The Frozen Sky - By Jeff Carlson

1.

Vonnie ran with her eyes shut, chasing the sound of her own boot steps. This channel in the rock was tight enough to reflect every noise back on itself, and she dodged through the space between each rattling echo.

She knew the rock was laced with crevices and pits. She knew she might catch her leg or fall with every step.

But she ran.

She crashed one shoulder against the wall. Impact spun her sideways. She hit the ground hard. Sprawled on the rock, Vonnie pushed herself up and glanced back, forgetting the danger in this simple reflex.

The bloody wet glint in her retinas was only a distraction, a useless blur of heads-up data she couldn’t read.

Worse, her helmet was transmitting sporadically, its side mount and some internals crushed beyond saving. She’d rigged a terahertz pulse that obeyed on/off commands, but her sonar and the camera spot were dead to her, flickering at random — and the spotlight was like a torch in this cold.

Vonnie clapped her glove over the gear block on her helmet, trying to muffle the beam. She wasn’t concerned about the noise of her boot steps. The entire moon groaned with seismic activity, shuddering and cracking, but heat was a give-away. Heat scarred the ice and rock. For her to look back was to increase the odds of leaving a trail.

Stupid. Stupid.

She’d never wanted to fight. Yes, the sunfish were predators. Their small bodies rippled with muscle, speed, and unrelenting aggression, but they were also beautiful in their way. They were fascinating and strange.

Were they smarter than her?

The sunfish had outmaneuvered her twice. More than anything, what Vonnie felt was regret. She could have done better. She should have waited to approach them instead of letting her pride make the decision.

In some ways Alexis Vonderach was still a girl at thirty-six, single, too smart, too good with machines and math to need many friends. She was successful. She was confident. She fit the ESA psych profile to six decimal points.

Now all that was gone. She was down to nerves and guesswork and whatever momentum she could hold onto.

She lurched forward, pawing with one hand along the soft volcanic rock. With her helmet’s ears cranked to maximum gain, each rasping touch of her boots and gloves was a roar. Larger echoes hinted at a gap above her on her left. Could she climb up? Trying to listen for the opening, she turned her head.

Her face struck a jagged outcropping in the wall. Startled, she jerked back. Then her hip banged against a different rock and she fell, safe inside her armor.

Standing was a chore she’d done hundreds of times. She did it again. She kept moving.

Vonnie didn’t think the sunfish could track the alloys of her suit, but they seemed like they were able to smell her footprints. Fresh impacts in the rock and ice left traces of dust and moisture in the air. There was no question that the sunfish were highly attuned to warmth. She’d killed nine of them in a ravine and covered her escape with an excavation charge, losing herself behind the fire and smoke… and they’d followed her easily.

What if she could use that somehow? She might be able to lead them into a trap.

Vonnie was no soldier. She had never trained for violence or even imagined it, except maybe at a few faculty budget meetings. That was an odd flicker of memory. Vonnie clung to it because it was clean and bright. She would have given anything to return to her old life, the frustrations and rewards of teaching, her classroom, and her tidy desk.

She fell once more, off-balance with her hand against her head. A heap of rubble had caught her boots and shins. She scrabbled over what appeared to be a cave-in. The noises she made were loud, clattering booms — but the echoes stretched at least ten meters above her, defining a tall chasm.

I can pin them here, she thought.

If she burned the rock and left a false trail, she could drop the rest of the broken wall on them when they passed. Then they would give up. Didn’t they have to give up? After the bloodbath in the ravine, she’d killed two more in the ice, and others had been wounded. Could the sunfish really keep soaking up casualties like that?

Vonnie could only guess at their psychology. Although she was blind, she knew of the existence of light. Although she was alone, she believed someone would find her.

She thought the history