by D. Martin
Suddenly, that was more important than any philosophic question-and-answer session that we should have been trying to conduct with this rare being from not only another system, but another dimension and reality.
“Would you tell her that we like her, too?” I whispered.
“She knows.” His eyes sparkled with amusement, and he turned as Timirshil-ka’s form pulsed with intense, deeper gold lights. He was silent a long minute. “She’s urging us to return to our ship, for the climate is unstable and experiencing radical changes. Her studies found that this system’s star has undergone unpredictable, rapid internal contractions that are increasing its gravitation attraction on this planet. This planet is being pulled from orbit, and its normal rotation is undergoing disruption. Soon this side will become locked into perpetual darkness and freeze over.” His expression matched his somber tone.
“When will Timirshil-ka leave?” I asked a final question, concerned for the alter-reality being. After all, she had placed herself at risk to save Matt.
“Not long after we lift from here….” He gave the entity a long, pensive stare before turning away. “Let’s go, Kai.”
Matt took my insulated hood from my hand and busied himself with maneuvering it over my curls and securing it back onto my head, then restored his hood. He activated our suits’ heat and caught the supply bag’s strap. Glancing at the light entity a final time, he took my hand and led me toward the reflective translucent panels we’d bypassed earlier.
We’re leaving this instant? But this was momentous. An alien entity! Shouldn’t there have been more ceremony in our leave-taking? I looked over my shoulder at Timirshil-ka and kept my stare focused upon the glowing golden column until I lost sight beyond the reflecting partitions. I expelled a long sigh filled with sad regret. We’ll never see her again….
Chapter Twelve
A crystal section shimmered and vanished before Matt. He stepped through the portal first onto the frigid, ice-covered surface of the dying planet. We hurriedly readjusted our hoods to reduce more skin exposure, for a fierce wind howled like a lost soul across the empty wilderness. Snow and ice pellets fell in sheets upon the previous accumulations, as if the planet was hell bent on a single-minded rush toward the glaciations that both Matt and the entity had mentioned. How long were we inside for all of this to happen?
We struggled against the wind-driven elements away from Timirshil-ka’s crystal travel craft. Matt and I turned once with our hands held up as shields against the pelting ice to stare upon the translucent construction, where glittering lights pulsed along it. No actual snow had accumulated over it. The craft appeared to repel the elements’ attempts at cloaking it.
Time merged into a long blur as if we transited a long vortex leap while we struggled against the elements and exhaustion. The constant energy needed to force my way through the accumulated snow’s never-ending semisolid obstacle course eroded my stamina. Despite this, wonder clamored over the weariness as my thoughts dwelled upon the sights and revelations we’d experienced. Worry also consumed me, wondering if Matt would be strong enough to last until we got back to the ship.
The snow and ice accumulation made visual tracking for our previous footpath impossible. We fought our way back within several hundred yards, according to Matt’s murmured estimates, to where we’d left the Stardancer, but the blizzard hid any distinguishing features. I couldn’t spot either the ship or the Fire Dawn’s wreck in the distance. I don’t know how he was able to track our position. He hadn’t yet consulted the ship transmitter.
Much trepidation roiled within me. No landmarks existed in that desolation to show how far we’d traveled, nor where we were, or even if we’d traveled in the right direction. It seemed so much like my old birth world, Dearleth, that my exhaustion made reality blur. A new fear haunted me that I’d never left Dearleth and I’d hallucinated everything—eight months on Harnaru; the Lilith; my tumultuous, emotional month with Matt; the wondrous Timirshil-ka…. Was it possible my family had triumphed and betrayed me before I fled? Had they exiled me from our comfortable, sheltered, underground colony and then sentenced me to a harsh life in the hostile Dearleth mountains with that isolated, cruel-featured prospector? Was that why I was struggling through a frozen wilderness with him even then?
No. Wake up, Kailiri—it’s Matt walking next to you, and nobody else!
I was grateful when Matt’s hand tightened painfully upon mine, as if he’d known about my inward fight. It drew me out of my own dark place.
He pulled me to a pause and extracted a ship transmitter from his pocket. The Stardancer’s navilog comp promptly broadcasted a tracking pulse that would guide us in.
Relief buoyed my spirits as I glimpsed the tiny lighted display’s blinking arrow. We were headed in the correct direction, but more distance remained ahead. Without the transmitter—and Matt’s zealous determination to prepare for anything—we might have wandered in circles until we succumbed to exhaustion and the elements.
Even so, the storm and brutal wind chills drained my strength. We dared not halt for rest breaks in that tempest, as there was nowhere to shelter from the storm. Somewhere along the way, old memories about brutal Dearleth winters and the colder-hearted mining company officials and colonists returned to hound me.
Matt extracted the trail flask filled with the hot energy drink. He made me pause and hauled me close. His shoulders sheltered me from the winds while he urged me to sip deep from the still-warm contents before he drank. I smiled at our role reversal.
Despite this, I knew Matt wasn’t as strong as he’d been when we first set out, even in his earlier deteriorating condition. He proved, however, to have more determination and stamina than me in getting us back to the ship. Much of the return trip to the Stardancer was a blur to my storm-lashed senses and body. I hazily recalled him increasing the thermostat on my suit for me several times. Nevertheless, the frigid wind chills greedily leached away my body’s heat during our travails across the ice- and wind-razed plain.
Then at last, icy blasts no longer pelted me, my feet no longer needed to push through frozen resistance, and my breathing didn’t form plumes upon the air. I blinked snow from my eyelashes and stared around with dazed surprise. A big sigh flowed from my numb lips. We stood inside the ship’s airlock compartment. The inner cabin door slid open, and welcome warmth caressed my face.
Matt didn’t pause after we stepped inside the Stardancer. He cast aside the snow-covered supply bag and led me straight past the control center and the living area to our sleeping quarters. The ship’s balmy internal temperatures quickly melted the accumulated snow on my suit’s hood. Water leaked into my bleary eyes and streamed along my face. How much melted snow and ice are we leaving behind on the deck?
The now familiar confines of our sleeping quarters looked odd. Shouldn’t there be shimmering, crystalline sheets suspended before us and underfoot instead of solid, conventional gray metal ship hull and carpeted deck? My mind seemed stuck between dimensions: this one, and Timirshil-ka’s.
Matt removed his gloves before he stripped away my water-beaded gloves, boots, and hood, and then unsealed my insulated suit. New gaunt lines sharply defined his jawline and cheeks. He looked beyond exhausted.
Guilt assailed me: I should be the one taking care of him. He was the fragile one after losing the foreign energy essence that had sustained him. If only I could summon up more strength. My arms felt numb and heavy as boulders.
He finished extracting me from the environment suit, and I stood clad in my bright pink underwear and socks.
Matt snatched up the extra blanket that lay draped over our sleep couch’s end. He enfolded me inside its warm blue softness. He lifted my hair free from entrapment under the fleecy fabric’s folds. Then his gentle hands cupped my face between them while his intent stare focused upon me. “Thank you, Kai. Thank you for believing when I couldn’t hope. You’ve given me another chance at life.”
He slipped an arm around me and the bla
nket while the other swept beneath my knees, and he lifted me. He cradled me several long moments and then laid me down on the sleep couch before he sat on the edge. His lips touched mine in a long, gentle kiss, and my eyes drifted closed.
We were safe and secure again.
When he pulled away, I opened my eyes. My dazed attention revived enough to notice he still wore his protective suit and watched me with a somber expression.
“I must go out again before we lift, Kailiri,” he said quietly. “Do not be concerned. I won’t be far and I’ll have the ship transmitter with me to find my way back. Try to rest while I’m gone.” His unusual eyes dimmed and seemed touched with pain and sadness. Intuition told me he was going to bid farewell to A’lia and their son, who’d never borne his father’s name nor lived to look into his eyes.
My attention wavered as unconnected, muzzy wonder swam up in my weary mind over the possible color of our child’s eyes and if he would inherit his father’s eyes. So tired….
Matt rose and left without another word. The cabin door closed, but my ears tracked muted sounds from his heavy boots as he crossed the living area, paused at the control deck, and then stepped into the airlock. The soft hiss and click from the airlock’s double door locking mechanism faded, and I was alone in the ship’s deep silence. Her engines were shut down. Not even the howling tempest’s fury that reigned outside invaded the Stardancer’s thick, insulated hull to break the unnatural, hollow stillness without Matt’s presence.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat, remembering his abrupt departure. No final caress. No last reassuring kiss…. Where did he gain the energy to venture outside again? His strength and energy was low. I’d seen it in his face and sensed it in his slow movements.
Self-pitying thoughts crept in as I recalled the pain buried in his eyes when he’d announced he was going out again. Then I chased the poisonous thoughts away. Of course he needs to visit his first family’s graves. There were no guarantees that turbulent planet would exist to infinity.
It proved difficult to swallow envy’s bitter dregs from my tongue. He must have been very devoted to her to brave those furious elements again. I imagined Matt out there in the wild, slashing snow, ice, and wind as he struggled past the doomed Fire Dawn’s wreckage to A’lia’s grave. A tear ran along my cheek. Others followed as I silently cried for him and her.
After a while, my thoughts turned to Timirshil-ka and what Matt and I had experienced in her presence. My hand crept beneath my undershirt to caress my lower abdomen and protectively cover it. I’d always thought that anyone seeking the Divine Intelligence need only spend a few years upon harsh Dearleth to find It. I prayed then to that Great Intelligence and Creator of the Universe that our son lay safe and unharmed within my womb, unaffected by my exertions in the storm. And I prayed also that the Unknowable Spirit watched over Matt and would bring him safely back to us.
Chapter Thirteen
I couldn’t rest any longer and fled our sleeping quarters, but I’d kept the blanket Matt had wrapped around me. I huddled in his navicon chair with every muscle tensed as I frowned at the violent storm swirling past the observation window, leaving ice droplets splattered across it. Long minutes crept by and Matt hadn’t returned. I’d tallied thirty-five standard minutes on the control panel’s chronometer since he’d gone.
My distracted gaze wandered to the chronometer again and marked the painstaking tracking of the seconds up to thirty-six eternal minutes. I eased an arm from the blanket’s fold to tap the ship’s transmitter control. More minutes crawled by, and my third call announcement signal in the past half an hour received no response.
I leaped up and ran to the sleeping cabin, where I shed the blanket and tossed it on the sleep couch. I franticly snatched up the environment suit from where Matt had left it. Although the insulated material was waterproof, melted snow that hadn’t drained away pooled on it in various places. I shook the water off and scrambled into the suit, then sealed it up and tugged on the hood. I activated the thermostat controls and noticed the suit’s power-pac needed recharging. It was three-quarters depleted, but I wasn’t going far—I hoped. I tugged on my boots without much attention as to which foot was what. Then I grabbed the gloves and shot through our sleeping quarter’s door.
I paused at the last moment to snag a ship transmitter from the emergency supplies storage bin before racing to the airlock door. The Stardancer opened and sealed her portal behind me. Before I could effectively plan what I was about to do next, I stood alone outside the hull door, exposed to the full and much increased fury scouring this nameless planet. The blizzard relented several scant seconds and a fleeting break in the fast-scudding clouds allowed me to glimpse the sun’s faint, bleary red dot hovering barely visible above the distant horizon. A night darkness dominated by the ominous gray cloud cover would soon claim the land. And I forgot to grab an emergency palm light! No time to go back inside for one. I needed to go before full darkness fell. Luckily, the transmitter I carried could activate external flood lights on the ships hull to guide me back if true night caught me. I clenched my teeth against the storm’s renewed lash.
Matt! Alarm spike through my heart. Where is he?
I inched forward, feeling my cautious way down the ramp stair that rapidly acquired a treacherous accumulation. Ice pellets scoured my face and I squinted against the onslaught. I cursed myself for not grabbing a pair of eye shields, also, as I clumsily adjusted my hood with one gloved hand. My other grasped the single rail on my left to steady my creeping progress and defy the wind that tried to sweep me from the ramp.
At last my searching feet detected no more steps, and I stood on the surface. I waded several paces forward through the now midthigh-high, ice-crusted accumulation while the wind-driven snows and long evening shadows rapidly siphoned away the last weak daylight. The ramp’s whine as it retracted into the ship reached my ears during a momentarily lull in the wind’s howling. Then the Stardancer’s hull door sighed, thudded shut, and sealed with a definite final snick.
I’d never felt so abandoned and isolated before. Many times I’d thought the long, untamed winters on Dearleth were bad, for they had walled the underground residences off from the surface for weeks at a time. This was worse and more frightening, because there was no other living presence on that planet that I knew of besides Matt—and Timirshil-ka. But she was far away in both distance and, likely, another dimension by then.
“Matt!” I shouted, but his name didn’t travel far. The wind muffled and snatched my cry, then ruthlessly tossed it back at me.
I fumbled in the suit’s pocket for the transmitter. I set it to home in on the transmitter he carried. It emitted a steady chiming pulse. I squinted down at a tiny blue flashing arrow displayed on the small transmitter. It pointed to my right. I trudged in the direction where the Fire Dawn’s wreck and A’lia’s grave lay as fast as the storm, the wind-whipped deep snow, and pelting ice slivers would allow me.
The wreck’s faintly discerned outlines came in view. I struggled on, leaning against the elements until I stood beneath the large, unbroken main section, and I called again. The wind rocked my body while I strained to hear any faint reply. I turned slowly around, rechecking the transmitter’s range. It continued emitting the target pulse signal. Matt was here—or should have been here.
My overactive imagination kicked into gear. Did he fall and drop it? Was he hurt and lying buried somewhere out here beneath the snow? Anxiety made me trample away a brief distance searching around for the other transmitter or any vestige of a dark gray environment suit underneath the thigh-high mush. I had to search fast because storm dusk had fallen.
A piercing, protesting squeal grabbed my attention and I snapped my head up in alarm. A metallic clash followed, reverberating through the wind’s keening. My feet clumsily swung around in the snow toward the Fire Dawn’s skeleton from where the sounds had erupted.
Glad relief raced through me as Matt’s figure carefully emerged from the ope
n, lazbeam-scored hull portal. He stepped onto a narrow ramp that hadn’t been there before. Likely, the loud crash had resulted from him activating it.
“Matt!”
He stopped and peered through the gathering gloom and slashing ice torrent toward me, then completed his ramp descent in several leaps.
“Kailiri! What in blazes are you doing out here?” he demanded as he tramped toward me. “I told you not to be concerned.” His voice grew harsh. “If you’d been closer to the ramp when it opened, you could have been hurt! You should not be here.” He grasped my shoulders and hauled me close, where he sheltered me from the brunt of the wind’s brutal assault.
I leaned contentedly against him, not caring about the storm or his furious scowl.
“I see that in the future I’ll either have to issue strict orders to you or tie you down, wife of mine. Let’s return to the Stardancer.” His voice was gruff.
I glanced up with belated remembrance of why he’d come out here. “Have you—have you done all you set out to do?”
“I have. Let’s go,” he said curtly and led me away. He produced a small palm light to guide our way, then extracted his ship transmitter and tapped it before replacing it in a pocket. Bright lights flared ahead through the elements, flagging the ship’s position.
He didn’t speak again until we were inside the Stardancer’s warm, dry interior. When he did speak, molten gold fires glowered in his dark eyes’ centers. “Why, Kailiri? Why did you risk exposing yourself and our child to danger and the storm again? I thought you safe and secure within the Stardancer. I would not have been gone so long if I’d known that I had a headstrong woman who likes to gamble with her life.”
I stepped away from Matt’s fury. Part of me reveled with savage delight that he expressed this much anxiety for me. And part of me trembled. He grabbed my arm and led me to our cabin, where he grimly proceeded to remove my outerwear again. I meekly submitted and dared not peek up when he enclosed me within the blanket. He lifted me and placed me with a solid thump on the sleep couch. “Stay,” he ordered, as if I was a disobedient snow sled dog on Dearleth.