The Icarus Void by CK Burch

Author:CK Burch [Burch, CK]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: CK Burch
Published: 2011-11-28T04:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI.

When he stepped through the artifact's surface, he felt it grip and wrap around him the same way he remembered Kerrick's vagina had, and Straub had nearly thrown up in his helmet right then. It didn't just open up and accept him, it sucked him in, hungrily, pulling him into pitch black nothingness. Standing before it, he'd wondered what would pass by them inside, stars or planets perhaps, but no, nothing, just pitch blackness for a split second and then as his foot landed to complete his step, it landed on solid rocky ground and he was through.

The landscape before them was barren and crusted, black with beams of weak amber light piercing through in fissures. It rolled and moved slightly like the surface of bubbling oatmeal. What struck Straub instantly was the sensation that the firmament beneath him had been liquid at some point, had only cooled and cracked and burnt over time. This wasn't a sub-brown dwarf; yes, the ethane meter was high, but there were no pools of ethane in sight. Only rolling hills, reminding him of the Oregon plains, no vegetation, mostly flat out to the horizon. Above them, the darkness of space was clear and crisp with no haze to block the brightness of the stars. They shone through in crystalline diamond sparkles, hues of white and purple and full spectrums. Straub had never seen anything like it. He was familiar with most star charts within a certain range, but this eluded him.

Down at his feet was the atmospheric sounding bolt that Tybalt had shot through, the head of it still blinking, still connected to the cable on the other end in the cargo bay. He turned and saw Collins and Laguardia beside him, both looking around with as much awe as he had. A doppelganger of the artifact on the Icarus stood behind the group, chipped and cracked in the same places, formed like a speartip arrowhead at the top. Strange. A quick glance around showed him multiple artifacts, all the same color and size, lined across the plains. They seemed to be arranged in concentric circles, growing smaller towards the horizon, what he assumed was east. The compass on the HES held no bearing and could find no magnetic north. The land in that direction rolled up higher into a hill, then looked like it would dip low again.

He saw Doctor Tybalt some twenty yards away, hopskipping madly towards the point where it looked like the circles came together. She was just at the lowest point of the hill where it began to rise. He tuned his HES to her frequency and shouted, ″Doctor! Doctor Tybalt!″

She immediately stopped in her tracks, hopping a bit. The gravity here really was like the Moon, low but enough to keep them on the ground. She waved high and wide with both arms. ″I didn't think you'd follow me so quickly!″ she said. She sounded excited. No, ecstatic. ″Who did you bring with you?″

″Commander Collins and Sergeant Laguardia,″ Straub said.

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