She didn't sleep.
Sofia Ricci's order hung in her mind — "I'm ordering you to sleep" — professional, concerned, but Elena couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, the whispers returned. Not whispers anymore. Sentences. Stories. A chorus of voices speaking over each other, through each other, layers of meaning overlapping until her thoughts were no longer her own.
She'd tried. She'd lain in her bunk, the station's dim sleep-cycle lighting casting her quarters in shadow. She'd closed her eyes and counted backward from a thousand. At nine hundred seventy-two, the first voice came through.
"—you're listening—"
At nine hundred fifty-four, another joined it.
"—we can feel you—"
At nine hundred twelve, a dozen.
"—too many people now—"
"—can't speak clearly—"
"—you brought them—"
She'd opened her eyes, heart hammering, and stumbled out of bed. The whispers were in her head — she knew that now — but they were also in the station. She could feel them in the hum of ventilation, the rattle of machinery, the pulse of power through the walls.
They were everywhere.
—
The next morning, the station was alive with movement.
Maya Chen was already in the main deck when Elena arrived, hands buried in an access panel, tools scattered across the floor. The engineer looked up at Elena's approach, dark circles under her own eyes — she'd been working through the sleep cycle too.
"Power fluctuations," Maya said by way of greeting. "System's been surging all night. Haven't traced the source yet."
Elena nodded. Her own eyes were burning. "I noticed."
"Cryo pods?" Maya asked, returning to the panel.
"Waking the rest of the team. Kovacs's orders."
Maya grunted, not looking up. "Good. Extra hands might help with whatever's wrong with the station. Sofia too?"
"Yes. Then Chen."
"Chen'll want to study the anomaly readings directly. He's been going on about geological formations since we prepped this posting."
Elena knew. Dr. Chen Wei, xenogeologist, obsessed with Nyx's unique volcanic structure. He'd written half the mission proposal himself, pages of speculation about ancient tectonic activity and the moon's improbable formation.
"I'll brief him on what we found," Elena said.
Maya finally looked up. Her expression was sharp, assessing. "What did you find?"
Elena hesitated. The lie was easier the second time. "Signal from the surface. Regular patterns. Could be equipment malfunction or natural phenomenon. Still analyzing."
Maya absorbed this, nodded once. "Equipment, then. Chen's geology readings will help isolate. Where's the source?"
"About fifty klicks west. In the caldera region."
Maya frowned. "That's volcanic. Collapsed, ancient. There's nothing there but rock."
"That's why we're investigating."
Maya returned to her work, but Elena could feel the engineer's attention lingering. Maya didn't miss details. She'd notice Elena's shaking hands, the dark circles, the way she avoided eye contact.
"—don't trust her—"
The voice was in Elena's head, but Maya looked up anyway.
"What?" Maya said.
"Nothing." Elena forced herself still. "Just tired."
Maya watched her for a long moment, then returned to the panel. But the assessment continued.
—
Dr. Chen Wei arrived ten minutes later, datapad in hand, already reviewing Elena's transmission logs. He looked rested, which meant he'd spent his brief waking time doing exactly this.
"Fascinating," he said, not looking up from the screen. "The frequency pattern is too regular for geological. It has structure. Almost like—"
He stopped himself. Elena waited.
"Almost like communication?" she suggested.
Chen looked up, his eyes bright with curiosity. "Yes. That's what I was avoiding saying. But there's no equipment on the surface that could transmit like this. Unless—" He frowned, working through possibilities. "Unless there's something down there. Something that built this."
"Built what?" Elena asked, though she knew.
"The pattern," Chen said. "The structure. Someone — something — is trying to send a message."
"—he's getting close—"
"—too close—"
"—we told you—"
"—don't let them understand—"
Elena's hands clenched. The whispers were panicking.
Chen didn't notice. He was already scrolling through Elena's edited transcriptions, looking for patterns she'd carefully removed. "These fragments... 'door,' 'before,' 'ancient.' It's not random. There's narrative here."
"It could be interference," Elena said. Her voice was steady, somehow. "Pattern matching on random data."
"No," Chen said. "Pattern matching doesn't create narrative. This has intention. Whoever — whatever — is sending this, they're trying to tell us something."
He looked up, and his expression had shifted from curiosity to something else. Excitement. Professional curiosity, but also the thrill of discovery that made scientists push past caution.
"We need to go down there," he said. "Study it directly. Whatever's transmitting, it's worth investigating."
—
Sofia Ricci found Elena in her quarters an hour later, still trying and failing to sleep.
"You haven't rested," the doctor said, her voice soft without being condescending. "Your eyes are swollen. Your hands are shaking."
"I've been trying," Elena said. "Every time I close my eyes..."
"What?"
"Nothing." Elena's default lie now. Automatic. "Just trouble sleeping."
Sofia sat on the edge of the bunk, studying her with eyes that saw too much. Medical training, but also something innate — an ability to read emotional states that Elena found unsettling.
"Elena," Sofia said. "Six months alone is a long time. It changes people. Isolation has effects."
"I'm fine," Elena said.
"You're not fine." Sofia's voice was still gentle, but there was steel beneath it. "I'm ordering you to rest. After the briefing. A full sleep cycle, minimum."
"Okay," Elena said. She knew she wouldn't.
Sofia stood to go, then paused. "Whatever you found — whatever that signal is — don't let it consume you. You're more important than the mission. Remember that."
She left, and Elena lay back on her bunk, closing her eyes.
The whispers returned instantly.
"—she knows—"
"—she suspects—"
"—you have to stop listening—"
"—or you'll lose yourself—"
—
The briefing room was small, cramped, designed for efficient communication not comfort. Kovacs stood at the front, a display screen behind him showing the signal data.
"We've reviewed the findings," Kovacs said, his voice professional but his eyes still slightly glassy from cryo-sickness. "The signal originates fifty kilometers west, in an ancient volcanic caldera. Regular patterns. Possible communication."
He let that hang. The crew looked at each other. Communication from what? Kovacs didn't elaborate.
"Chen's geological readings suggest the region's structure is... unusual," Kovacs continued. "Volcanic, but with formations that don't match known tectonic activity. He wants to study it directly."
"Surface mission," Maya said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes." Kovacs nodded. "We'll send a team. Two rovers, three crew. Elena, you found it. You should go."
Elena felt the whispers surge.
"—don't go—"
"—it's not what you think—"
"—you're walking into something—"
"—please don't—"
She swallowed. Her throat was dry. "I'll go."
"Good." Kovacs looked around the room. "Chen, you're the geology specialist. You go too. Maya, you'll monitor from here. Keep the station systems stable."
Maya nodded, accepting her role.
"Sofia?" Kovacs asked.
The medical officer shook her head slightly. "I need to monitor everyone's condition. The surface is hostile enough without adding unknown variables. I'll stay with Maya."
Kovacs nodded, then paused. His eyes met Elena's, and for a heartbeat, his assessment was different. Sharp. Calculating.
"Chen and I will handle the technical side," he said. "Elena, you're the expert on the signal. You'll coordinate communications and keep us informed of any changes."
Kovacs paused, his eyes moving to the signal data on the display behind him. He studied it for a long moment, weighing the anomaly against protocol, caution against discovery. Then he nodded.
"Yes," he said. "We'll go. Departure in two hours."
The crew dispersed. Elena moved toward the door, but Sofia caught her arm.
"Elena," the doctor said quietly. "If you need to talk..."
"I'm fine," Elena said. Her automatic response.
Sofia watched her for a long moment, then let her arm go. "Alright. But remember what I said. Don't let this consume you."
Elena returned to her quarters to prepare for the mission. She pulled her surface suit from the locker, checking seals, power levels, oxygen reserves. Routine tasks. Familiar. Grounding.
But the whispers were getting louder.
"—you're walking toward it—"
"—the door—"
"—the place where we waited—"
"—where we held it back—"
"—for so long—"
"—you're going to see—"
"—you're going to understand—"
"—and then you'll be like us—"
She finished her prep and sat on the edge of her bunk, eyes closed, hands folded in her lap.
The whispers changed.
不再是话语了。不再是句子了。
First came sound bleeding through walls — not just hum, but harmonics she'd never heard, frequencies that made her teeth ache. Then visual artifacts in her peripheral vision, shapes that dissolved when she turned. Then pressure, like something pressing against her skull from inside.
Then, in her mind, she saw something.
A vast dark cavern, impossibly large, walls stretching upward into darkness she couldn't penetrate. The rock was wrong — not stone, but something that remembered being stone, that held the shape of stone long after it had become something else.
In the center of the cavern, spanning from floor to a ceiling she couldn't see, was the door.
Not a door in any human sense. It was a seam, a fracture, a place where reality itself had been wounded and sealed. Light leaked through the cracks — not illumination from any source she recognized, but a wrong kind of light. Light that didn't behave like light should.
Something moved in the darkness beyond the door. Shapes that shifted when she tried to look at them directly. A presence. Something waiting.
"—we couldn't stop it—"
"—we tried so hard—"
"—for billions of years—"
"—we held it back—"
"—but now it's coming—"
"—and you're walking toward it—"
"—this is what you'll find—"
"—when you go down—"
Elena opened her eyes. Her quarters were the same. The station hum around her was unchanged. But she felt different. Changed.
She knew what was behind the door now. Not just an ancient entity trying to communicate. Something worse.
And the entity — the whispers, the voices that had been guiding her, warning her — had never been trying to escape the door.
They'd been guarding it.
[end of chapter]