Descent to the Istalied

The jets of the boots burned furiously as they lowered Magvon deeper into the cavern. The sporadic light of the jets caught the magnificent crystals embedded into the walls of the cave. His exploration droid floated near him scanning the intricate system of caverns and creating a map for future records. The map appeared on his heads up display in bright blue and he took the paths through the cave that seemed most interesting.

Magvon was one of the many scout researchers sent to survey this exoplanet for valuable discoveries. The exploration of the caverns had eaten away at over half his work cycle and he needed to head back to the shuttle soon before it left for the satellite. With each descent further into the cave and the splitting paths he found there it seemed more and more likely that he would not complete the map during his shift. The droids would have to continue the mapping during his off-cycle.

The walls were unlike anything Magvon had seen before. The crystals growing on them dazzled in the light that shone from his helmet and boots. The chemicals the crystals were made of were banal but the glimmers of them reflected every color of the rainbow. This was likely the first time a light source had graced the cave with its presence and Magvon was glad he was one of the few people to see its beauty.

Landing on a solid surface that mirrored his helmet’s light back into his eyes he looked up and took in the massive cavern that he’d entered. Every once in a while the cavern did this. If a colony was set up here there was no doubt geologists would spend lifetimes studying and theorizing what made these caverns.

As he looked around he quickly realized this cavern was different. Instead of opening up into a room that could house a shuttle or two the cavern ended a few meters in front of his face with a dull grey wall. The wall was studded with what appeared to be rivets. The droid flew up and down the wall quickly surveying the entire cavern as Magvon approached the mysterious wall.

Humans hadn’t made it, at least not any humans registered with the Central System. The rivet heads, small palm sized hemispheres, seemed to float on the surface of the wall. This indicated it was unlikely they were holding something together. It definitely was not human technology. He leaned in close to one as it moved to and fro. As his light searched the wall the rivets seemed to float away like hair parting from a comb.

A head splitting scream filled the cavern as he examined the wall, and for a moment he thought he was the one doing the screaming. He looked around the room for a fellow explorer who might have entered the cave system elsewhere but he found no one. He looked away from the wall as the earth beneath him began to shake.

Magvon looked for something to cling onto but everything was shaking around him. This quaking was unsettling and he wasn’t sure what was happening. It was most similar to the botched docking of a shuttle. He wished he could be strapped into a chair but there was nothing near him. The tumbling of rocks made him cover his head but it was a pointless action since his arms wouldn’t shield him from anything bigger than a pebble.

As suddenly as it started the quake stopped and Magvon took in his surroundings. The droid floated through the whole thing and continued to scan the walls. The map showed how the cavern changed by updating to red then faded back to blue. The small hole Magvon had come through turned red. The droid was reporting that boulders now blocked his exit.

Frantically, Magvon scanned the map for alternate entrances to the cavern hoping that there was some other way out. From the droid’s scan this cavern was a dead end. The density of the rock cut out his suit’s communication array hours ago. Since the crew knew communication would be impossible the droid had enough supplies and thrust to remove him from the cave. The blocked exit was unsettling but his problem was still solvable.

Using the terminal on his forearm Magvon began programming the droid to cut through the rock that blocked his path. The machine would make quick work of the obstacle. Soon he could leave for the shuttle. The crystals in the wall caught the light of the torch as the machine began to execute its new programming.

“Halt!” a voice cried out in a deep rumble that could have caused another quake. Bridges flew from the rivets towards the droid. But the machine dodged out of the way with the help of its AI navigation protocols. The new limbs linked to the rock further blocking the exit.

“Who’s there?” Magvon called out looking around the small but tall room.

“I am Istalied,” the voice replied, “and your presence is disrupting me.”

The words Magvon heard weren’t coming through the speakers of his headset because they were too loud. The voice seemed to be resonating with his mind. “Where are you? I don’t see you?”

There was a long pause until the voice replied, “I am the wall of rivets.” Magvon turned to examine the wall. “Your presence is disrupting me,” the voice repeated. Limbs reached through the rivets and towards Magvon’s helmet.

He moved back looking away in horror but the limbs didn’t link to him like they did to the rocks. Looking back hesitantly he tried to observe the creature without looking directly at it.

He turned to face the creature and as his light landed on the wall he watched the rivets begin to grow towards him. “You don’t like the light.”

“The light disrupts me,” the creature said in affirmation.

“What are you?” he asked.

“I am Istalied. I’ve made this planet my home as I begin my regeneration process.”

Magvon began to question the voice further but before he could he became a massive organism floating through the cold vacuum of space absorbing any detritus not held by the gravitational field of a star. He gaining nutrients and energy for time unending until he had enough to duplicate himself.

Magvon returned to the dimly lit cavern and reality that he was used to.

“Elder’s light,” he cursed, “you’re in my head… get out!”

He checked his vitals to verify he had not received a head injury during the quake. Calming down as much has he could he realized the organism was the creature in front of him.

“You’re immortal. You’ve traveled the cosmos since it began.”

He waited for a response but didn’t received one. “You can only communicate through my mind,” he finally deduced.

“I’ll let you enter my mind, but only if you limit your communications to words,” he shouted into the dark cavern making sure to avoid disrupting the monster by looking directly at it.

“You are correct,” the Istalied replied.

Magvon began imagining the value this discovery would have. He’d be lauded with praise and accolades for discovering, not only a new life form, but a sapient one that had evolved past the point of aging. It would be a groundbreaking discovery and once the creature was extracted from the planet and studied humanity would be able to achieve unimaginable feats.

“I will not leave this place until I have regenerated,” the voice replied.

Magvon whirled in place looking directly at the creature, “How’d you know that?”

The limbs pre-emptively bridged from the rivets on the wall as if expecting his turn. They reached out quicker than he could step back but they did not link to him as they had to the rocks. They stopped centimeters from his light sources mushrooming out blocking most of the light from passing. They did not block the face-plate of his suit and with the dim light that reflected off the crystals he could observe the unsettling beast.

“I said only for communicating with words,” Magvon chastised the thing. “Don’t take things out of my head,” he was unnerved that his mind, the one place that was his own, could be invaded by something so alien.

“It does not work that way. There is only your whole mind, I cannot reach out for only your communication nerves.”

“You’ll have to leave here eventually for us to study you. You are the first of your kind we’ve encountered and it is my job and my duty to report what I’ve found in these caverns.”

“I am the only Istalied in this cosmos, you will not find another one,” it explained.

“Then even more reason for us to learn what we can from you. If you’re about to go extinct don’t you want to be remembered?”

“Your kind is common,” the Istalied replied, “there are more of you surrounding this planet, sending off your incessant electromagnetic and sub-dimensional transmissions, than any of my kind across all the cosmos we inhabit.”

Magvon tried to grapple with this fact but his mind couldn’t make sense of it. He felt the creature offer a memory up to help his understanding but he refused to let it get that far into his mind. He didn’t know if it might push him over the edge and into insanity. Assuming he hadn’t fallen in already.

Nonetheless he was in power here since the creature couldn’t stand light and he had plenty of that. He could use it to bend the creature to his will. Magvon quickly corralled the thought since the more he focused on it to easier it would be for the Istalied to find it.

“Leave here. I will clear the way for you. Report that there is something dangerous below the surface that makes this a bad place to create a colony,” the Istalied explained.

“The droid will cut a way out eventually. And I can use its headlamps to keep you from blocking the way with your limbs again.”

“Sapient life in this cosmos is rare,” the Istalied stated. “I have no desire to kill you or your kind.”

“We don’t want to kill you either,” Magvon replied, “but we must study you for the good of the Central System and humanity.” He wasn’t sure how his colleagues would achieve this without light but that didn’t stop him from reprogramming the droid.

The headlights successfully kept the Istalied’s limbs from damaging the droid or blocking the rocks. Torches lit to life and made quick work destroying the rocks that clogged the exit. With all the light being put off the Istalied’s screaming began again.

“Shut up!” Magvon commanded and the screaming followed a slow decrescendo. He wasn’t sure the thing was out of his mind but the cries of pain had subsided.

The voice then returned strained by cracks of pain every few words. “Your presence is disturbing me. Your light is disturbing me,” it said then repeated the two phrases over and over again.

The statements were unnerving but an improvement over the screaming. And they only completed a few cycles before the blue rocks on his display turned red and disappeared. This left him with a black spot on his map he could escape through.

“Your presence is disturbing me,” the voice repeated in his head. And before he could banish the voice all the way out of his mind he felt it say, “your light is unnecessary.”

Magvon’s world disappeared. He couldn’t see a thing. Something large fell to the ground and made a thud, possibly a dislodged bolder. Feeling the terminal on his hand he typed in diagnostic commands but no images appeared on his heads up display. He must be blind. The thing had entered his mind and made him blind.

“Give me my sight back!” he demanded.

“My electromagnetic pulse can not damage your nerves,” the voice replied coolly. “Life is rare and valuable I do not wish to kill you.”

“I can’t see anything,” Magvon barked as he flipped emergency switches on the side of his helmet. None of these gave a response. He tried manually lighting the thrusters on his boot heels but they would not produce a spark of light.

Fumbling around in the dark he felt the thing that landed in front of him. The texture was smooth and in the shape of the droid’s hull. He found each thruster arm and finally the cutting nozzle of the bot. It’d been taken offline as well. His droid was dead, his suit was dead.

Echoing through his head were the words, “your light is unnecessary.”