New World Feelings

Priya stepped through the round hatch into her explorer pod, turning to allow her suit to accept the waiting latch cables. She reached up and detached the fishbowl helmet from the ceiling, sliding it over her head and rotating it to lock to the suit. Most explorers preferred the military helmet with the armoured sides. Priya liked the view of everything around her. She wanted to almost feel the wind against her face when she stepped onto a new world—despite it frequently being a toxic gas. As a youngster on Luyten B, she had been forever getting into trouble accessing forbidden places. She vividly remembered climbing the inside of the agri-dome of Newreach Station and waving to a maintenance technician working on the outside. His look of surprise made her smile, even now.

A tone brought Priya back to the information projected inside her helmet. She lifted her arm into view with its small display panel and tapped the 'Commit' button with a gloved hand. She felt the mobility assistance joints of her suit go through their testing and calibration routines. The suit stopped each extension when it reached the limits of its fragile human occupant. Eventually, the helmet display completed its checklist and it informed the ship AI that it was ready for deployment. Two seconds later, the pod's doors closed, and all the atmosphere in the pod was evacuated. Despite this being her eighth new planet, the excitement of being the first on a new world bubbled through her body.

A thud in her back was the only indication that the pod had detached from the exploration vessel, her home for the last three years—three years her time. She had not checked how much time had passed for those outside a sleep pod. The day before, she had met the grandson of a man who had been young when she had begun her rest. Explorers were a rare breed—there were less than a hundred across the whole of humanity. They were treated like royalty—not that such a term existed now. They wanted for nothing when awake on a ship. In return, they agreed to be shot onto a new planet to see if it could become a new home for some of humanity. The bulk of the species crawled along in one of the giant, slow-moving ark ships. With the final death of the Earth, humanity had begun searching for new homes in the galaxy, building colonies wherever they could settle.

The distance between stars was vast.

Some slept.

Some travelled.

Vibrations shook Priya as the pod found resistance as it fell. If she wished, Priya could activate the external views and watch the planet grow as she plummeted through the atmosphere. She wasn't interested, it spoiled the surprise. Nothing was as exciting as the doors revealing a new landscape. Yes, there was every possibility the weather, flora, and terrain would suddenly cut short her life—this was without mentioning any local inhabitants, intelligent or not.

That was the job. She had accepted that a long time ago.

Priya rode out the remaining jostles and smiled as the landing thrusters took hold. As the pod slowed, it fought against the new planet's gravity. The same gravity reached out and pulled on a body that had been weightless for months. Millions of nanobots were deployed throughout Priya's organs and limbs. Cells were copied and stitched together, building muscle in proportion to the increasing gravitational pull. She gritted her teeth as the regrowth process progressed. It was quick, but not painless. By the feel of it, this planet was certainly living up to its estimated mass of eight Earths.

The pod made a few sudden adjustments until a familiar down/up motion signalled touchdown. The helmet display registered the landing but then suddenly flicked back to in-flight. The pod lurched rapidly to the right for a second, only to be corrected immediately after. The display returned to all clear, but Priya tensed her sore muscles, anticipating further movement. When nothing happened for thirty seconds, she relaxed and spoke to her suit AI.

"Landing complete. Run atmospheric check and full suit diagnostics."

She waited for a series of checkmarks to appear on the display, along with a paragraph confirming the atmospheric content was primarily ammonia and hydrogen. This was as expected, based on an initial probe.

"Send message. Explorer One deployed. Landing successful. Beginning exploration."

She lifted her arm and tapped a code into the wrist display. A flashing 'confirm?' button appeared. Opening the doors always required a manual confirmation.

Priya tapped the display.

#

The doors slid silently open and revealed a purple world—at least, that's what Priya saw. Humanity now developed under many different skies, sending evolution in multiple directions. Eyes born on a red planet see things differently from those born bathed in green light. No matter the 'real' colour, Priya saw purple. She stepped to the edge of the pod and looked out over her temporary home.

The sky was filled with a mixture of pink-coloured clouds. They swirled in unexpected directions on unknown wind patterns. They were transparent above, fading in a gradient to light pink and then purple as they reached the ground. The planet was large, so the land stretched far into the distance before it met the horizon. The surface rose and fell smoothly in every direction. Unusually, there were no jagged rocks, outcroppings of stone, or even pebbles littering the landscape. Pinching her fingers together, a screen appeared in her helmet. She gestured to zoom and, for a second, didn't think her instruction had been registered. Then she moved her head and saw the ground rush past. She was zoomed in; it was just that the ground appeared identical no matter the distance. She closed the screen and slowly scanned everything she could see. Identical. Everything was the same, smooth, undulating surface. No great mounds, mountains, or vegetation to be seen.

Crouching, she examined the ground beneath the pod. Expecting soil or rock, she found a regular diamond pattern. No diamond was the same, but they were similar enough. In the centre of each was a dark circular spot. Leaning forward, she saw one of the legs of the pod had settled into a depression in the ground. Twisting to see another leg, it was also sitting in its own special spot. It didn't take much thought to realise that the pod's weight was bending the surface and that she should prepare for a springy experience.

Purple and springy—this was new.

A loud crack shattered the silence. Priya hadn't realised just how quiet her surroundings were until something broke through. She looked to the empty sky, locating the expected descending pod. New planets were dangerous places, so every expedition had two explorers. Once the first confirmed their safe arrival, the second descended.

Priya watched as the pod carrying her long-time friend and colleague, Leo, made last-minute adjustments before touching down a kilometre away. The display in her helmet provided detailed telemetry on something she could do nothing about. She waved a hand, and the zoomed view returned, tracking the pod as its jets fired. She watched the legs extend and touch down on the surface. Zooming in further, she saw the ground depress to accept the spacecraft, almost like it rested on a rubber sheet. Jets fired erratically to stabilise the lander. After a few seconds, all movement ceased.

Priya cleared her vision and keyed her comm. "Explorer One to Explorer Two. Copy? Priya to Leo. Did you enjoy the bounce?"

"Explorer Two here," replied Leo in his deep, always-amused voice. "It was a little odd. What have I landed on? The whole planet looked as flat as anything from the air."

"You're safe and sound."

"Any threats?"

"None that I can see. Suit isn't registering anything microscopic attacking it, and I can see to the horizon."

"Sounds good. Exiting now."

"Stand firm!" Priya snapped. "I haven't set foot yet."

"Understood. Doors open. Will await confirmation." A pause. "It's very green, isn't it?"

Priya smiled but didn't reply—she really needed to stop airing her thoughts with people. Looking down, she watched as her booted feet walked down the metal step and onto the planet's surface.

She had expected to feel some give under her weight, but it was no different to stepping onto any smooth floor. She jumped a few times, landing with an expected thump each time.

Leo's voice came through the comm. "Looks pretty safe."

Priya guessed she was being spied on and waved at Leo. She watched him leap from the pod and land heavily, staggering a little. She laughed. "You surprised your bots, didn't you?"

A grunt came through the com. "My knees are shot."

"You always have to go one step further."

"You know me, P."

Priya's helmet darkened slightly as some of the clouds cleared away, leaving the blue-tinted light from the nearby star to shine on her and her pod. She glanced up and saw that the break in the clouds was currently only at her location. Despite the random atmospheric air currents, she was uniquely granted good weather.

Leo's voice came through the comm. "You copy, Priya?"

"Yes. You can stop waving. I'll go set some probes."

"Great. I'll get started on the soil samples. Call in fifteen."

"Copy." As she headed to the pod storage locker, Priya noticed the clouds had changed again. The sky above her was a regular grid of lines. Each cloud formed a perfect line in a different shade. Elsewhere, the clouds broiled and writhed. Directly above her, the sky was neat. Organised. Structured.

She pushed the observation aside; it was easy to be caught out by perspective and scale on a new world. Years of training forced her to ignore the strange and concentrate on establishing measurable parameters.

#

Fifteen minutes later, Priya erected a small tripod with a large sphere resting in a cradle. She tapped the controls and the sphere glowed yellow and rose to about a metre above the tripod. Satisfied, she turned and headed down the gentle rise towards her pod. As she walked, she looked out over the vast emptiness, still surprised at the absence of anything. She had stood in deserts on faraway worlds, but never before had she seen such an unblemished view. The lack of visual stimulation brought a calm to her thoughts. Even the clouds seemed quieter. Their ordered lines now stretched across most of the sky.

"How's it going?" came Leo's voice.

Priya quickly spotted the man in the smooth, unbroken landscape. "All good here. Just on my way back."

"Sounds good. I'm starting the core collection. The drill is confused. It keeps mentioning organic compounds, but I'm overriding and it's cutting now."

Priya zoomed in on Leo as she walked. She saw the man beside a drill almost his size, its A-frame pointing to the sky while its teeth bored into the planet's crust. A few hairs pricked up on her neck as her subconscious warned her something was amiss. She immediately halted and focused her attention on her colleague. Her concentration stopped her from registering her surroundings, which were rapidly darkening as the clouds thickened unnaturally fast, turning an opaque dark purple.

"Enhance view. Show movement," she commanded. The view inside her helmet duplicated itself. The motion tracker was a simple filter that compared video frames. It showed black for no movement and white for any change. Leo and the drill appeared in monochromatic white slices as they moved.

He wasn't alone.

What initially looked like static flowed from the ground on every side of Leo. Glancing back and forth between views, Priya could make out a rising mist or gas. "Leo. Immediate threat." She saw the man straighten. "There's something around you. Can you see it?"

"No. What do you mea...agh..." His voice cut out.

"Leo? Leo?" She watched as her only friend and colleague through time and space began wildly thrashing his arms as if he were fighting a swarm of insects. "Come in, Leo." She saw him drop to his knees. "Respond!" He abruptly stopped moving, still kneeling upright on the ground, his head bowed forward and his arms hanging limply from his shoulders. Priya watched, her breathing rapid and shallow, as the white static on the movement display filled the view. She returned to the visual and watched in horror as Leo and the drill began tilting to one side and sinking into the ground as if the surface had suddenly become loose sand.

A warning alarm flashed for attention. Selecting it, Priya saw a damage report from the probe she had just set. She turned and watched as the probe descended out of view.

Priya set off at a run for her pod. Above her, the clouds darkened and released spots of moisture that wet the ground. In the distance, there was a deep grumble of thunder as electricity flowed through the atmosphere. She got within a hundred metres of her pod when it also began to be absorbed by the planet. Priya called on her suit to propel her with powered assistance. A few seconds later, she slammed into the hard round side of the only machine that would keep her alive beyond the suit resources. The impact was brutal enough to break a few ribs, which the nanobots immediately began repairing.

Priya saw that two of the pod's legs were somehow absorbed beneath the unbroken planet's surface. A look showed that the jets were still clear. Still clinging to the side, she snapped commands at her suit as the outside of her crystal helmet began running with whatever liquid was now falling in sheets from the sky.

Where had the storm come from?

She shook her head. "Emergency departure. Pod launch and hold at five hundred metres. Suit magnetise and attach."

Both suit and pod reacted immediately. Priya was spread across the pod's surface, arms and legs outstretched as her suit became one with the little spaceship. Then, the pod's main engines fired up.

Multiple warning messages filled Priya's display as the pod strained against its trapped legs. "Detach landing gear," she shouted through gritted teeth. The pain from her position and her damaged body was intense.

Her stomach fell through the floor as the pod suddenly released its legs. Relief flowed through her as she escaped the danger. This was short-lived as the pod lurched first to one side and then abruptly halted its ascent. For a moment, she thought it had reached her requested altitude. A quick check of her display showed she was less than a hundred metres up.

Thruster heat warnings appeared.

She twisted her head as far as she could to one side. The sky broiled with swirling clouds, pouring rain, and flashes of discharging electricity. With each flash, she saw a fog surrounding her and the pod. It was uneven, and parts were thicker, almost like tentacles gripping her and her ship.

Despite the immense power of the thrusters, refined and improved over hundreds of years of human engineering, she felt and saw herself being dragged back to the surface. Ten seconds later, the pod finally exceeded the safety limits and the engines shut off. Priya closed her eyes, expecting to drop like a stone. Instead, she descended steadily until the pod touched back down.

Without the landing legs, the pod immediately rolled onto its back before sinking into the surface again. Priya deactivated her magnetic suit and leapt away from the craft. She stood only a few metres away and watched in despair as her means of contacting and returning to the mothership disappeared.

Only as the pod vanished beneath the surface did she realise her suit lights had come on. Aside from the flashes of lightning, the white beams from her suit were the only illumination on a suddenly dark world.

Seeing all options disappear, Priya fell back on her training and sat on the ground with her legs crossed. She blocked out the pain that wracked her body, closed her eyes, and began attempting to calm her mind. As she rejected thoughts of escape and rescue, she became aware that the sound of the rain started to ease. The raging torrent of thoughts flowing over the rocks of possibility gradually settled until she could visualise a vast, still lake. Around her, the pressure eased, and all sound faded away. Curiosity got the better of her, and she opened her eyes.

Once again, she sat in a vast, open landscape under an unbroken sky.

Then she saw the mist.

The same mist she had seen surrounding Leo rose around her. She decided against fight or flight and chose nothingness.

She relaxed and awaited her fate.

The mist grew thicker, and the same strands she had seen in the air began pressing against her. Probing. Feeling.

Abruptly, everything was grey. She felt momentary pressure on every part of her body; then it was inside.

Still calm, Priya watched as the mist filled her suit.

Then, it filled her.

#

Priya sat in grey nothingness.

"We welcome you," She didn't hear a voice. The words appeared in her mind.

"We have waited...waited...now you're here."

Thinking was difficult. It was like trying to run in a dream. "I...I don't understand."

"You will. We will. You are home. Bring the others."

"Others?" She watched...no...she reached out through the mist. She flew up, racing at unimaginable speed through the atmosphere. A white spot grew rapidly as she hurtled towards the metallic shape of her former home.

"We shall greet them all. They shall become us."

Priya reached forward, and grey fog flowed around the helpless ship—a ship filled with the hope of humanity.

She hugged the ship and pulled her family close.

"We are many."

"We are one."

"We are Priya."