Arafura

Cold. So Cold. So very very hopelessly cold. He turned and tossed and struggled to find somewhere warm, groping around in an enveloping darkness. Why was it so cold? Then the noise. He didn't notice it at first, but there it was: a click-clicking that he couldn't quite source until he felt pain in his mouth. Teeth. Teeth are in mouths. So... his teeth were chattering?

With a force of will, he clamped his mouth shut and tried to remember who he was. Adrian. Brother of Hadrian. Hadrian is...

He pushed the thought away before it could consume him. He needed his wits about him if he was to get himself out of this mess. As Adrian continued to grope around, however, a massive sheet of light burned the darkness away into nothing. It was the same featureless room Adrian had been in before. Before, when the robot tested him and there was a... thing. Yes, Adrian decided, a thing. A particularly fuzzy thing. Quite like... the one... in front of him...

A hulking figure that seemed to be covered in veins of shimmering quicksilver. It's form was so alien that it was incomprehensible to him. It was twice as broad as a human and one and a half times as tall, but looked humanoid in form. Weird spikes and shelves and plates jutted and protruded from different sections of it and a dull blue light shone from a horizontal slit in what looked like the head.

Then it spoke.

Adrian didn't consider himself a linguistics expert by any measure, but he could have sworn that the figure was speaking German.

“Huh?” he said. A click and a whirr. It changed to Chinese.
“I don't understand what you're saying.” A click and a whirr.
“How about this speech-pattern? It seems to match with yours perfectly,” it spoke evenly and fluently. Adrian gaped. The words were without accent or the barest trace of emotion, but spoken with perfect clarity and sounded almost... musical. The sound of its speech made him feel uneasy. He looked down at his fingers and saw they were red with a faint hint of blue.
“I'm really cold,” he managed.
“I am sorry. I was unaware of what temperature you are accustomed to. How about this.”
Almost instantly the room became a much warmer in a flush of heat and Adrian felt quite comfortable.
“Much better, thank you.”
“I am glad.”
The thing didn't seem to have a face to show emotions, so he couldn't tell if that was really the case or not.

“Err I hope you don't mind me asking, but WHAT are you?” The thing tilted its head slightly to the left.
“The name of my species in unpronounceable to you.” A moment of silence.
“What should I call you then?”
“Call me Arcturus.”
“What?”
“Arcturus.”
“Why that name?”
“It is the name that your race has given to the star I was born around.”
“But Arcturus is a human system!”
“Curious, is it not?”

Adrian fell silent at that. An alien born in human space? That seems far fetched. This 'Arcturus' was more likely some sort of high-class techno-privateer.

“And why have you abducted me, Arcturus?”
“I did not abduct you.”
“Why did your PEOPLE abduct me?”
“My people did not abduct you.” Adrian breathed out sharply through his teeth.
“Then WHO abducted me?”
“No body abducted you.”
“THEN WHAT HAPPENED?!”
“No need to shout,” Arcturus said unflinchingly, “You were rescued from one of the indigenous life-forms of the planet you have dubbed Arafura. Unfortunately almost everyone else was killed.” A faint spark of hope sparked in Adrian's chest and his head shot up sharply. Before he could say anything, however, Arcturus spoke again.
“Your twin was not one of them.” Adrian's head sunk again.
“Come with me, young one and I shall take you to the others.”

Adrian stood up, realising for the first time that he was clothed in some sort of strange woven fabric. 'Weirder things than that do deal with right now,' he reasoned. He followed Arcturus out of the strange hidden door in his room and into an almost equally featureless hallway, lined by doors on the same side as the one they exited. At each door was a vision port that presumably allowed an observer to see inside the room. Adrian was too short to see, but without a word a small mechanism clicked in the door and a mechanised arm extended with a periscope towards Adrian's eyes. Lofun was lying in the room on the surgical table, connected to a wide array of tubing and being operated on by a strange medical hub similar to the one that had done so for himself. The next few rooms also contained members of the task force that had survived, all in various stages of recovery and in various states of injury.

“I was uncertain of the medical needs of your species and so I made a few mistakes before I was able to get the nutrient and anaesthetic mixes right,” came the eerie voice.
“Mistakes?”
“None that were fatal. Some worsened the conditions of your comrades, but they are unlikely to die.”

This was all a lot to take in for Adrian. It was like Arafura had been spun around several times and those that had held on had woken up in a strange dream. What a weird notion. He shook his head.

“I know that you have a lot of questions and I will answer all that I deem appropriate at the present time.”
“What happened after the monster attacked us?”
“Animal, not monster. The creature killed a great deal many of your group before we were able to take note and intervene. The shots attracted us to your presence and we were regrettably forced to slay the animal that beset you in order to save your lives.”
“Regrettably? What in hell does that mean.”
“It means-”
“I know what the word itself means! But why did you regret killing that thing?”
“All life is sacred to my people, in all its forms,” Adrian opened his mouth to object but Arcturus continued to speak, “It is unlikely that you will ever quite understand why, so for now you should simply accept.”
“I... okay.” There were a few minutes of silence in which Arcturus impassively seemed to stare through the vision port of the last medical chamber they had come upon.
“Where are we?”
“An excellent question. We still on Arafura.”
“But... we found no traces of sentient life on the planet...”
“We're not foolish enough to forego stealth for that which we would prefer to remain free of interference.”
“Err but why do you need to hide this... facility?”
“Primarily from less-advanced civilisations like yourselves, but also from indigenous life-forms, to a lesser extent. Here, let me show you what we are doing here.”

Arcturus lead Adrian through a few equally featureless corridors and, eventually through a door into a small dome-shaped room.
“What you see might shock or awe you, but do not fear. We are perfectly safe in here.” With an almost inaudible click, the dome faded into transparency on all sides.

Adrian's jaw dropped so low he thought he must have dislocated it.