T-045 Burrower

Threshold Institute · Case file T-045

Number

T-045 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 42, month 7, day 2

Where found

On the planet, in the crater fields beyond the colony; known from the colony's survey film

Status

No specimen survived the flight back

Now

On the planet

Part

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

Containment procedures

None possible on earth: no specimen has survived the flight back. Its preserved jaws are kept in a sample case on the sealed level.

Field guidance for the planet: a buried burrower cannot be shot; a round passes over it. Watch the dust for a ripple and listen for a faint scrape. It creeps toward sound, so stand still, keep quiet, and move away from it on a curve, never in a straight line. When it bursts up, it bites once and hard; step back out of reach and shoot it while it is above the ground. It digs in again soon after it loses its prey.

Description

A segmented, many-jawed creature of the planet, about three metres long. It waits buried in the ground and creeps toward what it hears, showing only as a ripple in the dust. When its prey is a few steps away it bursts up out of the ground and bites. It lives in the open land and the colonies' yards.

Discovery

The film came home with Holm on the first flight of year 42, among the survey team's reels that she had promised to bring (T-044). It was dated by the colony's own calendar, and the Institute dates it by the day it was taken. The survey team, out with the rover in the crater fields, had filmed a ripple moving through the dust toward the rover's idling engine. A surveyor, Dana Okonkwo, walked out to look. The film shows her stop, listen, and fire at the ripple. The round passes over it. The ground opens a few steps from her boots, and the thing takes her by the leg and is gone into the dust before the others reach her.

The colony killed one a month later in its yard, packed it in a sample case and sent it home. When the case was opened at the launch site it held a grey paste and the jaws.

Addenda

Addendum T-045-1

From the survey team's notes, translated from the colony's shorthand

Written by the team's leader, Ines Varro.

It hears the rover a kilometre off. It hears a man walking at fifty metres. It does not hear a man standing still. We lost Dana because she fired. Rounds go over it while it's under. We have learnt to stop the rover's engine and wait. It goes away. We have asked the agency for walls around the yards. Fences mean nothing to a thing that comes from under them.

Addendum T-045-2

Research note by Tomas Rehn, Year 42, month 8

I have read the survey notes beside the old files of the listening field (T-023), where a team's own shots brought everything down on it. The rule is the same. A team on the planet should move as the surveyors learnt to move beyond the rift: quietly, never in a straight line toward a sound. I have asked Okafor to train the agency's next crew in it. The agency has declined; its crews are not ours.

What followed

Note: the agency sent the colony more fences. Varro's next report named a flier that crosses them (T-046).

Previous fileT-044 Alien spitterPart IV: The planet and the pollution Next fileT-046 DrifterPart IV: The planet and the pollution

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Kerstin Holm, Ines Varro and Dana Okonkwo.
• Places: The sealed level, The land beyond the rift, The launch site and The colony.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 42, month 7, day 2. Observed by the colony's survey team before the colony fell silent, on a film Kerstin Holm brought home, dated by the day it was taken: out with the rover in the crater fields beyond the colony, the team filmed a ripple moving through the dust toward the idling engine. The surveyor Dana Okonkwo walked out to look and fired at it; the round passed over it, and it took her by the leg a few steps from her boots.

A segmented, many-jawed thing that waits buried in the ground and creeps toward what it hears.

Buried, it shows only as a ripple in the dust and a faint scrape; a bullet passes over it. It bursts up when its prey is a few steps away, bites hard, and digs in again soon after it loses them.

Status: no specimen survived the flight back. It lives on the planet, in the open land and the colonies' yards.

Today it is found on the planet.

It goes down after losing 1800 ml of its 5000 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.