Shiro pulled off a clean, soft landing. We were in darkness, shadowed by the mountain. It ended abruptly to the right of our shuttle, dropping off to a smooth, icy surface that was probably a frozen lake or ocean.
“How far to their ship?”
He checked the screen. “About five kilometers around the side of the mountain. Won’t be a pleasant walk.”
The ship powered down, leaving only a dim glow inside. Shiro said, “In a ridiculous show of optimism, I’m leaving some power going and the heat on in here. I’m sure we’ll be coming back here with a bunch of cold, rescued humans. They’ll appreciate not getting into a freezing ship.”
He stood up and I followed him around behind our seats to the little door he’d showed me before. Reaching inside, he pulled out a couple of guns. They were dark green, with two handles on the bottom, a shoulder strap, and no visible trigger.
“Here. Hold this in both hands.”
I wrapped my gloved hands around the handles, and he touched a spot-on top of the weapon.
“It’s biometrically attuned to you now,” he said. “Won’t fire for anyone else.” He pulled two more guns out of the alcove. “The Siitsi aren’t killers, and these don’t shoot bullets. Just a shockwave, so they will probably only stun the Botanists, although it’s possible the force of the stun might be too much for the little ones. The field is pretty wide, so just aim and squeeze on the front handle. Hope for the best.”
He slung the other two over his shoulder, and we trooped back into the cargo hold.
A large white bag sat strapped to the floor.
“Explosives. Just in case.”
He unstrapped the bag and slung it over his other shoulder.
“I can carry some of that,” I protested, but he shook his head.
“I’m fine. You just carry your own gun and be ready for whatever happens.”
We stood near the back hatch and touched the spot on our neck rings that made the thin helmets wrap around our faces. Shiro reached over and touched another spot-on mine, and his voice echoed in my ears through some kind of comm system.
“You ready to go out there?”
I nodded. The helmet moved with me.
With a quiet swish, the hatch slid open and its ramp extended. Cold air blasted in, and a small rumble vibrated through my neck. The suit warmed a bit, but the chill was already settling in.
Even if we find them, they’ll die out there.
“How are we going to get them back here without them freezing?” I asked as we descended the ramp.
Shiro’s voice in my helmet said, “Hoping there will be some kind of exposure protection in their ship we can use. I have a couple of extra suits in the bag.” He hitched up the white bag on his shoulder. “But if there’s more than five of them, we’ll have to figure something else out.”
Five suits. That’s all he expected to find alive in there. Five.
One of them has to be Shane.
The helmet protected my ears from the whipping wind that buffeted me as I hiked along the smooth ice. Nothing moved in the darkness.
“How does this moon have an atmosphere?” I knew there was oxygen here. Not enough to live for long, but enough for the mad dash between ships I’d imagined myself doing after I crash landed the shuttle here.
“The Siitsi say there’s a lot of photosynthetic bacteria living in the ice here,” Shiro said. “The atmosphere is really thin, but it might thicken up in another couple million years, warm this moon right up. Come back in a few million, this place might be a tropical paradise.”
We trooped on. The suit protected my skin, but cold seeped into my bones. I started to shiver and walked faster. Without the suit I would have died in minutes out here. How something so thin was keeping me warm enough to live was another Siitsi mystery.
The end of the Botanist ship came into view around the side of the mountain. It was the first good look I’d had.
In space, it had reflected black. Here it was stark white. A huge, smooth, round bean, with just the back edge visible. It wasn’t as big as the Horizon Delta. But it was easily as big as the Siitsi ship we’d left. Big enough to swallow Horizon’s shuttle. Big enough to swallow fifty Horizon shuttles.
We crouched down, staying close to the sheer cliff wall next to us. It felt stupid to be creeping along the ice. If they had any kind of sensors deployed, they would know we were here. More of their enormous, smooth craft was coming into my vision in the dim twilight. The sun was either rising or setting in the distance, but we were in the ship’s shadow.
A rushing gurgle was getting louder in my ears. We bent low and scuttled around the back of the Botanist ship. It sat right up against the cliff wall, sitting right on its rounded bottom. No landing gear, no wheels or feet. Just a giant white bean on the solid ice.
“Which way?” I whispered.
Shiro peered down the cliff side of the ship. No doors. No ramp. No windows. Nothing on this side that would let us get inside.
I hadn’t thought of that. It had just swallowed our shuttle out in space. Corey had wondered if the whole thing was some kind of rudimentary life form, able to bend its shape as necessary, opening and closing its hull at will, like some kind of soft putty. What if we couldn’t get in?
Shiro motioned for me to follow, and we scuttled around the back toward the light of the sunny side. It was getting brighter by the minute. Sunrise, then. Not sunset. It hardly mattered. The whole moon was nothing but ice. It wasn’t going to warm up for another few million years.
The rushing sound got louder as we traversed the huge end of the Botanist ship. I’d called it the back end, but with an oblong bean, who knew?
My fingers and toes were numb. The helmet kept my face from freezing, but my body was weakening in the deep, painful cold. We had to find a way in, and soon. If we spent much more time out here, the rescue would be over before it began. Even now I realized this had been a one-way trip. No possible way I could make the long hike back to the Siitsi shuttle and its heat. Even if we gave up right now, we would die in the cold shadow of the mountain.
Bright sunlight blinded me as we crept out from under the white bean’s backside. The Siitsi helmet immediately darkened to compensate.
Shiro stopped and turned to face me. “Look,” he said. “I know you want to rescue your people, and so do I. But if we can’t get them out, we’re at least going to save what’s left of the people on Earth.” He hitched the bag of explosives on his shoulder. “If we can’t get inside, I’m going to blow up as much as I can of the hull and hope to cripple the ship. No matter what, we can’t let it leave this moon.”
Under my feet, the ice was vibrating. I looked down the long, bright length of the ship’s side. A thick tube extended from the ship like the stem of a huge mushroom. It dipped into a pool of liquid water with thick ice rimming the edges of the tiny churning lake.
“How is that not frozen?” I asked.
“The tube must be melting it,” Shiro said. We huddled under the edge of the ship for a moment, watching it. The water was bubbling all around the edge of the tube.
They came here for the water. Of course they did. The realization hit me. They were plants. They might live off photosynthesis from distant starlight and gain some nutrition from the living things the pitcher swallowed, but in the end, they were plants, and plants needed water to survive. They were preparing for an extended space flight to Earth. The Botanists were stocking up.
The edge of the tube stuck out from the side of the ship. We sidled closer to where it came out, edging along until we were standing underneath it. Shiro looked up.
“It just sticks straight out. Can’t see a way in.”
But I did.
The tube was long and narrow, plunging into the churning water. Shiro wouldn’t fit through it.
I would.
“Is this thing waterproof?” I held the gun up in shaking hands.
Understanding dawned on his face.
“Yeah, but you can’t—”
Before my courage could desert me, I plunged into the water, leaving Shiro in mid-sentence. The icy water compressed my suit around me, shocking my already-cold body into near-paralysis.
Gripping the gun to my chest, I kicked over to the edge of the tube and pushed my head under the water’s surface.
The sides of the tube ripped past my shoulders as I was sucked up into the Botanist ship.