Nightfall on Sovyn

The shadow moved again. Nearer this time.

Aadrika held her breath, feeling chill air in her lungs, a taste of iron as she inhaled through the mask.

It was two hours since they’d lost contact with Captain Pautron. She tried the radio again. “Captain, where are you? Can you hear me?” Silence.

Conor came on the channel. “Still nothing here. Have you seen anything?”

“No, well, I’m not sure. I thought I saw a movement near the bushes.” By ‘bushes’ she was referring to the hard, flowery growths. An otherworldly coral that accumulated around the fissures in the rocks. Life tenaciously clinging to the only source of heat in this desolate place. Matt had likened these oases to hydrothermal vents deep in Earth’s oceans. The warmth of the magma providing an energy source more abundant than the weak sunshine.

That sun was low on the horizon, as it had been since they arrived. It hung as a ripe pumpkin against the dark blue sky. Golden light cast shadows on the cliffs rising behind her. Shadows of rocks shouldn’t move, but this one did.

Peering into the wan amber glow, she saw a shape flit behind an outcrop. “Guys, there’s something out here.” She was sure it wasn’t the captain. The figure she had seen was short, squat, as dark as the surrounding rocks.

Her pulse quickened as it glided across the desolate landscape. Each movement echoed by elongated darkness across the unearthly coral growths. The rhythmic pounding of her heart resonated in her ears.

Backing into an alcove between the rocky pillars, she brushed away weblike fibres. Threads spun by the largest life-form they had encountered on Sovyn until now. An arachnid-like thing, only a centimetre long. Harmless, Matteo had assured them.

Back from the opening, the air grew colder, Aadrika shivered. Her breath left spectral tendrils in the still air. The taste of iron intensifying with each gasp through the mask. A deep sense of foreboding gripped her, unseen eyes bored into her very soul.

The sun, a distant orb of unnatural orange, continued its creeping descent. The feeble rays painted grotesque shapes on the cliffs. Amongst them, she again saw the flitting shadow. It was no trick of the dimming light; this shadow was alive, a malevolent presence.

Aadrika’s fingers trembled as she fumbled with her suit radio. With desperation edging her voice, she called “Captain, please respond. We need guidance. There’s something out here.” Her words echoed into the abyss, swallowed by the vast, alien terrain.

Conor spoke to her through the crackling static. “Aadrika, stay calm. We’re trying to get a trace on your location. What did you see? Was it the captain?”

Now closer, a dark silhouette darted from rock to rock. Aadrika’s eyes strained to pierce the growing gloom. She had a sense of the creature’s features—a form familiar yet alien.

Drawing deeper into the cavern, the shadows enveloped her. Aadrika’s mind raced with fear. Captain Pautron’s disappearance forgotten, survival became her sole imperative. This planetscape had once been an exciting, mysterious curiosity. Now she imagined concealed horrors awaking with the fading light.

She remained frozen to the spot for about twenty minutes. No further sign of the wraith. Two shapes appeared in the opening. Her crew mates. She recognised the ASFE coveralls. Masks and goggles hid their faces. Protection against the unknown environment.

Matt and Connor joined her. She was fixated on the point where the apparition had disappeared.

“Aadrika! What is it? What did you see?”

Composing herself, she tried to explain. “It was… it was a man, it looked human. But its eyes…”

She could not continue.

“Where did it go?” She nodded back towards the vent, to the vegetation.

“Come. Stay close.” Conor waved them to follow him in that direction.

This was a scientific mission. They didn’t carry weapons. Conor, the crew’s zeno-geologist, had a coring tool. He removed the drive unit and brandished the hardened cutter as if it were a pikestaff.

They moved off on the path she had indicated. Moving slowly, a sense of unease holding them back. Growing fear adding to the planet’s already ponderous gravity.

⋆

The other side of the fissure, they found her. A form slumped on the ground in an unnatural pose. Even before they got close, Aadrika knew it was Sylvie. That they were too late.

Matt ran forward and knelt by the captain’s prone form. As they joined him, he looked up and shook his head.

“What happened?”

“There is sign of trauma.” Mask dislodged, they could see blood running from her neck.

“I saw it.” Conor’s face was ashen behind the goggles. “It ran off, just as we got here.”

He clutched the improvised weapon in both hands.

“What did you see?” Aadrika asked.

“A dwarf. A man. It was… no, that’s not possible!”

“But what was it?” she demanded, half-afraid to hear his answer.

“It was the Abhartach.”

“Avatar?” Aadrika echoed. “They are not real, they are just old stories.”

“Well, an old movie. The Boys from County Hell, a classic. But based on a true story, I am sure.”

“Anyway, we must get the captain to the lifter. We cannot stay here.”

“But the mission?”

“We have the Boron-15 samples, that is all they’ll want to see. Our job is done.”

“And Matt’s biological survey?”

“I’d prefer to research life that doesn’t try to suck my blood, if that’s OK with you?”

“Let’s get off this hellhole up to the Luas, I need a cold beer.” Matt signalled for them to help him with the body.

The crew laboured to carry their burden to the landing point.

The module was as they left it. Silver skin taking on a yellowish hue in the eerie sunlight. The blue emblem of Agence Spatiale de la Fédération Européenne a comforting sight.

Once there, they loaded their bitter cargo. They hurried to complete the preparations for the launch. Soon they would lift back up to the transport, orbiting above.

All strapped in, Conor called out: “What are you waiting for, Aadrika. Fire it up! Take us out of this darkest of prisons, oldest of nights.”

“Yes,” Aadrika agreed, “We can leave this place for the exploitation missions.”

She confirmed that the hydrogen generation cycle had completed. Glancing ruefully at the empty commander’s seat, she initiated the start sequence. T-minus 10, 9, 8…

⋆

Watching, the Abhartach stood about one meter tall. Its hunched form misshapen. A sepulchral figure, dark as the shadows it had emerged from, it radiated a malevolent aura. The creature’s eyes glowed with an awful light, piercing the darkness. Its cloak of tattered fabric enveloping an emaciated frame. Fingers, long and claw-like, reached out eagerly. Anticipating more of what it had recently sampled. A meal as none other in its miserable existence. 

An echo of a distant ancestral memory.

© Roy Phillips