Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 7 - The Door

"I didn't expect that!" announced Aron. "Get some light on it."

"What is that stuff?" asked Meera, making no attempt to hide her distaste.

Megan swung her lamp beam around to illuminate the bizarre scene before them. The two panels of the door had rolled back entirely into the surrounding wall, revealing a shiny, flowing wall of rippling slime, slowly glooping downward from above the inside of the door. Even though the flow was flush with the door it was so perfectly placed that none escaped onto the ground on their side of the open door.

There was no way to tell what it was, where it was coming from or even how deep it was. There was no trace of light from beyond the surface. All they could see was the glistening surface reflecting their lights as it oozed continuously downwards.

"That looks seriously unpleasant," said Aron after studying it for a few seconds.

"I can't imagine what that is for," added Megan.

"The only thing I can think is that it's some kind of biological protection. Maybe the gunge is some sort of antiseptic or antibacterial substance?"

Megan twisted one of the legs of her lamp around to point mostly forwards. Moving very carefully she poked the rubber foot forwards until it was almost touching the flow. She paused for a moment, wondering if this was a good plan, then she decided it was and pushed the leg slowly forwards a couple of centimetres, just enough to touch the glistening surface.

The moment the lightweight, metal leg made contact, the weight of the flow pushed it firmly downwards. Megan resisted the push and held the leg as still as she was able. It left a wake in the surface which quickly closed just centimetres below. It was immediately obvious that the flow was deeper than just a couple of centimetres.

Megan pulled the rubber foot out of the flow and held it in the beams of Meera's and Aron's lamps. Small globs of it dripped onto the dull black floor, but what was left on the metal leg seemed to dry up and evaporate in just a few seconds. Aron shone his lamp on the wet splatter on the floor.

"We should get a sample of this stuff to analyse back at the ship," said Meera.

"This gunge is weird," replied Aron.

"It's not gunge, it's gel," said Meera as she clumsily knelt down to get closer to the dislodged gel.

"What's the difference?" asked Megan.

"Gunge is sticky," Meera explained casually. "Gel isn't. Judging by how this slid off the leg of your lamp, this isn't sticky."

"I was going to call this the gungefall," Aron chuckled, "But I stand corrected. This is a gelfall."

"Can we switch it off?" Megan asked.

"With the control panel?" asked Aron.

"Yes."

"Give me some time with the panel and I'll let you know," he replied.

"Get started on that now," she ordered. "We've only got a couple of hours of exploring time left before we must set off back to the ship."

Aron returned his attention to the large panel and Meera set about removing some clear, plastic, sample jars from a pouch on the waist belt of her E.V.A. suit. Aron used the extended lamp leg to again press buttons on the panel again. He started with the door glyph and then pressed the filled circle. As before each glyph glowed orange and then both glowed a brilliant blue. Immediately, both sides of the door slid smoothly closed, meeting with a dull clunk.

"That's good. That did precisely what I expected," he announced.

"Do we want to close it?" Megan asked.