Surprising himself, Kitai wrapped his father in a hug.
He could barely get his arms around his father’s broad shoulders, but it didn’t matter. Kitai hugged him hard and for a long time. And Cypher hugged him back. After all, it might be the last time they had a chance to do it.
Finally Kitai’s father said, “Time’s wasting. And we’ve got a lot to do.”
Kitai let go of Cypher. Then he stood up and snapped his cutlass onto the magnetic plate on his backpack.
He took a last look at his father, managed a weak military turn, and left the cockpit. In a way, it was the scariest thing he had ever done.
But in another way, a way he hadn’t expected, it was exciting.
vi
Kitai stood in the little gangway between two air lock doors. Outside the outer door, the ice was melting as the warmth of the sun’s first rays started penetrating the darkness.
Just one sun, Kitai thought. Weird.
He turned over his wrist, activating his naviband and its many holographic layers, and said, “Can you hear me, Dad? Over.”
There was the briefest of pauses. Then Cypher’s voice came through clear and crisp: “Copy.”
Good, Kitai thought.
There was so much he didn’t know about this place. He looked around warily. So much. And from what his father had said, all of it was deadly. Experimentally, he tapped a combination on the handle of his cutlass. Instantly, one end transformed itself into a large curved blade—a blade that, if not for the protection afforded Kitai by his lifesuit, would have cut a nice gash in his arm.
Idiot, he thought, shaken by the near miss. Until you know what you’re doing, don’t do it. He retracted the blade end of the cutlass and tapped in a different pattern, one with which he was more familiar. In the next breath, the cutlass’s fiber ends extended outward until the weapon was a couple of meters long.
That’s better, he thought.
Taking a deep breath, he exited the torn end of the ship into a rocky ravine. A moment later, the hatch door closed behind him. As he jumped down to the ground, he saw more Rangers—dead like all the others—hanging from the straps of their seats. Kitai sighed. He thought he had seen the last of the corpses. The sight of so much death made his heart pound again.
“Kitai,” his father’s voice said, “take a knee.”
Kitai knelt as he was told.
“I want you to take your time,” said his father. “Acclimate yourself to the environment. Root yourself in this present moment. Tell me any- and everything. No matter how inconsequential it may seem. Everything you see, hear, smell, how you feel. Over.”
Kitai could see daylight above, past the walls of the ravine. He was breathing heavily. “My body feels heavier.”
“Very good,” Cypher said. “The gravitational pull on this planet is slightly different than at home.”
Beat by beat, Kitai grew calm. He appraised the distance to the top of the ravine walls. “It’s about sixty meters to the top.”
“Okay,” Cypher said. “Get going.”
“Roger,” Kitai said.
Cautiously, Kitai began to climb, paying close attention to each placement of his hand or foot. This wasn’t any different from standard rock-climbing walls back home, he realized, and he had climbed those rocks a thousand times.
It wasn’t long before he reached the top. As he found purchase for his left hand, he felt something tickle. His right. When he looked to see what it was, he found a huge multicolored tarantula sitting on his hand.
“Aahhhhh!” he yelled, unable to control himself, and flung the creature from his hand. But in doing so, he lost his balance and slid a meter down the side of the ravine before catching himself. He looked down and shook his head. It could have been worse.
“What happened?” his father asked over their communication link.
Kitai took a deep breath and regained his grip. “You didn’t see that? I thought—”
“What’s your SitRep? Your vitals spiked. I say again—what is your situation report? What happened?”
“No change,” Kitai said, a little embarrassed. “I slipped. I’m good to go.” Then, to make it sound plausible: “There’s condensation on the stones. I’m fine.”
That seemed to appease Cypher. In any case, he didn’t demand any more information. Kitai continued his ascent until he reached the top of the ravine. Even before he pulled himself out, he saw the glorious confusion of colors in the eastern sky. Purple, orange, fuchsia. He had never seen anything like it. Back on Nova Prime, there were sunsets, but they were mainly crimson and gold. These colors were new to him.
Mesmerized by them, he emerged onto what appeared to be an elevated plateau. He shaded his eyes. This sun was bigger than the ones he could see from the surface of his homeworld. Was there another one right behind it? Or was it on its own?
Funny… he had studied Earth but couldn’t remember something as simple as how many moons it had. Then again, he would have considered that a pretty useless piece of information. When would he ever get a chance to use it?
Yeah, he thought. When?
All around him, plants and animals were waking up. He could hear the melodic morning calls of eagles majestically soaring overhead. Off in the distance, maybe a kilometer away, hundreds of buffalo roamed the plain. Well, they resembled the buffalo back home, but these seemed larger, bulkier in front. So much life. Kitai wasn’t used to it. Back on Nova Prime, he had grown up in the desert. This was noisy, full of smells, full of shapes and colors he had never imagined. The spectacle took his breath away.
Abruptly, Cypher’s voice came through Kitai’s naviband: “There’s an escarpment where two Earth continents collided. Looks like it could be a waterfall. It’s at about forty-five kilometers. We’ll call that our midway checkpoint.”
Kitai absorbed the information. Back on Nova Prime, forty-five kilometers wasn’t so much. A day’s run for the colony’s best long-distance athletes.
“There’s no way you can return after that point,” Cypher advised him soberly. “We’ll assess rations and reevaluate when you get there. But let’s break it into sections.”
A moment later, Kitai’s naviband produced a new hologram, one that his father must have generated. It was a map with an icon for Kitai and a large grouping of trees to the north of him. As Kitai watched, a line appeared and connected him to the trees.
“First leg,” Cypher said, “is twenty kilometers to the mouth of the north forest. Let’s take it easy. Set chronometer for 180 minutes. Over.”
“One hundred eighty minutes?” Kitai said. “That’s not right. I can do 10K in fifty minutes. You’ll see.”
Kitai began a light jog. That was all it would take, after all.
“I might even do it in under forty minutes,” he said. “Over.”
He listened for a response from his father, but he didn’t get one. Concerned, Kitai slowed down.
“Dad?” he said. “Do you copy? Over.”
Still no response. Kitai came to a stop.
“Dad, do you read me? Over.”
Nothing but the sighing of the wind.
“Dad, do you copy? Are you there?” Kitai asked, panic setting in. After all, Cypher had been in bad shape. What if one of his organs had given out?
Damn, Kitai thought, and ran back toward the ship. He hoped desperately that his father was still alive when he got there.
“Dad,” he said, “I’m coming back!”