“All?” Z-542 asked, and she felt the heat creeping over her cheeks as she changed the subject. They decided to request quarantine protocols for both locations, and it wasn’t until Z-542 left to put the process in motion that Cass rounded on her.
“All right. What’s going on? You disappeared for almost a week with no supplies, no backup, and no goddamn explanation.”
“I had supplies in the rover. And the cave had… resources.”Like a seven-foot-tall alien who fed me berries and made love to me until I forgot my own name.“I was fine. Really.”
Cass looked like she wanted to argue, but something in Alina’s expression must have given her pause. Her friend stepped back, studying her with the kind of intensity usually reserved for particularly puzzling rock samples.
“You look different,” Cass said slowly.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Less… uptight? You’ve got this glow about you.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. Did you meet someone out there?”
Her face went hot. “What? No! I was in a cave! In a dust storm! Who would I possibly?—”
“Your whole face just turned the color of a Martian sunset. You absolutely met someone.”
“Can we please not do this in the lab?”
Cass grabbed her arm and started dragging her towards the residential quarters. “You’re right. This requires privacy. And possibly alcohol. Roland!”
The small cybernetic armadillo perched on Cass’s shoulder chirped an acknowledgment, its optical sensors whirring.
“Keep an eye out for anyone who might interrupt us,” Cass ordered. “Especially anyone wearing too much cologne.”
Roland chirped again and took off down a side corridor, presumably to stand guard.
She allowed herself to be dragged into Cass’s quarters—a small but comfortable space that somehow managed to feel lived-in despite the standardized furniture. She collapsed onto the narrow bunk while Cass sealed the door and pulled out a bottle of something amber-colored from a hidden cabinet.
“Whiskey?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s barely noon.”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere on Earth. And you look like you need it.” Cass poured two generous measures and handed one over. “Now talk. What the hell happened out there?”
She took a long sip, letting the burn of the alcohol steady her nerves. “It’s… complicated.”
“Most interesting things are.”
She sighed and started from the beginning—the anomalous readings, the decision to investigate, the storm that had trapped her in the cave. Cass listened without interruption, her expression shifting from concern to curiosity to outright astonishment as the story progressed.
“Wait.” Her friend held up a hand. “Back up. You found a what?”
“A cavern with a fully functional ecosystem. Plants, water collection systems, breathable air—the whole thing is a self-sustaining biosphere.”
“That’s… that’s incredible. That’s a career-making discovery, Alina. That’s?—”
“There’s more.”
Cass’s eyes sharpened. “More than an ancient Martian ecosystem?”
She drained the rest of her whiskey in one long swallow. “There was someone in the cavern. Someone who’d been in stasis. Someone who…” She hesitated, trying to find words that wouldn’t sound completely insane. “Someone not human.”
The silence stretched for a long moment.
“Not human,” Cass repeated carefully. “As in… alien?”
“His name is Rhyx. He’s… I don’t even know how to describe him. He’s tall—over seven feet—with golden scales and blue eyes and these memories of ancient Mars, from before the atmosphere collapsed.” The words came faster now, tumbling over each other in their rush to escape. “He was in some kind of stasis pod, and when I touched it, he woke up, and?—”
“Holy shit.”
