, or at a bookstore near you.Chapter 1
"Shl’Glisen—come inside. Your death shall come with the very wind if you do not hurry to shelter.”“But Mother...!”
“Come inside.”
“But Mother— ! ”
“Come inside, Young One. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”
Shl’Glisen kicked the dirt with his boot but knew that further protests would be fruitless. He was already bundled like an infant and could hardly move. It pained him to be treated like one as well. Slowly, he walked toward the hut, dragging his feet in defiance. Though the sun was still an hour from setting, the large planet loomed full on the eastern horizon, its wide bands lending color to the sky.
It was unfair, he thought. Though the native birds sang as merrily as those of home, the days on this moon called Shun’Galanga were cold as a morning stone. Even the alien summers failed to warm the blood. But with the warm clothing they had brought to ease the chill there was no reason to keep young ones from enjoying the daylight. It was simply unfair.
“Shl’Glisen.”
“I come, Mother.”
The young one scurried forward, stopping just before the entrance. His mother’s face carried a look of severity; deference to elders was a lesson her son had not yet mastered. But her eyes spoke amusement, and Shl’Glisen felt her good humor. She reached to touch his cheek with her hand, and soon met her young one in reconciling embrace.
“We shall eat soon, anyway,” she whispered. “And your lessons need tending.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Her smiling eyes followed the young one inside before drifting to the moon’s mother planet, now rising in the east. Ribbons of clouds laced the arching sky, and along the horizon the distant mountains loomed over the nearby treetops like royalty. If it was a cold world to which Fate had brought them, at least it was one filled with beauty. Just the same, the probes of the giant planet were nearly finished, and she would be glad when their work was done.
She breathed deeply in the chilled air. The results of their endeavors were most promising, or so her mate had told her. Organic compounds filled the atmosphere of the giant planet, and the richness of its clouds and nearby planetoids meant that this moon was a prime candidate for settlement—provided, of course, that they could find souls whose heartiness would supply the warmth lacking in the climate.
Her eyes flared in quiet amusement. The planetary engineers could warm the moon— in a generation or two, if all went as planned for the first time in the history of the Imperator’s Colonial Expedition. But if she could believe what she read in the journals from home, Shun’Galanga was better suited to the Terrans. After the wastelands they inhabited, this world would seem balmier than a still night on Gr’Shuna. And as far as she was concerned, they could have it.
Shivering, she opened the door and stepped inside, rubbing her hands together to help restart her circulation. If the longnoses could live on worlds where the setting sun turned breath into clouds of frost, she knew many half-frozen g’Khruushtani who would depart with glad hearts.
© 2009 by Jeffrey Caminsky
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