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Before he had time to think, Jason found himself jogging down a long hallway behind Bellum and the professor. Emergency lights flickered overhead. Another shotgun blast blew open the door at the far end of the corridor, and in the confined space, the report was deafening. Bellum’s shot had hit the lock and handle, blowing a hole six inches in diameter in the door. He had to be using some kind of solid shot, like a bear slug rather than regular shotgun shells.

Without the main power, the inside of the vast dome looked hauntingly empty. A single spotlight overhead illuminated the UFO. Jason stepped through the door and got his first good look at the craft. He was overcome by the sheer size of the interstellar alien machine.

From where he was standing, the UFO looked roughly circular, like the classic shape of a flying saucer from the 1950s, but it was pitch black rather than silver in color. A series of permanent scaffolds had been erected around the craft, allowing workers to move above and around or below the massive vessel without touching it. It looked as though the UFO was resting on some kind of small base under its center, with the bulk of the disk suspended in the air.

The walkways were extensive and allowed access at distances anywhere from a few feet to a few inches of the dark skin of the interstellar vehicle. The craft was covered in graffiti. At least it looked like graffiti at first glance, but these were the calculations scattered around the vessel. They were drawn at hasty angles. Some of them were incomplete. Most of them were overlapped by some other formula.

Lily gasped.

“There’s no time for sightseeing,” Lachlan yelled. “We’ve got to be in and out in five minutes!”

Lachlan ignored the craft, jogging over to one of the split floors that surrounded the UFO. He had a battery powered screwdriver and began the task of disconnecting the many computers. He tossed hard drives in a backpack and then jogged further along the floor. Jason could see he was skipping stations, trying to strip out at least one computer from each section.

Jason shed his fire helmet and heavy jacket, standing there in a t-shirt, bunker pants, and oversized rubber boots. They were far too heavy to drag around, so he shimmied out of them, leaving them crumpled on the floor.

“You’ll need these when we leave,” Lily said, turning to him.

“You don’t understand,” Jason replied, gesturing to the craft. “Can’t you see it? None of us will leave this place. We won’t make it out of here alive!”

Lily looked at where Jason had pointed. He was staring at several phrases carved into the side of the vehicle.

Why? Why? Why?

Why keep coming?

Only death awaits

Jason bent down and grabbed a small hand ax that had been hanging from the belt of his coveralls.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

The ax had a blade on one side, a pick on the other. Jason turned the ax around and rested the pick in the O of Only. The blade fit perfectly. Slowly, he traced the word Only.

“Jason,” Lily cried. “We don’t have time for this!”

“On the contrary,” Jason replied, speaking in a calm voice. “We have a time machine. We have all the time in the universe.”

He rested his hand on the side of the vessel as he traced the word death with the ax pick, thinking about the implications of the word and the style of writing. With his hand on the skin of the alien craft, a long, low growl reverberated through the air, like the sound of an animal in distress.

The UFO shook.

“She’s alive,” Jason said.

“That’s impossible,” Lily replied. “This is a machine!”

“I thought so too,” he said. “But she’s not. She responded to my touch.”

Jason stroked the hide of the massive beast, feeling the hard exterior soften in response to his touch. What had looked like a stone surface had a texture similar to leather. Jason thought the hide resembled that of an elephant, thick and impenetrable.

“Come on,” he cried, running along the scaffolding, feeling the metal walkway vibrating beneath his bare feet.

As he ran, he tried to keep contact with the creature. His fingers trailed over the thick hide, skimming over the scars of various calculations and formulas.

“They’re telling a story,” he said, “the equations,” lifting his hand every ten feet to dodge the scaffold support poles, always returning to the UFO.

The scaffolding wasn’t level, at some points forcing him higher, dropping down lower at others as he jogged around the massive living vessel. The UFO seemed to breathe, expanding as the chest of a man would when inhaling deeply.

Lachlan had seen the craft respond to Jason and ran over to join them.

“What is it? What’s happening?”

“She’s alive!” Jason yelled in excitement. He stopped, looking at the formulas and words before him. For the first time, Jason could see the etchings as a continuous whole rather than a disjointed mess, and he understood what he was looking at.

“These markings,” he cried. “They’re here for us. They’re meant for us, so we would understand.”