Page 35 of Pets in Space 10
The creature had retreated to the exact center of the containment fields and was now watching them, its unblinking eyes following their every move. Something about its gaze made her skin crawl.
“It’s studying us,” she whispered
“All the more reason to be cautious.”
She approached the edge of the field, ignoring his muttered protest, and the creature tracked her movement, its head tilting slightly.
“I need to take readings,” she said, pulling out her scanner. “If we can understand its biology, maybe we can figure out a more permanent way to neutralize it without having to kill it.”
The scanner’s display filled with data as she pointed it at the creature, and her eyes widened.
“Its cellular structure is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s carbon-based, but the molecular arrangement is completely foreign.”
The creature suddenly reared back and slammed its full body weight against the containment field. The energy barrier flickered but held.
“I don’t think it likes being analyzed,” he said, pulling her back a step.
The creature attacked the field again, this time with even greater force. The generators whined in protest, their power indicators fluctuating.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” she muttered, checking the readings. “The field can withstand far more pressure than it could possibly exert.”
The creature drew back again, but instead of charging, it went completely still, then started emitting a low, vibrating hum that filled the air and raised the hair on her arms.
“What’s it doing?” he asked urgently.
Before she could answer, her scanner began to emit warning beeps. The energy readings from the creature were spiking dramatically.
“It’s — it’s generating some kind of energy field of its own,” she said, staring at the display in disbelief. “The molecular structure of its cells is changing, becoming more unstable.”
The humming grew louder, and the creature’s body began to glow with a faint, pulsing light. The containment field flickered more violently, the generators struggling to maintain integrity.
“Get back!” Zach grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the far wall.
The creature’s body was vibrating now, the glow intensifying. Her scanner blared a continuous warning, its display showing energy levels far beyond anything it was calibrated to measure.
“It’s going to — ”
A blinding flash cut off her words as the creature’s body seemed to implode, collapsing in on itself in a burst of energy that shattered the containment field.
The force of the blast knocked them both off their feet, sending them sprawling across the hangar floor as all the power in the station died.
The lights flickered back on almost immediately, but for several seconds, she could only lie there, ears ringing, vision blurred. Zach recovered first, rolling to his feet and helping her up.
“Are you hurt?” he asked anxiously, checking her for injuries.
She shook her head, still dazed. “I’m okay. Roland and Phantom?”
“They’re fine. But the creature — ”
She followed his gaze to where the containment field had been. There was nothing there. No creature, no remains, not even scorch marks on the floor. The only evidence of what had happened was the three containment generators, now completely fried and smoking slightly.
“It’s gone,” she whispered, staring at the empty space. “Completely gone.”
He walked cautiously to the center of the triangle, his eyes silver as he surveyed the area. “No trace. No residue. Nothing.”
She followed with her scanner, but the device showed no unusual readings now, just the normal background radiation of the station.
“It’s like it never existed,” she said, her voice hollow with disbelief. “But that’s impossible. Matter can’t just disappear. It has to go somewhere.”
She knelt to examine the floor where the creature had been, running her fingers over the hard-packed dirt. Nothing. Not even dust.
“Self-destruction,” he said quietly. “It destroyed itself rather than be captured.”
The implications of the creature’s actions staggered her. “That level of self-sacrifice requires intelligence. Purpose. Why would it do it?”
“What if it wasn’t just trying to destroy itself? What if it was trying to take us with it?”
His words sent a chill through her. She thought of the strange energy spike right before the explosion, the way the creature had targeted them.
“You think it was trying to kill us?”
“It’s possible if it saw us as competition. And remember how it seemed to target you? Eliminating the females of a species is another way of eliminating the competition.”
“Competition,” she said slowly. “If it evolved in a time when resources were very scarce, then it would have learned the importance of defending those resources. I hope the data I managed to capture will tell us more. I have the analysis of its cellular structure, the energy signatures — ”
She picked up her scanner eagerly, then stared at the screen in disbelief. The data files were corrupted, showing nothing but garbled code and error messages.
“No,” she whispered, frantically trying to recover the files. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening. All of the data is gone.”
“What are the chances of that happening naturally?”
“Zero.” She slumped against the wall, clutching the useless scanner in her trembling hands. “Whatever that energy pulse was, it didn’t just destroy the creature. It wiped our data too.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, the realization settling over them like dust.
“So we have no proof,” he said finally. “Nothing to show anyone what we found.”
“Nothing.” The word tasted bitter in her mouth. All that remained of their momentous discovery was their memory. Without the data, it was just their word that they’d encountered something impossible.
She looked at the hole in the floor, the entrance to the tunnels where they’d first found the creature. “We should check the tunnels again, see if the monitors are still working. Maybe there’s another one.”
His eyes went silver for a moment, then he shook his head. “The monitors are all dead. I’ll go and replace them, but you stay here.”
“We go together,” she insisted, already gathering fresh equipment. “But this time, we’re better prepared.”
She quickly assembled a new set of containment field units, adjusting them based on what she’d learned from their first attempt. If they encountered another creature, they’d be ready. Roland chirped inquisitively when they headed back towards the shaft but she shook her head.
“You stay here. We’re just going to do a quick check.”
But as they descended back into the tunnels, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they wouldn’t find anything, and she was right.
They searched the area, replacing all of the monitors, but found nothing.
After an hour of searching, she climbed back up to the station behind Zach, exhausted and discouraged.
“What do we do now?” she asked as he sealed the shaft entrance by the simple expedient of parking the rover on top of it.
He was silent for a long moment, his eyes glinting in the dim light. “We decide who needs to know about this, and who wouldn’t believe us anyway.”
She nodded slowly, understanding the weight of their discovery — and the impossibility of proving it had ever happened. They were alive and unharmed, but the creature was gone, leaving no evidence of its existence except in their memories.
The greatest discovery in the history of Mars exploration, and not a shred of proof to show for it.