It was dawn, and annoyingly, the doctor had been the first to awaken. When he attempted for the first time to leave the clinic, his plans had been foiled by a simple 'good morning.' Dr. Tausidi made her presence very much known in the following hours. The second time he attempted to leave the clinic, Auburn kindly called him over to his cot to chat. The third time he went for the exit, a visit stopped him from Peterson of all people. Was it Visit Algodon Day? He had never felt so popular.
He wondered if all these friendly visits were all Tomak's doing, if he were cunning enough to organize it. He asked himself who would stop him if he were just to walk out the front door? Then he remembered how easily the Exterminators took down the Arcanid Queen. If these people had such skilled bug catchers, he could only imagine how skilled their real warriors would be. And so he sat on the chair he had come to claim; the only one that could hold his weight.
No matter, he would puzzle this out. The doctor would surely be busy elsewhere and Auburn would doze off soon enough. He just had to be patient.
–
Night had fallen once more, but Dr. Tausidi still wasn't asleep; she had stayed up to tend to Auburn's vitals. It was routine, he observed. Every few hours she would come in, take some scans, some blood, and other basic tests to see how the man was. He had gotten accustomed to his thoughts being interrupted by an incessant beeping noise sounding from across the room which was likely a monitor of some sort for whatever medication Auburn was on. Auburn too, had a pattern. He would be awake for a few hours, chat with the doctor, then after a few rounds of his medication, grow weary and fall asleep. It was amazing how lying around recovering took the life of a man. Algodon was also weary from standing in his resonance chamber.
He was essentially all patched up, and after his experience with the obelisk imprint and a few hours of recovery, he felt like a newly polished gem. All he was left with was the lingering anxiety. He needed to do something. He had studied the holo-data until he had memorized it. He could probably teach a class on the local Catlani Sphinxes that populated the polar region, with how thoroughly he read the core data and its subsequent articles.
Reading wasn't enough for his busy mind, but luckily, this was the most opportune time for him to leave the clinic with its occupants unaware. He busied himself making a realistic holo-projection of his make, accounting for the recent changes to his physique, and planted it in the resonance chamber to go off as soon as he left the immediate vicinity. It was easy enough to fool other races with how much he was required to stay inside recovering, especially with the recent incident. Dr. Tausidi would be making her rounds in a few minutes, which allowed him to stay situated, feigning meditation. Just as predicted, a few minutes later, Dr. Tausidi came in, gave his resonance chamber a once-over, then went to Auburn, who was resting on his cot, to do her routine.
Ten minutes, he thought. Just ten more minutes and I can be gone.
They passed. Dr. Tausidi did not linger, Auburn did not stir. He moved. Some say the gemenidi are slow moving people, being sentient rocks and whatnot, but Algodon moved swifter than any reptilian on the desert sands or amphopos in the water. He made his way down the hall through the corridor just following Dr. Tausidi's pace so the doors would not close. Evening his steps he turned the corner toward the exit breaking off from following Dr. Tausidi. It was at this moment that was vital. Dr. Tausidi at once could turn around, see him sneaking about, or the door to the front could open when the doctor was too near signaling his escape. He waited for a moment to let the doctor walk left into her office, then he went to the right toward the front exit. He just hoped it wasn't locked or alarmed, but he had observed some time ago this was a clinic open at all hours.
He walked through the front door, and did not wait to hear if there were alarms. He had to move, time was running out. He paced himself accordingly to how much time it would take to leave the town and enter into the outskirts and figured it would be three local hours to the site. It would be much quicker if he had some sort of land vehicle, and contemplated taking one for himself but thought better of it. Surely those would be tracked, and he didn't want to arouse more suspicion.
His holo of himself would last as long as Dr. Tausidi didn't look too deeply inside the resonance chamber and its vitals, he had all the time he needed to be back before local sunrise. No one seemed around to protest his night stroll through the town, just as he had hoped. He passed the town square, the docks, the lake, and continued forward. With purpose and a new found passion did Algodon pursue his path toward the obelisk.
–
It was just short of three hours later, Algodon found himself staring at the crashed pod which signaled his journey on Helix-One and he couldn't help but feel a tad nostalgic at the irony.
He began his quest here, it was fitting somehow it should end here. He began working on the scanner unit with some supplies that he had snatched before leaving the town. He found stashed tools in a lower compartment that were still good despite some of them being bent. He was in luck. The scanner on board seemed to only suffer minor damage and with his salvaged parts he was able to get it up and running once more. The communication hub was still in bad shape, however. He couldn't contact any of his crew members if he wanted to.
What matters is the prize, he thought. He opened up his scanner and entered the parameters. After a few moments the scanner compiled a list of unique sites, he narrowed the search further. There appeared to be an anomaly on the screen. He copied the data and began his trek toward the coordinates. To anyone the area would be a vast tundra, only ice, sand, and sea. The red star shined down on the ice making the sea look like blood. Algodon hoped that wasn't a sign of what was to come.
A few strides west, his scanner began to stutter and glitch showing errors in the data that had consistently shown standard properties of an ice planet. After a glance around he saw it. The familiar site of a cave mouth he had seen in his vision. He entered. Much like his vision he found the change in environment subtle at first. Frozen foliage appeared in the ice. Leaves and grass covered in snow slowly transitioned into a lush temperate climate.
Just a few more steps, thought Algodon. I'll have it soon enough.
He hiked through the cavern and entered into the heavy flora surrounding where he envisioned the obelisk and hacked away at the brush that got in the way. Then there in the clearing he saw it. Or he was supposed to see it.
Instead he saw a woman sitting next to two graves.