Alien Worlds by Roxanne Smolen Read Free Book Online Page B

I’ll blow away again.”
    “I see a cave ahead. Come on. You can make it. I know you can.”
    With a groan, Impani pushed to her feet.
    She couldn’t see a cave, couldn’t see anything through blowing grit and dust. It was a ploy. A trick to get her moving again. She’d tell him off if she had breath to spare.
    But she followed and found he was right. His cave was more like a cranny. The wedge-shaped crack was six meters deep and wide enough to let them sit. The wind cut as they pressed inside.
    Impani fell to her knees. She felt battered. A mass of bruises. Lifting her head, she followed the crevice up the glacier. Blue sky showed above. Silt and dust sifted through sunlight.
    “So, what do you think?” he asked.
    “I’m tired and hungry.”
    “I mean about the planet. What’s with the salt?”
    She sat with her back to the wall and knees to her chest. “We’re on the bottom of an ocean. A dried up, desiccated ocean. This world suffered a cataclysmic event. Maybe a comet hit. Or an asteroid. It shifted the axis so it doesn’t spin anymore.”
    “Sounds like you’ve given it a lot of thought.”
    “I don’t see why we’re here. This planet might have been a candidate for exploration once, but it isn’t now.”
    “Maybe they don’t know what happened.”
    “Oceans don’t boil away overnight. They had to know. It’s like the place was stricken from the viable worlds list, but the ring brought us here anyway. An old computer reference.”
    “A mistake,” he said.
    She shuddered.
    A shadow passed. It happened so quickly, she couldn’t tell if something had blotted out the sky or ran across the crevice mouth.
    Trace leaped up. He leaned into the swirling dust and looked both ways. “Wait here. I want to check something.”
    “I’ll go with you.” She moved to stand.
    He pushed her down again. “I’m heavier than you. I won’t blow away.” Bowing to the thrust of the wind, he stepped from the cleft.
    “Wait!” she called. Where was he going? How could he leave her?
    On hands and knees, Impani peered from her shelter. The slanting salt diminished his form to shadow. She leaned farther, staring past her partner to the ridge beyond.
    She saw a silhouette. Someone else followed the curving ledge. The figure struggled, weaving in and out of blowing dust. It wore a tight-fitting garment that blended with the color of the glacier.
    “Skinsuit,” she whispered then realized it was true. They had found one of their own.

Chapter 6
     
     
    I mpani left the cleft in the salt face to lurch against the gale. Her fingers groped the polished wall. A gust struck like a blow to her stomach and nearly knocked her off her feet. She hunkered low, ducking her head and shuffling her boots as she moved.
    Perhaps leaving her shelter was a bad idea. She saw no sign of her partner, no evidence of another Scout. If anything, the scouring salt storm was worse than before. She should go back. But she continued.
    The glaciers moaned. Salt hissed at her mask. Impani flattened against the wall. Was she going the wrong way? Had she missed a turn she should have taken? She should have caught up with Trace by now.
    A jagged crevice winked at her through swirling dust. She staggered toward it, each step countered by rising force as the whirlwind sought to toss her aside. Arms stretched before her, she stumbled blindly. At last, she pushed into a cave.
    Trace stood inside. He turned as she entered but did not seem to see her. His mask was up, and his face was raw. A thin line of blood sketched his cracked lips.
    “Trace?” she lifted her own mask. “I saw another Scout.”
    “Gone,” he said. “Never here.”
    The flatness of his voice alarmed her. She moved from the cave mouth to stand opposite him across the swirling floor. The wind sighed and rushed skyward as if caught in a chimney. Outside, it screamed.
    She said, “What do we do now?”
    He held out his hands. “I followed him. I thought he was real. I thought he