Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 49 - Crew

What seemed to be the rearmost chamber of the vessel was crowded with six large pods that Aron immediately identified as, most probably, some sort of cryonic hibernation system. Four pods were positioned side-by-side along the back wall with minimal walking space between them and another two in-line, against the side walls. Both the walls and the ceiling curved inwards towards the back, making the room feel even more cramped.

With a glossy white finish, smooth curves and a translucent dome for the head end of the top half of each, they were obviously human-sized. Control panels and display lights seemed to indicate that two of them, the middle ones against the back wall, were still active.

"Look inside those two," said Ekono calmly. "The others are unoccupied."

Aron moved closer with anticipation. Both clear domes were slightly frosted but not so much as to obscure the interior. The left one held the sleeping form of what appeared to be a human male, middle-aged, of wiry build with short, black hair and wearing a navy blue jumpsuit. Aron did not know how to react. How could this vessel belong to other humans?

In the short time he had been on board, it was quite apparent that this vessel was comfortably beyond the level of sophistication usual in any space-craft he knew of on Earth. All the vessels he was aware of were ruthlessly efficient and functional in their design and construction.

He moved his attention to the adjacent pod to find its occupant was a female human, possibly younger than the male and with long, straight, black hair but wearing an identical blue jumpsuit.

He stared at her face for a few seconds and then studied the man's face too. Both of them had odd features, high cheek ridges, large eyelids and small mouths. The latter may have been an effect of their skin being so pale. although it was hard to tell if that was their natural colour given the light in the chamber and any side-effects of freezing.

The fact that both figures wore close-fitting, navy-blue jumpsuits implied it was a uniform, so maybe the crew were military? It was impossible to be sure. Nothing much made sense. They looked human but the Arcadian had not been in space anything like long enough for Earth technology to have moved so far forward. That was especially true if this vessel had been captured this far out from Earth. Even a faster drive system would have taken years to make the trip.

"Are they human?" asked Ekono quietly.

"Looks like it. Santiago will be able to say for sure."

Aron moved his attention to the control panel on the male humanoid's hibernation pod. The display showed some kind of multi-coloured bar chart and a few icons which were unintelligible to him. He moved his hand towards it and was surprised to see the display change while his fingers were still centimetres away.

A new line of icons appeared across the bottom of the screen and the chart slid out of the way to make space for three lines of text. It took him a moment to realise that the characters were completely foreign to him, although they did remind him of the engraved symbols on the goggles.

Each of the icons was a different colour, loosely making a rainbow across the screen. Intrigued to see if the panel was a touch screen, he tried pressing one with his fingertip, choosing the green one as it was slightly larger than the others. Immediately an electronic beep sounded and all the other icons flew off the screen, leaving the green one flashing alone on the screen.

"What did you do?" asked Ekono.

"I touched the green icon. It's done something, but I'm not sure what."

"This cylinder is lighting up inside."

"Hmmm...I suspect I may have activated the defrost program," Aron chuckled.