Several hours later, Adlai watched through the window as the train pulled into a station. The train had reached its destination, a wide set building. It looked like a colossal spine, left to rot in the sands. All the passengers stepped out of the sub unsteadily, stretching sore legs, and working out cramps. Yawning, Adlai shook Averi awake, and they joined the crowd stepping off the train. Averi had removed her prosthetic to let her stub breathe, and now she was putting it back on, strapping it on the same way Adlai had taught her.

Stretching out a cramp in his calf, Adlai hopped into the open doors of the barracks. It led into a massive commons, shaped like a hexagon. At the center of each side of a hexagon was a hallway, leading to a different compartment of the building. Adlai saw signs for a mess hall, a lecture hall, a leisure hall, a gym, a lab, and a library. A man stepped into the middle of the commons. He had a full black beard with salt and pepper hair, and thick eyebrows that bunched together at the top of his head. He had broad shoulders but was slightly shorter than most men that age. Somehow, however, he filled the room with his presence, radiating cool confidence.

“My name is Erik. I’m the headmaster of this institution. Here, you will be learning to survive in hostile climates in other worlds. Your world is X-3434, a habitable planet with liquid water. You will be landing here.” The headmaster pushed a button. A massive clear sphere rose from behind him, illuminated by a projector. Another click. The sphere whooshed to life, filling with water and painting mountains until a planet was formed, filled with dry desert tones, with veins of green and purple. He pointed to a small continent, separated from the rest by what looked like canyons.

“Your instructors will be teaching you further knowledge, but your goal is simply to survive and reproduce. My goal is to allow that to happen with the fewest casualties possible. This is not a boarding school. Your life depends on what you learn. I cannot force you to learn, but I suggest you do your best. Now, I’d like to welcome you into the lecture hall.”

The group walked into the hall, hushed by the speech of the headmaster. Adlai’s head spun as he walked into the lecture hall and took a seat. A man dressed in a white coat walked in and introduced himself as their xenobiology teacher. He walked around and gave them a small paper book, something rare to see these days. The book was called,“Survival of the extremes: how to survive in the harshest places in the universe.” Many of them started flipping through the book. Adlai flipped through his own lightly worn book and set it down. The pages he leafed through had pictures of exotic locations, most unfamiliar to Adlai. The instructor patiently waited for them to stop looking through them, and started his lecture.

“You all will be landing here to provide support and supplies to a nearby science hub. They have been established there for nearly sixteen years now, thanks to two very special researchers. They were the ones who spearheaded the expedition. Enough on the science hub, however, I’ll go ahead and get down to brass tacks.”

“This planet is a human-habitable planet with carbon-based life, and it also has a large reservoir of liquid water. The wildlife here is… interesting. Our research team has found many uses for them so far.” A wide selection of animals filled the screen. Some were hand-sized, others were measured in meters. “These are all edibles, and you can eat all of them, except for the blood and bones.”

A diagram popped up on the projector, with an illustration of one of the animals. This one had a long neck, with an even longer tongue with a split at the end. It had a single central eye surrounded by long antennae that trailed down to the tongue tip. It had 3 legs, with two shorter ones in the front culminating in single spikes, and a long, muscular back leg with a flat pad at the bottom. It was a curious shade of violet, with smudges of black and brown. The eye was what stood out to Adlai, with it seeming to almost split at the center, with two pupils stretched horizontally at either end. The whole eye was black except for the pupil which was a strange shade of purple.

“This is a hopper, these are one of the more plentiful animals down there, and also one of the easiest to catch.” He clicked a button again, and the hopper disappeared, replaced by a skeleton. The skull case was almost like a basket, with rings wrapping around where Adlai supposed the brain would be, and a gap for the eye socket. It led down to a single y-shaped gap, where the tongue would be. The internals were protected by what looked like a solid plate of bone, studded with tons of small holes. The legs were surprisingly thin but had grooves that betrayed the presence of cartilage and muscle, while the back leg was entirely gone, with only a gap in the organ case betraying its presence.

“Thanks to our research team, we have this diagram of their internals. As I said previously, the blood and bone marrow should not be consumed. You might be wondering how you can eat the rest of the animal given that blood normally flows through muscles. It turns out that only the muscle around the cartilage has any significant blood flow, and the other muscles don’t. We should have a guide that will be provided to you all on how to prepare and identify these organisms. We haven’t tried breeding these.. animals for lack of a better word, so we encourage you to attempt it if possible.”

The professor moved on to other, less interesting topics, and Adlai completely zoned out. Thoughts of a new world were exciting but worrying, and one niggling thought kept eating at Adlai’s mind. Even he knew that all healthy ecosystems needed prey and predators, so where were the predators? The only ones he had seen on the collage were small, stout creatures equipped with digging claws and short tentacles extending from their mouths. What ate the rest of them? Adlai raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“What are the bigger predators? All I see are those smaller.. things.”

“Well, fortunately enough, there are no large predators on the continent. Any other questions?” Something was off with the professor’s quick answer, Averi’s clouded-over face added to his suspicion. The professor droned on about the intricacies of the labyrinth-like caves, and the scientific marvel of self photosynthesizing organisms, and Adlai slowly lost more and more interest. A shrill bell announced the end of the lecture, and Adlai scrambled to leave, pulling up his ragged bag. The group thinned out, and Adlai and Averi found themselves somewhere in the middle of the pack.

“I wonder what those aliens taste like.”

“Did you not eat before we left?” Adlai looked at Averi, slightly concerned about her strange comment.

“Well, we’re not exactly going to be having normal food out there right? I just hope it tastes good.” Smiling, Adlai shook his head and continued walking. They followed the group and stepped into the barracks. Bunk beds lined the walls, and the center of the room was empty, except for a bookshelf and a table with a set of playing cards. The walls were a dull shade of grey, and the floor was a grayish brown. On each bed was a uniform, with a number on it. A voice came in over an intercom system.

“Hello, colonists. Welcome to your barracks. This is Erik speaking again. This is where you will sleep. You will wake up at five in the morning, and sleep at 10 at the night. Your schedule consists of breakfast, physical education, leisure time, lunch, lecture, lab work, leisure, dinner, and sleep. I understand that you all are independent, but once again your survival depends on your knowledge. Do your best to show up to the classes.” A shrill bell rang.

“This bell announces the change of a period. Normally, you would have gone to do lab work, but due to today being your first day, we will give you time to adjust to your new environment. Only the barracks will be open to you, however.” The intercom crackled and went silent. The colonists milled around aimlessly, slowly picking out bunks. Tugging him by the hand, Averi dragged Adlai along, searching for the best bunk bed in her opinion.

“This one’s perfect! No, wait that one looks better.”

Adlai grunted in annoyance.

“Oh fine, we’ll just stick with this one. I call top bunk!” Grinning, Averi clambered up the steps, staring down at Adlai from her comfortable throne. Adlai shrugged and sat down on his bed. Her hair flipping down, Averi hung her head upside down from the rails.

“I wonder what we’ll get to eat. I hope it’s good.” Adlai grunted in response and lay on his bed. His thoughts swirled around his head, clouds of mist writhing in the wind. He looked up at the bed above him and wondered what life would be like here.