Episode 3
Part One
It was time.
Academician Prokhor Zakharov sat staring from his window-lined office above the half-formed jumble of towers that made up University Base. He slowly turned his head to look east, where his new Research Hospital was taking shape, his scientist-builders working wonders with salvaged metals and alloys pulled from Planet's strange crust.
He looked at it blankly and then turned away. He lifted a small glass of vodka, distilled in one of his own labs, and focused on the orange-red xenofields to the south that touched the edges of his territory like reaching fingers.
Here, under the darkness of the Churn, he could feel a malevolence rising off of the tendrils of fungus as they reached out toward his tiny settlement, his monument to the power of the human mind.
"What do they want?" he asked the empty room, his voice nearly inaudible.
No one knew. He looked at the papers on the surface of the smooth metal desk. There it was...the Churn had begun twelve days after the University discovery of the Alien Temple.
The alien structure, he reminded himself sternly. We have no idea what it really is.
He did not believe for a moment that prying open the low curved doors of the structure had caused the layer of clouds to sweep over the Human Settlements. There was no proof, no scientific proof at all.
Still, it was time. He had seen the temple through remote video feeds, but now he had to see it for himself.
He threw back the vodka and winced, quickly grabbing small chunks of chocolate bar from his desk to clear the taste.
Then he rose and headed out the door, exiting his tower.
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