Long Story #6: Xenophobia (Part 2)

The boy's disappointment over the possible alien life being something like a bug was overshadowed by the excitement that it might mean he could upgrade to a 'big boy' spacesuit. He smiled awkwardly, and ran a hand across the seat of his suit, able to feel the bulk underneath. Talum couldn't help but imagine how cool he'd look in one of the ones that the rest of his team got to wear. He was snapped out of his daydreams by Alyssa stopping, "Uh...Maybe the kid's theory about 'alien houses' isn't so crazy..." She pointed her rifle ahead and an attached light brightened what she'd seen: it was an oblong skull, battered and marred by the ravages of time, but clearly still a skull that belonged to an organism around their size. Silence washed over the cave. Finally, Marquez came forward and knelt down to pick it up. His fingers ran across the bizarre contours that it had, "This is...Unbelievable. This isn't just the achievement of a lifetime, this is...*Multiple* lifetimes. Whatever this thing was, it looked like it might have had higher cognitive functions, just by looking at the size.." He turned to the group, "We should see if we can find any other remains. Then we need to get a claim staked immediately. This is too big to sit on for very long; we don't know how long it'll be until someone pings our ship and notices the uncharted planet." Gordon nodded, "I agree. We'll go in a little further and see if we can find anything, then we should head back to the shuttle. Alyssa, keep your rifle ready, we don't know if that means other organisms are still alive down here or not." It was an unfamiliar territory for all of them. As ecstatic as they were about this discovery, there was a lingering sense of fear; a fear of the unknown that they hadn't tasted in quite some time. Marquez kept a hold of the skull and the crew ventured further on into the caverns. "Do you think that they still live down here, professor?" Talum asked quietly, keeping close to the group. Marquez shook his head, "Difficult to say. The skull shows advanced signs of age; I'd say that whatever it belonged to might have died hundreds of years ago, maybe even longer. Then there's the fact that we didn't see any fauna on our way through the jungles... It looks like the food chain might long be broken on this planet. There may have been an extinction level event that made the planet only habitable by the native flora." That calmed the boy down. He was trying to play it cool, but the alien skull had genuinely freaked him out more than he expected, which would later be evident on their comm-links, when his biofeedback was analyzed. The cave fed out into an immense space, and the story again changed for the grander. What could only be described as a large onyx temple sat in the center, overgrown by nature, but undeniably a structure forged by intelligence. Crumbling statues adorned the stairs leading up to the entrance, their appearance in similarity to the skull that Marquez had found. "...Holy shit." *Beep! Beep!* Shit was right, according to Talum's blabbermouth spacesuit, as the bowel movement he'd been holding the last couple of hours finally deposited itself into the back of his diaper. The magnificent and dreadful sight had simply been too much for him to focus on more than one task at once. "Oy, you said it Ally...You too, kid." Gina murmured, putting her machine away, so she could better appreciate this unbelievable discovery. Ascending the steps of the ziggurat, each cartographer was gentle and cautious. Abandoned or not, this was a historic find, and it needed to be treated with a certain level of respect. They passed through a large archway and soon found themselves in a hall that was littered with more bones. Another pair of beeps came from Talum's suit, along with the chipper voice of his suit's A.I: "Waste receptacle is twenty percent full! Capacity primarily identified as feces." That'd usually be worth a laugh or two, but here it didn't even register, not even to Talum. The dread was rising. "...Jesus. Hey, Marquez...What are the odds that the extinction event was completely localized inside this place? It's a fucking graveyard in here." Alyssa quipped, keeping her finger near the trigger of the gauss rifle. Marquez frowned, leaning down to pick up some more of the strewn remains. "If the climate became uninhabitable, or if there was an outbreak, then it could have devastated the whole planet, even down here...Some of these bones though, they look damaged by trauma, and some of them have signs of damage from extreme acidity. " The captain looked nonplussed, "I think we should head back. It'll be safer to come back with a full team, and that can give us time to analyze everything we've found." Gina and Alyssa were in agreement on that, and Talum was still quiet, but Marquez wasn't ready to leave just yet. He saw something at the back of the hall, like an altar of sorts, and he just had to get a closer look. "Just one more minute...You three can go ahead and secure the exit, I want to take a look at that thing over there; Talum, come assist me." The little boy wanted to say no. He loved adventure more than anybody else, but this wasn't fun anymore, this had become legitimately scary, which the warm droppings in his suit testified to. He also didn't want to look like a frightened child though, especially when he thought all the adults were cool as ice about it. "Umm, s-sure, do I just...step around the bones, or, umm, use my jets, or.." Marquez lifted him up and put the boy on his shoulders, which mashed Talum's pantload in the process. "I'll do the walking, short man, I just might need you to carry some things." The scientist waded through the sea of corpses, doing his best to not trip over anything. The pair reached the end of the hall and found what indeed looked like a religious altar, and on top of it was a massive stone bowl filled with large, black, shiny ovoids. Marquez thought they might be polished stones, used for a ritual or rite, but it was impossible to tell. He picked one up, impressed by its size to weight ratio. It wasn't as dense as it looked, for just how big it was. The man passed it upwards, "Talum, hold onto this, we'll take it as a cultural sample. Maybe we can figure out what kind of mineral its composed of." The trip back to the shuttle was quiet at first. There was still a sense of fear, and an overwhelming aura of awe. It wasn't until they were halfway back through the jungle until conversation started again. "Well boyo, I think this is the las' time you'll be goin' back to the ship wiff' a full nappy." Gina commented, reaching over to give his squishy bottom a firm pat. "This here is suit-money an' then sum'!" Talum blushed and let out a nervous giggle, "Y-yeah, you really think so? I'd really like to get something like what you guys have.." "Talum, with the money we're about to me making, you'll be able to get a suit made of unobtainium. Or hell, maybe you can just move up to gold-leaf diapers and a private servant to wipe your ass." Alyssa interjected, practically salivating at how wealthy they were about to be. They made it back to the shuttle and got strapped in. Gordon was already contacting their communications officer to explain what they'd found, and to initiate a brief sanitation protocol before they boarded the ship again. With his own filth plastering his butt, Talum was more interested in a different sanitation protocol. They partied that night. The good food, the top shelf liquor and cigars, everything got busted out. Everyone on the ship would soon be richer than they'd ever dreamed, and the time for excess had come. Gordon officially staked a claim on the planet through the proper channels, and he was fielding requests from several different mega-corporations. It was a long trip back to Earth to share their findings in person, but from the sounds of things, there was immense monetary interest in their voyage. In a couple of months, they'd have their pick of the litter. "Okay, we're going to be going straight back to earth. That's two hyper-gates, about three weeks apart from each other. I've already set up shifts for stasis. Talum, you're first shift, alright?" Talum sat upright at his chair, saluting the captain with a nod. "Of course! I'll take the first week, and I'll run the maintenance on the engines." Resources were always slim on a cartographer ship. Small crew, small ship, vast distances. This required that the crew utilize stasis pods to save on food, power, water, and even air. Whoever was on watch, also had to remain in their suit, as many features of the ship would be disabled. The cost for Talum was even steeper. Not only did that mean a week of diapers to do his business in, but he'd agreed to a larger 'resource-scumming' tactic when he'd become a cartographer: a loss of growth. Aging was a long-defeated disease, as humans had mastered the secrets of their own biology, so that meant they had the means to halt it through gene therapy. The ship had already been straining its capacity when Talum had begged to join, so that'd been a caveat. For as long as he was still a junior member, he'd stay the same age, and therefore not take up any more room or resources by growing. Talum didn't mind it that much. He knew it'd be easy to start aging again when the time came, and being small did have its perks on such a cramped vessel. He would take it in stride while he could, and that meant taking all the bad with the good. The boy began to prepare for a week alone, while everyone else would be asleep in the pods. He had plenty of comic books to catch up on, and then he'd get his own turn to sleep some of this time off. Maybe he could also go ahead and take a peek in Marquez's little lab, take another look at that alien skull, or some of the plants, or one of those rocks. (To be finished in Parts 3&4, later this month!)