X was alone. If he didn’t like it, he would’ve never become a wanderer. He told himself the stars that litter the empty space around him are enough company. Someone lucky enough to be able to explore galaxies as a job should never long for anything more than what he has. People back home would constantly tell X how much they wished they could be wanderers like him- the children would confide in him, telling him about their aspirations of space travel, and he would always tell them to follow their dreams. Despite this, X could recall the waves of sadness he felt every time his boss gave him a new assignment. He could remind himself how grateful he should be, but he could never stop yearning for someone to understand him. In the end, it didn’t matter- he can push those thoughts out with the awe that comes with space travel.
This month’s job was an average search-and-survey mission to a system a few lightyears away. The core of Planet 4 had registered as overactive since last week, and Destrike was getting worried about their cobalt mines. All X had to do was visit the planet, get close to the core, and plant a dampening spike, giving Destrike access to restabilization tools. It was no different than X’s trip to Post-Jupiter last year. According to his files, Planet 4 was a Venus-sized body covered in basalt- its sulfur rich atmosphere reportedly prevented the birth of life on its surface. While dense overall, its mantle was abnormally light due to the extensive cave systems present almost as deep as its core. This made X’s job easier, as there was no need to dig a pit for the dampening spike. All he had to do was find a fissure in the caves.
The moment X’s ship broke through the thermosphere, he collected an atmospheric sample. It took only a few seconds for the ship to finish its analysis, spitting out a Destrike survey form into X’s lap. 93% Sulfur dioxide, 3.4% Cobalt, just like the file. The 3.6% discrepancy was to be expected- X’s spectroscope was bought used, after all. Landing softly in the middle of a large plateau, Planet 4’s surface was calm. X stopped for a moment to look out upon the empty planes of jutting rocks. X was alone. If he wasn’t okay with that, he would’ve never become a wanderer. Once his ship’s computer had adequately mapped out the cave next to him, X exited, stepping down onto the barren wastes he would be spending the next few days on. As X descended through the winding cave tunnels, he felt the air shift, becoming colder, less dense, and changing from a clear sheen to a pale yellow. It smelt something like a mix of bleach and chlorine, reminding him of the eerily pasteurized halls of WNDR headquarters. It was awful. He wanted to get it over with as fast as he could.
Picking up the pace, X went deeper- 2,000 feet, 4,000 feet, 6,000 feet- and the smell got even stronger. 8,000 feet, 10,000 feet, 12,000 feet- he thought he could hear the voice of his younger sister, but X was alone, so the gas must be getting to him. At 13,654 feet, he finally found the fissure. It was small, but identifiable by a soft glow emitted alongside the yellow gas that filled the caves. As he prepared to place the dampening spike, he became distracted by the fissure. It hummed with a frequency that made X feel comfortable, like a lullaby soothing him back to infancy. His hand slowly hovered towards the fissure, drawn to its warm embrace. Finally, he touched it. An energy coursed through X’s veins, shooting him back and paralyzing him for a second.
Before he was able to realize what had happened, he began to feel himself leaving his own body. He was whisked away from his physical form and began rising upward. He ascended past the fissure, past the tunnels, and past the atmosphere before finally stopping a few hundred miles above the surface. He gazed upon the planet’s craters, its mountain ranges, and its valleys. Every divot on the surface of this great rock suddenly became beautiful to X. Nothing about Planet 4 had changed, but everything about X did. Staring deep into the boundless surface of Planet 4, X felt it stare back. He descended from the sky, feeling its warm embrace in the gaseous particles that surrounded him. Suddenly, X was back in his body. He felt whole. As he came to his senses, he saw that he was no longer in its cavernous mantle, but its core, beneath the fissure he found. Before him lay a ball of molten potassium, constantly shifting in form, covered entirely with the yellow gas he found exiting the fissure. As he admired its intricacy, he came to the realization that it was not a mere planet: they were alive, and they were Planet 4.
“You are beautiful.”
X did not respond. He froze in place, unable to shift his gaze away from the beauty he saw.
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
X wasn’t sure how to respond. It was the first voice he had heard since his boss sent him away, and it was complimenting him. “Thank you.” he said shakily, suppressing the love poetry that he had already written for them in his head.
“Are you one of the machines sent here to dig up my flesh?” the planet asked X. X shook his head- this made sense. He may have moved like the machines, but something within him was different. He had a cave system within him full of fluid, just like them. His damaged skin and faded scars mirrored the wounds they bore from shifting plates and meteorites. Most beautiful of all, a drum played from deep inside his flesh, pumping energy throughout his body. The planet could understand him.
“I think I am in love with you.” said X in a semi-conscious fit of passion.
“You think a lot of things. It hurts you often.” the planet replied. They saw this fact in the machinations of X’s brain- the planet could tell exactly how he felt based on the electrical currents running through him. “You are sick. Something is wrong with you. Why did you come here, alone, instead of getting help?”
X was shocked by what they said. He never said anything about his feelings- they just knew. It made him feel, for once in his life, seen. He knew what they said was true, but denied it anyway.
“I’m fine. I came here because I’m okay being alone. I have myself.” X said.
“Do you? It seems like, out of everything in your grasp, your self is the only thing you lack. You desire connection, yet run from every instance of it.”
X felt his eyes begin to water. The last time he cried was when he left his parents for his first assignment. He tried to articulate how he felt, the painful adoration he held towards the planet, but he lacked the words to do so. For every elaborate quatrain about Planet 4’s intricate beauty in X’s mind, an unintelligible jumble of noises and breaths came out. “I think you are me.” he declared.
“I only see you. I will always be me, and you will always be you. It is because I understand you that you believe us to be the same.” The planet lifted X from his feet, bringing him closer to the amalgamation of metal and gas. X looked deep within them and saw intricate rivers of metal shifting and swapping places with the gas. He may not have been able to comprehend the orb, but he saw beauty in it. It was unlike anything he had ever felt on his travels. X was not alone. He was connected to something. For once, he did not want to wander. He saw himself staying here, slowly becoming closer and closer with the planet. He was happy with them.
“I don’t want to leave here. You’re the only thing I could ever need. I want you to know things about me I don’t know about myself. I want you to understand every aspect of me so deeply that I need not speak. We could just exist together.” X professed to them. As he spoke, his eyes continued watering, and became bloodshot. He could have continued describing everything he felt about them, but his lungs began contracting. It became harder to speak. Something was terribly wrong about these tunnels. He pulled out a personal spectrometer and hastily collected a sample of the gas that orbited the core. The screen flashed with the results: 19F. The yellowish gas that the tunnels of Planet 4 were filled with was fluorine.
X began sweating, looking back on the dampening spike he brought with him. “You’re distressed. What’s wrong?” the planet asked X. X did not respond. He watched as the core continued spewing fluorine, understanding that any of this gas reaching the surface would ignite the sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere and destroy the planet.
“You’re still with me, right?”
“Yes.” the planet replied. “I want you to tell me what you are thinking.”
X looked away from the core. “I’m thinking about you.” X was not lying. The only thing on his mind was them. “I’m thinking about all the things I want to talk to you about.”
“We will talk about all of them.”
X picked the dampening spike up from off the ground, and walked towards the core. “I’m thinking about how much I want to explore you”
“You have seen only a fraction of my surface. I cannot wait to show you who I am.”
X placed the dampening spike on the core. “I’m thinking about how much I love you.”
“I love you too. You amaze me. But, you are still distressed. Please, tell me what you’re feeling- what you’re thinking.”
“I will.” X said, prepping the spike for deployment. “I will tell you everything.”
“You can tell me everything. I will listen. I will be there for you.” the core said, embracing X in their core.
“I love you.”
X activated the spike, stabilizing the core and extracting all remaining fluorine from the planet’s veins. Suddenly, Planet 4 was a wasteland again. There was no warmth, and Destrike paid X for a job well done. X boarded his ship and went on to the next mission.
X was alone. He didn’t like it, but he was a wanderer.