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The Return of the Idol
🕑 Added 2023-10-20 16:32:35 +0000 UTC[18+] obscene language, dirty jokes
Chapter 1: It is Too Early for the Return
The first time I saw Him was in a cave, on the planet Siarey-Si, during an expedition there as a geologist; my name is Everen High, and this is my story.
It all started as usual - a reconnaissance mission about the possible location of minerals on other worlds.
Us, I mean: myself, the head of the operation, two pilots and six other team members, were sent to a distant planet called Siarey-Si, located in sector S-34:B301 of the Arnainskiy Cross - of the eponymous star system Si.
There were only a few hours left before arrival, when it appeared from behind the gas giant - a gray planet with an emerald edging of a rarefied atmosphere. I had seen geoids of asteroid-type planets before, yet this one seemed special to me. Back then I still didn’t know what awaited us there... The pleasant voice of the ship’s female AI warned us about entering the atmosphere of Siarey.
Veles, - the manager of the expedition, with whom we all were standing now on the bridge of Istariona, - instructed us according to a memorized pattern - do not relieve yourself on the surface of the planet, do not remove helmets, avoid possible flora and fauna until a preliminary analysis of the gas component of the atmosphere, soil, and so on has been carried out.
The biologist, by the way, was also with us. A thin guy, whom everyone simply called “Er”, for his native name, like that of his entire hybrid-snake race, had a letter combination that was too difficult to pronounce.
Oh yes, I forgot to say - the entire crew of Istariona were the descendants of the human race, only changed by generations of introduced, alien, genotypes, depending on the colonies from which we had hailed from.
The landing turned out to be soft, the only thing is that because of the rising cloud of dust, we will not see the Siarey's sky any time soon.
I stood by the right observation window on the bridge and peered into the emerging gaps in the horizon and the peeking out outlines of small rocks until the manager approached me.
"Well, High, are you ready for new discoveries?" Veles asked with a friendly grin.
“Always ready, boss,” I played along with him.
“High, well, you know that I don’t like it when you call me that,” he frowned, but smiled again and patted me on the shoulder, “we’re unlikely to go down today, so rest.”
I nodded after him and returned to my previous occupation, “welp, looks like it wasn't meant to be...” I said almost out loud, without noticing it myself at first. Only the pilot passing by smiled, stretching in his tight work suit.
I wonder, where do they recruit such androgynous folks? Though... it doesn't matter.
***
The time was inexorably approaching evening. A strange, greenish haze enveloped Istariona, replacing dust and the star Si, which was leaving the horizon.
My majestic, until summoned, ass was laying on the royal bed - a narrow, uncomfortable niche, - in the living quarters of the ship, languishing from doing nothing and out-of-world boredom.
"Ev, why are you chilling?" Lex, our meteorologist, appeared on the auditory horizon.
“Oh, are you done already so I can get on with the real thing?” It’s unlikely that she appreciated my stunning gaze, because I was pointing it straight at... the back of her head.
Pff, lost this one.
"Ha-ha, very funny," she wagged her rear at me, bragging about her victory, "if it weren’t for me, then you'd have remained digging in the sandbox of Worgs' waste."
"B-but!" I jumped up, bumping my forehead on the bed above, "it only happened once! And accidentally at that..." damn, the bruise will remain.
The girl laughed, exciting the vibrissae of her long, dark hair. "But it happened, didn’t it?" Her rhetorical questions never gave me a chance to justify myself.
All that remained was to agree.
I never understood spiders, but I always liked them somehow, - I smiled at this thought, returning to the niche and rubbing my battle wound.
Soon, as is customary in small groups, everyone was called to dinner.
"Mmm, yummy, pickled crap in its own shit with a flavor of mucus from another..."
"Mad, stop spoiling everyone's appetite again!" oh yes, Lex never likes this kind of talk at the table - and that’s what she’s all about.
"What? Even my late granny cooked better than this 'balanced ration of a real frea-'" - I noticed how his gaze shifted to the two - I nicknamed - androgynes, after which he coughed and corrected himself - "... pilot."
I never understood why we need this goon on every expedition, but, although... after all, someone has to carry the equipment.
Having finished my dinner, I was one of the first to leave the room and moved to fulfill the whims of the call of nature, having finished with which I returned to my casemate and huddled under an insulated blanket.
I hope I can see the sky in the morning.
***
To say that I was freezing is to say nothing.
“Disgusting morning,” muttering in a low tone and pouring boiling water into a mug with xistna fruits with trembling, frozen hands, I was already cursing our relatively small budget and fuel economy during the night’s downtime.
"And where is Veles looking?" the equally quiet voice of our meteorologist asked from behind me. I shrugged.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure grateful that at least life support isn't turned off,” my attempt to dilute the atmosphere failed without even rising... “Oh, how’s the weather there, have you checked?” – then I remembered yesterday’s wish.
"Look for yourself."
Under the rustling of polyethylene, I took the cup and moved towards the bridge.
"Ugh..."
"Siarey will not soon show us its sky" I heard Lex’s voice again, not at all encouraging.
Exhaling in annoyance, I took a sip of the tincture and stared at the dusty panorama.
"High, since when did you turn into a romantic?"
Unexpectedly for myself, I shuddered.
"Romantic?" turning around and examining the same wrapped caterpillar as myself, I thought... but really... when?
"I dunno."
The girl, smiling a little puzzledly, shook her head and, leaving the bridge, said in response: “You are strange, Everen High, very strange.”
***
By local noon, most of the environmental reports were ready.
“In small quantities, ammonia, sulfur, hmm, carbon, nitrogen and even oxygen... wonderful...” I again didn’t notice how I was whispering under my breath, flipping through the pages on the holographic wrist module, standing at the open door of the locker with personal belongings.
“And also hydrogen, helium, methane...” and I again heard a familiar voice.
"I'm sorry, but are you following me?" I looked as incredulously as possible at the figure of Lex who approached the next locker.
“If you haven’t noticed, then we, albeit temporarily, live on this small, I emphasize 'small' ship, so...” she grinned at me, as if she wanted to devour me! “...be patient,” the meteorologist took something from the cabinet and ran her claws along my back as she walked away towards the showers.
If she weren’t clearly one of those people who bites off the heads of their partners, then I would...
"Hey, why are you grinning like a tattered pocket?" and then I felt Mad’s paw in the place where Lex’s claws had been a minute earlier.
"Yes, so... I was thinking about you, imagine!" I tried to be sarcastic, which caused my eyes to meet the suspicious face of a stupid... ahem, big guy.
“Everen, if you were a woman, I would have given it a thought , but this...” his small mechanical eyes looked me over from head to toe, which made me feel extremely uncomfortable, as if I was standing naked at the first medical examination in front of a commission of alien young ladies.
“You know, if you were a woman, I would also doubt it,” I pretended to be calm, as it seemed to me, and pretended to be rummaging through my locker, to which Mad just laughed, waved it off and, continuing to chuckle, walked towards the bridge.
I exhaled.
Passage yard - honestly...
***
Towards evening we were all gathered on the bridge again.
Twin pilots Ives and Aves - I always confused them - sat turned in their chairs towards the center, where, in fact, chief Veles stood.
"Now then, I see, everyone is assembled,” he looked at us, after which he folded his hands and walked a little to the side.
“So, we can begin,” one could envy his equanimity that even with such a rabble as us - what was there to hide, - he behaved as if with representatives of the Great Council, if, of course, it concerned his direct duties.
The bridge suddenly became dark. Either Ives, or Aves - I did not have time to see - obeying the conditioned gesture, lowered the shutters of the observation windows, and in the center, where the commander had stood earlier, a hologram of Siarey appeared.
“The scan showed that not far from us there is a gorge, a possible geological fault leading to a cave of considerable size,” Veles always gesticulated so funny when he showed us our future 'place of residence'. "We have forty days to do everything..."
"F-forty? S-seriously?" somewhere to the left I heard the indignant, snake-like voice of the biologist, after which everyone else began to buzz.
“Well, here we go, again...” I murmured, folding arms over my chest and leaning my back against the wall by the right door.
"This is half the time of the previous expedition to Midor!" in the bluish glow of the hologram, Lex, with her red eyes, truly looked like a real beast, ready to tear everyone and everything in her path.
“What, do you want THIS wreck to fall apart without ever coming back?!” And this is our technician, Quen, couldn’t stand it and intervened.
Although he, of course, is a silent guy for the most part, but when it came to the ship, he seemed to go off the rails.
Other than that, in some way he was really right, because Istariona, despite her beautiful voice, is already an old lady, and we are far from her first crew to faithfully serve for the good of the Fleet.
While I was absorbed in short memories, the storm of emotions around me subsided, or more precisely, Mad was a wonderful reason for everyone to immediately shut up.
“Thank you for your understanding,” Veles, still calm, continued our acquaintance with the further plan of action.
Without going into details, I can say that from a geologist I will turn into a rock climber, loader and crane at the same time.
Despite all the future delights of life outside the ship, there were also advantages - radiation in this very cave was almost completely absent, as our scanners showed, and in its place anomalous sources of heat and accumulation, apparently, of oxygen were discovered, which we will have to double check directly on site.
***
At dinner everyone was noisy again.
Mad once again teased Lex with disgusting jokes about food and what it was made of, and the technician, apparently, teamed up with the biologist and glared at Veles, who calmly sipped his tincture while his bones were thoroughly washed.
The pilots very rarely spoke, and they maintained mutual neutrality, because they didn’t care what was happening outside the ship.
But our petrophysicist, Matler, and the doctor, Tonval, openly expressed their dissatisfaction with what was happening, as their mugs, always disgruntled with something, visibly said.
But yes, I will not hide that both of them were masters of their professions, especially Matler, who always left me somewhere behind while he himself shone in the rays of fame and recognition when he brought precisely licked up and down reports to Veles.
Other than that, everyone here had their own jobs to do - some had more, some had less, and some were just me.
***
Ahead of us was the second night on the surface of Siarey.
