Starfist: Lazarus Rising by David Sherman & Dan Cragg Read Free Book Online

abandoned camp.
    Some of the items lying about were obviously pieces of furniture, but most of the stuff had uses none of them could understand. Whatever they were, the previous users did not seem to need them anymore.
    The man they were now calling Military Operation looked up at webbing that was strung from tree to tree. "That looks like it can break up infra signatures," he muttered, and wondered why he thought that and how he knew such a thing.
    Not far from where they stood was a high, grass-covered ridge. Behind them, a high cliff formed one wall of a small valley.
    "I would like to find something to wear," Colleen said to no one in particular. She headed off toward the largest of the huts. Military Operation hobbled off behind her.
    The others stood about for a moment before heading for the other buildings, to see what they could find.
    "Look here!" the man named Chet called from one of the huts. He was holding up several strips of light metallic material. They had the malleability of tinfoil, but no matter how hard they tried, the strips could not be severed. "This stuff is indestructible," Chet commented. "We can use it to make shoe packs for our feet!
    And wrap strips around us for clothes!"
    For twenty minutes or more the six busied themselves fashioning shoes and garments of sorts from the strange material. Colleen wrapped a long strip of it around herself like an evening gown. The sunlight reflected brilliantly off her "dress."
    Military Operation chuckled. "Look at your feet," he said. The packs she had crafted out of the material made her feet look six times their normal size.
    Colleen looked down at her feet and laughed too, then hopped from one foot to the other. "But I can walk in them!"
    "Where there's life, there's a chuckle," Chet said, coming up to the pair.
    "And now," Military Operation said, "let's walk up to that ridge line and see what we can see."
    At first it was difficult walking in the packs, but after a hundred yards the material began to mold itself to them, and those who had wrapped it thickly enough about the bottoms of their feet found walking much easier, although they had to go slowly because the injuries to their feet were still painful.
    They slogged through deep, early morning, dew-laden, grasslike ground cover, leaving long trails behind them as they moved up the slope. By the time they reached the top, the lower half of their bodies was soaking wet from the moisture. They stood on the ridge at last, breathing heavily from exhaustion and lack of exercise, and surveyed the lay of the land. Off in the near distance they could clearly make out running water flashing in the sunlight.
    "A river!" one of the men exclaimed.
    "If we follow the river," Chet said, "it'll lead us to the sea, and where the coast is, there're bound to be settlements of some sort."
    Military Operation waded a bit farther into the grass and stopped. "Look here," he called to the others. They came and stood beside him. The grass had been flattened where he was standing, as if someone had lain down in it long enough to crush it flat so it wouldn't spring back up. "Someone was here," he said. He followed a narrow path through the grass. "Here! A trail!" he called back to his companions. It was a meter wide and easy to follow, as if a number of people had passed that way recently. And it led in the opposite direction from the river.
    "I'd say we should follow this trail," Military Operation said.
    "I say we follow the river," one of the other men replied. "We don't know who made this. It could've been the—the— things that held us prisoner. We could just be walking right back into their arms."
    "He's right," the other woman said. "At least the river goes somewhere."
    Colleen, who had walked down the trail a ways called back to them, "Look here!"
    She pointed to a footprint in the fresh earth. "A human footprint. He was wearing shoes!"
    "Did anybody notice, we didn't see a path leading up here from the compound,"
    Chet