walk away from.â Then the pain really hit me all over, and I was busy gritting my teeth and stifling screams until Arlene kindly injected me with a pain suppressor and stimulant from her combat armor medipouch.
Sears and Roebuck woke up, little the worse for wear. âShall we to outgo and face the new brave world?â they cheerfully asked. It was the closest Iâd ever come to fragging two of my own men.
8
âL ivable?â asked Arlene, her voice hoarse and painful to hear.
Sears and Roebuck grunted. âJustice a minute, justice a minute.â They tapped at several keys on the command console, hmming and humming as the few sensors that had not burned off in the crash sampled the air, the radiation levels, the temperature, and looked for any dangerous bacteria, viruses, molds, or other microorganisms. âNot to kill,â they announced at last
âHealthy?â I gasped.
âNot to kill.â
Their irritating evasiveness put me on my guard, but what could we do? The shipâs air seal was ruptured, and we soon would be sucking down Skin-walkerâs air, whether we wanted to or not. The machinery that manufactured the nutrition pills was back a kilometer in the ship and was probably smeared across the landscape. So we would soon enough be eating local food and drinking local water, if there was anyâor dying of thirst and hunger. Our combat suits would serve as a limited shield against radiation, but they would only mitigate, not negate the ill effects. For good or ill, we were cast upon the shores of Skinwalker, offered only wayfarerâs bounty.
God, how poetic. We would either be able to digest the local produce or die trying.
We picked ourselves up off the floor, painfully peeling the deckplates away from our skin. Arlene wasnât hit as hard as Iâless mass per surface area. Our armor was pounded hard, protective value probably compromised but still better than zip. Despite their chipper words, Sears and Roebuck had a hard time peeling themselves out of the command chair (which had survived remarkably intact). Arlene let me lean on her shoulders, and our pilots supported each other, as we limped to the emergency hatch. I pulled the activation lever. Explosive bolts blew outward, taking the hatch cover with them.
Shaking, we climbed down the ladder, two hundred meters or more. It was a straight shot, not staggered the way human ladders generally are: if one of us were to slip. . . . I nervously watched Sears and Roebuck above me, but I shouldnât have worried; their legs may have been ridiculously short, but they were powerfulâall due to the high gravity of the Klave homeworld. Arlene and I were more likely to slip and fall in the relatively modest gravity of the planet, about 0.7 g.
The world looked like the Mojave Desert, or maybe we just happened to land in a desert area. I hadnât gotten much of a look during the crash. I looked up. The sky was too pale, but I saw oddly square clouds, almost crystalline; we had weather, evidently. Bending down, grimacing, I lifted a handful of sand: the grains were finer than Earth sand, fine enough that I decided Arlene and I should wear our biofilters; really, really fine silica can clog up your alveolae and give you something like Black Lung Disease. Thereafter, we spoke through throat mikes into our âlozengeâ receivers. I donât know what Sears and Roebuck did when I pointed out the problem; they had their own radio.
The brownish gray sandscape depressed me. Under a pale sky, the only spots of color were the green and black of our standard-issue combat suits and Sears and Roebuckâs muted orange flightsuits, which they had worn ever since the mission began. Everything else was the color of dingy gray socks that hadnât been washed in a month.
âOkay, S and R, what the hell did you mean about us being shot at?â My tongue couldnât help exploring the new hole in my
Sears and Roebuck woke up, little the worse for wear. âShall we to outgo and face the new brave world?â they cheerfully asked. It was the closest Iâd ever come to fragging two of my own men.
8
âL ivable?â asked Arlene, her voice hoarse and painful to hear.
Sears and Roebuck grunted. âJustice a minute, justice a minute.â They tapped at several keys on the command console, hmming and humming as the few sensors that had not burned off in the crash sampled the air, the radiation levels, the temperature, and looked for any dangerous bacteria, viruses, molds, or other microorganisms. âNot to kill,â they announced at last
âHealthy?â I gasped.
âNot to kill.â
Their irritating evasiveness put me on my guard, but what could we do? The shipâs air seal was ruptured, and we soon would be sucking down Skin-walkerâs air, whether we wanted to or not. The machinery that manufactured the nutrition pills was back a kilometer in the ship and was probably smeared across the landscape. So we would soon enough be eating local food and drinking local water, if there was anyâor dying of thirst and hunger. Our combat suits would serve as a limited shield against radiation, but they would only mitigate, not negate the ill effects. For good or ill, we were cast upon the shores of Skinwalker, offered only wayfarerâs bounty.
God, how poetic. We would either be able to digest the local produce or die trying.
We picked ourselves up off the floor, painfully peeling the deckplates away from our skin. Arlene wasnât hit as hard as Iâless mass per surface area. Our armor was pounded hard, protective value probably compromised but still better than zip. Despite their chipper words, Sears and Roebuck had a hard time peeling themselves out of the command chair (which had survived remarkably intact). Arlene let me lean on her shoulders, and our pilots supported each other, as we limped to the emergency hatch. I pulled the activation lever. Explosive bolts blew outward, taking the hatch cover with them.
Shaking, we climbed down the ladder, two hundred meters or more. It was a straight shot, not staggered the way human ladders generally are: if one of us were to slip. . . . I nervously watched Sears and Roebuck above me, but I shouldnât have worried; their legs may have been ridiculously short, but they were powerfulâall due to the high gravity of the Klave homeworld. Arlene and I were more likely to slip and fall in the relatively modest gravity of the planet, about 0.7 g.
The world looked like the Mojave Desert, or maybe we just happened to land in a desert area. I hadnât gotten much of a look during the crash. I looked up. The sky was too pale, but I saw oddly square clouds, almost crystalline; we had weather, evidently. Bending down, grimacing, I lifted a handful of sand: the grains were finer than Earth sand, fine enough that I decided Arlene and I should wear our biofilters; really, really fine silica can clog up your alveolae and give you something like Black Lung Disease. Thereafter, we spoke through throat mikes into our âlozengeâ receivers. I donât know what Sears and Roebuck did when I pointed out the problem; they had their own radio.
The brownish gray sandscape depressed me. Under a pale sky, the only spots of color were the green and black of our standard-issue combat suits and Sears and Roebuckâs muted orange flightsuits, which they had worn ever since the mission began. Everything else was the color of dingy gray socks that hadnât been washed in a month.
âOkay, S and R, what the hell did you mean about us being shot at?â My tongue couldnât help exploring the new hole in my
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