He moved along the perimeter of the giant spacecraft, crawling up the sandy incline. It was difficult going, and he did not learn much. The damage to the ship was more widespread than he had first thought, and in places the hull had collapsed entirely. He found nothing resembling symbols or numbers upon its surface.
He returned again to the flats. Far back along the way he’d come, he saw the thin white line of the waves crashing against the rocky shore. Beyond that, the gray of the sea seemed fused with the sky, making it difficult for him to distinguish one from the other. In the other direction the horizon faded in the distance, with nothing to draw his attention but the city whose walls hovered like a mirage over the sand. Still nothing moved, and there was no sound but the wind.
He wondered if his enemy was hiding inside the spacecraft, or was watching him, lurking somewhere out across the flats. He strained his senses, focusing them until they were needle-sharp, trying to draw something out from beneath the discordant whine of the wind.
His eyes flashed with a blue light.
Keeping close to the massive hull, he made another circuit of the spacecraft. At the tip of its egg-shaped form, just above where it emerged from the sand at the top of the slope, he saw an oval hatch. It was open. The hatch lid had been folded to one side by a mechanism he did not understand; it hung from the hull like a dislodged fragment of eggshell.
The hatch hadn’t been open when he circled the spacecraft before, which meant that either something inside was trying to get out, or it had already managed to escape while he wasn’t watching.
It is neither of these things!
He ignored the voice in his head as he carefully edged up the slope, nearer to the hatch. It didn’t make sense that something would have lingered inside the weathered spacecraft, waiting for him to arrive. Who could have known that he would be passing by here at this very moment?
Though he sensed that the danger facing him had grown even more urgent, he did not interpret the sudden opening of the hatch as the commencement of an attack.
By now he was just below the opening, near enough to reach the hatch that hung above him. There was a green dusting of something like rust where the hatch was attached to the edge of the portal. The hull of the ship around it seemed as thin as paper. He looked at the back surface of the door and saw that it was made of some silvery-white material, metallic and luminescent.
He put his hand on the edge of the opening and took a look inside. The interior of the craft was too dark for him to make out anything. Silence.
Gingerly, he reached into that dark orifice and felt around. He traced a small circle with his hand, then a wider one, yet touched nothing. He swung his arm around, high and low. Nothing.
Stepping back, he continued on to the far side of the spacecraft. From there he could gaze out over the entirety of the gray flats. The shallow valley dug out by the spacecraft began directly beneath his feet. He saw nothing resembling an enemy, neither in the valley nor on the flats all the way out to the horizon.
He wondered if he should leave the spacecraft where it was and continue toward the city. The enemy-presence he felt in his mind had spread across the flats, leaving danger for him in all directions. Could he simply ignore it and continue along his way? Would his enemy allow that? What was his enemy, anyway? It irritated him that he could not recall who or what it was that threatened him now.
He turned to look at the distant silhouette of the walled city. He knew he had to get there as soon as he could, yet he thought it folly to abandon this confrontation altogether.
He turned and made his way back to the hatch. The portal lay open like a dark window. Once again, he gripped the edge of the hatch and stuck his round head through into the interior.
The air inside the spacecraft was as still as it had been before. He flexed his arms, lifting his body up to the opening. Ice-cold air enveloped him. He paused, hanging there for a moment in alarm, then decided it was more dangerous to stay where he was with his arms occupied and pulled himself the rest of the way through the portal.
It was so dark inside that he could see no more than a meter ahead.
Dropping down to his knees, he advanced slowly, exhaling as quietly as possible. His chest tightened with fear. He could feel all the nerves in his body extending like feelers, groping through the darkness.
Nothing! There’s nothing here!
There was no sign of an enemy—in fact the darkness seemed to hold absolutely nothing at all. Like an insect confronted with danger, he stopped, frozen. His breathing and even his pulse slowed until he became like a stone, one with the darkness and stillness around him—and yet his awareness blazed through his nerves.
Though there was no enemy here, there was something far more frightening.
What is going on here?
The oddness of his situation staggered him. Cautiously, he advanced several meters, straining his senses.
Suddenly a brilliant light flashed before his eyes. The beam extended like a bolt of lightning, emerging from a point in the darkness to his right and striking left and downward at an angle through the space inside the craft.
The light burned his eyelids, passing through their membrane to sear his visual cortex. A moment after, another light erupted, crossing the first at an angle. Then the two crossed bars of light began to revolve, hot and brilliant through the darkness. They lit the space around him, first crimson, then orange, then clear green, transforming finally to an incandescent white. Countless particles of light swirled like sparks around him.
In the center of the brilliance, a cloud of light formed into an enormous swirling spiral. As he watched, it extended fingers of light in all directions, mingling with and impeding the movement of another spiral that appeared beside it. The spirals pulsed like living things, revolving slowly, trailing shining clouds of gas.