Paradox by A. J. Paquette Read Free Book Online Page B

too much that’s still unknown.
    Adjusting her pack, she follows Todd up the grassy slope. Above them looms the Timor range. The mountains look huge from here, so near they seem to be carved right out of the brilliant sky.
    Ana looks sideways at Todd as they walk. He’s definitely back in the land of the living, but something has changed between them. She feels a new strength as she strides next to him, shoulder to shoulder. She has no idea if they knew each other in a former life before their memories were scrubbed like a couple of old dinner plates. But this feels right, pushing forward together, following the map. Heading for the plateau, then on to the mountains.
    Even as she thinks this, her stance is shifting and her gaze is narrowing and a flutter starts in her chest. She thinks back to the rush she got from her brief scale up the cliff face, and she suddenly knows that mountains are part of some love affair from her past. Maybe somewhere in her lost memory is an experience that will guide her. But for now she just knows this: she can’t wait to get started climbing.
    “That one’s a volcano,” Todd says, motioning to the peak directly in their path. “Mount Fahr.”
    Ana sniffs the air. That explains the faint sulfurous smell. Now that she’s looking for it, she can see tendrils of steam curling from the peak. It looks steep for a volcano, at least by Earth standards. It’s all rough hew and harsh angles. “Is it active?” she asks.
    Todd shakes his head. “It’s on a slow burn pattern. Should be safe enough.”
    Ana activates her circlet and lines up the map. The Timor range carves a long wedge across the face of the planet, guarding the way to the sea. There’s no way to go around it. And the peaks on either side of Mount Fahr glower down like hulking giants. The volcano suddenly looks very climbable. It’s the obvious choice.
    “Okay,” she says, but inwardly she’s all smiles.
Bring on the climb!
    They reach the plateau a few minutes later, the wide-open space dotted with a couple of flat boulders. Ana lets her pack slide off her back and drops it near the closest stone. Aftercarrying her pack all this time, taking it off is like ripping away some part of her, but it’s no pain and all pleasure, a shot of pure joy. For a second, she feels so light she might float away.
    Then tiredness sweeps over her and she collapses onto the boulder. It’s long and flat and warm from the sunslight, with enough room for Ana to stretch out on her back with her knees steepled up and her boots propped on the edge. She folds her arms across her eyes and sinks onto the surface of the rock, her muscles loosening and settling on the stone. She lies there for long minutes, soaking up the quiet.
    After a while she moves her arms and looks up at the sky and the pale sun, Anum. She imagines it meeting with Torus in a cataclysmic burst at zero hour.
Sunsmeet
, Todd called it. For now, at least, there are huge swaths of pink sky between the suns, though they are closer than when she first left the rocket. There are seventeen hours’ worth of distance left between them, apparently.
And then what, exactly?
    Ana shivers and sits up.
    Todd is standing with his back to her, looking back at the Dead Forest. His broad back is set and his feet are planted wide apart on the rocky ledge. Only his hair tosses up and down in the breeze.
    “Hey,” Ana says.
    Todd lets out a sigh, his whole posture drooping a little, as if he’s resigning himself to something he can’t quite escape. “It happened the summer I was eight,” he says.
    His voice is barely more than a whisper. Ana pushes herself up the rest of the way, straining to make out his words.
    “I was on a Boy Scout trip,” he goes on. “We were camping in the woods a day’s drive from home. I was so excited, a city kid on my first overnight trip, out in the wild.” He shudders. “I don’t know how I got separated from the group, but I was alone in the forest for four