Godspeed by Charles Sheffield

Author:Charles Sheffield
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Space Colonies, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780812519921
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1993-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

The kid had helped me to sit up, but he didn't wait for me to get my wind back.

"I'm—I'm—" I started, but then I was too breathless to do more than parrot his question. "Who are you?" I croaked. "And what are you doing here?"

He sniffed and picked up the pink flashlight from where he had placed it on the ground.

"I live here, that's what I'm doing." His voice was high-pitched and a little bit foreign, like somebody from over on the other side of Erin. "And I know what I'm doing. That's more than you can say, dashing around in the dark. You could have killed yourself. But I'll answer you. My name is Mel Fury."

"I'm Jay Hara."

I thought, You sound like a smart ass.

We stared at each other.

"Why did you run away from me?" he said.

"I thought you were somebody else. I was being chased."

Then I had to explain everything, about coming from Erin and our arrival on Paddy's Fortune and Walter Hamilton's murder, but before I was fairly begun on that I started to worry about the light that Mel Fury was holding. Sean Wilgus and the others could use it to home in on me. "Turn that off." I said.

"If you insist." He sounded cool and superior.

The light vanished. After a few seconds I realized that I could still see a little. Although we were close to the pole this was a tiny world, and some sunlight was being scattered in by the translucent shield of Paddy's Fortune. There would never be around-the-clock total darkness, even at the bottom of a narrow crevice. So much for my idea that I could be free from pursuit.

"They may still be after me," I said. "We have to find somewhere safer than this."

"No problem." He stood up and hitched his backpack into position. "Let's go. I'm getting hungry anyway."

The crack in the surface that I had fallen into was only the width of my outstretched arms. I followed Mel Fury along the uneven floor of it, testing a sore ankle and rubbing my skinned knuckles as we slanted upward. As we went I thought about his last comment. He might be hungry, but I was starving.

We emerged onto the surface, and I stared all around me.

"I haven't seen anything you can eat anywhere." I kept my voice to a whisper—there was no knowing where the crew members of the Cuchulain might be. "Do you catch the animals and eat them?"

Fury gave a condescending snigger. "What a disgusting idea! Of course I don't. I eat regular food. You'll see, if you'll just be patient. And walk quietly, for heaven's sake. No wonder you worry about being followed."

It was a mystery. He seemed to glide through the vegetation without disturbing it at all. I tried to imitate his way of walking, and at the same time explained to him in a tense whisper where we had come from, and what we were doing on Paddy's Fortune.

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