Looking out across the dusty plain at the Thing silhouetted on the horizon, Jorn shivered a little and pressed up against her husband. In a frightened whisper she repeated the question she had asked him that day so many times before: "What IS it?"
Kiehl protectively pulled her closer and nuzzled the side of her head. He looked back up and followed her gaze. "I don't know, Baby" he replied as he had each time she'd asked. "I truly don't know."
She remembered the noise, the fire, the great pieces of flaming debris raining downward that had heralded its arrival, but mostly she remembered its immensity, growing from a tiny spec overhead to the enormous brooding horror now squatting with impassive expectation a half-mile or so away from their ranch at the edge of the rocky desert. It had seemed to fill half the sky as it emerged from the heavens, larger than anything capable of motion she had seen before, its oddly disjointed shape incredibly slowing atop a column of flame to settle itself with a thud audible even at that distance.
Then all was still again.
And that was the frightening part. It had simply stopped. Now it just sat there, immobile, crouching on oddly spindly legs set on the desert sands. She fancied that it waited.
But for what?
"It's like what they say in Prophecy," she said after a while. She looked up at his weathered face. "You don't suppose..."
He shook his head, a fleeting look of impatience darkening his features before vanishing into perplexity. "No, of course not," he replied, almost a little too quickly. "Those are just stories. If God wanted to smite us He'd just do it." He gave her a little squeeze of reassurance. "We're still here, right?"
"Then what...?"
He looked down at her again, this time with tenderness. "Honey, I don't know. I really have no idea." For a moment she thought she sensed her own alarm reflected in his eyes. Then he looked away, back to the horizon. "It's something from Outside - but what, or why..." he sighed. "No idea."
At the crunching of gravel behind them, they both turned. Their neighbor Trynn was tying his mount to a fence rail. "So you folks saw it too?" he called.
"Hard not to," Kiehl called back. "Completely blotted out the sun when it passed overhead."
Trynn approached, nodding to Jorn with a smile as he did. "Whatever it is, it scared my livestock so bad they're scattered all over the desert. My boys are out trying to round them up now."
"Ours too," she said.
"Well, any of yours we find, we'll drive back into your paddock for you."
"Thanks." She laid a hand on his back and smiled. "Same here."
"Look," Kiehl said. The urgency in his voice was all they needed to tell them where. They all turned back to watch the Thing.
It was moving.
From its roof protruded a number of vertical members seemingly haphazardly placed. One of these masts had begun to slowly rotate. It was far enough away that they never would have noticed had it not been for the asymmetrically mounted box near the top. The silhouette of that box was alternately shrinking and growing as it presented less and more of its cross-section to them.
"Dear God..." she whispered.
"What do you think, Key?" Trynn asked.
Kiehl just shook his head. "I'm thinking it can't be good."
"That's what I'm thinking."
"Maybe we should... go inside," Jorn said. Her apprehension was swelling disagreebly into fright.
"Maybe so," Trynn agreed.
Kiehl was silent a moment. "I'm not sure I want to turn my back on it," he finally said.
The rotation was proceeding in fits, stopping and starting seemingly at random. When the object atop the mast presented its greatest aspect, it stopped again. This time the rotation did not resume.
They watched, transfixed. Jorn realized she was holding her breath.
An intense, blinding flash of light suddenly blazed from the center of the box. It was brighter than the sun, redder than the sands around them, far hotter than the glowstones that warmed their cabin. It was the last thing any of them would see. It was the last time anyone would see them. They were blasted instantly out of existence, vaporized so quickly and completely that any pain impulses didn’t even have time to traverse their nervous systems to their brains. They were gone, wisps of smoke quickly dispersed by the gentle breeze. Their timelines simply came to an abrupt end. They no longer were.
"Spectrometer - we're dying here! What do you see?"
Her face flickered in the blue glow of the monitor. "Hang on, the data's still coming in..."
"Did the laser fire?"
Intent on the graph assembling itself on the screen, her reply was distracted and perfunctory. "Roger that - we're analyzing the pyrolites now... stand by... holy shit! Holy shit, guys!"
"What? Penny, What have you got?"
A large spike had appeared on the graph, followed by two more. She jumped up and pumped her fists in the air. "What we've got, Gentlemen, " she cried, "are the first clear signs of organic compounds on Mars!"
An explosive cheer erupted around the room, the science team leaped to its collective feet and embraced. Cigars were handed around, palms were high-fived, and there were even a few tears shed - but not a single one of mourning. These were tears of joy, of triumph. Because this was a glorious event. This was cause to celebrate. This was, after all, the first sign that Man might not be alone in the cosmos.
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