The PROMETHEUS Novelization Project

CHAPTER SIX The Sacred Chamber “Do you have the carbon reader?” Dr. Shaw had not taken her eyes from the dead giant as she made her request. Seconds later, she was blindly accepting the device with her right hand as she knelt. “Thanks,” she said, not knowing who had handed it to her. “How long has it been dead?” Dr. Holloway asked as if his girlfriend didn’t know what purpose she had kneeling next to a long-dead corpse with a carbon reader ready in hand. “Two thousand years… give or take,” Shaw announced after taking her reading. “Jesus…” “I wonder… what it was they were running from,” Ford supposed with a hint of apprehension. Holloway exhaled laughter from his nostrils. “Well, if it’s been two-thousand years, whatever it was ain’t here now,” he assured Dr. Ford. A series of mechanical clicks accompanied by unfamiliar, computerized tones drew the attention of the members of the team fawning over the decapitated Engineer. David was punching the ancient keypad… and n

  CHAPTER FIVE A Scream In The Dark Fifield was the last person to set foot into the black abyss, muttering some sort of incoherent displeasure to himself. Even from within a thickly-layered environmental suit, the unease of his person was as plain to see. The beam of his flashlight moved somewhat erratically. His breathing was louder and slightly more rapid in its pace than everyone else present. Fifield looked like a man who was suddenly going through some manner of physical drug withdrawal; which, gathered by what many had come to know already in Fifield’s record of previous employment, would not be so far from the believable truth of things. At one point, Millburn appeared to make some sort of nonchalant gesture of empathy toward the nervous geologist, but Fifield nervously shoved the hand away and stumbled a few steps away from the insistent, annoying biologist. “Could Millburn not take a fucking hint?” Fifield thought angrily. “Why won’t he just leave me the fuck alone?!”   

  CHAPTER FOUR The Temple Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway sat in front of at S.E.T.I. type transmitter, David was on the opposite side. “So… no response?” “Sorry, no,” David said to Dr. Holloway. Maybe they don’t understand it,” Holloway shrugged accusingly at David, who gave no response, “How are your lessons going, David?” “I spent over two years deconstructing dozens of ancient languages to their roots. I'm fairly confident I can communicate with them… provided your thesis is correct.” “ Provided it is correct? That’s funny,” Holloway smiled defensively. “That’s why it is called a thesis, Doctor.” Dr. Shaw hoped that the antagonizing way that Charlie dealt with David would wear off after some time. The two smiled slyly at one another before David got up to walk away. For the moment, Shaw couldn’t help but chuckle at Holloway and David’s interactions. In some inadvertent, peculiar way, the android was somehow giving Charlie a taste of his own medicine. There had been s

 CHAPTER THREE The Agenda   Dr. Shaw sat up in her pod. ‘This is the part of the job I despise most… not prepping for cryo, not staring at the boundless blackness of the space between worlds. This.’ Each time she woke from the prolonged hyper-slumber, Shaw’s body rebelled in full force against her. She swung her legs over the left side of the bed, held the foremost strands of her shoulder-length brown hair back with both hands and let loose a deep-yellow stream of vomit. ‘This is my last trip like this. I’m not doing cryo-sleep ever again,’ Shaw promised herself while in the grips of physical agony, the way an overindulged alcoholic would when waking to the pain of the next day. Before her body could eject another bout of vomit, a plastic container was thrust under her face. As she let her innards loose a second time, a complimentary hand was placed softly upon her back as she wretched. “Try to relax, Dr. Shaw. My name is David. Your body and mind are in a state of shock from the sta