Freefall by Joshua David Bellin

Author:Joshua David Bellin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Otherworld

Earth Year 3151

Day

I wake in time to see the pod things stirring, their shells flexing as they prepare to open for the night. I’m almost stupid enough to stand there and watch the whole process, until I remind myself they aren’t about to hatch into cute fluffy ducklings. I suit up and crawl out of the cavern in a hurry, and so far as I can tell, the things don’t follow.

The creature from the previous night lies on its stomach, insect legs splayed as if it tried to get up before collapsing again. That gives me an idea, and I close my gloved hand around the final joint of one of its segmented legs. With the help of my ion gun, I heat the metal or living tissue or whatever the joint’s composed of until it sizzles and snaps, and I’ve got myself a new walking stick, heavier and shorter than the old one but better than nothing. It creeps me out to think where it came from, but the alternative, I tell myself, is much worse.

Now that I’ve seen the orientation of the gulf that lies under the Freefall, I stay well to the right of it, using my macabre walking stick to make sure I don’t deviate from my course. Still, the going’s much slower than I calculated—the one thing I didn’t take into account was fear of losing my way in the ever-present mist, which blocks my view of the terrain as well as the ship. The whole time I’m walking, the rasp of my oxygen kit makes it impossible to hear if anything’s following. I take a couple of breaks to rest and watch for stalkers in the night, but to my immense relief, there’s nothing to see.

I’m a good kilometer from my goal when the lights of the Freefall finally fight their way through the mist. I pick up the pace now that I’ve got a visible target, but even so, it’s near daybreak before I stand by the ship at last, the first dribbles of sunlight bleeding the fog into a million fuzzy halos. The tracking device has been flashing merrily away during my walk, but now it gives off a steady red glow, so I know at least some of the pods are inside.

The only question is, how do I get at them?

I tuck the homing device into my supply pouch and walk alongside the ship, keeping one hand on its flank for anything that might suggest a way in. Not surprisingly, the hull appears impregnable, which it would have to be to survive an interstellar voyage. If the Freefall’s configured anything like the Executor, there should be a cluster of airlocks by the forward command center. But that’s half a ship’s length from me, lost in a gleam of fog twenty football fields away, and requiring me to cross a gulch with no discernible bottom. Plus I’m not authorized to open the airlocks. I’ve got no way to communicate with the ship’s

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