Dove Levy: Way Station

What had they seen?

I’m almost glad that POGE went rogue. Rhyme not intended. If we can’t even understand what poisoned those team members, I don’t think any amount of preparation would have prepared us for what these animals were like. From the remains, I can’t tell predator from prey, herbivore from carnivore, or even if they fell into those Earth categories. For all I know, they could have fed off dust, or breath, or blood like some kind of alien vampire. There is no knowledge of how strong they were, how they moved, if they were even capable of killing people or if this was a planet of complete peace where children could ride atop… whatever the hell I’m standing in front of right now.

This is one of the big ones. Its head nearly reaches the ceiling of the landing dock, which was the only place they had room to put it. Well over ten times my height, and nearly completely vertical. Its limbs twist and turn like tentacles, but the structure looks solid and stiff, no flexible vertebrae like on a spine or tail. Uneven, enormous, and I’m only assuming that what’s at the very top was where a head went. The bone just… ends there.

No remains with the flesh preserved have been found by this team, and if any of the other facilities have some, they hadn’t shared the information in time. Which really makes me wonder. There’s not much in this barren part of the land specifically, but all around Facility A and for much of the journey here, perfectly preserved trees and other plant life filled our surroundings, not quite dead by the time POGE was too far away from its old sun and certainly not rotted to stumps and shriveled leaves. None of the animals are in the same condition.

Maybe they’d all gone extinct long before the rest of POGE followed, like what happened to our dinosaurs, but without the time to develop the life that eventually would result in intelligence. Maybe POGE had its own Nemesis planet. I can’t say I buy the theories of a Nemesis at home, but it’s a fun thing to think about.

Could chemoautotrophs end up as prolific as, say, flies on this world? They’re nowhere near as energy-efficient as solar-based life. They get their energy from the changes in temperature surrounding heated vents at the bottom of the ocean floor, and it’s very little compared to photosynthesis. But I suppose that, without any other sources of energy, they could have the incentive to grow beyond what we have on Earth, streamline their biology to manage just fine without a sun. Fungi would be the most natural if they could get to the surface, with an entire planet of dead life to munch on until the world goes barren or a different form of plants and animals take over.

That’s a long way coming, though.

Dr. Federman repaired one of the malfunctioned weather detectors. It sat closer to the base and took the full brunt of the storm, leading us to assume that the storm developed not too far out from the farthest detector, growing steadily stronger and stronger as it came closer. This one was meant to relay the temperature and pressure within.

Temperatures exceeded 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, the pressure astronomically large. Almost no plant life was in the path when it hit here, but I went for a walk in the area, and all that had been in the way is completely flattened. The blood within the team members should have boiled and killed them long before the storm even touched them, and if they did make it to stand within its midst, their bodies would have, bluntly, caught fire.

Instead, they’re frozen.

These ones look fun. One of the members’ bedrooms has multiple skeletal, for lack of a better word, displays scattered around, one small enough that they used it as a paperweight. These people really loved themselves some dead aliens.

The closest resemblance I can think of is a fish, though we’re still far inland without any sign of water for quite a while away. Most of the facility’s water comes shipped in from Facility C, as does their food, though their last shipment was a few months before the one that killed Facility A.

They have heads and little feathery bones along the sides like fins, or maybe the wings of a bat. Big, round bodies and empty bulbs at the top where a brain, or some similar organ, may have laid, and long, wispy tails. The fins don’t seem large enough to carry their bodies in flight, but I can’t know how much flesh was actually on these bones or how heavy the creature was before its body became a fossil.

Over here, these look like little disco balls, spheres with holes in random patterns and sizes but no fractures or cut marks around the edges of them. They naturally grew that way instead of being broken up over the years.

I feel kind of bad about snooping around in a dead person’s bedroom, but can I be blamed? Aliens!

Walks are supposed to ease your mind. I’m going on another one.

I’m sure this place is beautiful. I’ve only been to a few tourist destinations back home, many years ago when I still lived with my family and summer vacation was still a thing. We used to go on road trips all the time, though generally, they were to the same few places, cycling throughout the years. At the end, we’d camp somewhere for a few days and drive back home, but the point was mainly just for the four of us to sit in a car together for hours on end. Phones and books weren’t allowed, radio wasn’t allowed, and sleeping wasn’t allowed until the sun had set, so if we wanted entertainment, we had to talk to each other.

From the pictures the team has in their file, where I sit right now is more than fit to be one of those destinations. To map the area, the team set up huge lights so they wouldn’t just be taking pictures of flickering shadows from a flashlight. Grey and red and brown land all around me, filled with canyons and caves and mountains and looking like an enormous, crumpled piece of paper. I’m trying to keep those images in my mind right now as I look out in front of me, but I don’t even know where those pictures were taken. All I see is the few feet my flashlight shows me, and everywhere else, darkness.

The station is several miles behind me. That’s a bad idea, I know. This is dangerous. I don’t know the land, and I didn’t exactly tell Dr. Federman that I was leaving, instead just leaving a note on the dining room table. It’s not like walking away from a campsite, though. There are no wild animals here to hunt me.

We have to leave early tomorrow if we want to make it to Facility C in good time. I would have liked to go there first, but we had no way of knowing that the storm had hit them until getting here, as it was too far away from Facility A’s monitors.

The idea of finding more Pompeii statues doesn’t sit well with me. It’s my job, and I’m going to do it, but it’s hard even to look at them. I’ve seen many strange deaths in my work, but none that left me with the creeping feeling of knowing something else is out there that I can’t see.

I should go back soon, but the vastness of this empty place is far softer than helping Dr. Federman bury the statues we’d already found. I’m sitting on the ridge of one of the canyons, no idea how far below me the drop goes until it hits the hard, rocky ground. The shadows cast by my flashlight make it look like small creatures are stalking just outside my field of vision, but there is only silence all around me.

We are the only two people in the world. I think that’s starting to hit me.

Dr. Eve Strauss, Research Facility C on the southern continent of Way Station, assisted by Dr. Isaac Federman. Walls are intact and the life support system is running at optimal capacity. Air supply is clean. Dry food storage is clean, but the farms, fresh food supply, and water supply are contaminated. Most of the research team was found in the farm, the others scattered throughout the facility in the pattern of their work shifts. All areas show signs of struggle, but none of the struggles seem to be with their teammates.