The branches twisted in all directions, forming irregularly shaped frames. This created an odd optical effect that made Aki feel like she was standing inside tessellations, uneven planes that lacked variety, homogenous everywhere she looked. She was unable to see more than about twenty meters in any direction. The pale green light emanated from the walls of the chamber. Given the very weak gravity, Aki was spatially disoriented and felt dizzy.
Something stirred in her peripheral vision. Then she saw nothing.
She replayed the last few seconds from the helmet camera’s recording. The motion appeared to have occurred outside of the camera’s field of view.
“Everything all right?” Joseph asked.
“Sorry for the silence. Everything is fine. You can come down.”
Raul made his way toward her.
“Do you know what this looks like?”
“Something out of yet another cheesy twentieth-century space horror movie?” Aki asked.
“Actually, it was a rather respectable film involving Isaac Asimov. To me, this all looks like a living neural network. If I didn’t know any better I’d say the reason we’re not seeing any Builders is because this is a Builder. Well, its brain, at least.”
“If this were the density of its neural network, it would not be the fastest thinker around,” Aki said.
“Maybe it’s not in a rush. It has time to siesta,” Raul said.
Aki adhered another reel of fiber-optic cable to the branch beneath her feet. She connected the end to the long run of cable that they had been adding to since entering the ship.
“Where do we go?” she asked.
“Keep going…uh, downward,” Raul answered. “What do you even call directions on something like this? Spinward?” He pointed in a direction.
“Good as any. Let’s do it,” she said.
They made their way along the network of branches that twisted through the chamber.
<SMELL: STRONG, SWAMPY>
“The interface design of these sensors is horrible! Does it read Edgar Allan Poe too?” Raul exclaimed. He sighed and glanced around. “I don’t know what’s worse—being human and knowing we’re crawling around inside an alien’s brain, or being an alien knowing that three humans are stomping inside your head,” Raul said, stepping past her and lowering himself down further.
Aki was concerned that Raul’s defense mechanisms might dull his reactions. She was concerned that he was crossing the line between staying calm and becoming complacent.
“Stop. Wait,” he said.
“What do you see?” Joseph asked, noticing the fear in Raul’s voice.
“It’s not the brain, unless this cobra is slithering along its axons…”
ACT II: JULY 31, 2041
EVEN THOUGH THE image from Raul’s helmet camera was traveling at the speed of light, it took several minutes to reach Earth. When it arrived, millions of viewers who were watching his feed shrieked.
Moving as quickly as she could to Raul’s location, Aki thought this was it: what she had been waiting for her entire adult life. She had trouble breathing.
Lifting one end up from the ground, the creature looked to be four meters long. A bulbous appendage at the tip appeared to be its head. The face was covered with a shiny pink material that looked like exposed muscle tissue. Its appendage was crowned by a ring of white fur that extended away from the face to cover the upper side of the rest of its body. The fur was wet and matted down with a transparent and viscous paste.
Two enormous eyes, resembling those of a Philippine tarsier, bulged, unable to turn in their sockets. Every ten seconds or so, its eyelids would close and slowly open again. No other openings in its face were visible. It had no neck. Its furry mane surrounded its face and extended back, connecting directly at what would be the equivalent of shoulders. It looked like a headdress depicted on a sarcophagus. The upper portion of the body below the face was flat and wide, similar to a cobra, as Raul had described it.
It had two thin arms the length of human legs, each containing two sets of joints resembling elbows and wrists. At the ends of each arm were four long, lithe fingers, one of which appeared opposable, like a thumb. Its arms and elbows were folded inward with its hands joined at its chest.
The upper part of its torso had several bones pushing from under its coat. The bulges could have been shoulder blades and collar bones, to the extent that either descriptive term made much sense when applied to such alien anatomy. Aki wished for a moment that she had studied up on zoology, veterinary medicine, anything that might help her make sense of it. In the center of the Builder’s chest was a vertical opening that most likely served as a mouth. To the left and right of the orifice were smaller vertical slits, two on each side, like gills on a fish. The area below its chest resembled hardened scales, which continued down to the stomach. Everything below was pressed against the ground, becoming thinner as it extended back, giving the creature a serpentine appearance. The upper side was covered with the moist white fur that extended down from its head. It was about three times as wide as it was high, like a large, furred tongue. The creature wore no clothing or accoutrements.
Slithering from one branch to the next, it gradually approached Raul. Joseph lowered himself down and stepped into its path. Joseph had not carried weapons, for fear of sending the wrong impression to the Builders, but the Marine was skilled in close quarter combat and other martial arts.
“Try not to make moves that appear hostile,” Aki said.
“The fact that we’ve broken in may have already painted us as unfriendly.” Raul stood still.
The alien life-form continued closer. In the last few meters it veered right onto a separate branch, sidewinding its way alongside the three of them, most likely considering them intruders. Then, as if they were not even there, the creature continued along its way and left.
The Contact Team followed. Another being emerged from below. Its fur had a yellower tinge, but otherwise appeared identical to the first. Aki turned on her external speaker, the volume low.
“Hello,” she said in as friendly a tone as she could muster. She extended her arms wide. The swollen eyes of the creature lolled in Aki’s direction. It looked right through her. Then, just as the first had done, the long snake ignored their presence and left.
“Our first intergalactic encounter and we get blown off like panhandlers on a street corner. You think these dudes built this flying doughnut?” Raul asked with as much levity as he could muster. Aki saw sweat dripping down his face.
“Its developed head and opposable thumbs indicate tool-making, intelligence,” Aki said. “And we have seen two now. They are social animals. To one another anyway.”
“Yeah, but what’s up with the cold shoulder? Now I’m convinced that these guys must be related to Natalia.”
“They have been ignoring us for decades. I do not find it surprising. Consistent, methodical behavior is a trait of advanced intelligence.” Aki asked the Phalanx for a status report on the alien vessel. There had been no changes to the ship’s movement.
“The exobiologists should rethink the implied meaning of extraterrestrial intelligence,” Raul said, calmer now.
“If our distant ancestors had not made the evolutionary jump from living in trees in the lush jungle to roaming the dry savannah, we may never have started standing upright, much less conceived of novel tools or forming complex cultures. If this is their living room, I’m wondering how they missed that transition,” Joseph said.