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I knew from my timepiece the red sun was high above me. The yellow sun was a few hours behind as always; it should be hanging lower in the western sky. I couldn’t see the light from either of them through the thick canopy overhead, through the millions of leaves draped off branches from trees potentially thousands of years old.
I pushed my oar through sludgy water. Slowly but surely, my canoe slid across the swamp’s face. Bursts of methane periodically erupted around me with violent splashes. The smell was piercing even filtered through my rebreather.
The splashes were the only sound in the swamp. I still wasn’t used to the hibernation season’s total lack of birdsong and humming insects. After the sounds I’d heard on my last mission — one sound, one awful alien cry in particular — the complete silence was eerie.
I pressed a button on my timepiece and checked my coordinates. I was close now. I looked to my south, the UV filters on my goggles allowing me to pierce the swamp’s gloom.
I saw something unusual. A thick wide deadfall of branches and tangled vines rose some fifteen feet out of the swampwater. I’d found the nest.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I paddled my canoe towards the still mass. When I reached the edge and grabbed onto a branch with my gloved hand, I sat still for several minutes. I listened, waited, wanting to see if the professor’s research was correct. If it wasn’t, then progressing any further would mean my swift and violent end.
I took a deep breath and clambered off my canoe onto the mass of branches. I half-expected them to splinter under my weight, like they would on earth. But the petrified remains under me were as solid as could be. That was fortunate, as it enabled me to sneak up on the nest’s entrance much more effectively than I could otherwise.
As silently as I could, I crept up to the top of the deadfall. Thick frozen thorns pulled at my suit. If it weren’t for the suit’s reinforced newsteel lining, I’d have been torn to shreds. I trusted newsteel to protect me from thorns — I wasn’t eager to test its mettle against teeth and claws.
The professor’s intel was correct. At the top of the nest was a disguised opening. I shuffled the mass of branches aside and found the entrance of a winding tunnel. The walls weren’t made of dead branches like the outside of the nest. Instead it was a strange parchment-like material. It was strong and smooth and regular, not something grown out of the swamp but deliberately constructed.
I bit my lip. Adrenaline coursing through me, I got on my knees, and plunged headfirst into the tunnel.
The paper-y walls were thick and strong. I felt them tighten around me as my full body made its way in. The passage wound this way and that. I struggled to get around a few of the tighter corners.
A sudden humid warmth assaulted me. The air smelled like dirt and vomit.
The tunnel opened up. The cavern was tight, tighter than I expected. I still had to stoop even after I crawled out of the passage.
The first thing I saw was a pile of gore and mulch that reached to the tiny cavern’s low ceiling. I couldn’t recognize any of the meat — everything had been torn apart, dried out, pre-digested.
According to the professor, this was their food store. The mother and her children would both need it once they’d woken up. Ideally that wouldn’t be any time soon.
Aside from the organic mass, the rest of the cavern was empty. It took me a few minutes to find the other opening in the wall. I slid through the passage like I had the tunnel before, and emerged into the nest’s final chamber.
I saw hundreds of eggs, maybe thousands. They lined every surface of the cavern. They were all about the size of a baseball. I longed to simply grab one of them and go, but I knew I had a harder mission.
In the cavern’s center slept the mother. Seventy-six pairs of legs curled tightly into her body. She faced away from me. I couldn’t see the crushing mandibles I knew were there. I couldn’t hear her breathe; I realized even now I waited for her to let out that shriek. I’d been anticipating it ever since I stepped foot in my canoe.
Jutting out of the paper floor next to the mother was my target. An egg — the only female of the batch. I knew because it was almost a foot tall, much larger than all the others.
I stepped forward. My feet crunched through the surface of the male eggs under me. I grimaced as a hot wet ooze surrounded my boot. I held my breath, watching the mother for signs of lucidity.
I took another step, and another. Eggs crushed under me as I went. My heart beat violently in my chest.
I was only a few feet from the mother now, from her infinity of rippling exposed vertebrae and thick cartilage. I could make out the reticulated hairs jutting out of her legs.
I leaned over and gripped the female egg. It felt thicker than the male eggs I’d crushed on my way here. I tugged at it until it came loose from the thick paper walls with a tearing sound.
I stood still, waiting. My mouth was dry.
The mother stayed still.
I stepped backwards, not daring to take my eyes off the creature. I made my way to the back wall, felt around for the entrance. When I found it, I pushed the egg through, then quickly followed after it.
I waited to hear that awful sound, that monstrous screech I’d heard just before my last expedition team had been torn to shreds all those months ago. I waited for it as I pushed my way back out the tunnel, as I crawled down the deadfall, egg in hand, as I climbed into my canoe and pushed my way across the water.
Even days later, on my cot at the base camp, the egg safely tucked away for study at the professor’s lab, a part of me still waited to hear that cry tear through the alien night.