July 25th, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly.
On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII: a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide.
Its curve not of nature, but design.
Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why.
But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space.
For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe.
Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last.
Morning came all too soon, bright and harsh and with no promise of improvement. His neck and the small of his back ached from their ongoing burn, and the mattress had left a deep imprint on his left cheek. Alex tried to calculate how much he weighed at the moment, but he couldn’t do the math in his head, and he didn’t care enough to use a calculator. Either way, 1.25 of a g was enough to make a man feel older than he was.
With an effort, he dragged himself out of bed and started to pull on his jumpsuit. A text popped up in the corner of his overlays:
<My office. Five minutes. —Idris>
Trust the captain to already be up and working… Alex fought back a flutter of uncertainty. How would Idris respond to his request?
He took a moment to comb his hair and then hurried out of the cabin. His bum knee throbbed with every step; it always did until it warmed up, and the extra .25 g was doing nothing to help.
Alex followed the curve of the ship’s hull around to the captain’s office. It was the only room that might be considered spare space on the Adamura, but even in his more cynical moments, Alex had to admit that it served a useful purpose. Having personnel meetings in Idris’s cabin wouldn’t have been the best way to maintain the chain of command.
He knocked.
“Enter,” said Idris from inside.
The locking mechanism of the pressure door made a loud clank as Alex opened it.
The office was a small, spare room—an off-white box with a row of transparent shelves along the left-hand wall. Mounted on the shelves were models of different ships: tugs, freighters, even a planetary defense fighter from Sol. Alex wasn’t sure, but he thought they were the ships Idris had served on previously.
For a moment, he imagined tiny people on the tiny ships, each of them living in their own version of reality, as if each person—each being—was locked in a personalized Markov Bubble, forever unable to reach out and touch those around them.
“Crichton,” said Idris, jolting Alex from his reverie.
“Sir.”
The captain sat on the other side of a thin composite desk. It looked almost comically small compared with the width of his shoulders. Mass was always at a premium on a spaceship, which meant the furniture was usually half the size it should be.
Idris motioned at one of the two chairs bolted to the deck.
Alex sat.
The captain rolled the signet ring around his finger. “Why do you want to go down to Talos, Crichton?”
The question shouldn’t have caught Alex off guard, and yet he still felt unprepared to answer it. “I’m the survey xenobiologist. I think I ought to be there… Don’t you?”
Idris fixed him with a hard gaze. “What I think isn’t the point. Three days ago you were dead set against landing. What changed?”
Uncomfortable, Alex studied the top of the table. “I needed some time to get used to the idea.”
“Really. You haven’t exactly covered yourself in glory the past few weeks, Crichton. You’ve been late on half your assignments, and I have a list of complaints as long as my arm from the rest of the crew about your, shall we say, lack of team spirit.”
“Sir. That w—”
“Why should I think you’re not going to fuck things up if I put you on a landing team? Why would this be any different than before? Help me do my job, Crichton. Tell me why I should take a risk on you.”
Alex swallowed hard. For the first time since signing up to the expedition, he felt a sense of shame. He’d always done well at school and work, always prided himself on taking care of the things that needed doing. But that had been before, and he knew Idris was right; he—Alex—hadn’t acquitted himself with any sort of distinction on the Adamura.
But that could change.
“Because,” he said, “I want this. It’s important to me… sir. For personal reasons.”
Idris shook his head and laughed in a disbelieving way. “Goddammit. Every time.”
“Sir?”
The captain leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk. “You’re not the first fuckup to come through this office, Crichton, and you won’t be the last. The company isn’t too picky about who they send on these expeditions. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, and I don’t care. But I do care about this landing mission. So. I’m asking you, Crichton: Can you keep it together?”
Alex lifted his chin, feeling the sting to his pride. “Yessir.”
Idris stabbed a finger at him. “Prove it to me, then. Stay on top of your work from now on. Be the best damn xenobiologist I’ve ever served with. Because if you can’t, if you slip up even once, then that’s it. I’ll send Yesha in your place.”
Knee-jerk outrage caused Alex to say, “Yesha? She’s a glorified meteorologist—”
“Climatologist.”
“Whatever. She’s not a biologist or even an ecologist. She doesn’t know the first thing about cataloging an alien biome.”
“Exactly,” said Idris. “But she’s reliable, and that matters.”
Alex tried not to take it personally, but it was personal, and Idris wasn’t wrong. So he clenched his jaw and held his tongue.
“Oh, and one other thing, Crichton. I want you to draft a proposal for the landing party. Best practices, quarantine protocol, how you think we should investigate the site. That sort of thing. Have it on my desk by oh-eight-hundred tonight.”
“Yessir.”
Idris nodded. “We clear?”
“Yessir. Clear as space.”
“Alright. Get out of here.”
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