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Something in the air felt different as Brooks went back outside.
It could not be colder; his old home was already just as cold as the surrounding air, and the wind made no difference within his weather suit.
But it was changed all the same, and he uneasily put his hand where his sidearm would have been on a normal excursion.
It was not there, of course. He was on Earth, the homeworld, and there was no native life that could be a threat to him.
Yet he felt a danger. All his senses were on alert as he moved back towards the crawler.
He had walked almost out of town, he could see his vehicle, when the strange man came out from behind a building.
He walked out, between Brooks and his crawler, and stopped, staring at him.
He was nondescript; tanned skin, dark hair, brown eyes. Rather short, and his clothes extremely plain.
And he wasn’t even wearing a weather suit.
Brooks continued to approach. The man was making no overt signs of threat yet, but his senses screamed that something was terribly wrong.
“Hello,” he said cautiously.
The man said nothing, only watching him with unblinking eyes. Even when the wind whipped towards him, he made no move, neither swaying nor blinking.
Brooks’s unease suddenly made sense, and he understood.
“You are a Shoggoth, aren’t you?” he asked.
The being only continued to watch him, and he was about to speak again when it finally talked.
“You are Brooks,” he said. He sounded human, save for a subtle timbre that made a shiver go down Brooks’s spine.
“I am,” he replied, though it had not been a question.
The man turned. “Come,” he said.
He could ignore the being and continue to his crawler. Something inside told him that he probably should – but he did not.
Instead, he followed the Shoggoth.
The being said nothing, never even looking back at him, and having no difficulty with snow or climbing. When Brooks fell behind, the Shoggoth stopped and waited with seemingly infinite patience.
They walked towards the foothills. There was no way they could go that far, Brooks knew they were many miles away. But as they walked further, he began to wonder.
They’d been walking over an hour, and he’d had very little information to go on. He silently sent a signal for his crawler to navigate itself to his location. He couldn’t do that in the town – a half-buried building could have collapsed under it, trapping his only transport.
The flatness of the immediate environs was broken as the Shoggoth ahead of him turned suddenly, and began to disappear under the snow.
As Brooks caught up, he saw that the being was walking down into a crevasse.
It was raw stone, all its harsh edges worn down by ice over the millenia. It went down at a slow angle for ten meters, dropping only just under the surface, then veered off to the right. A chasm above opened it to the air which he had been unable to see before.
He began to follow the being down. The ramp was shallow, but slick, and he realized that it was not rock, but dense, ancient ice.
Some had survived through the centuries, he’d always known, but he’d never known about this one.
His boots clamped onto the ice with spikes to help him walk, but he was quickly being left behind by the Shoggoth, who seemed entirely untroubled by the slippery surface.
“Wait,” he called.
But the Shoggoth kept going, and Brooks sped up as much as he could.
Finally reaching the bend, he went past it – and saw a crowd waiting for him.
Thirty people stood in the cool dimness of the ice ravine, their eyes all fixed upon him. Their faces were tranquil, and no two looked alike. All ages, all sizes, with skin tones and features just as varied.
They had no systems that his could recognize. Their faces were unknown to the records he had on-hand.
“Hello,” he said, feeling a tingle down his spine. A strange pressure felt like it was crushing down on him. The effect of so many of the strange beings all gathered together.
They were all Shoggoths. They had to be.
None of them spoke, and he was not sure why they were here or what they wanted.
He waited, as they waited.
A male pushed through the group, and Brooks recognized the face as Kell’s. But that didn’t mean it was him . . .
“Ambassador?” he asked.
“Captain Brooks,” the being replied with a slight nod.
“What are you doing here?” Brooks asked.
“I would ask you the same question,” Kell replied.
“I was born in Perry. I am visiting my home,” he answered.
“You might say that I am doing the same,” Kell replied. He looked up, towards the direction of the ruins of the town. “What was once your home exists near mine, it seems.”
Other Terrestrial 