Usurper of the Sun

by Housuke Nojiri

  Joseph and Raul secured their tool kits to the surface material with high bond tape. Joseph removed a collapsible airlock from his kit and began assembling an airtight dome tent with a base four meters wide. He adhered the base to the Torus using a quickdrying resin.

  “I hope this stuff sticks to whatever this thing is,” Joseph said.

  “The tape seems to be holding. We will go with what we have,” Aki said.

  Once all three were inside the tent, they closed the hermetic seal. They filled their dome with nitrogen to a pressure of three-tenths of an atmosphere. They had no idea what the internal pressure was, though any level would be better than a vacuum. Aki took an axe and tapped the surface three times. No response. She tried again, applying more force.

  “Anybody home?” Raul asked. Aki knew he was joking but noted the trepidation in his voice.

  Joseph assembled a large boring tool, a miniature version of what had been used for crude oil drilling before most of the earth’s oil had been depleted. The drill’s tip had a diamond chip two centimeters wide. When fully extended, the drill could penetrate to a depth of ten meters.

  “Here we go.” After making his warning, Joseph pulled the trigger. As soon as the drill started, it skipped across the hull of the ship. It did not even make a scratch. Two more tries led to the same result.

  “This material is harder than diamond. Do you think they would sell us the patent?” Joseph said, embarrassed even though the strategy had considered the possibility that this surface would be hard to penetrate.

  “Try the plasma torch tip,” Aki said, wanting them to stay loose but concerned that false levity might erupt into fear.

  “If they’re waiting for us on the other side of this wall, I hope they don’t attack us because we sliced our way in,” Raul said.

  “It’s not like we didn’t try knocking.” When Joseph spoke, Aki could sense his hard resolve, even through his suit.

  Aki had dreamed of making first contact with intelligent beings her whole life, but none of the scenarios had started with breaking and entering. The lack of interest—one could not even call it disdain—in communication on the part of the Builders continued to frustrate her. The torch-driven drill cut through the surface as if it were wood. After two meters, the resistance against the bit was gone. The drill moved in and out freely.

  “We broke through,” said Joseph. “It’s thinner than we thought.”

  A protective cover slid down over the drill, allowing them to remove it and insert a sensor while still maintaining an airtight seal. The image sent from the tiny camera appeared on their helmet screens. The first few centimeters contained a clear substance, followed by a foamy material. As the probe moved deeper, the bubbles in the foam grew larger.

  A dark hole appeared in front of the camera. As the camera passed through, the image went completely black. It appeared to be a chamber too large and empty for the dim light on the sensor to illuminate.

  Joseph read out the composition of the air tested, “Forty-two percent nitrogen, 56 percent oxygen, 2 percent other inert gases. Air pressure is 43/100 of an atmosphere. Once we become acclimated to the low pressure, the sensors say we can breathe in there, disregarding the fact that we would fill the atmosphere with carbon dioxide quickly, since it’s unlikely that there will be vegetation.”

  “Doesn’t look like there are any aliens in this room. Can we cut a door for ourselves?” Raul asked.

  “This place is as good as any,” Aki said. Hanging out on the side of the Builders’ ship could not be much safer than going inside.

  After equalizing the pressure in the dome to that inside the vessel, Joseph cut a circular hole in the surface. The process took nearly an hour. Even with the low artificial gravity, Joseph was surprised by how light the material was and nearly rocked backward on his heels when he made the lift. Raul shined his light into the hole, the beam reflecting off an object several meters below. The space was packed full of cells reminiscent of honeycombs, each about one meter wide.

  “Send the sensor down into those cells to see what the cells are made of?” Joseph asked.

  “No time. We go in and find out for ourselves,” Aki said. She was nervous and excited. She could not even begin to imagine what they would find. She recalled how much volume there was to cover inside the Torus, making her even more anxious to locate whatever being or entity was in charge and try to communicate before time ran out.

  Aki was given the honor of being first to set foot inside. Joseph adhered a communication device to the edge of the hole and connected one end of the fiber-optic cable from a reel attached to his suit. Since radio signals would not be likely to penetrate the hull, this would allow an open channel with the Phalanx and send back a video feed and sensor readouts. The audio and video could be plugged directly into the Worldunity Network. The feeds could be seen on Earth in as close to real time as the vast distance from the planet allowed.

  Joseph tied another tether line to the portable airlock. In an emergency, the tether could reel them back out quickly. Aki looked at her two crewmates and gave a nod, then made a final check of the Phalanx’s camera to make sure there were not any sudden changes to the Builders’ ship’s orientation or surface.

  “Entering the vessel,” she said. She had meant to use a more profound phrase, but the plan had shifted so many times that she could not even remember the ones she had written down. Aki lowered herself several meters into the hole. Reconfirming that the air was breathable, she allowed her sampler to take in a trace quantity. She breathed the ship’s air cautiously. A sensor found a hint of trimethylamine, which Aki tasted as a hint of ammonia.

  The next words spoken would be remembered by all for many decades, as they emanated from the sensor.

 

  She lowered herself into the honeycomb structure. The hexagonal cells were covered with a transparent film. The cells were full of a murky glaze. A large yellow object was beneath them. Aki stepped on one of the walls dividing the cells, gradually adding weight, making sure it would support her. She let go of the tether, then indicated for Raul and Joseph to follow. They joined her and stood in awe. Honeycomb structures arced around them on both sides, all the way to the ceiling, nearly filling the inside of the Torus’s tube above them. Multiple bridges ran vertically and horizontally along the inner wall—thin, varied, and meandering like veins under skin.

  Oddly enough, the scene resembled an alien horror movie the crew had all watched together on their way to the rendezvous point. She knew Raul was thinking the same thing but hoped that he did not feel the need to verbalize the thought.

  “Damn, it’s just like that movie we watched. Don’t look at them, or they might jump up and eat our faces off! It looks like they hired Giger as their interior decorator,” Raul said, as if on cue.

  “Will you keep the Alien references to yourself, please?” Aki snapped.

  “Sorry.”

  No one spoke for at least a minute. The sensor finally broke the reverent silence.

 

  “Upper part of their living quarters, like an attic? Maybe that is why nobody’s here.”

  “Maybe this is the nursery and these are the offspring. Or it’s the pantry and we’re looking at the canned goods,” Raul said. “We need the living room so we can say hello to whatever lives here.”

  They walked along the inside of the Torus in the direction of its rotation. In the distance, where the floor curved upward and was blocked by the ceiling, they could see a faint green light. Moving closer, they noticed the green light came from a hole in the floor about two meters across. There was no ramp or stairs. Raul guessed it was some sort of an air vent. Aki allowed her air sampler to take another small sample of the atmosphere.

 

  “What does a barn even smell like?” Raul asked sarcastically.

  The Contact Team approached the edge of the hole. Aki crouched, peering over the side. What she saw below looke
d like a deranged jungle gym. Countless gray branches extended in all directions from the central node. The gray arms were porous on the surface, like coral, and as thick as Aki’s torso. Seemingly lacking a consistent design, functionality, or even shape, the branches veered in all directions through the chamber. The cells pressed together tightly like a cluster of bubbles.

  Aki attached an anchor to the edge of the hole and then connected a tether cable. She lowered herself down to the closest branch. Despite her thick boots, she could feel the texture of the surface beneath her feet. The way the surface wobbled, Aki felt as though she were standing on the back of a whale. She was grateful that the hard-shell suits had been reengineered to be much more flexible. Once her footing was stable, Aki looked around the cavernous room.

  The branches twisted in all directions, forming irregularly shaped frames. This created an odd optical effect that made Aki feel like she was standing inside tessellations, uneven planes that lacked variety, homogenous everywhere she looked. She was unable to see more than about twenty meters in any direction. The pale green light emanated from the walls of the chamber. Given the very weak gravity, Aki was spatially disoriented and felt dizzy.

  Something stirred in her peripheral vision. Then she saw nothing.

  She replayed the last few seconds from the helmet camera’s recording. The motion appeared to have occurred outside of the camera’s field of view.

  “Everything all right?” Joseph asked.

  “Sorry for the silence. Everything is fine. You can come down.”

  Raul made his way toward her.

  “Do you know what this looks like?”

  “Something out of yet another cheesy twentieth-century space horror movie?” Aki asked.

  “Actually, it was a rather respectable film involving Isaac Asimov. To me, this all looks like a living neural network. If I didn’t know any better I’d say the reason we’re not seeing any Builders is because this is a Builder. Well, its brain, at least.”

  “If this were the density of its neural network, it would not be the fastest thinker around,” Aki said.

  “Maybe it’s not in a rush. It has time to siesta,” Raul said.

  Aki adhered another reel of fiber-optic cable to the branch beneath her feet. She connected the end to the long run of cable that they had been adding to since entering the ship.

  “Where do we go?” she asked.

  “Keep going…uh, downward,” Raul answered. “What do you even call directions on something like this? Spinward?” He pointed in a direction.

  “Good as any. Let’s do it,” she said.

  They made their way along the network of branches that twisted through the chamber.

 

  “The interface design of these sensors is horrible! Does it read Edgar Allan Poe too?” Raul exclaimed. He sighed and glanced around. “I don’t know what’s worse—being human and knowing we’re crawling around inside an alien’s brain, or being an alien knowing that three humans are stomping inside your head,” Raul said, stepping past her and lowering himself down further.

  Aki was concerned that Raul’s defense mechanisms might dull his reactions. She was concerned that he was crossing the line between staying calm and becoming complacent.

  “Stop. Wait,” he said.

  “What do you see?” Joseph asked, noticing the fear in Raul’s voice.

  “It’s not the brain, unless this cobra is slithering along its axons…”

  ACT II: JULY 31, 2041

  7 PM GMT

  EVEN THOUGH THE image from Raul’s helmet camera was traveling at the speed of light, it took several minutes to reach Earth. When it arrived, millions of viewers who were watching his feed shrieked.

  Moving as quickly as she could to Raul’s location, Aki thought this was it: what she had been waiting for her entire adult life. She had trouble breathing.

  Lifting one end up from the ground, the creature looked to be four meters long. A bulbous appendage at the tip appeared to be its head. The face was covered with a shiny pink material that looked like exposed muscle tissue. Its appendage was crowned by a ring of white fur that extended away from the face to cover the upper side of the rest of its body. The fur was wet and matted down with a transparent and viscous paste.

  Two enormous eyes, resembling those of a Philippine tarsier, bulged, unable to turn in their sockets. Every ten seconds or so, its eyelids would close and slowly open again. No other openings in its face were visible. It had no neck. Its furry mane surrounded its face and extended back, connecting directly at what would be the equivalent of shoulders. It looked like a headdress depicted on a sarcophagus. The upper portion of the body below the face was flat and wide, similar to a cobra, as Raul had described it.

  It had two thin arms the length of human legs, each containing two sets of joints resembling elbows and wrists. At the ends of each arm were four long, lithe fingers, one of which appeared opposable, like a thumb. Its arms and elbows were folded inward with its hands joined at its chest.

  The upper part of its torso had several bones pushing from under its coat. The bulges could have been shoulder blades and collar bones, to the extent that either descriptive term made much sense when applied to such alien anatomy. Aki wished for a moment that she had studied up on zoology, veterinary medicine, anything that might help her make sense of it. In the center of the Builder’s chest was a vertical opening that most likely served as a mouth. To the left and right of the orifice were smaller vertical slits, two on each side, like gills on a fish. The area below its chest resembled hardened scales, which continued down to the stomach. Everything below was pressed against the ground, becoming thinner as it extended back, giving the creature a serpentine appearance. The upper side was covered with the moist white fur that extended down from its head. It was about three times as wide as it was high, like a large, furred tongue. The creature wore no clothing or accoutrements.

  Slithering from one branch to the next, it gradually approached Raul. Joseph lowered himself down and stepped into its path. Joseph had not carried weapons, for fear of sending the wrong impression to the Builders, but the Marine was skilled in close quarter combat and other martial arts.

  “Try not to make moves that appear hostile,” Aki said.

  “The fact that we’ve broken in may have already painted us as unfriendly.” Raul stood still.

  The alien life-form continued closer. In the last few meters it veered right onto a separate branch, sidewinding its way alongside the three of them, most likely considering them intruders. Then, as if they were not even there, the creature continued along its way and left.

  The Contact Team followed. Another being emerged from below. Its fur had a yellower tinge, but otherwise appeared identical to the first. Aki turned on her external speaker, the volume low.

  “Hello,” she said in as friendly a tone as she could muster. She extended her arms wide. The swollen eyes of the creature lolled in Aki’s direction. It looked right through her. Then, just as the first had done, the long snake ignored their presence and left.

  “Our first intergalactic encounter and we get blown off like panhandlers on a street corner. You think these dudes built this flying doughnut?” Raul asked with as much levity as he could muster. Aki saw sweat dripping down his face.

  “Its developed head and opposable thumbs indicate tool-making, intelligence,” Aki said. “And we have seen two now. They are social animals. To one another anyway.”

  “Yeah, but what’s up with the cold shoulder? Now I’m convinced that these guys must be related to Natalia.”

  “They have been ignoring us for decades. I do not find it surprising. Consistent, methodical behavior is a trait of advanced intelligence.” Aki asked the Phalanx for a status report on the alien vessel. There had been no changes to the ship’s movement.

  “The exobiologists should rethink the implied meaning of extraterrestrial intelligence,” Raul said, calmer now.

  “If our distan
t ancestors had not made the evolutionary jump from living in trees in the lush jungle to roaming the dry savannah, we may never have started standing upright, much less conceived of novel tools or forming complex cultures. If this is their living room, I’m wondering how they missed that transition,” Joseph said.

  “Their home world does not have a savannah.” Aki moved more quickly, trying to catch up with the large furry snakes.

  “If they were as intelligent as people, they would know enough to wear clothes,” Raul said.

  “Curiosity goes hand in hand with intelligence,” Joseph said, keeping pace with Aki. “It looks like their apathy is a fact we’re going to have to accept. I had originally thought that if they had no interest, it was because they were completely different from us. Those creatures may have looked odd, maybe even grotesque, but they aren’t all that different.”

  Aki agreed. They were obviously organic beings. There was no part of their physiology that could not be likened to some part of an organism from Earth. It was also clear from the atmosphere in their ship that their metabolic system was also similar.

  “Are we going to assume those fuzzy worms are the Builders?” Raul asked.

  “We should for now,” Aki answered, trying not to look at the clock ticking down on the screen inside her helmet.

  ACT III: JULY 31, 2041

  8 PM GMT

  AKI, RAUL, AND Joseph continued lowering themselves through the jungle of branches until it ended abruptly against the curved interior surface of the Torus. On the inside of the Torus’s outer wall, small sandy beaches were surrounded by dark pools, small dunes with pools of black liquid undulating beneath them. The jungle was ten meters overhead, hanging inverted arches forming a hollow tunnel that curved along the circumference of the Torus in both directions.