Seven small Drones were staring with curiosity and unease at the strange stone their Queen had fixed her gaze upon. The mental waves spreading from Alexander carried his tension throughout the entire swarm. The only sound in the air was the faint whisper of the wind. Alexander's thoughtful stare lasted for many long minutes. What finally broke the silence and his deep concentration was the Drones growing bored of waiting and beginning to pester one another.
Alexander turned his head and glanced at them. They were growling at each other and starting to leap over one another in play. They had just lost a sibling, yet they did not seem very sorrowful, Alexander thought. Even though they had distracted him, he did not scold them this time and ignored their mischief. He lay down on the rocks and continued watching the structure. He did not know what it was, but he was almost certain it was artificial. For now, he intended to observe it from a distance and see whether there would be any movement around it.
Minutes turned into hours, and eventually the sun set again, yet there was still no sign of activity. Alexander spent most of the night watching the massive structure as well, but in the end he surrendered to the comforting pull of sleep. When he woke in the morning, he saw that the sun had already risen somewhat higher in the sky. He looked around. The hatchlings were sleeping in scattered positions nearby, and there was still no movement around the great structure.
So he finally decided that he needed to examine the structure more closely. There seemed to be no living creatures anywhere around it. Most likely, if there were intelligent and dangerous beings nearby, they would be inside the structure itself. There was no way to learn the truth without going there—and he knew it.
With his command, the Drones rose to their feet, and the swarm began moving as one. Descending the mountain was far faster than climbing it, and by the time the sun had only just reached its highest point in the sky, they had already come down from the slopes into the rocky terrain below. The swarm continued forward between the massive stone formations. As they passed them, Alexander noticed that some of the rocks rose nearly twenty meters high. The ground beneath their feet was covered with only sparse patches of grass. Most of the terrain consisted of uneven ground filled with stones half-buried in the earth. If there had not been enough space between the larger rocks, Alexander thought, the area would have resembled a natural labyrinth.
The journey lasted for hours. Along the way, Alexander did not allow any of the Drones to stray from the group, worried that predators might be hiding among the rocks. Even so, they managed to reach the great structure without encountering any trouble. They stood behind a large boulder, with only a hundred meters separating them from it. As Alexander saw the structure up close, his tension steadily increased. Since being born on this planet, he had known almost nothing about it—but now such a structure had suddenly appeared before him. After seeing it from this distance, he was certain it was not natural. In his mind, it resembled something like a Gothic cathedral… though not exactly.
He did not know what kind of beings he might encounter there, nor how they might react to him, so he prepared himself for every possibility. After a brief observation, he realized they were positioned behind the structure, and at his command the Drones spread out and surrounded it. Alexander remained where he was and evaluated the information coming from his Drones. At last, one of the hatchlings reached the front of the structure. The mental link between their minds strengthened and settled into a stable balance under Alexander's control. He took command of the Drone's senses and saw a triangular entrance carved into the stone before him. What was unusual, however, was that several meters above it there was another large circular opening.
He hesitated to enter. He had just lost a Drone, and now he did not want to lose another—but his curiosity still prevailed. The Drone slowly approached the triangular entrance. He could hear the faint howl of wind blowing from inside, but nothing else. Then it stepped forward.
As it walked along the long corridor, the light gradually began to fade. Still, even in the dimness, Alexander could barely make out what lay ahead. As he guided the hatchling forward step by step, he soon began to notice small symbols carved into the corridor walls. The shapes were strange—he could not compare them to any alphabet he had ever seen back on Earth.
For now, he decided to ignore the symbols and focused instead on the end of the corridor. He was almost there. At last, he saw a beam of light descending from above into a wide chamber ahead of him. He moved forward as quietly as possible.
The corridor ended, and he found himself stepping into a chamber large enough to be called enormous. The moment he entered, he froze.
"What is this place?" the question echoed inside his mind.
Rocks… countless rocks. He saw dozens of massive piles made up of tens of thousands of stones in different colors, some with edges that looked like glass or crystal. Careful to remain silent, he approached one of the heaps and examined the stones more closely. They were varied in every shape and shade, and after observing them for a moment, he realized what they were—different kinds of minerals and ores.
He stopped and looked around again. There were too many to count. The entire area formed a single vast chamber.
It was clearly a storage depot.
He began moving the Drone between the small piles of minerals. He had only just started exploring the storage chamber when his concentration was suddenly shattered by a surge of intense emotions coming from three of the Drones outside—and by another Drone biting at his own body.
Signals of fear and alarm struck his mind like a relentless warning bell. He immediately understood that the situation was serious and at once severed his connection with the Drone inside the structure. His mind staggered for a moment at the sudden break; maintaining the link and controlling a Drone already strained his thoughts, and the abrupt shift did not help. It took him a short time to recover, but the moment he did, he ordered the Drone inside to withdraw from the structure.
Then he took control of one of the Drones that had sent the warning signals. But the instant the connection settled and he saw the creature standing before it, he was filled with horror.
The creature was walking upright among the stones, taller than any predator Alexander had seen so far—perhaps two and a half meters. Its body was covered in layered chitin plates, dark and jagged along the shoulders, while the lower sections were lighter in color and segmented. Two long sensory tendrils extended from behind its head, slowly curling through the air as they probed the surroundings. From its torso extended two long arms and two shorter ones, each with separate forelimb joints. From its lower body stretched four legs with backward-bending knees. It was completely inhuman—terrifying to behold.
Its movement suddenly stopped. Its narrow face tilted slightly to one side, and one of its clawed limbs moved deliberately across the stone. At the same time, the tendrils on its head brushed against the ground.
The creature had realized that something was there.
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