Definitely Not Cheese

The drill jammed the next day. Lenko and Novak went there to elaborate, while I stayed at the base with the commander. He didn't talk much, and when he did, it was mostly to criticize someone. He was the kind of person who wasn't satisfied no matter what you did, but deep down, he cared for us and we respected him for that.

Lenko and Novak later returned with a handful of sharp black rocks and rather surprising news.

"As we predicted, about 4 meters below the surface, there's a layer of this immensely hard black material. It is so hard in fact, that it broke the drill head, " explained Novak.

"So, do you have any idea what it is?" asked commander.

"Not yet. It might be some metastable crystalline mineral formed under high pressure. But we won't know what it is until I'll have a look at it."

The next few days were very interesting. I and Lenko spent almost all the time by replacing the drill heads. Novak was completely consumed by studying that strange material. The fact that he didn't make much progress only fueled his amazement. I was just doing some maintenance on the drill with Lenko, when the drill suddenly plummeted down the hole, almost taking us with it.

"Did you see that?" asked Lenko with confusion.

"Of course, I did you, idiot! It almost pulled me into that hole, in case you didn't notice!" I responded.

I then realized he probably didn't mean the drill and I thought that he was going to say something, but he didn't.

I looked into the hole. I pulled a glowstick out of the pocket of my suit, cracked it and dropped in into the hole. It fell into some sort of a cavity.

The rest of the team arrived shortly after, and the commander started cursing at the drill, then at us, and finally, he congratulated us to make the first major discovery on this rock. I knew what was going to happen next.

"Prepare your gear and get some sleep. We're going down there tomorrow, " said Poliakov.

When we returned to Kamchatka, Lenko insisted that he needs to service the exterior equipment. I thought that it was a bit odd, because he serviced the exterior two days prior, but our equipment breaks all the time, so I didn't consider it a big deal. I wanted to stay with him, so he wouldn't be left alone outside, but he refused with any possibility of convincing him, so I gave up on that.

He returned inside some 30 minutes after we did, anyway. However, a couple of minutes after he came back, we heard a bang from the airlock. Then another. We rushed there, and Novak took a look out of the window. He widened his eyes and scanned the outside with a blank expression on his face.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Uh, I don't know," he replied.

"Lenko, do you know what's going on? You returned last" inquired commander.

"No, I swear I have no idea what that was," he answered.

Novak continued watching the outside for a few seconds and then went back to continue his work, so we did as well.

The next day we descended down the hole. The commander went down first, and then I followed. I rappelled down some 4 meters when I reached the layer of the black material. As if it wasn't hard enough already to fit through the narrow opening with the suit on, I had to be careful not to cut the suit on the sharp jagged edges of the dark substance. I then got into a hollow section and descended some further 10 meters down, until I hit solid ground. It was pitch black, but with my headlight on, I saw that we were in a sort of cavern or dome. The walls were out of sight, but the floor was the same material as the ceiling. The drill was down there, it had collapsed down the hole when the ceiling gave way.

We waited for the rest of the team and then headed into the darkness. After a few minutes, we sighted the wall. It was made out of the same material as I expected.

"Do you have any idea what this is, Novak? asked commander.

"I can't figure it out. It's like a really tight-packed crystal, but I couldn't find out what it is made out of. It's completely inert, doesn't melt and doesn't conduct heat very well." he explained in return.

We followed the wall and circled the whole cavity until we came back to where we started. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were just this completely smooth black material. We headed back to the opening. However, on our way back, we came across another opening in the ground. There was a ramp that went down, like a spiral, and after hesitating for a while, we walked down.

We descended into another smaller cavity, where tunnels extended in four directions like crossroads. Nobody asked the obvious question. This wasn't a natural formation.

There was four of us and four tunnels. One might think we would split up to cover more ground, but again, we were soldiers, not a bunch of stupid schoolkids and so we stuck together. We walked for maybe 40 minutes. We passed several other intersections. The whole place seemed like a maze or a web of tunnels, and it would be really easy to get lost here, so each time we passed such intersection, we left a glow stick in the mouth of the tunnel we came from. The whole place was eerie and the farther we went, the more uneasy I felt. Somewhere deep in my mind, I felt that we are not supposed to be here.

We just came to maybe the tenth or eleventh intersection. We continued straight, but after a couple of steps, I noticed that Lenko wasn't by my side anymore. I turned back to see him looking into one of the side tunnels at the intersection.

"Guys stop!" I spoke to the radio. "Lenko, what is it?"

He turned to face us and said:

"I… I don't know. Guys, I don't feel well. We need to go back. Something is not right down here."

What followed happened so fast, but I felt like watching a slow-motion video. At one moment, he stood there, looking at us, but in the next moment, he was gone. Something pulled him into the tunnel.