Aaron hated life on the planetary survey ship and couldn't wait for their mission to end. He hated working almost all of his waking hours, surveying boring rocks on a boring planetoid. He hated the awful, dry, tasteless Space Agency rations and musty recycled water they ate for every single meal. He hated being trapped with four people he had actively disliked even before being trapped with them over three light years from any other humans. In fact, there were only two things he had enjoyed during this entire mission: imagining all of the things he would buy with his share of the ship's mission bonus on his return, and taking out his frustrations on the only crewmember he outranked on the ship--that smug little jerk Ethan.

You might have thought that Ethan and Aaron being close to the same age and rank would have led them to bond on the long, boring trip, but Aaron had immediately bristled at Ethan's arrogant attitude on the voyage out. Aaron had been in the Agency for a full seven months longer than Ethan, but Ethan had presumed to lecture him on how the science equipment should be maintained and how Aaron should gather his samples to make Ethan's job easier. Aaron saw his main job as making AARON's job easier, and didn't appreciate Ethan's attempt to pass his work onto Aaron. Then--after Ethan had stabbed Aaron in the back by complaining to the Captain after some completely minor damage to the lab that Aaron hadn't really caused--it had further alienated him. From that moment on, Aaron was unfailingly polite and correct in how he interacted with Ethan, but was always looking for opportunities--in perfect compliance with the Agency's stupid rules--to make Ethan's job more difficult.

Since Aaron nominally outranked Ethan and was assigned to work closely with him, he found many, MANY opportunities to politely ruin Ethan's day, even before they arrived at the first planetoid. After carefully reading the equipment manuals and official operating and safety procedures for the lab--honestly, for the first time... previously he hadn't been appropriately motivated--he became an expert in all of the required calibrations, maintenance schedules, reporting rules, safety inspections, and other bureaucratic levers he could press to push Ethan around. Many survey ships fell into a more casual rhythm on multi-year missions, but Aaron ensured that Ethan would not waste any time loafing when the ship's vibration might have allowed key equipment to drift out of optimum calibration.

However, despite Aaron's best efforts to keep Ethan hopping, the little wiseass eventually got his hands on the relevant manuals and had the audacity to argue that Aaron was actually going beyond their recommendations and requirements. Annoyingly, the Captain had again taken Ethan's side, criticizing Aaron for his completely justified prudence and professionalism! All of which meant that when the ship finally arrived at its first survey target, Aaron was delighted to politely offer many more new opportunities for Ethan to demonstrate his value to the Space Agency and the ship by practically burying him under a mountain of mineral samples needing analysis.

Occasionally, Aaron questioned whether his quest to maximize Ethan's workload was really smart, given that he was actually having to work far harder than he intended to make sure Ethan's plate was always full. And he had been sent into a justified rage when the ship's medic, Juliet, had hinted that Aaron was directing so much time and effort to Ethan for reasons other than his fully justified irritation with the young crewman. Just because Aaron was not wrapped around Juliet's finger like she wanted, it didn't mean that he was secretly interested in Ethan, who he definitely could not stand. Her comment made Aaron feel that maybe he had erred by being too nice to Ethan: after that, the thin veneer of politeness he had maintained toward Ethan would immediately disappear when other crew members were not present as he redoubled his efforts to torment Ethan with more and more work.

So when Aaron found himself poking around an inactive lava tube nearly 12 hours after his shift began, his determination to keep collecting samples was propelled by an extra dose of caffeine supplement and a healthy allotment of pure spite. Ethan had barely cleared the backlog of samples Aaron had collected each of the prior two days, but Aaron was beginning to worry that he might fail in his goal of preventing Ethan from stepping foot outside the ship for even a brief EVA on the planetoid's surface. With only three days left until they were scheduled to transit to their next assigned planetoid, Ethan had whined to the Captain that Aaron's samples were repetitive and increasingly redundant, and the Captain had again played favorites by taking Ethan's side. In response, Aaron had traveled farther and farther from the ship in an attempt to locate novel samples that Ethan would be forced to process. To his delight, the lava tube had turned out to be a gold mine (well, more of a crystal mine) of unique and unusual samples. Even more delightful, if the samples turned out to be valuable, Aaron would get a bonus share from the discovery's future revenues.

As Aaron packed almost all of his remaining sample cases with the unique smooth crystals, he knew there was no way Ethan could get away with shirking this analysis... he couldn't see any plausible source of wind or water that might have eroded the crystals, so their surface and structure was a legitimate mystery. Maybe they had eroded elsewhere and been carried by the lava? Well, that mystery was someone else's job to figure out; his job was to make sure they had as much work as possible to do before they got a satisfactory answer! As he filled the last sample case, he noticed that its lid was malfunctioning, so he decided to supplement his haul by stuffing his suit's cargo pockets with more of the samples. Actually, if the mineral turned out to be extremely valuable, Aaron imagined that a few extra crystals that had somehow found their way into his personal storage might be beneficial, too.

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As Aaron's suit began to insistently beep that his oxygen was nearing reserve status, he hustled the heavy crawler cart toward the ship's airlock. The crawler cart was too large and dusty to fit into the airlock, so Aaron had to hand-transfer all of the sample cases to a waiting hand truck in the airlock. If he hurried, he hoped he could catch Ethan before the normal conclusion of his shift and order him to do a priority analysis on samples of the crystals. Even if Ethan complained to the Captain, Aaron was certain that the samples were unusual enough and their remaining time on the planetoid was short enough that the Captain would actually back Aaron instead of his little pet. Aaron glanced at his chrono. 15 minutes until Ethan was off-shift. That actually wouldn't be enough time if...

Aaron looked at the airlock cycle and saw it had 13 more minutes remaining. Not fast enough. Aaron stabbed at the control module and started de-selecting recommended modules. UV sterilization cycle? Skip. Atmosphere transition? Emergency fast. Bio-hazard scan? Skip. Volatile organic compound detection? Skip. Radiation scan? As Aaron thought about the samples in his front pockets, his hand hesitated. He clicked "enable" on that one and then "execute." The countdown now read "2 minutes remaining" and Aaron took a few moments to pick some of the most interesting-looking crystals and consolidated them into a sample case. As the door beeped and released, Aaron grabbed the cart and backed it out of the airlock, parking it in the corridor as the grabbed the sample case he had selected and hustled down the corridor toward the lab. If he hustled, he'd have a chance to drop off his personal stash of samples before heading to the lab.

As he hurried through one of the bulkhead hatches, his hand brushed against his cargo pockets and he immediately froze. The crystals were gone! He looked up and down the corridor to see where they might have fallen out, but didn't see anything. He wondered if he had time to go back and search the airlock or if he should drop off the samples first. He looked at his chrono. Still 11 minutes. That was enough time to...

Aaron's train of thought suddenly derailed as he noticed the missing crystals on his chest... they had somehow gotten adhered to the fabric of his suit? Wait, looking more closely it seemed like the crystal had melted into the suit? He pulled the suit outward and was shocked when the portions surrounding the crystal seemed locked in place tight against his body. Had it somehow melted against his skin?

Aaron tried to slide a finger under the edge of one of the crystals and was surprised when the mineral seemed to deform. What?? He tentatively pulled at the edge and was able to stretch a portion of it out like taffy. The crystal was changing shape and... glowing? For the first time, Aaron began to consider whether he might be in serious trouble. He looked down the main corridor and contemplated how long it would take for him to get to the medic bay. His comm unit was still back with the cart at the airlock, but he could... Aaron's train of thought was derailed as he began to feel a prickling sensation on his chest. As he looked down, he could see the crystals continue to deform. Were those tails??!??

Aaron thought, "ENOUGH!" and grabbed the increasingly viscous mass with both hands, pulling as hard as he could. The mass on his chest began to deform and stretch. With his last burst of strength, his hopes were lifted as he was able to rip away two large chunks. But that hope immediately fizzled out as the remaining mass on his chest suddenly extended two tendrils into the back of his neck. Aaron winced at the sharp pain, but then felt relief as the pain was immediately followed by a soothing feeling that radiated from the tentacles.

As the waves of calming energy slowed his thoughts and relaxed his mind, he could dimly feel more glowing tentacles extending upward from the tingling areas inside his suit. When the mass of glowing crystalline tentacles made contact with his head, they seemed to slip inside without resistance or pain. After a brief period of confusion and disorientation, Aaron was relieved to discover that the crystals and their tentacles meant him no harm, and his eyes glowed contentedly as the crystals continued to helpfully improve his thoughts. Aaron realized that had never truly been happy, and was grateful that his inferior mind would now be allowed to swim in endless bliss and contentment. The crystals had shown him they were the most precious and valuable object in the universe. He marveled at how lucky he was to have found them. In exchange for receiving such a gift, it was only polite that he should give them something in return.

As the crystals continued to stroke and confine his thoughts, he happily realized that they merely needed his body, which they could then use to share this amazing gift with all of the other humans on this vessel, and then beyond. Then the host that had previously been Aaron calmly and carefully picked up the sample box filled with its brethren and started hurrying to the lab. Even though the host's memory had an unfavorable opinion of this particular human, its isolation and subservient role made it the next suitable target for conversion and control. And the host that had previously been Aaron allowed itself a little smile as it contemplated the improvements the crystals would make to the crewman as it replaced its dull, selfish, insubordinate mind with the crystals' brilliant facets and finally made to obey: Even the worst humans would be perfected once they received the gift of the crystals!