The PROMETHEUS Novelization Project

CHAPTER EIGHT “Small Beginnings”   As if Fifield and Millburn hadn’t already encountered enough terror for the afternoon, they were in for another horrible surprise. Once they had turned a corner, their beams of artificial light fell upon an enormous, piled-up mass of Engineer cadavers. Each corpse with its chest visible showed the same grievous wound; flesh and bone had exploded outward, which left each chest with a primordial, blackened cavity. What could have possibly driven these crafters of worlds and designers of civilizations to crawl over one another like Earth rats escaping from a blazing fire? “What… are those things? Are they real?!” Millburn blurted out idiotically. “Of course they’re bloody real!” Fifield yelled. “Jesus Christ, look at the pile! Look at how high up they are!” The rapidity of each man’s breathing increased noticeably. The beams of light tremored in mortal fear as they moved over the mound of space-ready Engineer bodies. “Yeah… it sure looks like they were

  CHAPTER SEVEN Mortal After All   “We’ve been here before Fifield!” “I don’t know,” Fifield offered, “it all looks the same to me.” “Boys this is the captain, listen up…” Janek’s began via the coms in the helmets of Fifield and Millburn. “Between the static electricity and the wind speed, there ain’t no safe way to come get ya.” The Biologist and the Geologist exchanged looks of silent, frustrated defeat. “The temperature is dropping rapidly, so get your helmets on and stay warm until the storm passes.” “Captain, can you get a message to the scientist and that zealot girlfriend of his? You got a pen nearby?” The voice of Fifield filled the cockpit. “No, I think we can remember it, what’s the message?” “Tell them I said ‘go fuck yourselves,’ copy?” Janek, Chance and Ravel burst into laughter. “Copy that.” Janek assured. “All right boys, keep your heads down and we’ll come get you in the morning.” Almost immediately upon the return of the expedition team,