As the hatch opened, a waft of cool air rushed through. It was clean and soft, brushing past his face almost sensually. He smiled, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. The air was rich and smooth, aromas of fresh earth and vegetation. All his life, he’d never known anything so pure.

The hatch descended slowly, forming a ramp as it revealed a place greener than any real place he’d known. It felt as though he was entering a holosim. He stepped forward, tentatively. The sun shone bright overhead. He’d never seen sunlight before, and raised his hands to his eyes to shield them. Beyond the hatch, everything was verdant and bright. Ferns and squat cycads abounded, their broad fronds filtering the light, casting comb-like shadows on the forest floor. They trembled and waved in the breeze, appearing almost relaxed. 

Artem had never known fresh air before. He’d lived his entire life in space, crammed into a small set of bunks shared by far too many others. His was a world of dank corridors and machine odors, filth and deprivation. His people had lived that way for centuries. He’d known noting else. But this place was different. He’d barely seen it from orbit, but that mattered little. His fuel was exhausted, his choice of landing spots limited. He’d expected to end up on some barren rock, barely liveable, or a frozen wasteland. This was an almost unimaginable stroke of luck.

The ground was soft beneath his battered boots; they sank into it slightly, and as he looked down he found his treads left footprints in the soil. Giving in to impulse, he raised his arms and fell backward. The ground was softer than his bunk. The smell was intoxicating. In spite of himself, he started laughing, smiling wide as tears of joy wetted the earth beneath him. The sunlight was warm on his face; a pleasant, gentle warmth. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t felt cold. Cold and hard were simply normal.

He had no idea how long he laid there. He didn’t bother checking his chronometer; he didn’t really care. With his fuel gone, so was his need for time. Time no longer mattered. Not here. Eventually, he noticed his lips were dry. He needed water. In space, water was scarce, and whatever they had at any given time, it was never enough. Thirst, too, was simply normal. But here, with all these plants, surely there was water in abundance. And so be began walking, thirst driving him on through this primordial forest of cycads. As he walked, the cycads gave way to stands of lycopods, their spindly fronds stretching upward, thirsting for the light. He stopped at one point, and looked up, and up and up until he nearly fell over. They were towering. He’d never seen a living thing so tall. Not a real one, anyway.

The sounds were alien, but soothing. In place of the groan of machinery, the sloshing of fuel pumps, the artificial hum of computers, there was near silence. Breezes rifled through the fronds of the lycopods and cycads, producing a sound he had no words to describe. Eventually, he noticed another sound: trickling, burbling, like a leaking coolant pipe. He followed it to its source, and again he was shocked.

It was a stream, cut into a shallow bed by countless years of patient erosion. Crystal clear water rushed along jagged rocks strewn about the streambed, scattered carelessly by nature. It wasn’t overly large: less than five meters wide, so shallow he could easily see the bottom. But it was the single greatest concentration of water he’d ever seen, clean and pure like no recycling system could produce. He fell to his knees, hastily ripping off his heavy gloves before dipping his hands into the stream. The water was pleasantly cool, and he enjoyed the sensation of the current passing through his hands. For a moment he closed his eyes, savoring the feeling, before raising his cupped hands to his face to drink. 

It smelled like nothing. No chlorine or iodine. It tasted like nothing. Not acrid or bitter, or remotely caustic. Just cool, soft, and refreshing. His first sips turned into a greedy gulp, followed by additional hands full of water, until he drank so much he grew nauseous. He collapsed on all fours, breathing heavily, water dripping from his giddy smile.

Artem knew little of his history. Few did, having left home so long ago. He knew enough to know that their homeworld had looked like this, once: an unspoiled paradise, clean and pure. One did not leave a place like this, and by the time his people had taken to the stars, their world had been played out. It was left a parched wasteland behind them, fouled and irradiated. Or at least, so he’d been told.

After quenching his thirst and sitting for a while, he returned to his ship. He ascended the egress ramp, and reentered his world of cold metal and machine odors. His ship’s interior stank, though he hadn’t noticed it before. It was dark, though he’d never noticed it. He walked quickly to the cockpit, intent on dutifully activating his emergency beacon, yet he hesitated, his hand hovering over the controls.

It didn’t take long to make his decision. In a fit of rage, he raised his clenched fists and smashed the console, cracking the transparent casing and damaging the fragile circuits beneath. He had no interest in being rescued. He wasn’t certain “rescue” was an appropriate term for being taken from this place.

After all, one did not leave a place like this.