Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

Liis snapped the end of the cable into a socket on the outer right thigh of her suit. “Yes?” the ship asked pleasantly.

She ordered he outer doors sealed; they slid to smoothly, cutting the light from inside like it was being sliced away by a knife, leaving them in the muted illumination of the partially exposed running lights. Then she gave the order to shut down the last onboard systems; the running lights extinguished and darkness swallowed them. She raised her glove, but couldn’t make out the faintest traces of the white material. Groping in the dark, she found the cable and detached it from her flank. She let it fall to the side of the ship. Turning, she tried to locate Penirdth and the tunnel. After a moment, she could make out the ghostly outline of Penirdth’s suit. To his right, the mouth of the tunnel glowed faintly. She moved cautiously towards him, sliding her feet along the floor to feel her way. When she reached him, she extended her hand and placed it on his arm.

Penirdth bent his helmet forward again: “Go on. I’ll follow.”

“Okay.”

Liis crouched so that her helmet bobbed beneath the arc of the opening. Visible in the ragged circle a dozen or so meters away she could see it was night; stars were visible between ranks of long, tattered clouds. Through the thin atmosphere they burnt steadily, reminding her, unexpectedly, of Josua, somewhere out there. At their parting, over five hundred years ago in hard time, she’d known it was likely that she would never see him again; yet, she barely remembered the moment when he had nodded stiffly in her direction before the doors of the shuttle had sealed, cutting him off from view forever. (Or had he said something, a few awkward words? She found she couldn’t recall.) The whole event had scattered in her memory like wind-torn smoke. It was a trick, this not remembering, one she had mastered over the years to compensate for her loneliness. And with Josua, it had been a skill she needed to retain her sanity.

But now, she suddenly realised, the need had vanished. She had expected her heart to plummet at the thought of Josua, for her anguish to brim over and drown her as it had so many times before. But it didn’t. Strangely, she couldn’t summon those feelings. Anger eluded her. Only a mild irritation at herself for being so foolish. Perhaps, she thought, I’ve practised too long, become too good at not caring.

A tap on her back through the material of her suit; she recalled herself. Behind her, Penirdth with his hands open, a sign asking if she was okay. She returned the thumb’s up sign.

Goodbye, she thought at the Ea. Taking a deep breath, she went down on her knees and one good arm and began to awkwardly crawl up the gentle incline towards the cold, unfamiliar stars.

The meteorite had plowed into an icefield, shattering and melting the glacial plain as it cut a twenty kilometer furrow. Ice and snow formed only a shallow layer atop the plateau upon which they had come to a rest. Fifty kilometers to the south, across the icefield, mountains ringed the glacier. Frozen rivers of ice spilled through gaps between the peaks to a lower plain. Three hundred and eleven kilometers beyond was the dome. Moments before impact, the instruments aboard the Ea had recorded detailed images of the strange dome-and what appeared to be the heat signatures of at least a dozen people at its summit. It was one of the last things Liis remembered seeing before losing consciousness. It had shaken her, as much that Yilda had been right, as at the thought of what they were here to do to those people.

Kneeling on the lip of the opening they had cut in the rock, Liis regarded the expanse of the icefield. This world was smaller than Bh’Haret and so its horizon looked clipped to Liis, like it fell off abruptly at its edge. In the distance, mountains flared raggedly above the flat sheet of the glacier, crowns covered with a permanent mantle of snow. Due south, two of the highest peaks soared against the star flecked sky like sentinels, guarding a small, thumb-sized gap where the glacier poured out onto the plain below. This pass, Penirdth had told her, was their first objective. The furrow that the meteorite had carved through the shallow ice pointed back to the gap like an accusing finger.

Even thought it was night, the snow reflected a surprising amount of the starlight, enough so that she had no trouble making out the regular shapes of the lightweight toboggans below; but even this close it was difficult for her to find the four white-suited figures waiting for her. (But then, hadn’t that been one of the goals of these suits, to camouflage their ,movements?) After a moment Liis located the tallest figure, who stood a bit apart from the others, its abnormally wide, oval helmet inclined towards the tunnel where Liis now perched. Hebuiza. The figure raised its arm, gestured at her impatiently to descend.

The drop to the glacier was fifteen meters; at Liis’ feet, a rope, secured by a single piton, trailed over the edge. She felt a tap on her leg. Penirdth handed forward a rope with a carabiner on its end, indicating that she should attach it to the front of her harness. Through a series of hand gestures, he made it clear that she should grip the belaying rope with her good arm, and he’d let the other out to lower her. Liis tried to nod, but her helmet scraped the roof of the tunnel. She gave him another thumb’s up sign.

Laying half on her side, half on her stomach, Liis squirmed around and wiggled backwards out of the tunnel. By propping herself up on her good arm, rope through her fist, she tried to protect her broken limb, expecting at any moment to feel the sharp stab of pain when pressure was put on it; but the drug that Penirdth had given her did the trick, for she felt nothing more than a mild throbbing.

Her legs went over the edge, then her torso. Wrapping her right leg through the line, she let the rope out slowly from between her fingers and slipped lower. Her descent went smoothly. A few meters above the ground, her fingers tiring, she let out too much rope. Penirdth reacted by jerking the line back abruptly. The rope came loose from where she had wound it around her leg and she spun slowly toward the blackened face of the meteorite. Her chest and arm took the brunt of impact. Pain seared her vision and she gasped. She felt her grip loosening; gritting her teeth, she tried to clutch the rope tighter. Her good arm was fully extended now, her weight hanging off it, her fingers and shoulder feeling as though they were being torn apart. As she spun slowly back the other way, she felt her grip weakening, slipping. Her arm shook uncontrollably, her fingers on fire. With a shout, she lost her grip-

- her legs stuck the surface, sending a mild jolt up her spine, causing her jaw to snap shut. She stumbled backwards, away from the meteorite; hands caught at her, restored her balance. She blinked, looked at the white figure that supported her. At first she felt relief, then embarrassment. Above, Penirdth’s helmet poked over the edge of the tunnel. He still held the rope attached to her harness in his left hand. Though her arm ached, Liis raised it and waved. He waved back, then withdrew. A moment later, he backed over the edge and began his descent, a squat, graceless form rappelling down the black face.

The person who’d caught her stared at her through the anonymous dark band of the helmet’s visor. Other than the general size of the suit, it was difficult to distinguish between the members of the party. Hebuiza, with his oval helmet, was the only one of whom she could be certain. He still was off to the side, watching. Liis bent her head forward, made contact with the other person’s helmet. “Thanks,” she said gruffly.

“Sure,” the answer came back in Mira’s tiny voice. She pointed to one of the sleds. Like the others, it was two meters long and painted white; several bulky items were strapped under a white tarp, although its load appeared to be smaller than the rest. Lashed on top were a pair of snowshoes and, next to them, a set of short, wide skis. “Penirdth asked us to get a toboggan ready for you-in case.” A pause. “You’ve only got a few minutes before we leave.” Mira broke contact and moved back to her own sled in loping strides. In the unreal white landscape, her figure seemed small, insignificant.

Binlosson and Yilda had already begun testing the balance of their loads. They had attached the leads to their harnesses and deployed their tails. The long radiating cables were clipped back along the leads and then the edge of the toboggans, unravelling from coiled piles as they dragged their sleds forward and away from the meteorite, clearly anxious to put as much distance between themselves and the meteorite as possible.

Before they had departed Bh’Haret, Yilda had given them what survey data they had on SJH1231-K. But it had provided only the grossest descriptions of the planet and general maps of the landscape. The specifics on which they were now working had been gathered from the short burst of information their passive sensors had collected during their turbulent descent. On the surface, it was apparent the terrain was too irregular for their squat skis (much to Liis’ relief, for she knew poling with one arm would be nearly impossible), but the ground was firm enough to take the weight of their boots without snowshoes. Only a few centimeters of névé, granular snow with the consistency of loose salt, covered a firm crust. They would begin by hiking, Yilda decided.

By the time Liis managed-with help from Penirdth-to attach the lead from her toboggan to her harness and deploy her tail, the party was already trekking away from the meteorite. Instead of walking south towards the pass, Yilda led them to the west. His reasoning, Liis guessed, was to get as far away from the meteorite and the furrow it had plowed in the glacier, fearing their party might be spotted by a Speaker curious to view the impact site through an orbital or a remote. Certainly a close inspection of the meteorite would betray their presence. But anything less would show little: their suits hid their heat signatures and the tiny currents produced by their electronics were carefully insulated to prevent EMF leaks. All their equipment had an identical white camouflage coating. The only danger would be if a sharp eye, or lens, caught their movement across the nearly featureless landscape.

They moved out single-file beneath the star-washed sky, spaced evenly and separated by the twenty meter lengths of their tails. Hebuiza was in the lead, his long strides breaking the path; he was followed by Yilda, Mira, and Binlosson (or so Liis guessed from their general shapes and sizes). Yilda and Mira used ski poles as they walked, their arms pumping up and down in the same rhythm as their steps. Making the final adjustments to her harness, Liis moved in short, brisk steps to catch up. She was second last. Penirdth, who had waited patiently for her to finish her preparations, fell into line last, brining up the rear.

The ground, although broken by tiny ridges of ice that thrust up like miniature frozen waves, was surprisingly firm; it was relatively easy to step over such obstructions. In the lessened