Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 15 - The Gift

Megan's mind was racing; no doubt due to a surge of adrenaline in her bloodstream but that did not make it any easier to deal with. She was walking into the unknown and putting herself in potential danger in the process. This could be the most historic moment since Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the Moon or instant death.

In a matter of seconds, she had gone from merely the commander of a colonisation vessel to the human race's first envoy to an alien race. Months of training before their launch had not even mentioned this possibility. She remembered someone asking about it but the lecturer at the time had dismissed it as insanely unlikely as any possible intelligent life would most probably be thousands or tens of thousands of light years away, not just living in our nearest neighbouring star system. Everyone had laughed along with the lecturer.

That laughing seemed ridiculous now she was about to face a truly alien species with no clue how to communicate with it or any idea of an approach. She decided to hold her hands partially out to each side with the palms facing forwards to show that she was not carrying any weapon.

As she moved into the doorway, a few of the blue beams of light suddenly scuttled further away. Others instead swept up and down her E.V.A. suit. She paused for a few seconds, still trying to make out what was holding those blue lights. Eventually, two of the blue beams began to very cautiously move towards her.

She gently took a couple of slow steps towards them causing them to instantly freeze. Megan stopped again waiting to see if they would move again.

"Megan, what's going on?" came Aron's voice speaking quietly over the radio.

"It's fine. They don't seem aggressive."

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Just stay out of sight for now."

"Okay."

Even over the radio, she could hear the discomfort in his voice.

The same two light sources tentatively edged forwards again. Megan decided to remain still this time. They seemed to be taking it in turns. One would move forward a few centimetres then stop while the other moved instead. Slowly but surely, they crept towards her.

She still could not see much beyond the blue light beams. There were definitely some other lights on the creatures, pinprick LEDs as far as she could tell but nothing which gave away their shape. She desperately wanted to increase the brightness of her suit lights but that was not possible without speaking or moving her arms and she felt it was much wiser to avoid both.

The two entities continued to move forwards, appearing to get a little more confident now. The other blue beam sources, still scattered around the room, no longer swept their beams about her E.V.A. suit but instead all shone at her head. The blue light was soft and did not hurt her eyes.

She very gradually leant a little forwards, angling her own lights closer to the floor, better lighting anything at ground level. The moving entities were approaching quite close to the wide, overlapping circles of light cast by her suit lights.

She was still at a total loss as for how to communicate. Speaking was most unlikely to work and she could not think of any hand gestures that would definitely be taken as friendly. As the entities got nearer, she could just make out faint noises. Rapid bursts of click were barely audible but she had no way to tell if it was some sort of warning sound to scare her away or an attempt at intelligent communication.

One of the entities suddenly stopped moving forwards. Instead of taking turns, now just one of the blue light bearers was moving forwards. As it did, the sporadic, fast clicking got louder.