Chapter 4 - The Temple

 

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 so few people along the way able to truly rattle Charlie’s cage, even the fresh memory of almost punching Fifield over breakfast had set sail in the mind of Dr. Holloway. But David… the synthetic man was starting to get the better of Holloway in argumentative situations where he had shone so characteristically unchallenged. There had been crewmates and fellow Weyland employees along the way that had shared many verbal cracks and taunts in good nature. But with David it was different. Charlie deliberately went out of his way to insult the synthetic… and the fact that David was able to not just withstand the bullying of Holloway, but also make an equal and proper fool out of Holloway at times did not settle well with him. David turned the tables on him once again as they sat at the S.E.T.I transmitter. Dr. Holloway had suggested that David’s linguistics may have been wrong, David responded by questioning the validity of Dr. Holloway’s ‘Engineer' thesis altogether.

The captain of the Prometheus sat in his chair, followed by Chance and Ravel.

“Right, Mr. Ravel, Mr. Chance… take her down, if ya’ please.”

“Yes, captain,” Ravel said sternly.

“Roger that,” said Chance.

“Mr. Chance, have you found us any spots?” Janek asked as his eyes surveyed the horizon.

“Yes, Captain. Descent trajectory mapped.”

Dr. Shaw slunk up to the captain’s chair and spoke softly to Janek.

“How are we doing?”

“Great,” responded Janek without meeting her gaze, “Our miniature satellite probes surveyed the planet. No sign of your gods so far. Why don't you go ahead and grab a seat and strap yourself in, Dr. Shaw.”

Janek’s arm reached up and pushed a small green button – the speakers throughout the ship were filled with the sound of his commanding voice.

“All personnel, this is the captain speaking. Brace for entry in sixty seconds.”

The intercom clicked off. Each of the passengers obeyed the command and began choosing seats and subsequently strapping themselves in. Within the announced time, the Prometheus was closing on the final few miles just above the atmosphere of the planetoid LV-223. As the ship made its descent into the atmosphere, the near silence of their journey suddenly reached its end with a scream of the ship’s engines. The hull of the ship is engulfed in flames… then the whole ship.

“What’s the atmosphere like?” Janek called over his right shoulder.

“Atmosphere is seventy one percent nitrogen… twenty-one percent oxygen… and traces of argon gas,” Ravel rattled off as he read the quaking screen in front of him.

“Woah, now THAT’s what I call weather!” Janek jested as he stood from his captain’s seat and took a closer look at the angry hurricane clouds out of the glass of the observation deck.

“Just like home,” Holloway added some of his own humor.

“Only if you're breathing through an exhaust pipe. CO2 is over three percent. Two minutes without a suit and you're dead!” Dr. Ford commented through her thick, Scottish accent.

The hulking mass of flying metal, still crowned at the nose with flames, passes the head of a mountain that reached all the way to the upper atmosphere of LV-223.

“Peak port side!” Ford called in amazement. “Make Everest look like a baby brother!”

“Terrain data rezzing up. We've got a couple of hard spots… could be metal. Forty miles to the location singled out by the probes, Captain,” Ravel informed.

The mountain ranges that each pair of Human eyes now looked upon were sparsely comparable to the mountain structures of their birth world of Earth. They were, in point of face, much akin to the world of LV-223 as a whole – alien. The huge metal ship was laughably miniscule; like a common housefly buzzing through the realm of giants as it passed through the unfathomably massive ranges of mountains. Each and every man, woman and synthetic was so hopelessly insignificant in the face of the unfamiliar world they had come to. The ship left a tiny trail of white and gray as it passed into another layer of thick, dense clouds. After a bit of back and forth of the ship steering to avoid the volcanic, billowing electrical clouds, the ship passed out of the storm and into the inner atmosphere. The landscape beneath was that of a barren desert without so much sun.

“Captain, the probe says the point of interest is somewhere around here but I can't pick up any Radio or heat source,” Ravel informed as they coasted on.

“Just keep looking,” Janek spat back politely.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Millburn chimed in from his seat.

“You’d think Weyland would be content with conquering a single planet. Does he need the whole galaxy too?” Fifield added his own ill-tempered two cents.

“There is nothing in the desert… and no man needs nothing.” David said, quoting he and Weyland’s favorite Peter O’Toole movie.

“What was that?” Asked Dr. Ford.

David smiled plainly at her.

“Just something from a film I like.”

The ship continued its passage through the alien canyons, which the crew started to believe would never end, until they cleared an enormous mountain top and a small valley appeared far below. In a rush, Dr. Holloway was suddenly standing side by side with Janek at the observation window.

“Captain… over there! What is that?”

“What? I can’t see anything,” Janek responded, taking a closer look through the atmospheric haze with squinted eyes.

“Look where I’m pointing!” Holloway intensified as his white-knuckled hand shook as it pointed in a more desperate attempt to share whatever it was he saw.

What Dr. Holloway saw far off on the horizon was a line of pyramids, each one many miles apart from one another. As soon as he was finished his second excited sentence, the formations came clearly into vision for Janek’s eyes to see at last.

“Oh yeah… what the hell is that?”

“God does not build in straight lines!” Holloway said with a tone of vindication. “That valley… captain, could you put this bird down there?”

“I wouldn't be any good if I couldn't do that. Mr. Ravel, Mr. Chance; set her down near those structures. Let’s not get too close to them,” Janek gave the command as he walked with purpose toward the captain’s chair.

The ship was steered towards the pyramids in the far-off distance.

“One mile, port bow.”

“One mile, port bow,” Ravel repeated back to Janek.

“Turning off boosters...” Chance called out to his two closest mates. “Activating vertical flight. In five... four… three… two… one…”

The screaming, booming boosters cut out. The sudden void of sound made the considerable loudness of the Prometheus’s engines seem like the hum of a halogen light bulb.

“Engage landing sequence,” Janek spoke with a bit less composure in his voice. Landing was always the most dangerous part of flying for him.

“Commence landing,” followed Ravel.

“Go ahead and switch it to manual.”

“Switching to manual, captain.”

“All right boys, easy does it,” Janek said as the trio of pilots began lowering the ship together, “nice and easy now…”

The ship was now moving strictly vertically; putting the Prometheus down about a kilometer and a half away from the tallest of the alien temples.

“Bringing her down in five… four… three…”

The Prometheus created a massive sandstorm as it approached the surface of LV-223.

“Two… one…”

The ship landed as smoothly as any passenger could have hoped for. Janek quickly cut off the engines and the bridge filled with overhead light. Monstrous hydraulic beasts hissed and spat from the landing legs taking on the full weight of the Prometheus. The crew breathed a single, deep breath of relief together. They had arrived safe and sound.

“The Prometheus has landed.” Janek spoke like a man who had just conquered the world. “Well done gentlemen, the next one’s one me.”

Dr. Shaw rushes over to the observation window and stands at the side of Dr. Holloway. He turns to her and with stars in his eyes, he kisses her. Dr. Holloway turned back to Janek, who had not yet risen from his chair.

“Captain, will you please tell the survey team to suit up and meet us in the airlock?”

“There’s only six hours left of daylight. Why not leave it until tomorrow?” Janek advised.

“No no no… it’s Christmas, captain, and I want to open my presents.” Holloway replied with a smile as he began making his exit off of the bridge.

Before Holloway made it out of the door, he halted in his step and clapped his hands, and then pointed at David.

“You! Boy! You’re coming with us!”

Dr. Holloway left the room.

“I’d be delighted…” David said to no one.

Not all of the passengers that had been pulled from the cryo pods of the Prometheus were those of the scientific community. There were others such as Vickers and the trio of friendly pilots, those who were, in spite of their agreeable dispositions under well-paying conditions, not particularly friendly folks. And like with all of the questionable additions to the crew of the Prometheus, the three-man security team was brought on by Weyland’s own Meredith Vickers. Janek might be the captain of the ship, but Vickers was the queen of the castle as it were; and that was trouble enough. As the science geeks scrambled about to throw an expedition team together, Vickers called her security hirelings into her suite. Jackson, a red haired, red bearded man was the official security detail leader, followed by Vladimir, who truly looked the part of a mercenary with his unsmiling face covered in scars and Sheppard, the smaller of the three.

“You wanted to see us, Miss Vickers?” Jackson asked as he entered.

“Yes, this won’t take long, Jackson.”

“What can we do for ya’?”

The blonde bombshell stood from her seat and leaned onto her desk with both hands.

“I don’t want any of you going in there.”

“I… don’t follow,” Jackson said in confusion.

“When you take them out there to do whatever it is they think they are going to do, I want you three to stay with the vehicles. Those scientists are not our priority... remember that. Any questions?” Vickers dished it out as hard and cold as ever.

“One actually, yes. Where did the old man dig up these goons anyway? I was talking to that biologist and he is dumber than a bag of shit. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the geologist with the red Mohawk, what’s his name… Fifield? Yeah, that guy’s not right at all. I could really see him becoming a problem.”

The question was brazen. The natural instinct of Vickers now that she had conveyed her orders was to tell Jackson and his men to piss off and do their jobs. She considered agreeing with Jackson’s notion that idiots had been deliberately hired for the mission and reminding him that he fit the bill. But Vickers relented. These three men were the closest thing she had to people she could trust on this damnable mission.

“The old man never hired them. I hired them,” she answered coolly.

Jackson’s expression of confusion was that of a man who had just caught a whiff of something pungent.

“I don’t get it… do you want them to fail?”

A sly smile came to Vickers’s lips.

“You always were too smart for this job, Jackson.”

Less than half an hour later, Jackson and his team are doing a final weapons check in the loading bay just before loading into the sand buggy.

“Hey Jackson, what’s that for?” Dr. Shaw inquired nosily as she was squaring away her environmental suit.

“Expedition security,” the mercenary responded with a subtle, unfriendly smile that warned the soft-bellied geek to mind her own fucking business, “my job is to make sure everybody is nice and safe.”

“This is a scientific expedition. No weapons.”

Jackson was entirely unmoved.

“All right then… good luck with that,” the mercenary responded.

Dr. Charles Holloway was the first man to seat himself in the sand buggy with the obnoxious yellow Weyland Corporation logo painted on the driver side. He had come thirty-nine light years to reach LV-223, but the final mile that lay between Holloway and his Engineers felt longest of all; at least in that moment. The second innocuous enviro-suit to enter had a familiar face under the glass of the helmet.

“David, why are you wearing a suit, man?”

Dr. Holloway couldn’t help himself. The android sat down slowly in a seat adjacent to him with a restrained half-scowl upon his face.

“I beg your pardon?”

If Dr. Holloway didn’t know any better, he would have sworn he detected anger in the synthetic.

“You don’t breathe, so why wear the suit?” Holloway clarified.

“I was designed like this because you people are more comfortable interacting with your own kind. If I didn't wear the suit, it would defeat the purpose,” explained David.

“They’re making you things pretty close, huh?”

An inauthentic smile shot across David’s face. His eyes stared lifelessly at Dr. Holloway.

“Not too close, I hope…” David said.

Dr. Holloway could not help but laugh; he’d been licked this time. So what? He’d live to fight another day. He’d win that last laugh in the end.

Dr. Shaw, Ford, Millburn and Fifield joined David and Dr. Holloway. Jackson and his two man retinue manned the second sand buggy. Within minutes, both of the vehicles were coasting towards the pyramid in the near distance. Holloway is near-ecstatic; bouncing his legs and shaking his knees like an excited schoolboy. He stood and lowered his helmet to come visor-to-visor with his beloved Elizabeth.

“Hey babe, this is just one small step for man,” he said with the usual smile.

Shaw raised one eyebrow, playfully unimpressed.

“Seriously?”

Holloway laughed buoyantly and stood fully erect again.

“WOO! You ready to do this?!”

He clapped Fifield on his shoulder.

“I know you’re ready!”

“Fuck off!” Fifield exclaimed as he brushed the unwanted hand from his shoulder.

Holloway was undeterred in his hopeless excitement. It took another half mile for him to finally regain his focus on the mission at hand. Which was, incidentally enough, about the distance that remained between the buggy Dr. Hollway was riding in and their destination. The pair of vehicles came to a slow halt. Minutes later, Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway were the first to set foot upon LV-223. It was the first time for the both of them stranding upon the surface of a planet other than humanity’s tiny, blue birth world. Jackson and his security team was the next small cluster of humans to crawl out of their transport. Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway stood side by side. The clever Dr. Shaw gave her lover a playful nudge with her elbow. Holloway smiled at her. Dr. Shaw pointed with her gloved right hand; Holloway’s eyes followed the path set out by his girlfriend’s extended forefinger. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it… a small, blackened circle at the base of the central pyramid that was undoubtedly an entrance to the structure. Holloway’s breath caught in his throat, Dr. Shaw smiled in a fashion that threatened to become satisfied laughter. ‘Speechlessness, now that’s a first for Charlie,' she said within herself, far beyond the realm of words.  Holloway took a few seconds to share the moment with his beloved Elizabeth, and then turned to the group’s resident geologist.

“Hey… Fifield, I want a spectrograph on this structure. I want to know if it's natural or if somebody put it there,” Holloway instructed.

The surly geologist examined the handheld computerized device in his hand.

“I can’t tell you if it’s natural or not,” Fifield returned, “what I can tell you is that it’s hollow.”

Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway stepped closer to the gargantuan structure.

“Prometheus, are you seeing this?”

Janek, his pair of co-pilots and Meredith Vickers all stand before a series of monitors; each displaying a separate feed from each of the helmet cam footage of each enviro-suit.

“Affirmative, Dr. Shaw, we see it. But what the Hell is it?” Janek responded.

Six of the nine team members begin stepping slowly towards their ancient destination. After a few steps, Elizabeth Shaw stops and turns back to the three-man security team. Jackson, Vladimir and Sheppard had not stepped more than a few meters away from the buggy they had disembarked from.

“Jackson, are you coming?”

The leader of the mercenaries pursed his lips and shook his head with an air of smugness. ‘Sorry, you self-righteous bitch, I don’t take orders from you and your hippy boyfriend’ is what might as well have been said, but Jackson and Shaw were not quite there yet with words such as that… not yet at least.

“Sorry, we’ve got our orders to stay here, best of luck to the lot of you in there,” Jackson said as politely as needed.

Holloway chuckled quietly with his head turned in the opposite direction.

“Ah, Miss Vickers…” Holloway mused.

As if on cue, a cold wind hissed slowly out of the blackness just beyond the threshold of the ancient alien temple. A soft mist crept out of the hole and then dissolved slowly into the outside atmosphere. Several members of the team stood petrified at the sound, but not Dr. Holloway. ‘Oxygen?” he thought to himself with wide eyes. Was there some semblance of a sustainable environment within the temple?

“Everybody ready?” Dr. Shaw asked.

“Let’s do this!” Holloway exclaimed.

Shaw gave a quick sweep over the rest of the team. Fifield and Ford looked like a pair of fish suddenly deprived of water. Millburn wore the usual mask of dumbfoundedness; he was the most out of place as far as personnel were concerned. Even Fifield would be useful in minor geological aspects – a rock was essentially a rock, at least in comparing those of Earth and those of LV-223. There was a good possibility that this world was, and possibly always had been, a desolate and lifeless one. Weyland had not instructed the team’s biologist to collect any data or retrieve any forms of life for the company. Though that was not to say that Weyland Corporation did not have such possibilities in the scope of their bloodthirsty projections; if and when the team encountered any signs of alien life big or small, the company had but one steward for that responsibility. The one who Shaw’s eyes descended upon last; Weyland’s mechanical servant, a pet that continued executing the greedy will of its master after his death. David would be the one to handle such responsibilities, biology be damned.

“Prometheus, we’re going in,” Dr. Shaw said.

“Copy that.”