Explore Unfinished Area

You’re deep in a shadowed forest, and all around you are mysterious creaks and groans and cries of small skittering creatures. Light comes from glowing, fruit-like orbs that hang from branches that sprout off the curving walls. The footing is uneven, and the air is heavy with pollen and the scent of flowers and overripe fruit. No colony greenhouse was ever packed so full of life, teeming, squirming, breathing, life.

From a branch overhead, a furred creature with a naked rat tail stares at you. Its eyes gleam red in the dusky gloom, and it utters an eerie aah-iee before leaping into a crevice among the branches.

You move carefully, keeping to the walls, watching your corners, and above all, listening. Every space you enter (it seems a stretch to call them rooms in the formal sense) is different. One has a tiled floor with a mosaic of opalescent chips that seem to depict a swirling, multi-colored galaxy. One has a limpid, blue-green pool that sloshes with soothing regularity and is surrounded by a dense ring of tentacled pitcher-plants. One has a diamond window looking out upon the stars beyond: a field of gems twinkling in the expanse of eternal night.

Every chamber is special and secret. You could sit and meditate in any one of them for years on end. But that would be a mistake. There’s danger here—danger of a kind you’ve never encountered before. You have a horrible suspicion that if you were to stop moving, the station would grow right over you, that it would dissolve your body and assimilate your flesh into this enormous living organism.

As you move from room to room, you get increasingly twitchy. Something’s bothering you, and you’re not sure what. You try to quiet your steps even further, and you strain to listen with even greater attentiveness. The hairs on your arm prickle, and every muscle in your body is primed for action. No one is getting the jump on you this time.

A faint clacking sounds from behind. You freeze, and it stops. It’s the same clacking you heard in the cargo hold. Someone—or something—is following you. Dammit. Where are those Marines?

You don’t want to let on that you’ve noticed your tail. So you hurry forward, moving with somewhat less caution than before. A quick half-jog into the next room, and then you duck behind a smooth green trunk, reminiscent of a giant stalk of bamboo. There you hide, trying to control your breathing despite a pounding pulse.

More clacking. It pauses for a minute, and you’re almost about to move when the sound resumes with urgent speed. Your follower thinks they’ve lost you. Good. That’s what you want.

A shape slips past the stalk, heading deeper into the overgrown room.

For the first time, you get a clear look at the person. Person or creature. You’re not sure. The being is about two meters tall, with broad, angular shoulders; a deep chest; and a wasp waist narrower than seems natural for a human. They’re wearing a black, skinsuit-like outfit, complete with a gold-mirrored helmet. No weapons are visible in their long, paddle-shaped hands or mounted on their suit—a minor relief that.

With each step they take, their legs move with disconcerting jerkiness, almost as if they’re mechanical, and their knees and ankles don’t seem to bend quite right. A custom construct? you wonder. Or maybe the thing was actually a bot in disguise.

You decide to chance it.

“Hey,” you say, stepping out from behind the stalk.

The creature freezes and then turns to look at you with unsettling precision. It’s claw-like fingers spread wide, as if to attack.

Shit. Have you made a terrible mistake?