Down The Hole On Planet Thwub

They had been living on that strange ice world -- Exoplanet Designation Code "T-HW1-7U0B" -- for three long, frigid months. Three months of gear destroying, signal jamming blizzards. Three months of rations. Three months of no alcohol, no sex. Three months of fruitless experiments and empty data and frostbite and failure, as the surveyors tried to make sense of a pulsing, frozen planet that seemed intent on killing them.

It was three months before they discovered all the warm, sweet secrets hidden below the ice.

And on that day, it smelt like metal in the Base's staging area. Though it was minus 10ºC, Zar Glick was cosy in her head-to-toe thermal skinsuit, an outer sweater, snow-ready canvas tactical pants, and a big thick overjacket. Going outside meant heavy gear. It meant kilometres of gruelling hiking on uneven ground. It meant a lot of annoying wellness and system checks, both leaving and returning.

But Zar was so giddy she was almost lightheaded. The Base was stale. Frustrating. She was worried she was going mad, and so she'd begged to take her bunkmate's spot on this mission. She felt a desperate urge to hit the open ice.

'You ready yet, Yon?' she asked, excited.

Yon Boing was fiddling with his overjacket zip.

'Just a second.'

'Come onnnn!'

'It's thirty below outside, Zar! What's your rush?'

'I don't know. I really don't. I think I just need to feel some air.'

'Through ten centimetres of heavy clothing, your skinsuit, and a mask? You'll barely feel it.'

She slapped the airlocked door impatiently, but he was right. Zar felt disconnected from her own skin in all this gear. Even around the base they had to wear these thick, formless woolen turtlenecks, and it was so cold they slept in small pod-bunks in heavy thermals. The only time you got to be naked was in the janky chemical shower, and even then, only for 45 seconds at a time. That's all the hot water they could spare.

'Air is air, Yon.'

He laughed and finally got the zip to catch.

'Let's go.'

They shimmied down the frozen ladder and began their hike across the ice shelf. It was a relief, for both of them, just to have their own space. They walked mostly in silence.

The twenty surveyors -- ten men, ten women -- were packed in like sardines on the Base. They'd been carefully selected. Each was heterosexual, physically fit, exceptional in all metrics of physical and mental wellbeing, genetically diverse, and highly (highly) fertile. But until they'd completed their primary goal of terraforming the planet and preparing it for colonisation, absolutely no sexual intercourse of any kind was allowed. Fraternisation outside of work duties was strictly forbidden. Even cross-gender eye contact was frowned upon. That's why their days were so regimented and their personal duties were so complex -- so that no one had the energy or the time to even think about it.

The only reason a man and a woman were allowed out on the ice together was there was no way to have sex without dying of exposure.

'Can you feel that?' Zar asked. It was the first thing either of them had said in an hour.

'Feel what?'

'Very slight tremoring. Like a mini earthquake or something.'

'Is your reader telling you?'

'No it's just... I thought... my feet.'

'Huh. That's weird.'

'It's probably just all the micro adjustments on the ice sheath, I don't think these are my boots,' Zar said quickly. She didn't want Yon to think he had the same problem as some of the other women. He could cancel the hike and send her to the Med Bay for a bunch of pointless scans. 'If I concentrate, it goes away. All good!'

Zar laughed it off, and distracted Yon with talk about spectrographic readouts. Male surveyors could always be distracted by data. She didn't want him thinking about how now five of the women had reported strange illnesses. Inner ear things. A pulsing in their abdomen. Light headedness. Dreams.

It was something to do with the planet, they were sure of it. The surveyors had been sent to the inhospitable iceworld T-HW1-7U0B because it seemed to have a heart beat. Regular radiation spikes. Symmetrical weather events. Blizzards twisting in frantic synchronicity. Its two moons were bright and close, and exerted a steady heaving pull over the world's freezing seas.

The women at the base had started calling it Planet Thwub. And it was infecting them one by one.

That's why Zar thought she was going mad. She felt an inexplicable, pounding craziness awakening inside of her. It was interrupting her sleep schedule. It filled her with fire. Late at night, when her bunkmate was snoring soundly, and the evening blizzards howled against the Base walls, she'd toss and turn in a furious sweat. The only way she'd found to fix it was to stick her hand inside her thermals and rub. Quick. Hard. Quietly, but heavily, and urgently, until she slammed into a hot, shuddering orgasm and could finally drift off.

'Quite beautiful in the morning, isn't it?' Yon asked.

'Oh, yes.'

'The way this sun catches in the ice is very unique.'

'Like a sea of crystals.'

'Lovely, Zar. That's it exactly.'

'What do you think it smells like?' she asked. They were waddling together in their heavy suits, taking their sweet, frozen time. The forecast was clear and the sky was a rare bluish green.

'Smell? What do you mean, smell?'

'A few of us think that once we clear the ice, the air will be sweet. Syrupy. That there's pink, lush grass beneath us.'

'What makes you think that?' Yon glanced at Zar. He was curious, having never thought of this planet as anything other than one big snow storm.

This was why he enjoyed spending time with Zar, and always tried to chit chat with her in their overlapping lab times. She had a brightness about her. And a very interesting face. Silky black hair. And one time he'd seen her pull down her turtleneck to show the doctor her thyroid glands, revealing a neck that was a long, lovely brown--but no, he shouldn't...

'I had a dream, actually,' she said, laughing.

'A dream! How amazing. And the other women too?'

'Yes. We all dreamed the smell.'

'Really? What else did you see?'

'Oh no,' Zar said quietly. 'That was it.'

For the first time since landing on this planet, Zar was grateful for all the gear. She was blushing. Because every woman who'd had the dream had seen the same thing -- they'd whispered about over the months, in their bunks, when the storm was at its loudest in case the men might overhear.

Pink grass. Sweet air. Warm sun. And the surveyors all lying there together, in blissful pairs, totally and completely naked.

And Zar blushed because she could picture, with shocking clarity, with his actual smell attached, a stark naked Yon. He was quite dashing. His olive skin. His easy smile. His dark chest hair, which thinned and twisted its way down his muscular abdomen towards his groin. His penis, soft and thick and coiled. Waiting.

The earth rumbled beneath her feet again, softly, steadily trembling up her feet and into her guts -- she felt a wicked desire to make Yon's penis grow. For it to harden as she watched.

Hours later, they finished their work up and looked to the sky. Zar saw a monster blizzard forming on the horizon. It whipped and pulsed. The movement, the urgent frantic feeling of it, was strangely familiar.

'Uh oh. I think that's coming our way, Yon.'

'You're right. Let's get going.'

They'd barely made it halfway back to Base before the edge of the storm was upon them; it moved with whizzing white violence. Visibility became next to nothing. They had to waddle arm in arm so they didn't get lost, Zar directing them with a tactile compass in her overjacket pocket.

Then suddenly they were caught in what seemed like the blizzard's small, surreal eye. Apparently blizzards had eyes on Planet Thwub. One moment they were battered by gale force winds, and the next Zar and Yon felt like they were standing in a snow globe. A swirling white haze twisted around them, and coursed with a flowing, pulsing rhythm that made the blizzard seem alive.

'Look!' Yon yelled.

Zar didn't need to look. She somehow knew, as if she'd always known, what it would be. A circular break in the ice shelf, round and narrow, had opened itself up right in the middle of the strange snow globe. It looked like it had been cut with a laser, but there wasn't anything at the Base that could have done it.

'It's... it's deep,' Zar said, kneeling over and peering down. She felt a strange lightness in her stomach.

'Come on. We have to keep going or the storm is going to be a problem. I've already got a little rip in my overjacket.'

'But--'

'Mark it on your reader, then we'll push on.'

'Wait a second, I think--'

'Zar, the eye is about to close. We have to go!'

The lightness in her stomach had resolved into a rhythm. Her own heart beat, she thought. And it beat towards the strange hole. Without even really deciding to, she crawled towards the edge of the hole and dove in.

She fell for a long time.

The hole slid her deep, deep down into the ice, then curved and eased her out into a tight, warm chamber. Yon came down behind her a few moments later. He smacked into her and they lay for an awkward moment, legs and arms all twisted together, in their heavy jackets and pants.

They were in some kind of cave.

'Zar!' Yon said, pulling her to her feet. 'Zar, are you okay? What the hell were you thinking?'

'It felt right.'

'It felt right? Are you hurt?'

Zar touched her arms, her legs, and felt that she was almost glowing with warmth and power. 'I don't remember ever feeling better in my life,' she said, with a smile of easy peace.

'Umm. Okay? I'll radio it in.'

Yon busied himself talking to Base to organise a pick up, while Zar inspected the chamber some more. It was as big as the lab on the Base, room enough for the two of them to move freely if they ducked down a bit. A halo of light from the chute was the only light source, and it took Zar's eyes a while to adjust to the cavern's dim glow.

At the far end of the chamber, there was another tunnel. Narrow. Warm.

'They'll be here in two hours,' Yon said, switching off his radio. 'Once the blizzard passes.'

'Okay.'

'I think we should stay close to the hole, and be ready to call up to the rescue squad.'

'I don't think so, Yon,' Zar said, in an airy voice. Her eyes were fixed on the new tunnel. A red warm glow seemed to leak out of it.

Zar's reader started beeping, then Yon's. 'Overheating. Shit,' he said.

'We have to take our overjackets off. The chamber must be warmer than the surface.'

'Are you crazy?'

'It's basic logic. What's the problem?' Zar unzipped her heavy, formless coat and shrugged it off her shoulders, then peeled off her sweater. When that didn't stop the beeping, she kicked off her heavy iceboots and yanked her thick utility snow pants off as well.

'Zar!' Yon cried, burying his face in his hands. 'We have a procedure! We never take our gear off in the field.'

He was furious, but his eyes were finally starting to adjust to the dim light of the cave. Zar was a kind of silhouette. A beautiful ghost. She wore only her thermal body suit -- a neck-to-toe, skin-tight black mesh made of a carbon fibre polymer that was more durable than it looked. She was leaning back to appraise the roof, and Yon followed the dark line of her body's curves from her chin, to her chest, to her stomach, to her ass, and all the way down her long wonderful legs.

'Oh god,' he whispered. Yon knew he was probably overheating, but looking at Zar made him fear he'd entered a full blown heat-induced hallucination.

He'd been working hard and seriously for three months. He'd kept his head down. He'd kept his mind clear and focused -- all the men agreed, whispering in their bunks late at night, that was the only way to do it. Forget they were even women. Forget you were a man.

The beeping on his reader went up a level, and he gulped. He disrobed awkwardly but fast, right down to his skinsuit. They lay their overjackets and heavy ice pants by the entrance to the chamber.

It was too dark to know, but he felt like Zar was watching him. Fascinated by him. Like she might have been studying the lines of his silhouette as well. Could she see his shape of his penis? The way it was cautiously, ever so slightly, getting harder?

Yon shook his head at this wishful thinking. Forget she is a woman, he thought. Forget you are a man.

'We've got a few hours, right?' Zar said. 'Might as well explore.'

'Explore what?' Yon said. He hadn't seen the tunnel yet.

'In here!'

'Wait, are you sure we should--'

But once again Zar Glick had launched herself into a strange alien tunnel with a sense of throbbing urgency. Yon felt he had no choice to follow. It was against procedure to split up, and he was curious.

Plus, he'd get a close look at her ass in the skinsuit.

They had to crawl, and it was snug, but the further they went into the tunnel, the lighter it became. It must have gone on for a hundred metres. The walls were actually warm to the touch -- not ice at all, but a kind of smooth white rock. Every now and then pink veins burst in the walls around them, which they stopped to inspect, getting very close to each other. Yon became extremely aware of Zar's body heat. Zar kept getting whiffs of his smell -- earthy, grassy. But the surveyors did their best to keep the conversation high-level and scientific.

The tunnel was lined with occasional crystals, which seemed to glisten and pulse in a slow rhythm. As if they were breathing. The passageway finally opened up into another chamber -- bigger this time, and warmer. The walls were lined with humungous, and very strong blue leaves, stemming from one of the strangest rocks they'd ever seen on the far wall of the room.

'Is that... life?' Yon asked. They looked a bit funny, but they certainly seemed to be... well.. leaves! Three months they'd been on this planet, without the faintest sign of an amoeba. 'Complicated, multicellular life?'

'Oh my god,' Zar whispered, ecstatic.

The surveyors looked at each other with tears in their eyes, and pulled together in a quick, tight hug that seemed to set off both of their readers again.

'Shit. Overheating again!' Yon said. 'We should head back.'

Zar couldn't speak. She could only shake her head. Her eyes had been caught by the stone-stem, where the leaf roots all met. It was hypnotising. She could see it was moving. Feel its heat.

'Zar? I know it sucks, but it's too dangerous to be in here in our skinsuits. We'll come back with the rescue crew.'

The stone was golden. It was in fact iridescent -- Zar noticed how it was casting the whole room in a gentle light, bright enough to see if you really looked. A sense of warmth had spread over the top of her head and began to gently ooze down like a shining, cleansing wave. It cleared her mind. It cleared her sinuses. The warmth lingered, pulled on her bottom lip. Sent tingles into her mouth.

What was going on?

The waves of warmth now crashed into Zar's neck. Flushed her cheeks. Made her feel giddy and light as it licked at the cuff of her skinsuit, begging to get to her throat.

Unthinking, she reached for the zipper on the back of her skinsuit.

'Woah, Zar!' Yon said, trying to grab her arm from behind. 'Wait, anything could happen without the suits on! What are you doing?'

She fought him off and peeled down the black mesh -- wriggling her shoulders out, then ripping her arms out, and then folding it down to her waist so quickly that her full, heavy breasts tumbled out and bounced. She was transfixed by the stone. It was talking to her, in a way. Through vibrations in the air.

'Oh, shit. Okay.' Yon turned away in frustration, slapping a hand against the wall. 'I'm hot too but we can't just abandon protocols, Zar!'

But she couldn't hear him. The warmth from the stone had pooled at her neck and, now released, it streamed slowly down her chest. Wave after wave of tingling energy. It reached her breasts. Circled her brown nipples. Squeezed deep, and squeezed long. Licked the nipple tip. She was too hypnotised to moan, but felt something incredibly warm and vast was vibrating into her bloodstream.

Zar knew -- just like she'd known there would be a hole in the ice, and she'd known what Yon's naked body looked like -- that an immense and serious pleasure awaited her if she was careful, if she was smart. If she didn't scare Yon away back up the tunnel.

She shook her head to focus, and tried to make her voice as neutral as possible.

'I apologise for the nudity,' she said. 'I was overheating, and couldn't think straight. Thank you for looking away.'

'That's okay. We should probably get out of here, though. I'm overheating too.'

'The air is very temperate. It's actually fresh. My sensors aren't detecting any abnormalities -- to be honest, Yon, it's the cleanest, purest air I've felt since we've been on this planet. It must be exactly body temperature.'

'Jesus, 39 above? I'll get heat stroke!'

'So peel your suit down.'

'What?'

'We're scientists. It's okay.'

'But we're not supposed to ever take off our--'

'We're on an alien planet to look for alien life, and we've just found it. Look. Look! Look at the walls, Yon! Look at these leaves. Now look at me.' The surveyors locked eyes. Yon's seemed to almost quiver, trying to stay fixed on Zar's -- her steely gaze was only narrowly more captivating than the idea of her naked breasts below. 'We need to stay. Reason it out if you must.'

Yon did. He was hot. Stressed. But excited -- very, very, scientifically and personally excited by both the alien plant life and the half-naked woman in the cavern. He sighed and peeled the back of his suit down to the waist. The air was indeed very temperate, almost sweet. After so many months in so many layers, it was a joy to be in fresh air.

They laughed together sheepishly, then as if by mutual agreement, went their separate ways. Yon bounced around the chamber. He was the mission's botanist, and was soon entirely consumed by the leaves and their filaments and their tensile strength. They grew out of the wall almost like platforms, benches.

Zar, though, was still. The mysterious warm feeling had wound its way into her belly. It filled her stomach with honey, with peace and glowing bliss. The waves had started to crash and pool around her waist, eager to slip down into her deepest, warmest parts.

'Yon?' she said. It was hard to keep her voice level.

'Hmm?'

'We'll sweat through the suits if we don't take them all the way off.'

It took serious force of will for him to break his concentration on the big blue leaves. He thought Zar had maybe said something that was important to some other, deeper part of him -- but he got confused trying to think that that might be.

'What was that?' he said, not able to prise his eyes away from the walls.

'The suits. We have to take them off.'

'Oh. Do we?' He tried to follow her logic. The suits were designed to regulate for temperatures below freezing, and weren't designed for humidity or moisture. Within a few minutes of sweat they'd irreparably damage the fibres. Also, his leg hair was getting jealous of his chest hair. Zar had a point. 'You're right. I won't look.'

Zar could barely speak as she tugged at the bottom part of her skinsuit. Yon desperately wanted to get back to the leaf he'd been looking at. They stood back to back, completely naked -- so close to touching that Zar wanted to scream, to turn and grab and rip and fuck... but no. She knew she had to be patient. She knew she had to let him settle in.

And besides, the stone was calling to her. It took a real effort to think about anything else. The warm waves lashed at her vagina now. Slow, warm, humming licks. Wave after wave of it. And then on down her slick thighs, the backs of her knees. It pooled at her feet and tingled.