Stranded
By: Alexander Nagel
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Story

The long, monotonous drone signaling a loss of cabin pressure brings Yendohlan Greck to his senses. The accompanying pulse of yellow hazard lights greets him as he opens his eyes. The nose of his conical craft appears beneath him. Yendohlan is suspended immobile in the antigravitron matrix surrounding the pilot’s chair of the single person escape pod. The same technology that had saved him from flying out at altitude or from ending up as a smear of blood on the inside of the hull now holds him paralyzed upside down. The integration of his bioelectric field into the pod’s WetWare system ensures that a series of methodic thought-exercises will release the controls.

The strobe of yellow lights reminds him of his situation. There is no guarantee that his body will not be crushed by the pressure of an alien atmosphere the moment the field goes down. If he can remember where he stored his helmet, he can make a dash for it and hope that he has enough time to secure it about his head before running out of oxygen. The chance that whatever world he is on supports habitable environmental conditions is not only improbable, but probably impossible.

In the trance of an unblinking and breathless stasis, Yendohlan centers his mind on a point of nonexistence. They had prepared him for moments like this at the Academy. All he has to do is remember. Emptying his mind of all thought, Yendohlan shifts his awareness back in time; back to when he had seen the interior of the escape pod. At the very least, he had observed the contents of the pod during the evacuation. Although he can not recall the details of past perceptions in his waking state, the memory of his passage from emergency bulkhead to escape pod still exists as a reality inside his unconscious mind. All he needs to do is access it.

… after the explosion… after the evacuation… but before entering the anti-grav field around the chair… there…

With relief, Yendohlan begins to slowly bring himself out of his altered state. In the Academy they had stressed that transcendental recall could have dire psychological ramifications if brought back to temporal consciousness too quickly. After he was sure an adequate amount of time had passed, Yendohlan begins the procedure of the thought-exercise that will bring down the anti-grav field. Just like he had planned, he drops down, opens the locker, and retrieves his helmet in a matter of seconds. Yendohlan feels a bitter cold inside the capsule despite it being illuminated by a bright sunlight. The only sound Yendohlan hears now is his own labored breathing within the confines of his spacesuit.

… time to see where I’ve landed…

The hatch slowly pries itself open after being released from the red handle in the accompanying access port. Bracing himself with both hands against the frame of the hatch, Yendohlan lifts himself through the threshold and out into what can only be described as a desert. Sand of a deep crimson hue stretches before him in all directions. The sky is a pale yellow, dotted with wisps of grayish vapor. The curvature of the landscape appears distorted as he scans the horizon from within the Plastoflex bubble of his helmet.

… I can’t venture out any further before I know where I’m going… I can’t know where I’m going until I know where I am… Wherever I am, I’m a long way from the Solaris system… I wonder how long I have before dehydration begins to set in…

With no way to tell how long he had been unconscious after crash landing, Yendohlan decides to check the ship’s logs.

… if they can even be accessed. Auxiliary power must still be online for the emergency systems to be working…

Yendohlan turns to make his way back towards the capsule and he can see that the tip of the conical pod has angled itself upward in the red sand dune. The hatch hangs open at its side, creating a kind of ramp for him to crawl aboard. Towards the rear of the pod, Yendohlan sees that two of the six fuel cells are still intact. One has been punctured, while a large section containing the rest are missing entirely. The entire aft section of the craft has, in fact, been torn apart. Looking out through the opening, Yendohlan can see a trail of debris leading up and away over a red dune.

Reserve netting stretches loosely above him as the hole in the escape pod gives way to the remainder of the hull. Some of the emergency rations stored in compartments between the inner and outer hulls lay exposed. He would have to take an inventory of the remaining supplies, but he would first have to determine when and where he is. To do that, he would need to access the WetWare mainframe conjoined with the pilot’s chair. Getting inside meant grappling with the same interface that had kept him immobile. Instead, Yendohlan decides to access the controls remotely through a small access port near the base of the hatch.

The maze of wires and conjoining circuitry are badly scrambled. After a considerable period of trial and error, the siren and yellow lights give way to the faint hum of the spherical HUD around a small terminal towards the nose of the craft, as the emergency power is redirected to navigation control. The flight record is only able to confirm what he already knows. In all, it had taken a total of four hours to descend to the planet’s surface, which meant he had been unconscious for no more than two. And yet the current sun-cycle algorithm displays an error message, so there is no way for him to know for certain how long those “hours” actually are. A cursory scan of the planet’s surface reveals nothing remarkable.

… all frequencies register in the green, but mine is the only channel that’s broadcasting…

None of the containers on board contain any rations or water; only rudimentary engineering equipment and spare parts. Again Yendohlan’s gaze is drawn through the large opening in the rear of the craft. Surely he will run into the remaining supplies if he follows the trail of debris.

He begins shifting each foot forward through the sand. The lip of his helmet is too high and his suit too stiff to see his feet, so he can only look ahead to where he is going. He has to stop completely and turn around to see where he has been. He carries on like this for some time until the blue sun begins to sink over the horizon. As he trudges on, it does not get dark. Instead, another source of light begins rising on the opposite end of the horizon. Turning around, he can no longer see the triangular dome of his capsule. It has disappeared over the ridge of a dune.

Suddenly, there is a stirring of movement to his right. At the base of the valley between two dunes, Yendohlan finds himself witnessing the rapid formation of a depression in the sand. As quickly as it had begun, the shifting of sand ceases. He approaches the anthill-like depression with caution. As he peers over the edge and down the steep slope, a great rumbling tests his balance before a thunderous eruption of dust and sand blows him over onto his back. Raising his head, Yendohlan can see what appears to be steam rising from the now open crater.

Pressing his hands into the ground, Yendohlan lifts himself to his feet. The rising crest of a white sun over the dune blinds him.

… visor… down…

A brief thought-exercise lowers his radiation visor. The same relief that comes with the return of his eyesight also brings dismay as the steam that had been emanating from the crater is now circling about his spacesuit. Lifting his hands to his face, his gloves look as though they have been dipped in water. The iridescent sheen pools into large drops that begin falling from his spacesuit. It is not until he feels a burning around his fingers that he realizes his gloves are melting. The sun is now nearly all the way over the horizon of the dune. Soon his whole suit will combust, leaving him seared with the molten residue of his spacesuit and exposed to the elements.

… no choice…

As fast as he can, Yendohlan Greck throws himself face first down the slope of the crater and into the shade of an unearthly darkness.

The first thing Yendohlan does upon awakening facedown is turn over and look up. A circular opening of white light hangs above him like a small moon. With no other objects in sight from which to judge the size of the opening, it is impossible to determine how far he has fallen. Rolling onto his side, Yendohlan stands up slowly and takes a few deep breathes.

… lights… on…

A few more thought-exercises and two beams of light appear from the sides of his helmet, illuminating a narrow, winding cavern. He wanders several meters down the curving path of rock before he bothers to look down. His spacesuit is in taters, his gloves nearly disintegrated. Panic seizes him before Yendohlan realizes that he is still breathing normally. His vizor lifts, he removes his helmet, and cradles his only source of light against his hip before continuing on.

With no way of knowing how long he has been walking, Yendohlan trusts in his training. He begins to repeat a simple mantra in his head. The words themselves are meaningless, but they will keep his conscious mind active and conserve his subconscious energy. Each turn of the meandering cavern is passed in tranquil resignation of a body maneuvering in space. Yendohlan becomes so entranced in his meditation that he fails to notice the gradual increase in slope, as his footsteps lead him further and further below the planet’s surface.

Part of his training mandates that Yendohlan’s voyage into his unconscious mind be conditioned to operate in cycles of no more than eight hours. This procedure operates as a failsafe mechanism to ensure that pilots operating under extreme conditions of isolation and considerable stress are able to regularly take stock of their environment. As Yendohlan feels himself emerging from his mediation, he becomes increasingly concerned at the amount of time that he has been walking. He considers stopping to rest, but now that he is conscious, he is sure that there is the faintest trace of light ahead.

Every turn past a corner yields more light and spurs Yendohlan even further on. The slim corridors of rock begin to widen, eventually bringing him into a spacious cavity that stretches upwards as much as outward. The outline of an archway hovers just outside the edge of his helmet’s light beams.

As he approaches the archway, the outline of vague shapes gives way to a small, but intricately carved system of pillars and low retaining walls. Stepping through the archway and over one of the walls, Yendohlan can see a faintly glowing aura of green light emanating from the space in the center behind a symmetrical arrangement of four large pillars. Skirting around them, Yendohlan finds himself confronted with a large crystalline object suspended above a rectangular stone slab. As if in response to his proximity, a series of two dimensional holographic displays flicker into existence in revolving patterns around the crystal. The symbols are largely unintelligible. They are made up of a combination of simple, well defined lines overlain with more delicate lines of vast patterns of geometric complexities. Yendohlan can see that a similar system of characters are embedded into the face of the pillar standing behind the faint glow of the crystal and its holographic display. As he looks around, he can see that in fact each one of the four large pillars making up this inner chamber is adorned with the same alien language.

Yendohland sets down his helmet, letting the rays of his flashlights illuminate the strange structures. The pillars themselves, along with the archway and retaining walls, seem to be made of a kind of sandstone. Each contains a spiral of writing set in relief against the stone in a series of circular etchings. Around the center of each pillar revolves a band of these markings. Yendohlan inspects each pillar carefully. The last he examines has a large crack running jaggedly down to the base. Resting against the corner of the cracked pillar lies the slumped form of a humanoid figure.

Yendohlan reaches for his helmet to lift up the shining beams. Resting inside a dark brown suit similar to his own is the skeletal remains of a creature with a sapien-like cranium, save for the large, pointed ridge protruding from the forehead. The alien holds something in his hand. Crouching down, Yendohlan retrieves what appears to be a small computing device. Brushing his fingers over the deceive to remove the dust, the display hums to life. While the text is as indecipherable as that which surrounds the pillars, it is noticeably different. The symbols on the alien display are cuneiform in nature. Yendohlan has no trouble making out the shapes of planets and clusters of stars. A thin, purple line traces a trajectory from a planet light years away to the system he must be in now.

… whoever this person was and wherever they were going, they never made it… somehow, they ended up here… like me…

Yendohlan then remembers the events proceeding the evacuation.

… we picked up magnetic waves emitting from the surface of this moon at intervals too regular to be interstellar static…. we dropped out of hyperspace to investigate…. that’s when our systems began to fail; minor ones at first, but soon life support was no longer functioning and we had no choice but to abandon ship…

Yendohlan looks down at the small device.

… homing beacons are small enough that they can fit inside almost anything… but if this creature had set up a distress signal… then why would he have traveled here from his home world in the first place…

Yendohlan turns around to look at the large crystal suspended above the stone slab. He realizes that the green light emanating from the crystal is pulsating at regular intervals.

Yendohlan rushes forward to strike the crystal. Nothing but a faint echo emanates amid the deafening silence of the cavern. He strikes again, harder this time. Nothing. After a few deep breaths, Yendohlan reaches forward and places both of his palms around the surface of the crystal. Closing his eyes, Yendohlan concentrates on a point of nonexistence. Under a self induced hypnosis, Yendohlan prepares to undergo a single thought-exercise meant to issue forth a simple command:

… power… off…

Almost instantly, Yendohlan is immersed in total darkness. It is at this moment that Yendohlan Greck makes the decision to never again switch on the crystal transceiver.

… I can’t risk drawing anyone else to this forsaken planet… I couldn’t live with myself if I did…

When Yendohlan runs out of room on the hexagonal pillars, he begins carving small notches into the sandstone arches with one of the small, jagged stones that litters the cavern floor. When the arches are covered, he moves onto the walls. After the lower walls are covered, there is still plenty of room on the surrounding cave face. After that, the ceiling. By the time he begins defacing the intricate stone edifices, Yendohlan realizes that there are so many scratches marking the passing of time that he can no longer keep track of how long he has been entombed in this subterranean prison. The darkness of the cave begins to settle around Yendohlan in serene disquietude.

Yendohlan passes through unmeasurable waves of euphoria as he starts to experience a pure state of being. The more thoughts creep in, the more they dissolve into nothingness.

It is some time during this state of unthinking that a fear begins to grow inside of him. Yendohlan tries to remember who he is, but he can not. He can no longer see himself, the cave is so dark. He tries to remember his survival training. He tries to speak, but when Yendohlan attempts to vocalize his thoughts, the words that come are pathetic echoes of awareness. Eventually, even his thoughts become passing illusions that begin merging into the deafening silence of the ancient antechamber. Try as he might, Yendohlan can no longer recall any of the faces of his friends, his family, or even his wife. All that remains of his conception of the human face is an amorphous mass of non-description.

… grey… opaque… unmoving…

Something more than instinct lifts Yendohlan out of his resignation and into a standing position. Something less than hope shuffles his hunched form over the retaining wall and into the center of the structure. Something beyond consciousness pulls his gaunt hands over the crystal.

… power… on…

A pale, green light softly floods the cavernous chamber. He does not know when, but eventually someone else will arrive.

… someone I can see… someone I can talk to…