Against the Tide - A New Elysium Story [Complete]

13. Stirring Shadows

They walked along the edge of the crater left behind after the impact.

There was no native multicellular life on this planet, and yet it was vibrant. A carpet of rainbow colored, primitive algae had grown all over the ground, interrupted only where the meteorite had hit and ripped a gaping hole into the colorful face of the land, spanning an area of about half a mile.

For half of the planet's cycle, this space was covered with shallow water, but right now, the tide was low. Because the land was so flat, it would retreat back for miles and stay there for sixteen standard hours. That facilitated their survey, although the crater itself was still filled with water even at low tide.

"Eve, look at this!"

The woman called out to her, and she raised her head. "Did you find something interesting?"

The woman, identified by the name tag on her uniform as A. Park, came closer and held up a rock about the size of a human fist.

"Oh, curious," she noted. "Is that what I think it is?"

Park turned the rock over in her hands. It was grey, smooth and perfectly spherical.

"A geode, yes," Park confirmed.

Park brought the geode up close to her ear and shook it softly, so she could hear the water swish around inside the hollow cavity.

"Do you think it was... dislodged from underground somewhere by the meteorite?" she asked, a furrow creasing her brow as she tried to remember her geology lessons.

"Most likely. I doubt it came here with the meteorite," Park explained. "But it will be interesting to analyze the mineral composition of the crystals inside."

"Mhm," she hummed, returning her attention back to the vividly colored ground below their feet.

"Aw, come on, Eve. You could show a little bit more enthusiasm here."

"I am enthusiastic," she replied, "Just not about the same things as you, Ann."

"I know, I know. You care more about... living things," Ann said, with a playfully mocking tone to her voice. She squatted down next to her and mustered her with a wide grin as she continued to poke around in the squishy cell mass that covered the ground.

"We're really here, huh? Who would have thought..."

"I can't really believe it myself yet," she replied, tracing a gloved finger through a brilliantly purple streak of algae that emitted a phosphorescent glow where she touched them.

The planet was off limits. Dangerous, for so many reasons. It had taken weeks to get permission to come here, weeks to prepare the survey, and weeks to find somebody who would even bring them out here. They were only a team of seven, in and out, no idling. Every hour counted.

Despite all their preparation, the peculiarities of this site had made it difficult for them to do their job. Collecting samples for sixteen hours without a break, when most of their study subject was still submerged under water even then, provided a real challenge. But it was an important job. The meteorite had come from a place so far away that the attempts to calculate its path and trace that back to its origin had yielded only very vague results so far. And according to early data, its age was quite literally astronomical – beyond what her mind was capable of imagining. It was almost as old as the light of the distant stars that seemed to watch over their work when night fell on the planet.

The tide would be coming back soon, she noticed. Those strains of algae that had begun to dull here and there would be replenished by the water. She knew that tomorrow, in the early hours of morning, they would greet them again, their bluish light glowing underneath the shallow water surface as if to outshine the fading stars in the sky.