Page 90 of Pets in Space 10

He’d initially assumed that the facility had been installed to study the seismic in the area. The proximity of stratovolcano made that likely, but now that they’d reached the research area, he wasn’t so sure.

He studied some charts pinned to the walls.

“These are weather data,” Harold said, coming to stand next to him.

It wasn’t totally crazy. Earth had weather stations in a lot of unlikely places. It did feel like they’d missed the obvious.

He ran a finger along a desktop and then studied the dust it had collected. He looked back. Their footprints were clearly visible on the floor entering this room. So whoever was living here, they didn’t come in here.

He picked up a cup and looked at the gunk crusted inside. If he had to guess — which he did — he’d guess it was made of a similar material as the glass on the atrium. He checked out other items. They were all unbreakable. He dropped a small object whose purpose he couldn’t figure out. It bounced.

As if in response to his action, a tremor began, small at first, then building. He grabbed the side of the desk to steady himself and realized it was bolted down.

When the tremor subsided, Harold picked up the object and studied it briefly before returning it to its spot on the desk. It was easy to find, thanks to the dust circle.

“This structure absorbs some of the instability of the tremor,” Harold said. “My system registered a much higher event than we felt.”

“That would be worth knowing about,” Miles said.

It made sense that the people of Arroxan Prime had adapted their buildings, not just their travel, to life with a lot of seismic activity.

Scientists on Earth had made progress in factoring in stress during building construction but this seemed next level.

Though it didn’t always work. He thought about the cracks they’d observed along the way.

If he had to guess, which he did, and as a geologist, mostly had to do, he’d say the building had experienced a major seismic event fairly recently. It might be why the facility had been abandoned, or mostly abandoned. Or recently abandoned?

“There is a handwritten note on this chart,” Harold said.

Miles looked over his shoulder, and saw it standing in front of the chart directly behind the desk.

“What does it say?” He leaned in, but the writing might as well have been his doctor’s on a prescription.

“This is wrong.”

“Okay.” He glanced around, but there were no rocks in this room. Time to move on.

Back out in the hallway, he realized what he’d been feeling without thinking it.

It was all kind of retro, like a 50s sci-fi movie.

Even though the light distribution from the ceiling slits was pretty good, it still felt a bit murky.

Or maybe it was unease with the shadows in the corners where the light didn’t reach.

He turned and flashed a light into one corner. Nothing moved and he felt stupid.

“Did you hear something?” Harold asked.

“No.”

“A human intuition?” Harold sounded curious and not judgy.

“I feel like we’re being watched, which is probably imagination, not intuition.”

“You are probably correct,” Harold said.

He’d brought it on himself, but that didn’t help contain the spike of annoyance.

“Is there any way to tap into systems here and get access to local data?” He probably wouldn’t be able to figure it out any better than the Garradian data, but it was a good deflection.

For what felt like a long slow moment, Harold studied him. Finally, it appeared to blink. “I am not picking up wireless transmissions. I will require a port for access.”

Miles waved at the systems bank inside the room next to where they stood. “What about one of those?”

“They aren’t powered.” Harold turned and left.

Miles followed him out the door but by the time he’d reached the hallway, Harold was no longer in sight. Dude could move when it wanted to.

He didn’t like being left alone, but he also didn’t want to hurry after Harold. He reached a small junction of hallways and realized he might not be able to hurry after Harold.

The silence added to the overall creepy vibes he was trying not to notice.

For something to do, he checked the signal, turning to find its direction, and headed down that hall. It wasn’t a long one. He tried a door and found a staircase. He checked the signal again. He was almost standing right on top of it. But it was still far below.

If the hallway was creepy, the stairs were next level.

They curved out of sight into a murky, gray gloom.

He castigated himself to get moving and went down the steps but at the bend, found a rubble fall.

He didn’t mind retreating back up the stairs, but he did bend to grab a couple of smaller samples from the rubble.

As the door swung shut behind him, he thought he heard something. Harold? He angled his head to listen, but it wasn’t repeated. Probably Harold, he told himself. Had to be Harold. No life signs, remember?

He started back the way he’d come and felt his skin prickle. He usually didn’t let his imagination get this out of control.

Just because this place had creepy alien vibes, didn’t mean it had creepy aliens inhabiting it.

Life signs. What did that actually mean? The people of Arroxan Prime were humanoid, he’d been told. So surely the life signs scanners could pick them up. But…

He gave a shake of his shoulders. It was a bit like being in almost every sci-fi movie he’d ever seen.

Well, not every one of them. Just the creepy ones.

His gaze tracked around, then moved up to eye the vents.

He kind of wished he hadn’t lost track of Harold.

And then he heard a noise again. Man, he hoped that was Harold.

***

The outside door had been left partly ajar, igniting a sense of unease that only intensified as Lira eased through the gap, not sure why she didn’t want to push the door further open.

It did squeak, but that shouldn’t matter.

Even knowing this, she paused, folded her head gear back, and then paused and listened.

The deep, brooding silence raised the hair on the back of her neck for no reason she could define.

Since her father lived here alone, there weren’t usually overt signs of habitation, but there were usually some. And he did have a way of making his presence felt, even if it was just the smell of some food cooking.

When she started to step forward, T'Korrin made a noise. He jumped down from her shoulder and clicked his way to something she hadn’t seen before.

A long crack in the floor.

“You’re right,” she said. “That’s new.” And troubling. As old as the facility was, her father had insisted that the stress-reducing system was adequate to the task.

She opened her mouth to call out and then…didn’t.

Pale light came in from slits that had been tucked into the ceilings to keep the light from being direct. It had something to do with orbits and how this place faced the sun. It wasn’t a fact she’d needed to keep hold of, so she hadn’t.

The silence seemed to expand and grow until it almost felt alive. Even T'Korrin jumped back onto her shoulder and shrank against her, trying to make himself smaller. His small whimper was only audible to her.

She pulled out her weapon and set it to stun, even while chiding herself for letting the atmosphere get to her.

Aliens.

Her brother could have been tweaking her with that. It felt like guys never quite grew out of the urge to tease. But she didn’t put her weapon away as she paced forward. Even in the low light, she knew her way around the facility, so she didn’t hesitate…much.

It would serve her father right if she accidentally stunned him. She sighed, knowing she didn’t mean it and it was very like him to get lost in his research and forget she was coming. She just wished she knew why it felt…hostile…for the first time in her experience in coming here.

This wasn’t her first time venturing into a possibly hostile space. On remote digs, there was always a chance of running into site robbers. This was the first time unease had prickled down her back like ice in this place, however. This was her father’s place. It usually felt safe.

There was more damage to the garden containment. She touched the place where cracks spread out in a star pattern and bit her lip, but she didn’t speak this time.

At an intersection, she paused to check the side corridors and listen.

Still nothing to hear.

Where was her father? And where was whoever had arrived on that flyer? Granted, she’d never been here when her father had guests, so she didn’t know what that sounded like. Or where he took them.

She continued forward, while unease continued its rise inside her. She probably shouldn’t have watched that spooky movie last night. If this were that movie, which would she be? The disposable character or the heroine who gets to live…but was forever traumatized by events?

She heard a slight sound and frowned. It kind of sounded like a system coming online. Yes, there was a beep. She followed the sound with her weapon ready. A door up ahead was open. She paced forward and peered around the corner and saw…

She didn’t know what she saw. She half lowered her weapon as she stared. What in seven stars was it?

It was humanoid in shape but clearly made of some kind of metal alloy.

It was tall, much taller than she was, laying a shadow across the floor that stretched to and partly up the wall.

She knew her jaw had dropped, and she couldn’t seem to close it as more of the instrument panels hummed into life, lights flickering across the various screens, buttons flashing and igniting little points of light over the surface of the…

alien? Was this her father’s first contact?

It shifted and light gleamed on metal. It looked a bit like a robot. That was almost a relief. She wasn’t sure why it was easier to consider than an alien. She hadn’t realized robotic science had gotten this far.