Imagine a lava lamp that had the power to kill the world. The green blob folded over itself, like the glass prison was too small. It had an entire glass-walled room to itself. An ink black eye in the centre. Occasionally the ribbons of its—brain matter, as far as we could tell—opened enough to show the eye. Then it disappeared again.
Sleeping, my boss said.
Thinking, said his boss.
Planning, said the military bosses, begging to try out their new weapons on it.
Dreaming.
The Growth had been the only survivor of the Hercules 12 launch. The bodies of the crew had been on board, but their minds had been left in the vast black distance between Earth and Neptune. Footage and computer readings are clear. The Growth was not on the space station, and not on the spaceship when it left for a routine supply run home.
When the ship landed it had been inside, a ball of muscle collapsed on the floor of the cockpit. Unused to gravity. We had found life, and it had destroyed a space mission, before returning to hibernation.
Dreaming.
The news was kept from the population to prevent panic. I stared at the Growth. Seaweed, swirling in its prison. Was it waking? It was moving faster.
What I really want to do is get into the liquid with it. It’s literally a space creature, unable to cope with gravity. It’s in a syrup, thick enough to counteract the pull of gravity.
I’m not allowed into the specimen jar, of course.
The eye is unreadable.
How did it kill the people on board the ship? The theory is that they saw the thing, opened the door to get it and then forgot to close the door properly. And the computer systems failed which is why there was no alarm.
Are there more of them? I think there is only one. This is part of it.
It’s been named already, but I have my own name for it.
Cthulhu.
He’s Dreaming.
