The Shores Beyond Time by Kevin Emerson

Author:Kevin Emerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

Interlude

PLANET DESIGNATE: PHINEA

NORMA ARM SECTOR 12

57 TRILLION KM FROM THE CENTAURI SYSTEM

Just over six light-years from the Centauri system, in the northwest quadrant of the fourth planet orbiting a mellow red dwarf star, a white light began to blink. The light was on a device something like a phone, and its blinking caught the attention of the two young beings standing around it, shading their eyes from the afternoon heat.

“Is that her?” asked one of the beings, whose name was Morena.

“I think so,” said the other, whose name was Leno and who was holding the device. “Dad!” he called over his shoulder. “I think we found her!”

His voice echoed through the maze of narrow, red-walled canyons, their sides striped with crimson. Here and there, large sections of the walls glimmered with plates of silver-and-lavender metallic ore.

“Coming!” Dad called distantly.

Leno started down the narrow, twisting path, following the signal. A cool breeze rushed across their faces. The sun had just set beyond the mountain ridges, and overhead, the sky had cooled to a bluish-lavender.

“Shouldn’t we wait for him?” said Morena, falling into step behind him.

“He’ll catch up. Besides, the show starts in half an hour.”

“Why did she have to do this today?”

“I don’t know,” said Leno, although, being a few years older than his sister, he’d heard their parents grumbling about how Great-Grandma always got weird around Touchdown Day. But still, this was the biggest festival of the year! And the thermal energy show was amazing and it started just after sunset.

They wound their way down the dry canyon—Great-Grandma called these paths gulches, a word that wasn’t even in their dictionary but which she’d picked up somewhere long ago. As they walked, the spiny rock walls on either side grew from chest height to a few meters over their heads. It was chilly here in the deeper shadows. Leno shivered and felt the thermal cells on the shoulders and back of his shirt humming to life as they switched from their solar collection mode to warming.

“Ah!” A clatter of rocks, a sharp hiss.

Leno spun to see Morena on her knees, coughing, a cloud of shimmering air beside her. “You’ve got to be careful!” he said, dragging her to her feet and away from the cloud.

“I didn’t see it!”

She’d stepped on a bubble shell—a thin surface of rock that hid a pocket of methane. They were left over from the ancient gas oceans that had once covered the planet and shaped its landmasses. Scientists thought that Phinea had once been a rogue planet, tracking silently through space, before being caught in the gravitational embrace of Anya, their star. The methane oceans, liquid at extreme cold temperatures, had evaporated, but here and there, remnants were still trapped beneath the surface. Leno had heard some older kids saying they liked to scout out areas with pockets like this and rather than merely break them open, as Morena accidentally had, they would toss in an incendiary stick and turn the gas into a momentary jet of flame.

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