The Darkness Within Us

Chapter 5

My hands trembled as our transport entered the weak atmosphere of the planet and not because the vessel itself was shaking. This was it. The time had come for me and Jackson to leave. All I had to do was wait for Dr. Nakamura to get distracted with his samples and we'd jump in the transport and take off. I'd even convinced Dr. Nakamura to let me pilot the ship down to the surface so I could familiarize myself with this model's controls. The landing was a little rusty, but nothing to be worried about. I had planned on a lighter gravity and came in too hard, but that's not a mistake you make more than once if you're smart.

Ersaad was one of the Vespa system's outer rim planets that hadn't been colonized yet. It was at the edge of the habitable zone but had lost most of its atmosphere long before humans arrived. We launched magnetic shields almost immediately after discovering it, which allowed oxygen levels to build up to a more appreciable level, though it still wasn't quite enough to support human life without assistance. The terraforming companies had been able to get some hardier species of plants to take hold in a few regions, but it would be decades before the planet could support the diversity of life found on Vespa, Lares, or Fauna.

I stepped down onto the hard, dusty black ground and looked out over the desolate landscape. The light was like late afternoon though it was essentially early morning. Helmets weren't necessary anymore and I took a deep breath of the empty air. The soil was too dense to airisolize and there were no factories filling the atmosphere with pollution. It was nice to finally take a breath without that burned polymer smell. Here, the lack of smell was more welcome than I could have anticipated.

We had landed on a plain near the foothills of an ancient mountain range that had long since been eroded to smooth peaks by the relentless equatorial wind. Now they were no more than tall hills covered in unconsolidated till. Water had begun to collect in some of the low-lying areas, but none of it was fit to drink.

We pulled out the large sample containers and started removing the various equipment and collection materials needed to work the field site. Dr. Nakamura assigned me, and Jackson by default, to a section that hadn't been sampled before. There were some unusual magnetic signatures on a nearby hill and I was supposed to collect the dirt in a few locations in that general area. I tried to keep an eye on Dr. Nakamura's location. The excitement of getting to work in the field was diverting my attention away from the original plan. I found myself engrossed in the activity.

"When are we going to do this?" Jackson snuck up behind me as I was closing the lid on a soil sample. I jumped and dropped the whole thing on the ground.

"Great! Now I've got to climb back down in that crevice for another sample."

"Anaïs, we're leaving. What does it matter? Scrape some dirt off your boots."

I looked at him and chewed my lip, annoyed that I hadn't thought of that. We started to make our way back down the hill when I noticed a metallic humming coming from the other side. I stopped and cocked my head to the side. It sounded like the whine of one of the powerful magnets we had in the lab.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what? We've got to get out of here while we still can." When I didn't move, Jackson climbed back up to my position. "What's wrong with you?"

I shook my head slightly, trying to shake the fog from my mind. The sound grew in intensity until my head was filled with its insistent buzzing. I blinked a few times and then turned to the left, walking quickly. The need to find the source of the sound was sudden and overwhelming.

"Anaïs!" Jackson called after me, struggling to keep up. I felt like I was getting closer. The buzzing was now a tangible vibration in my chest. We had run an experiment once using low-pitched sound waves and I had grabbed the sub while a tone played. The wave resonated through my body, making me queasy. I felt that now as I searched for the source of the sound. I took a final step and was overcome by an electrical current that brought me to my knees.