Dove Levy: Way Station

This is still weird. I’ll do this again soon, but first, there are tests to run, and talking to myself doesn’t make them go any faster.

We were followed all the way here, and now we’re surrounded. None of them have stepped into the light and given us a visual, but the sensors are picking up their traces all around the facility, staying just outside the cameras’ fields of vision. They’re numerous and more than likely deadly, if their aggression and intelligence is anything like those of the southern continent, and they almost seem to be swarming.

Another storm here. I told Eve my hypothesis on the appearance of the aliens in connection with the storms, and they had come to the same conclusion on their own. Great minds think alike, as the saying goes. We’re nothing if not great minds.

Rabies, almost. Not quite rabies, though that was the simplest explanation and the easiest one to put in the autopsy review. Eve didn’t want to talk anymore, so I did the review this time, and they’re supposed to be short, right? Not much room to really explain our findings. But it was more similar to rabies than anything else from Earth, with similar symptoms and manner of spreading.

That came along with the storm as well, infecting the animals. Facility K is in the middle of a wasteland, complete emptiness for miles and miles, for as much of the world as we would be able to see had POGE orbited a sun — Eve said it reminded them of home. A boring home, it sounds like. But inside, it’s full of life. There’s a farm, with soil brought all the way over from Facility C. In the middle of such dangerous terrain, it was difficult to ship food and water, and so they built their own way of surviving here.

And animals. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed animals, but I was so excited for this station. Excited to see dogs and cows and pigs and chickens and cats and rats. They would have had their own access to the food and water on the farm, so even if the station members all died they could take care of themselves for months and months.

But all we found were carcasses. It started in the dogs and spread quickly to all of the livestock and then to the humans.

It was hard not to cry. Only barely was I able to keep back the tears, though I don’t know why I bothered. Eve has been more than obvious in how much they care for me by now, and I care for them as well. I don’t feel uncomfortable around them. But it still felt wrong for me to be the one to break down.

I don’t know how we’ll be able to leave the station. It was hard enough to get here in the first place. We couldn’t see them, not clearly, but we saw their shadows and their vague shapes in front of the car. Ran over a few, but most fled from the path and jumped at the sides, trying to claw their way in and get to us. Aggression or curiosity, I don’t think it matters. Either way, if they got in I don’t know what the chances of survival would have been.

Now, they’re all around the facility, and—

[crashes, Eve shouting]

[whispering] And one’s inside.

It looks like the deep sea version of a cross between a spider and a centipede that can fly, but scarier. I don’t know the best way to describe it. Words aren’t my strong suit. Talking about it at all with something other than Eve is difficult for me, even if the only person who’s listening is myself. It’s easier with Eve in the room alongside me, but still.

All colorless and translucent, partially transparent, like those that followed us onto the ferry. Most of them are like this, probably, though those on Telle had bioluminescence. They were cut off from the rest of the world there, though. For the rest, no need for eyes when there’s no light to see with, and thus no need for coloration, for any kind of visual camouflage. They stumble around in the darkness, swarming over one another, and while I have to think they have some sensory inputs that allow proper movement and avoidance of obstacles, this one didn’t show any signs of that. After getting into the facility, it just bumbled its way about, running into walls and sofas until I caught it in a box.

Maybe the light disoriented it, some part of it able to pick out the intrusive substance on POGE even without the eyes to understand it. Sensitive skin, maybe, unused to such a thing as light.

I’ve tried to cut open multiple places on it that look fatal, without damaging what looks to be important organs we could use to study, but all I’ve done is hurt it. If this next cut doesn’t do it, I’ll smash it, put it out of its misery. I don’t like seeing anything in so much pain, alien or no, vicious or no.

It was hard enough to see the dogs.

Smart. They’re so smart. All this time, intelligence like this was hidden away, waiting for the time the storms would really pick up, waiting for the time they could cover this planet once again, if they’ve ever done it before. The plants were smart, too, for plants, but these are nearly sapient.

We looked at the security footage from the airlock after our specimen dissolved into a puddle like the creatures on the southern continent did. Three of these spindly creatures, piled up one on top of the other, managing the airlock. How could they have known how to do it? Trial and error?

Eve isn’t nearly as excited as I am about this discovery, nor even as close as they had been on the first ferry ride. I can’t let that tamp down my own interest, though. My job is to keep both of us stable, not just them, and these creatures fascinate me like no other. Allow me some indulgence, yeah?

The internal structure of this creature was like no other I’d ever seen, and while the outside may look like a spider’s, the inside was nothing similar. Studying spiders was a hobby of mine for years, and I haven’t forgotten what I’d learned. All the organs were out of place, and some I couldn’t figure out what function they held in the limited time I had available to me. I took some pictures of it whole and cut open, but they’re hardly useful without a live specimen to see how it lives its life, or even the remains of one that won’t turn into a puddle after twenty minutes dead.

I don’t know if the swarm outside will stay or if it will move on, scattering across the continent. It will be good if they leave, so Eve and I can travel with ease to the next facility. But if they don’t, maybe the bosses can send another shuttle up to K with us, take some of them live to study.

Would they hurt these creatures, though? I don’t know if it’s worth the risk. Live animal testing sits badly in my stomach.

All across POGE, storms are brewing. Monitors are going into the red in all the stations this facility’s systems have access to, and they’re only growing worse and more numerous. We were unlucky, I suppose. Unlucky to end up here when we did, unlucky in the circumstances that led us here, and the facility members had the worst of the luck. I’m no meteorologist, and I have no idea what would cause so many of these storms to start in such quick succession, especially after a decade of almost complete calm across the planet. Maybe there’s some large stellar body passing by us, a comet or another rogue planet or an asteroid, or maybe this is a cycle common on this planet, years of calm before years of hardship, long enough apart that we thought it was safe for us.

Does any of what we’re doing matter? I know I won’t get an answer talking to a tape recorder, but I can’t ask Eve. I can’t put them through that, not right now. They’ll over think and overanalyze and it will only upset them more. But I need to say it out loud, make it real instead of the abstract idea in my mind that I haven’t quite been able to bring to the forefront. Saying it aloud means I have to face it, and so face it I will.