Author: Brian Ball

Alan was Newton’s cannonball, spinning in chaos, cursing this tiny moon. The ship grazed the atmosphere and was reeled in, defenseless. He was alone. His orbit increased to 14,500mph. 226,000mph. 450,000mph. Each spin pulling him down a bit closer. His anger grew with every inch.

When he hit 800,000mph on the sixth day, he waited for Ganymede’s atmosphere to superheat the shields. It did not. Internal environments held. He waited in Death’s vestibule, spinning.

Alan was like an electron, orbiting the moon in seconds, faster than sound, faster than thought. Emergency systems overrode the bridge controls and counted aloud his distance from impact. The ground, sky, ice, and rock were a blurred smear of colors and imminent doom.

He began to starve. No food or water. The ship was not built for long transport. The moon, named for Zeus’ mythical cup bearer, was as good as any place to die slowly. Without energy, he moved very little. Death moved closer. He waited.

And then suddenly a sensor blared. Data screens across the bridge flashed. From inside the giant canyons on Ganymede a crack opened. The entire surface of the moon quaked.

A grayish living liquid slithered onto the frozen plain, a glinting vermeil of life. Miniscule tails, legs and teeth emerged in great number. Dense layers spread in every direction. He watched as they seethed in the subzero, without death or inhibition, floated about and drifting in the blowing snow. The swarm collected and grew.

With clenched fists, Alan struck the thick glass of the data monitor. He tried to drive the slithering horror. He struck again and again. His skin split. His knuckles cracked. A cleansing pain ricocheted up his arms, but he felt nothing save his hunger and that of the brood. It moved to him. He could only wait.

It puffed out, became larger, a giant traction of purpose and followed the ship with lightning speed. It surrounded the ship, a living, pulsating cloud of dark agitation. Billions of legs swirled, fought, crawled to devour, an instant nightmare ready to order. He pounded the screen.

At 1,026,000mph, cracks bloomed along the walls of the spinning ship. He gasped for air as life-support purged through the cracks and out of his lungs. He watched his artificial paradise crumble. The brood moved in and came for him.

The ship shook and creaked as they skittered up the walls. The tiny organisms all around him, everywhere at once, coming up his legs and onto his screaming face.
Two-hundred feet from impact, a noise. He turned and before him stood a being in a cloak and tunic holding a cup aloft. Ganymede.

He was not flesh, but something drawn from the very brood itself. The living cloud moved and rippled into human form.

The creature was glowing, platonic and alive; it smiled. It did not speak but offered the cup to him. Alan hesitated, scared, but took it and drank. So thirsty, he drank endlessly. The cup held no coda. He drank this perfect agony and consumed the brood which then took him.

A warmth hatched, a new feeling of contentment and presence. The creature smiled, offered its hand and Alan took it. He felt no fear for he was not alone. The cupbearer then took Alan to another place; his wait was over.

At several hundred thousand miles an hour, with a standard acceleration due to gravity at 200gs, the ship touched the surface with the force of matter and was no more.