Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 42 - Elephant

Aron was cursing having not made a note of the time when the healing box had sealed itself. Being alone in the darkness gave a distorted impression of time passing. He had no reason to assume that the box would not just open when it was finished, just like it had with L.E.O. Obi but now, standing alone in the dark, doubt started to creep into his mind.

It felt like around twenty minutes, and he was already planning what he was going to say to Megan if the box failed to release Ekono, when the lid melted away as before. Aron did not know if he had ever felt so relieved before.

The split-second that Ekono's icon appeared on the left-side of Aron's visor display, Ekono began talking excitedly.

"...could have warned me how violent that experience is. It felt like I was being shaken to pieces in there."

"How do you feel?"

"Like I've been through an earthquake!" Ekono replied, scrabbling to his feet, apparently keen to get out of the box.

Aron moved close and supported him while he swung his legs out. "But your shoulder, how's that now?"

"Hard to tell while wearing this E.V.A. suit."

With both feet now on the floor beside the box, Ekono stretched out his arm and slowly rotated it at the shoulder joint.

"The dull ache I've had for two days seems to be gone. It feels normal, I think," he smiled.

Aron was not used to seeing Ekono's usually implacable face break into a smile. It felt good to see such a positive response.

"Megan will have to give you the all clear for future expeditions now, but before that, we need to get back on the buggy and get home before anyone notices we've taken too long!"

* * *

The following morning, just after seeing Margaux and L.E.O.s Cohen and Obi off on an expedition to retrieve a cat E.V.A. suit and some of the storage boxes from the cat vessel, Megan headed across to the external laboratory. It felt silly to wear an E.V.A. suit for such a short trip, but as they were still maintaining isolation procedures inside the laboratory, it was necessary.

The inner door of the tiny airlock slid open to allow her to walk into the tubular laboratory where she found Aron hunched over the alien drone he had captured the previous day. It was clamped to one of the two trestle tables. He turned to greet her as she approached.

"I've been talking to Santiago," she started, not entirely sure how to begin what was sure to be an awkward conversation.

"How is he?"

"Confused," she paused. "And annoyed."

"Okay..." Aron replied slowly, suspicion obvious in his voice. "And?"

"He was doing his regular check of Ekono's shoulder injury and guess what?"

"It's better and he wants to know how?" Aron sounded more instantly defeated than she was expecting. In a way, it made things easier but the lack of confrontation over the matter took the wind out of her sails a little.

"Ekono's flatly refusing to say anything, but I know that L.E.O. Obi didn't partner you on that last expedition. There's no video on his suitcam and your suit is missing almost half-an-hour of time."

"Would you believe it was a glitch in the electronics?" he half smiled.

"I'm guessing that Ekono doesn't want to drop you in it. He knows I didn't give him clearance to go on that expedition."

"He hadn't been off the Arcadian in days and it was a simple one, just dropping off the collection container."

"You took him to the healing box room, didn't you?" she demanded.