For a thousand, a million, perhaps even a billion years, it had been lying dormant in the dust of a rocky moon. It had no consciousness because there was no consciousness nearby. It was in deep hibernation. It sensed nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing and knew nothing.
But now it could sense a consciousness, just above its resting place. It sent out a tendril and encountered aluminium sheeting. The object was a vessel, lying still and silent in the dust. It became aware of thoughts nearby. It sensed some anxiety, not worry for itself, but for another entity elsewhere.
How could it get closer to the consciousness? It couldn't enter the creature without physical contact. Surrounding it was tightly packed dust. There was no atmosphere. The rocky moon was devoid of gases, but there was atmosphere inside the vessel.
It moved and twisted in the dust, trying to make better contact with the aluminium sheeting of its hollow prey.
Ah, contact. There was warmth. Well, warmer than the dust. There was something inside the vessel which was most certainly a living creature.
Now it was more fully awake, it sensed a second organism nearby, inactive, breathing shallowly. A long way off, vibrations were approaching.
Self-preservation took over. It needed to ensure it wasn't harmed by these things nor left behind when they passed by. Its primitive, existential need for contact with something live became all-encompassing.
Tendrils extended, sensing the skin of the vessel, it found a different material. A manufactured metal shaft. Solid. This wasn't hollow like the aluminium. It followed the length of the shaft and reached a much more complex object. The steel entered the centre of an alloy hub which was surrounded by a more pliable substance. It could move the surface of the substance and there was a minute gap between it and the other metallic alloy.
This was somewhere it could conceal itself. Compressing its tendril, it forced itself into the gap, squeezing itself to a thickness of only a micron or two, then straining and thrusting itself through the crevice and into a space between the alloy and the compound of the softer object.
Satisfied it was concealed safely, it waited. The vibrations it had sensed were still a long way off, but rapidly approaching. The two organisms were unmoving. The more distant one was still breathing, but shallowly. The other was behind the aluminium sheeting.
© Tony Harmsworth 2019
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Moonscape
HorrorWe've known that the moon is dead since Apollo. But what if something lay dormant in the dust, waiting to be found? In 2028, Mark Noble is conducting a survey of a moon crater. The entity secretly grabs a ride back to Moonbase on Mark's buggy. Once...
