T1N, hidden behind the railing of the upper balcony, looked down on the landing bay. The first passengers were arriving, barefoot, walking slowly in their pressed white Hermes jumpsuits after spending three years frozen in a pod. They looked at everything with hungry eyes, perplexed, moving their heads from one side to the other. They spoke in whispers, as if they feared raised voices would wake the remaining sleepers. They collected in isolated groups of two or three and threw each other suspicious glances, asking how they got here, but always maintaining that safe distance.
When all 234 passengers had arrived, T1N could barely see the floor. The commotion crescendoed like a wave frothing into foam. The excitement was palpable, sparking through the room. Not for nothing: they had just awoken into a new life and they were about to see their new home for the first time.
There were screams of panic as the ship shook suddenly. A few of the children burst into tears. T1N deduced the turbulence came as they crossed into the atmosphere and passed the shields of the moon-city. That meant landing was imminent.
The landing bay had no windows or view screens, only a giant clock above the airlock that said in orange figures on a black background: TIME TO OPENING 00:00:32
Silence fell across the room and those last few seconds stretched towards the infinite. The passengers, with their eyes glued to the steel doors, held their collective breath. A fierce grating sound gave way to a stinging whine and then thick smoke flooded the room. The airlock screeched open and, through the smoke, orange lights signalled the way out.
The bravest amongst them took a step forward. They crossed that cloud and stepped onto the departure ramp. Not even the faintest beam of light came from the outside. T1N assumed they had arrived at night. The one thing that flooded his sensors for certain was a humid and metallic stench.
Then came more screaming, horrific screaming: screams of dread torn from throats that exploded to impossibly high notes, then cut out in an instant. They were followed by a chaotic stampede that made the smoke swirl and dance. More than two hundred passengers turned away from the airlock, shoving, punching, jumping over each other. However they could, they wanted to get away from that open door and flee into the passages of the ship.
When that cloud dispersed, T1N finally understood what was happening.
The thing which had terrified the passengers, that horror, stood in the middle of the room, shifting its head from side to side, sniffing, searching for something. Its long body, like a gigantic worm, was made of swollen and veiny flesh and ended in a bulbous stomach the size and shape of a pumpkin. Its underside was encrusted with metal as if someone had armoured it with scrap. It had six gnarled limbs like dry branches which bulged at the joints like a spider's legs.
The head was the strangest part. On seeing it, T1N was glad that he could limit his emotional response. If he had been exposed to the full extent of his terror, he would have run with all the other passengers.
A spherical metal casing enclosed everything except for the face. In fact, to even call it a face was a leap of imagination. The creature had no eyes or nose, only a vertical slit. It let out a bone-chilling cry and many blood-stained, needle-like teeth emerged from that opening. That was its mouth.
The creature appeared to be struggling to decide which passage to take. After a moment, it shot towards one of the corridors. In motion, its long torso zigzagged like a snake, but it wasn't silent like a reptile. There was a ringing sound every time the metal encrusted in its stomach struck the floor.
Cling, cling, cling.
T1N paused. He attempted to process everything he was seeing. What was happening? Was this the 'welcome committee?'
His balcony was five metres from the ground. He weighed up his options with some rapid calculations, then he lifted himself up on the railing and threw his body into open air. He landed unscathed with his feet together, the impact of his landing creating a dent in the floor of the ship.
He cautiously approached the wide-open hatch.