The Iron Maiden by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

Other worlds, such as their own Callisto, might seem almost dead on the surface; Io was the opposite. It had an erratic eccentric orbit, being hauled about by the next moon out, Europa.
    Tidal action literally squeezed it, blowing out sulfur. It was mostly uninhabitable, except for small observation stations. They hoped to raid one of these for the supplies they required.
    They floated down toward it, looking for a station large enough to have what they needed, and small enough to have a hope of raiding. They were becoming pirates, of necessity.
    They found a suitable prospect near a massive rocky escarpment. They settled onto the sulfur. Then Hope and Helse donned their space suits and went with a raiding party of 25 women. Spirit wanted to go too, but her mother told her why not: after losing her husband, she couldn't bear to risk both her children at once. That had to be true.
    The party left in the evening. That began the long wait. They knew that it was dangerous outside the bubble. They had to complete their mission before dawn, because Io's day was much worse than its relatively calm night. Day was when the volcanoes blew.
    There was nothing to do but sleep, so Spirit settled down in a chamber with her mother. “Will they be all right?” she asked.
    “They've got to be,” her mother said tightly. That was when Spirit realized that this was no sure thing. The adults had pretended that it wasn't complicated, but her mother's tenseness gave that the lie.
    “They'll be all right,” Spirit said reassuringly. She wasn't sure she believed it, but what else was there? She slept, but was aware of her mother's restlessness.
    When morning came and the party had not returned, the women held a crisis meeting. “They are in trouble; I know it,” Spirit's mother said. “We must go to help them.”
    They quickly organized a party of twenty five women, led by Spirit's mother. Ten women remained to care for the children. Spirit hugged her mother, and let her go; it was the only way. She watched as the party departed.
    They waited tensely all day. The children kept looking out the portholes, but it was useless. Neither party returned. All they could see was swirling sulfur storms.
    But then a tiny travel-bubble floated toward them. “It must be from the station!” Spirit cried. “They got through to it!”
    Sure enough, it was Hope and Helse. Spirit flew across to hug him. “You made it!” she cried.
    But the news was much worse. Only Hope and Helse had made it. All the women of their party were dead, taken by the hell that was Io's surface.
    And the second party had to be dead too, for they had neither reached the station nor returned to the bubble. The remaining women lifted the bubble and searched the region, looking for telltale tracks of any moving party, but there were none.
    Spirit got the story in agonized pieces. They had not known how bad it was. None of them should have left the bubble. Only blind luck had gotten Hope and Helse through; the women had sacrificed themselves to save them, and then they had missed an avalanche only because Helse had spooked and ran, and Hope had followed her. The folk at the station had been kind hearted, but too late.
    Hope and Spirit tried to comfort each other, and Helse, true to her word, left them mostly alone, merely bringing them food at intervals. The loss of their father had been awful, but the loss of their mother was worse, because she was all they had had left. Except each other.
    “If only we had known,” Hope moaned. “All we had to do was float our bubble directly to the station and ask for help. They would have given it. The scientist--his niece looks like Helse. Or did. She's actually four or five years older.”
    Spirit grasped at this illusory straw, as if it was better to have been saved in maybe than lost in reality.
    “What's her name?”
    “Megan, he said. Her picture did look like Helse. It was taken when she was that age.”
    “That makes two girls you