s mind. Trees, oceans, deserts, people. They were ancient people he knew, but only because he was told. They built magnificent buildings, and pursued great things. They fought each other and made peace, and traveled the planet and then beyond. They visited other worlds, smaller yet bountiful, verdant and filled with creatures he’d never seen before. Exotic and colorful, dangerous and docile. He saw creatures like the one encased in glass, and he saw others too, from exotic other worlds, with shapes and colors of their own. Five of them, worlds filled with life, and Earth made six. They worked together to build peace, to bring great things to their homes. They built wondrous cities, and they lit the sky.

Together, the peoples of the six planets came to one another. And together they built a great engine to harness the power of the gas planets. One by one, they brought endless energy and bountiful resources to their worlds, they built even greater cities and became great pioneers of knowledge. Until, one day they learned of the treacherous nature of the Human race.

Dawson felt anger and rage fill his mind, for both him and his people. He felt the deaths of billions upon billions of souls, their screams and wails of agony deafening. He saw war on land, sea, air and in the vastness of space. He saw the tampering of the great engines, and the decimation of planets, one by one by one. He saw the sinking of a city deep into the Earth’s sea.

The creature grabbed at Dawson, breaking through the glass and it squeezed his neck with preternaturally strong hands. It twisted its mouth in rage, and squeezed with all the strength it had. Darkness began to take over Dawson’s mind, which engulfed both the creature and himself as he faded away into unconsciousness. But then the skin of the creature, tight and stretched across its withered form, slowly started to crystallize. The blackness that tried to overtake Dawson receded as life surged back into him. The blue glow became brighter and the images that filled his mind left him. The room returned to his vision, the crackling com louder in his ear. Before him stood the corpse of the creature, weightless, frozen, surrounded by shattered glass that looked like a glimmering halo all around it.

Dawson fell to his knees and tears rimmed his eyes. Arms reached around him and he was pulled back from the still form of the creature, its face tangled in rage, in pain, and in hate. The room fell away from his vision as he let the crew pull him back through the open hatch and through the tunnel, his body limp and tired. Yet, the creature remained in his tomb staring lifelessly back at Dawson as he ascended above and into the destroyed remains of the worlds of old.

Posted on r/Writingprompt from my reddit account: xxMatzarxx
Image source Pixabay