Author's Note: I wrote this short story to pay homage to those classic sci-fi paperback novels of the fifties, the golden age of science fiction, and their authors: legends of the genre such as Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and Poul Anderson, just to name a few. This story is also my entry to the
2014 Literotica Nude Day contest
. A minimum of 25 votes are required for the story to be eligible for the contest, so any and all votes are appreciated (and comments too)!
*All characters involved in sexual situations in this story are eighteen years of age or older*
* * * *
"And they were both naked...and were not ashamed." Genesis 2:25
He woke with a violent start, and burst forth from the cold, dark liquid that enveloped him. He couldn't see in the smothering darkness, but he could feel something latched onto his face, its tentacles constricting around his head.
He panicked as he blindly clawed at it, tearing at its rubbery flesh as he tried to rip it loose. Finally it gave, and he wretched as he pulled it away and felt its tail slithering out from deep in his throat; with an anguished cry, he wrenched it free and threw it into the darkness.
He took a deep lungful of air, savoring the sensation of it filling his lungs, and listened to his heart pounding in the eerie darkness as the delirium faded and the first rays of memory pierced the fog blanketing his brain.
He was in space.
"Cabin light on," he said, and a faint blue glow illuminated the interior of the small, windowless, capsule.
He was sitting waist deep in a pool of golden liquid in a stasis pod in the center of the capsule. The stasis mask he'd torn free from his face was hanging down the side, its straps broken. He stood up and beads of golden liquid rolled down his naked body as he stepped from the pod.
There was a storage compartment on the side, and he pulled a neatly folded, light gray jumpsuit from it. He put it on, zipped it closed and bent over to grab the black boots from the compartment.
A wave of dizziness rolled over him and he grabbed the side of the pod for support. He shook his head, trying to clear away the final few filaments of fog that still blanketed his brain, and then pulled the boots on.
His memory was returning. He'd been in deep sleep, but had no idea how many days, months or even years had passed since he'd left the space station. He looked around the cabin and saw a red light flashing on a console.
Red was bad. He remembered that. The light should have been green if he was awake.
He leaned over the console and stared at the warning light. Something was wrong, that was why the ship's quantum computer had woken him from deep sleep. He touched the screen and the monitor woke with a silvery glow.
The chronometer showed that he'd been traveling for a little more than two hundred days since he'd left Earth's orbit. But he knew that, with the time distortion caused by wormhole travel, there was no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed on Earth.
He slid the screen sideways and a star chart appeared, showing that he was now on the other side of the wormhole, a section of deep space far from the nearest solar system.
Everything appeared to be going as planned; why was the warning light on? He slid the screen again to check the ship's indicators, making sure all systems were working correctly and that the craft was still on course. When he saw the readout he blinked, not believing it, and wondered if the deep sleep delirium was still making him imagine things.
He checked the indicator again: ship velocity zero. He knew the reading was impossible. The craft should have been plummeting through space at more than twenty-five thousand miles an hour. How could it be motionless?
Looking at the start chart again, he saw he was in an empty sector of space; there was nothing to land on. And if the mission had been successful and the spacecraft had landed, the light would have been flashing green, not red. He sighed in frustration, wishing there was some way to see outside of the ship. But he knew there were no windows or external cameras; they weren't considered necessary for the mission he'd been sent on.
He tapped a corner of the screen to check the external sensor readings, and leaned closer to make sure he was seeing them right. The temperature and atmosphere readings were exactly what he would have expected to see if he'd landed on a HET class planet -- habitable, extra-solar, and terrestrial -- and the ship definitely wasn't moving. He had to be on solid ground.
Tapping commands into the console, he tried to override the controls on the quantum computer to take a new bearing; either the star charts were wrong or the galactic positioning sensors weren't working right. But it was pointless, the protocols they'd put in place specifically for him prevented anyone inside the capsule from being able to override any of the ship's navigational systems.
He banged his hand off the console in frustration; if the ship didn't realize that it had landed, he'd never be able to initiate another launch sequence. Even if he had somehow stumbled across a HET class planet, he'd never be able to leave. Never be able to let them know that his mission had been successful. He was marooned.
He stared at the escape hatch, knowing that if he opened it and the ship's sensors were wrong and the star charts were right, and he was still in deep space, he'd die instantly. He'd already cheated death once, could he cheat it a second time?
The survival belt was mounted to the wall, and he took it and fastened it around the waist of his jumpsuit. He then tapped a button on the console and a weapon compartment slid open. He removed the disruptor pistol from inside and attached it to his belt.
He tapped a command into the screen, telling the computer to open the outer door. There was no protocol against opening it in deep space; the scientists could have never imagined one would be necessary as opening the door there would mean certain death.
The command was delayed a few seconds as the cabin adjusted to the outside pressure, and then the door quietly slid open.
He staggered back as sunlight flooded the small capsule. To his eyes, so sensitive after more than eight months of utter darkness, the light was blinding.
But as his eyes adjusted to the glare, the colors outside came into focus. He stepped through the opening and the first thing he noticed was the sky, which was a brilliant azure blue. Around the capsule was a lush forest, filled with wild, alien flora. The strangely shaped leaves of the plants and trees were all shades of green and purple, and vividly colored red and yellow flowers dotted the forest floor.
The explosion of color was a shock to his senses. The bleak colors of Earth were nothing compared to the wild palette of the alien landscape before him.
He knew there was life in this forest, he could hear it. Insects buzzed through the trees and winged creatures, similar in size and shape to the birds on Earth, flew overhead. He wished he could have compared it to a wild forest back home, but the only ones he'd ever seen had been sealed for their protection in terra-domes.
Climbing down from the capsule, he took his first step on the alien planet. The ship's sensors had already confirmed the temperature, radiation and atmosphere were all acceptable; now he had to find the most important thing -- simple, beautiful and oh-so-precious water.
He knew it had to be here. He refused to believe that a forest as spectacular as this one could grow without it. He just had to find it. He turned around, wondering which direction to head in. There were no remote sensors on the ship, nothing he could take with him to help look for water.
The craft had been designed for one purpose, to find a HET class planet, and he was the guinea pig, the canary in the coal mine that would explore the planet. If he survived, the sensors in his suit would send a signal back to the ship, the ship would return through the wormhole -- with or without him -- and a pulse signal would be sent to Earth, letting them know a habitable planet had been discovered.
But the green light had never turned on. The craft's landing systems must have automatically activated as soon as its sensors detected that it had entered an atmosphere. But as far as the ship was concerned, its navigation system operating off the information provided by the star charts, it was still drifting through outer space.
