Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 20 - Left

They held a brief but touching remembrance service for Meera the following morning in the briefing room. Megan had organised getting a few photos of Meera up on the screens but thought it better to leave her actual remains in the laboratory, sealed into a body bag.

Everyone was saddened by her death, especially Santiago who had obvious difficulty not crying. Meera had been with them all the way through training before they left Earth so they all knew her to varying degrees. At this extreme distance away from Earth, every human felt more like a sibling. Losing one hurt everyone deeply.

After the service, Aron and Ekono carefully transported her body bag covered body back to the cryonic pod which had preserved her during their long voyage. Aron disabled the automatic monitoring sensors before they sealed her into it and let the track take the pod down under the water again.

Meera's replacement, another exobiologist by the name of Isa Espina, was being brought up to speed by Margaux and Walter while Megan and Santiago reviewed the helmet recordings from the attack at the shaft room. Megan was determined to learn everything they could about this deadly attack so that they could avoid or defend against it in future.

* * *

After they had eaten their lunch ration, Megan had everyone assemble in the briefing room. As there were only six seats in the room, Aron had opted to stand up, leaning against the wall instead. Everyone waited in near silence as Megan switched on the largest display screen and pulled up a view of Aron's mapping data for them all to see.

She turned and leant on the counter before staring at them for a few silent seconds. The gravity of command was hitting her harder than ever. If the crew of the Arcadian were going to get out of this situation alive and with their supplies intact, then a large part of that rested heavily on her ability to manage them and make the best decisions.

"I thought everyone should see the mapping data we've gathered so far," she began. "I think it really highlights just how little we know about our current location."

Everyone except Santiago leant forwards to study the slowly rotating three-dimensional projection on the metre-high screen beside her.

"Is it all made of the same stuff that's directly under the ship?" asked Margaux.

"As far as we can tell. Aron's attempt to take a sample of it didn't get anywhere and all the instruments have been unable to tell us what it's made from."

"Is there any reason why we have never explored to the left?" asked Ekono politely, pointing towards the corridor outside the airlock.

"We had to start somewhere," Megan replied, "But I intend to fix that on the next expedition. I want us to explore to roughly the same distance to the left to complete a picture of what is in our immediate vicinity."

Ekono slowly nodded with satisfaction.

She continued, "The mapper shows that the corridor leads off to the left for at least fifty metres and is curved in the same way as the corridor to the right. That makes me wonder if the corridor completes a very large circle, but we won't know until we explore it."

"If there was some way to unpack one of the mapping drones from one of the supply sections, we could have the entire corridor mapped out in minutes," Aron suggested.

"It would make it easier," Megan sighed, "And much safer than exploring in person, but opening either of the supply sections must be a last resort. Anyway, to summarise what we've found so far, there are three rooms. The first, what I'm going to name the Plasma Tube Room, doesn't appear to serve any purpose which is useful to us. There is another door at the back which we will explore in a future mission. The second we've named the Orchard, is a fascinating room which might give us an alternative supply of food but I need Isa to complete the science on that one."