Resurgence

Behind her, the place where the last dust devil had met the edge of the grid had come alive. A set of concentric hemispheres of blue light grew, reached a size of a few meters, and vanished. At the same time, a layer of dense blue mist emerged from the same center and rolled toward Lara.

The fog did not show on the range-rate sensor, but Hans did not need any help to compare speeds. Unless Lara could move faster there was no way that she could reach the Savior before the fog lapped around her feet and calves. Ben was in a different situation. He could turn around and make the ship before the layer of mist reached him—if only he had the sense to act immediately.

He didn’t turn. Worse than that, Hans realized that Ben was still moving toward Lara. The man was crazy. What was he hoping to do, grab hold of the blue fog and wrestle it away from her?

Ben’s hopes and intentions did not matter. He was fifty paces from Lara when the mist reached her and rippled around her lower legs.

She at once stopped running. Hans heard a gasp, a startled scream, and then nothing.

“Lara!” He, Darya, and Ben were shouting in unison.

She did not answer. She stood for a few seconds, motionless. And then Lara was screaming again, and she was shrinking. She did not move, she did not topple, she did not sway. She simply sank into the blue surface layer, slowly and steadily. To Ben, limited to the quality of image provided by his suit, it must seem as though Lara drifted down to and through the surface of Iceworld.

Hans, employing the superior sensors of the Savior, knew better. As the different sections of Lara’s body came to within a few centimeters of the glowing layer of blue, they fractured and fragmented and turned to powder. As that happened, the sensors showed her body dropping in temperature. She was ice—she was as cold as liquid air—she was liquid helium, just a few kelvins above absolute zero. Finally, the instruments could not provide values.

Lara’s disintegration formed a hypnotic sight, but the warning of a different danger forced Hans into action. The layer of blue mist had paused when it reached Lara. Now it was moving again, sweeping toward the Savior. Long before it got there it would meet Ben, who stood as silent and motionless as if the tide of blue had already drained him of life and heat.

“Ben! Into the ship.”

Ten quick steps would do it, then they could head up and away to safety. Ben was moving now, but he was like a zombie. Long before he reached the Savior, the fog would roll up to and over him. Already it was no more than thirty meters away, and what had at first been a gentle ripple forward now seemed like an irresistible advance.

Certain death for Ben and escape for Hans and Darya? Or possible death by impact for Ben and an uncertain fate for Hans and Darya? There was no time to work out the odds, but Hans refused to lose another crew member.

“Sit tight.”

That was for Darya, inexplicably trying to stand up from the seat next to him. Hans hit the controls and boosted the Savior—not away to the safety of orbit, but straight forward. The ship accelerated at four gees and scooped Ben Blesh into the maw of the airlock’s open outer door. The clang as his body hit the back of the lock sounded through the whole ship.

What Hans would have liked now was an instant switch from forward motion to upward motion, but the ship’s inertia and the laws of dynamics did not permit that. Although he could alter the direction of thrust in a fraction of a second, until that change took effect the Savior continued to move forward. Forward, toward the edge of the grid point. Forward, toward the deadly blue mist that had crumbled Lara to dust and swallowed her body, and forward toward the pulsing spheres of blue light beyond.

Hans was pinned back in his seat by four gees of acceleration. It took all his strength to keep his hands in place on the controls. The Savior was turning and rising. The ship would clear the layer of blue fog. But they were not rising fast enough. The aft end, where the main drive was located, would pass through the spheres of blue at the edge of the grid patch.

Hans waited for an impact. He felt nothing, but he heard a change in the sound of the drive. A moment later the crushing force on his body lessened. The Savior was losing power. He called for Emergency Mode thrust, which ought to override any other command. Instead of punishing acceleration, the drive turned off completely. Hans felt himself in free fall, dropping with the ship toward the featureless surface.

He braced for an impact that might kill or maim. It never came. Falling in the light gravity of Iceworld, the Savior hit the ground, bounced, then hit again and skidded along the surface.

Hans glanced at the control read-outs. The hull had not been breached. All life-support systems showed normal readings. In principle the inside of the Savior was still the safest place on the planet.