Short Story: Alone on a distant planet

Hello everyone,

As you may have guessed from last month’s email/poem out of nowhere, I will try to start sending you something new a little more often in 2024. It’s fair to say that, by my usual output, 2023 was a slow year for writing, so I’m hoping to up my game a little this year.

Although the emails have been slow, I’ve been updating my reading pages quite successfully, so if you want to see what kind of stories I put into my brain last year, you can check them out here.

Below is a short story originally published on a paywall-protected website a couple of years ago. However, as it wasn’t really accessible, I don’t think any of you read it. So I thought I’d share again.

I hope you enjoy it.

As ever, if you have a friend who likes this sort of stuff please do forward the email on, and if you’re reading my work for the first time do think about subscribing.

Biome

The tablet in her hand beeped, indicating a new pathogen group.

Nelsonia took a note of the time and location, then instructed the drone to retain a sample and being testing. With a bloodless efficiency, the drone slaughtered and absorbed the rat-crocodile. Within thirty seconds, there was no sign of the original organism at all.

Nelsonia named the creature – Rattius Snappis – and waited for the results of the pathogen test. So far, her drones and scanners and miniature laboratory had no found anything on this planet that wasn’t responding to existing antibiotics.

It was looking more and more like this little rock, alone in its solar system, would be suitable for habitation. But, she reminded herself, she’d only covered half of the biomes in the first few months. Although experience told her it was less likely that she’d find something lethal or resistant in the tundra, she wouldn’t be able to return without ruling it out.

The hardest part about the job was the solitude. Nelsonia could deal with the dangers and the difficulties that her work came with as standard, but being alone for six months at a time was exhausting.

The dome inflated within thirty seconds and, as she stepped inside, Nelsonia took the helmet off and took her first deep breath in ten hours. She loved that moment. That first gulp of purified Earth air after a long day felt like a cold drink in the desert.

She ground beneath her feet shifted a little, but the dome twisted to adapt to it.

She decided to tuck her camp against the side of a huge tree-like lifeform. There were a thousand of them on the continent, and once the sun went down they all stopped their ponderous movement and settled for what seemed a lot like sleep.

Nelsonia would be long gone by the time it woke and started moving, and in the meantime the heat that the tree-monster gave off would help reduce her reliance on battery power.

With her bed pulled open and the dome secure above and below her, Nelsonia set the detector to work and pulled out her tablet. She disliked reading on the thing too close to bedtime, but there wasn’t enough space in shuttle or the Tenzing for real books.

Above her the tree-monster groaned, a long, slow noise that echoed through the air and vibrated the dome. Designed to protect against natural dangers, whether they be flora or fauna, the dome was nevertheless designed to allow sound in.

That’s why she heard the tapping.

Morse code.

On an uncharted planet.

No one should have been here before her, and she’d not had any notification of other shuttles landing since her arrival. She rolled over in her bunk and tapped the scanning app.

There it was, about half a kilometre from her. A human life sign. She sent a drone out to investigate and watched as the image flicked up. A human, male, dressed in the same protective clothing that she wore. He was sat next to one of the tree-things, tapping against its hollow trunk. The sound was then being communicated through the tree-things across the entire forest.

He looked up and waved at the little machine.

She switched the drone to defensive mode. The screen turned a light shade of green, with the man’s circulatory system lit up bright red in the centre, and a small crosshair appeared over his heart.

The man shuffled away from the drone.

“Wait!” he shouted, “I need help.”

Nelsonia sighed and clicked the microphone on.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “This is an unbiomed world.”

He looked around. With a tiny movement, Nelsonia instructed the drone to continue to scan for human signals. She wasn’t going to end up the victim of marauders or pirates. This far out from Earth, help wouldn’t arrive for a lifetime. And she had no desire to remain a prisoner for a lifetime.

“I know,” he said.

“Then why are you here?”

“Are you from NET?” he asked, correctly guessing her company.

“That’s a corporate secret,” Nelsonia said.

The drone hovered a little lower.

“That’s the same bullshit I had to say.” He shook his head. “I’m Grant.”

“Are you from NET?” she asked.

“COOK.”

They worked for rival companies. This was going to complicate things.

“Why are you here?” Nelsonia asked.

Grant started moving again. A small vine was curling around his leg, and he cut it away with a practiced swing of this arm.

“Where abouts is your dome?” he asked.

“I’m not telling you that,” Nelsonia replied.

“Fine.” Grant looked toward the canopy above his head, then started walking directly toward her dome. Nelsonia wondered whether he’d worked out her location, or had just guessed correctly.

She tracked him with the drone, aware that company policy was to neutralise rival explorers on sight, but also unwilling to kill another human just for gatecrashing her work. It wasn’t something that she’d had to do before and wasn’t something that she relished. But the implications on her contract were clear – any finds that were either contaminated or no longer exclusive would be subject to a 90% reduction in her fee.

The machine next to her beeped and she prised her gaze from the screen with Grant on for a second. The results were interesting, to say the least. It gave her an option though.

With a tap the drone was recalled. The microphone picked up Grant shouting at the camera. The drone wasn’t clever enough to mask it’s return, so she was rather gambling on the results from the tests being correct.

The drone picked up its new payload quickly and flew back to Grant.

“I thought you’d abandoned me,” he said, waving happily at the little machine.

Then it shot him.

It was only a glancing blow, but enough to break the skin and deliver the payload. He brushed it off, then looked at leg glove. There was a bright green streak over the blue fabric.

“Oh,” he said. “That complicates matters.”

“Sorry,” said Nelsonia.

Grant shrugged. He reached into his boots and recovered a small syringe, loaded with a thick black goop.

“I take it you found the same thing as me,” he said.

“I think so.”

Grant’s leg twitched. Judging by the surprise on his face, it wasn’t a movement that he was expecting.

“Grant Irving,” he said directly to the camera. “Employee number 54001255. I love you, Kyle Irving. More than you know.”

“I’ll pass on the recording.”

He laughed.

“No you won’t,” he said. “But thanks for lying.”

Then Grant let loose a howl and doubled over. He threw up inside the helmet and clawed at it, breaking the glass with his hands. Then, as he fell to the floor, a snake like creature emerged from the hole in his suit that Nelsonia had made. It vanished into the undergrowth.

Nelsonia sent her second drone to retrieve it. She wouldn’t be able to take any samples back to Earth, but at least she’d be able to take a full life cycle report.

Grant was silent, and still, on the ground.

Then, with a grunt, he stood.

Another groan, and he looked around.

“Grant?” Nelsonia asked over the speaker, “is that you?”

Grant leaned back from his hips. He kept his neck totally still. She zoomed in on his face. Inside the helmet was a mess of blood, bone and cartalidge. There was no way that the explorer known as Grant was still alive.

He moaned and his hands reached forward. He lurched in the direction of the drone, his hands grasping and his face trying to bite into the air.

Full zombie.

Nelsonia smiled.

The primary objective was achieved.

—

There you go! If you’ve reached this far the chances are you liked my writing. If so, why not share the story, or recommend it to someone new? Let’s start a Phil subscriber landslide!