by Hana Starr
A single red light on the ceiling gave a weak, tiny blip.
Every single screen went dark.
Every single light shut off.
Fear burst through her body at the realization that the worst had happened, and Dante’s fears had come true. Their fuel was gone while they were still in atmosphere. Venus’s atmosphere was too thick and heavy, crushing compared to Earth’s.
This fall was going to kill them.
“Are we going to die?” she whispered, but the alien man at her side gave no sigh of having heard. Instead, he let out an indescribable buzzing sound.
The men echoed him, shifting and adjusting themselves in their seats.
She thought they might try an escape pod of sorts, but all Dante did was continue to hum and buzz until four of the men lurched to their feet and exited. When they were gone, Dante pressed his dark head against the side of her bubble helmet and murmured, “They will manually adjust the wings. We will come down at a slant rather than a true descent, but it will perhaps be enough.” A tiny smile entered his voice. “I apologize but you may be doing a bit of walking when we get down there.”
As long as I get there at all.
The whole ship shook and groaned, starting to vibrate as the debris flying past them became mere indistinct blurs. Their speed picked up drastically, and the ship shook even harder. Mariella curled herself in Dante’s embrace as well as she could, her mind filled with all the various ways a simple Earth woman could perish on Venus. Crashing, burning alive, suffocating…
Her fear throbbed, a hard knot of tension inside her soul.
The sounds outside were hellish, rattling and banging as debris clattered against the craft, as the atmosphere slid over its surface. Faster and faster, the shaking increasing until she thought they were going to shake apart entirely!
And then they hit.
She couldn’t help it. She screamed. Dante gripped her comfortingly as the craft skidded and skipped over the surface of Venus, crashing around like an ill-cast stone over water, but she screamed anyway. Her terror burst in that moment and came rushing out in that single jet of sound.
As quickly as it began, it was over.
Motionless silence fell.
Very slowly, she looked up to find Dante’s face smooshed firmly against her visor. The sight would have been humorous if she had any humor in her left to give.
The other men were stirring from where they’d thrown themselves into crash-ready positions, looking around and stretching their arms, and murmuring indistinctly.
Dante too, stirred against her. She watched his shoulders wriggle in time with another alien’s, and then opened her mouth to speak. No words came out. He seemed to understand anyway, however. “We made it,” he reassured her. “Not gracefully, and this ship is…”
Sunk.
“Probably un-operational forever,” he admitted, and then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Nothing to be done for it now, is there? How do you feel about taking your very first terrain walk?”
“I won’t have you with me,” she whispered, suddenly tensing a little with fear.
He patted her shoulder understandingly, his head bowed slightly. “Once you are safely within the colony, one of my men has orders to hastily undress from his suit. Someone else will bring the spare suit to me, and then I will rejoin you as swiftly as I can. We will only walk through the colony together, I assure you.”
“Promise?”
But he just shook his head, not understanding the sentiment. And she gave up, deciding that it would have to be good enough for now.
Dante motioned her over to where one of his men stood waiting, and she reluctantly followed. Much to her surprise, when she reached the corridor, a long section of ceiling had been pulled down like an attic’s ladder, making a ramp to reach the terrain of Venus.
Fear filled her again but she glanced back at the wall that opened and closed, and figured tentatively that it must be an airlock of sorts. Dante would be safe until they returned –she hoped.
The man behind her motioned her up ahead of him. Mariella gave him a smile that she didn’t feel, and then mounted the surface of the ramp. It was surprisingly rough and desert-colored, which baffled her until she stood up on top of the ship with all the others. And then she understood.
She saw Venus with her very own eyes, as much an alien to this world as the men were to her. The surface was rough, tannish and grew, strewn with dunes of streaming sand and broken stone. And looking down at the ship, she saw how its exterior reflected the surface.
This must be how they’ve evaded detection, she thought admiringly. That, and this unbearable wind. It pulled at her body so hard she nearly fell over, and it destroyed and rebuilt the sand dunes in seconds. Great rocks scuttered along like mere pebbles in its wake, and she was slightly afraid of it.
The men were unaffected though, far sturdier and apparently denser in composition than her, too. For a moment, she thought about the implications of all this –of two similar species so close and yet so far apart- but then quelled her curiosity. No one was going to examine anyone. She was no anthropologist. She was here for their fuel source, not for them.
Her guide buzzed softly, saying something to her in his own language. Mariella glanced at him, and then realized he wanted her to start walking down the side of the flatter-than-she-thought vessel. It was clumsy-going but easy enough, rather like hiking while wearing too many clothes and the wrong-size boots.
And within seconds of moving, she realized the other flaw of this planet.
It was sweltering. She started to sweat immediately, even with her own little atmosphere inside the suit; it just wasn’t strong enough to counter the overwhelming power of the sun.
And that reminded her all over again that the one flaw in the Zenith Grid was that it couldn’t store energy. What were these people going to do during their part of the year when sunlight was unavailable to them, if all she had to offer was solar power?
However, she was too tired to think on it. Too tired, to shaken up, and too damn hot.
How long they walked for, she couldn’t say. They were heading in the direction of a low plateau but it was ages and ages away, many days’ walks from here. There was no way they could make that! Absolutely not!
But still, the twenty-four men trudged on. Their faces were slick with sweat. After a certain point, their footsteps dragged. Their breath fogged up their visors, until she had no idea how any of them could see. It was an eternity of walking, a damnation, and she finally understood why Venus was likened to Hell.
If only everyone back on Earth knew how right they were…
Suddenly, she ran into the man in front of her. He didn’t even seem to notice, though he had stopped in his tracks. A dim reminder of curiosity opening up in her mind, Mariella glanced around him and gasped.
An enormous crack opened up in the ground, jagged like lightning and terribly angled so that if any of them had come from it at the wrong angle, they would have fallen. But, looking around, she saw there were far less men than there were before.
“We don’t spend much time on the surface.”
The colony was down there?
Edging up closer to the cliff face, Mariella glanced down and saw a narrow series of steps which led down into the darkness. There were no lights, and no protection from falling. The steps were so weathered and natural-cut that she had an idea no one would be able to see them from above.
Their enemies probably couldn’t find them here!
A little encouraged by the thought, she stepped down into the darkness and felt around for the first step. It has hard to see, wearing this pseudo-scuba suit, but she took her time and felt carefully with her foot for each step before she even dared to move. No one rushed her or complained –at least, if they did, she couldn’t understand. All of her focus hinged on this descent, as the sunlight slowly fell away and she was left in blackness with her eyes struggling to adjust and finding no footing.
At one p
oint, someone tentatively took her hand. It was about at that point that she felt solid ground beneath her feet, and willingly let herself be led. Not very long afterwards, she heard a terribly, stony groaning and then a mechanical whir that reminded her of the automatic doors on the alien ship. They stepped inside, and she let the man in front of her lead her through a series of several more automatic wall-doors. Each one seemed to shut again behind the last man in line. As they walked, the pressure on her suit decreased. The sweltering heat faded away, though she was still incredibly hot and uncomfortable just from the amount of exposure she took.
Eventually, they stopped just inside one of the doors. There was light here, very dim, and she looked around and saw only more stone.
The men murmured at each other, and then one of them disappeared back into the darkness.
More airlocks, she realized. Just like on the ship. So we stopped, so that must mean that this is as far as we’re going for now. That other guy will come back, and someone will take the extra suit to Dante.
Which meant they would be here for a while.
Turning around, she headed over to the wall behind her and sat with her back against it. It was uncomfortable, but it was better than standing on her exhausted legs.
Following her lead –which amused her- the men also sat, and then began to take their helmets off. At one point, someone shuffled over to help her with hers, and she thanked them immensely.
From then, it was a waiting game.
Chapter Seven
After what seemed like yet another eternity, Dante arrived. Everyone stood up to greet him, though he bypassed most of them with a polite greeting and headed straight for Mariella.
“How are you faring?” he asked worriedly.
“I should ask you the same thing,” she said quietly. He looked even more exhausted than she felt. “How is all of this going to go?”
Dante stretched out his arms, and then started to undo the straps holding his helmet on. She would have helped if she’d known how to do it, but his fingers seemed to be pulling straps from nowhere, and she just shook her head while watching him. “Let’s walk and talk,” he suggested softly. “It’s a big colony, for what few of us are left. There will be plenty of time, and I know my men are wanting to return home.”
“Okay,” she agreed, and moved to grab her helmet to take it with her, only to find someone was already carrying it for her. Bemused and secretly a little glad, she just stepped forward to follow behind Dante. However, he dragged his feet until she was at his side. And then he stopped entirely, letting her go ahead.
Normally, his chivalry would have been cute but right now, she was too tired to find it anything more than annoying. “Remember what I told you about not knowing how to get around by myself?”
“Oh…Yes, I apologize.” From that point on, he sped up and stayed at her side. It wasn’t quite good enough, but she let it go.
The lights were sparse here, as they were everywhere, but the further they walked, the more there were. The ground sloped steadily downward, taking them deeper until she actually began to feel dampness when she breathed. And the walls narrowed, until there actually wasn’t enough room for them to walk side-by-side.
She sensed him about to edge behind her, and cut him off. Looking back over his shoulder at her, Dante obviously saw the warning expression on her face and turned around again.
Suddenly and without warning, the ground leveled out and the tunnel opened up into an enormous cavern the likes of which she had never even dreamed of. The ground was folded in on itself, making waves which acted as natural landings. There were lava tubes everywhere, from floor to the roof so high above.
It seemed that her nickname of Hive had been accurate after all. But, where were all the Drones, as she’d come to call these aliens?
“Where is everyone?” she said quietly. Her voice echoed.
Dante kept walking, heading straight for the first of the folded waves of stone. “I imagine many are at work. However, we will not have arrived unnoticed. The council of females is most likely already with the Queen, as are all her advisors and our lawmakers. They await us.” He paused, seeming to think. “We will not go unnoticed, especially if you keep talking.”
He wouldn’t understand what he just said, so Mariella kept her amusement to herself. Dragging her exhausted body up the slopes was difficult, especially in this damnable suit; she could only imagine how the guy carrying her helmet was faring, but dared not look back to find you. The scuffling of their footsteps was loud and she kept looking around as they climbed higher and higher, her feet slipping on loose stones, but she still saw no one.
They climbed so high and for so long that eventually, every slip made her terrified she was about to die. The line of men behind her wouldn’t be able to stop her if she dropped –she might actually take some of them out with her.
That would be an awful way to die, she thought, and reached out to drag herself up to the next landing, her gloved fingers aching.
Suddenly, that was it. They had reached the apex, the very highest level. She knew that only because there was nowhere else to go, at least visibly, even though there were tunnel openings higher than this. Turning around and looking back over the edge just wasn’t an option.
Dante motioned to her. “This way,” he said, and headed for the tunnel slightly to the right and straight ahead. As they were about to enter, she finally saw it.
A child. Small and female, little more than a toddler, with shadow-dark skin and metallic eyes. The child stared and then slid back into a small tunnel, disappearing out of tight.
The tunnel Dante chose headed steadily upwards, which was annoying, and it had man, many off-shooting branches. From within them, she thought she heard a small buzzing sound but it might just have been her imagination.
And then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t. From the off-shoots, they came and stood, blocking off all tunnel mouths but for the one they followed straight. They were mostly men, nearly all of them thinner and rougher around the edges than broad Dante and his men. A few were children, and she saw that all the children were male. In fact, the only females she saw looked even worse than the men.
I wonder if I was wrong about their hierarchy, she thought, but this didn’t mean anything, did it? They were just standing and staring, buzzing amongst themselves. She had no idea if they were talking to each other or not. The men behind her seemed shifty and agitated, but Dante stared straight ahead and made no sound at all.
However, his shoulders were tense and he carried himself stiffly. His nervousness was infectious, and Mariella started to feel a little doubtful as to how they would be received when this so far had been nothing but cold and impassionate.
How was she supposed to help some people that she didn’t even understand?
Very gradually, she started to notice that the ranks of people lining the tunnel mouths were indeed changing. They were all filthy and ragged, but those closer to when she first noticed had been somehow even worse for wear, and they had been carrying tools in hand. The further along she went, the cleaner the people were. The females were more plentiful, their hairstyles steadily growing in complexity, and very few of them carried anything at all.
I was right after all. Men are physical workers and these women are…?
None of them looked pregnant, but perhaps these people had specific times for breeding? But then, she should be seeing a lot more children of all ages, shouldn’t she?
“Dante,” she whispered, knowing the others watching wouldn’t understand her questions or his answers. “Where are the babies?”
He sighed, shoulders slumping slightly from their tense position. “Some are in the nursery,” he said quietly. “But…Mariella, this life is difficult on the young ones. We no longer have anything we need.”
She understood, and her determination solidified finally into the confidence she felt on earth. These people needed her help very badly, and she would be damned if she didn’t give it to th
em.
Chapter Eight
After a certain point the tunnels leveled out and would go no higher. Also at that point, there were no longer any offshooting branches. Mariella noticed that with interest. Intentional design? The Queen couldn’t have been any safer than she was, secluded up over her people like this.
Although, the closer they got now, the more nervous she grew. Would the Queen be able to understand her? Would she even want to understand? Dante did undermine her authority. What if this was all for nothing?
She reached out and grabbed his hand, meaning to give it a reassuring squeeze, but he flinched and pulled away while keeping his warm eyes straight ahead. The rejection hurt but she forced herself to get over it. This just wasn’t the time to try to make a home, after all. There was also the matter that she didn’t even know if they were going to have compatible parts.