Miko limped deeper into the gloom. The oxygen level on this planet was low, traces of sulphur tainted the atmosphere and burned his lungs. Thankfully less so in this enclosed space, which had been sealed. This gave him some semblance of comfort; energy streamed back into his weakened body.
But what was this place? Surely it could not have been created by the primitive colony of hominids he had passed by days ago? A hunter-gatherer society could hardly have engineered this. Perhaps it was the product of a previous alien race?
A quiver of dread pricked his chest.
What was that? Miko stopped short. The sound echoed from the wall to his left, like the scuttle of a spider.
He stared into the darkness. How to get away from these terrors? Better yet, how to get off this wretched planet?
His limbs ached, on his side from the burning wounds he had accumulated upon separating himself from Audra. It was a final attempt to survive the crash, an act of instinct, despite the searing pain of his sharp-edged tool. Gangrene would have set in days ago had he not succeeded in staving off infection with the small tube of bio-regen from his medpack. Then dousing the raw sores with plant resins and mosses he had gathered. It had been a risk, but either that or die.
His eyes strained in the dimness. With hooked fingers he felt his way along the wall, cool to his touch. He rapped his knuckles on the square plates composing the walls and sensed a hollow lightness about them, if not resilience. His eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness. He moved toward what looked like a low, triangular doorway. Beyond it glowed a green phosphorous light. All the time, Miko felt his feet moving down, toward some subterranean level.
He advanced with caution, thankful to be away from the gaping hole where the warks lurked. Perhaps there was a secret exit out of this chilling place?
He stepped through the triangular opening. Lifting a leg over the lower lip, he discovered that the chamber within was smaller than the one from which he had come. He stumbled over something transparent, a broken canister or tube maybe five feet in length and caught the dry curse in his mouth as he fell headlong. A starfish-like creature lay sprawled in the moulder, his nose almost touching it. The exoskeleton had withered and was caked with dust. He pushed himself away from the grotesque sight as if it were some toxic entity. The glassy material it had been housed in was something akin to that or plastic, a bit of both. At one end, strange crystalline wirings hung, as if broken off from some connecting device. Was it from within this canister the thing had crawled? Miko shook his head. How had it escaped?
The tube seemed to have rolled or been dragged from somewhere. But where? He scowled, blinking in the gloom. The disquieting glow grew brighter ahead.
His frown deepened. Large basins were dug out in the hard-packed floor, dry now, but perhaps holding water at some time in the faraway past. Metal pillars equipped with curled hooks stretched up into the lofty dimness. Miko paused, collected his wits. A sixth sense shouted to him that terror crawled in the murk. Insect webs glistened in the nearby corners. Moving under the eerie light, he advanced with utmost caution. Such a place demanded suspicion.
He rounded a great tank long drained of whatever contents it had once held. He saw the light was becoming brighter.
The chamber within was illuminated by several dusky green glows.
A dozen upright circular glass tubes, similar to the one he had tripped over, sat on exotic counters decorated with unrecognizable symbols: a warped net, complex schematics, beastly faces. The tubes were filled with luminous green liquid: the source of the eerie light.
In the faint glow, Miko perceived inert monstrosities within, crusts or husks of them suspended in their liquid matrix. Some creatures were split open and their mouths hung agape, eyes gone, or whatever eyes there were stared sightlessly, or in terror.
In one vessel, something floated that resembled a giant butterfly. Another looked like a miniaturized narwhal floating on its side in its sleeping death.
A nameless fear fluttered in Miko’s chest. This place seemed ancient, cursed.
The upright tubes looked very much like mini aquaria. The vessels appeared filled with their original fluid, hermetically sealed, he guessed.
Could the creatures contained within still be alive? If it were an ancient laboratory with its millennia of dust and decay, it seemed improbable. But then again...
Behind the vessels stood a wall panel set with a low counter. Dials and discs and imponderable script covered the wall’s surface. He believed it contained circuitry of some sort, altogether alien, but inoperative, and there was no sign of a power source.
Miko studied the odd shapes of the trapped creatures in the tanks. These things appeared long dead, strange snail and shrimp-like hybrids, arthropods or crustaceans dredged from the caustic swamps of this primeval planet. Things among these he had studied lived in the benthic zones of Earth’s ancient oceans and deep lakes.
Things graced with claws and snouts, barbed gills and hooked beaks.
Shuddering, he moved toward the last exhibit closer to the far wall. The glass had cracked like the one before it and its liquid drained long ago. Nothing was left but the brown, desiccated husk of some horror. This last creature had an oblong shell and leftover crusts of spidery legs. Such an unsettling thing inspired little confidence. What a sinister menagerie! What beings would house such grisly specimens? For what purpose?
Another empty pit, dry as
