Proxima Dying by Brandon Q Morris

Author:Brandon Q Morris [Morris, Brandon Q]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783947283545
Publisher: Hard-SF.com
Published: 2019-07-27T22:00:00+00:00

May 2, 19

Discovering a new sense seems to be exhausting. After Eve had found herself yawning repeatedly, she listened to what her body was trying to tell her. She lay down with her head on the backpack and slept for six and a half hours, as the screen of her universal device indicates. When Eve activates it in the dark, the glow almost blinds her. She immediately sets it to the lowest brightness in order to conserve energy. The device with its many functions is too valuable to waste as a mere flashlight.

If Marchenko has somehow survived, this would offer the only method for him to contact her. When she turns the universal device around she sees a dark spot on the back, in the infrared spectrum. That must be the battery warming up.

Eve sits down. Her butt hurts and she feels sweaty. Apparently it has become even warmer during the past few hours. The temperature is 12 degrees according to the universal device. That’s seven degrees warmer than yesterday. Does a day cycle exist in here, or did they trigger something by launching the cleaning process?

She turns around. The place from which she came is still dark. Yet the opposite direction seems to have brightened. The heat must be coming from there. Eve opens the upper part of her suit and slips out of one of the shirts she has been layering, like the skins of an onion. She hopes it won’t get too warm. What would the inhabitants of this planet have liked? Eve laughs. She is thinking about a non-issue. No matter how cold or warm it is, she needs food and water to survive.

One step after the other. It is difficult for her to get up. After sleeping on the hard ground all her joints and muscles protest against her cautious movements. That will disappear once she gets going. Eve turns around again. All of a sudden she feels the slight hope that Marchenko will surprise her by stepping out from the darkness, placing a hand on her shoulder, and saying, ‘Let’s go, the aliens are already waiting.’

“Easy for you to say,” she replies aloud. Her voice echoes in the tall room. Then she starts walking, her view aimed forward at the wall shimmering in reddish tones. During the walk she estimates the size of her environment. What can be seen from the outside of the building in which she now finds herself does not match the long distances she has to cover inside. The inside of the building seems to be larger than its outside. Would Marchenko have an explanation for this?

The reddish gleam on the wall in front of her gains more detail by the minute. Soon she recognizes lines, then shapes. They are regular hexagons, honeycombs distributed across the entire wall. Some are additionally crossed by a dark line that seems to stretch over the whole wall. The honeycombs still don’t emit visible light, she can only see them in infrared.

Eve’s chest abruptly collides with an obstacle.

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