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She could only watch helplessly as the unconscious form of the Doctor
drifted away into the field of rocks.
11
Inside the shuttle the hull rang with the sound of rock banging against
metal/ceramic composite. In the observation lounge Rhiannon blinked and
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opened her eyes. She smiled at the face looking down at her. Drew, she
whispered.
The young engineer frowned. How are you? he asked in some concern.
Rhiannon beamed. I m fine, she said, and it was true. Nothing had ever
felt more right about her life. From her earliest schooldays she had always
concealed her shyness, wrapped it up in a cloth of confidence and poise. Now
all that was over. Something inside her had changed; she was grown up at last.
She understood what true confidence felt like; a wall inside her, supporting
her, lifting her high above the well of her youth, her fear. I feel . . . she
selected the word with care, spoke it with dreamy confidence, complete.
That s good, Rhiannon, because . . . er, Rhiannon, where are you going?
Rhiannon had swung her legs off the couch and was walking quickly to-
wards the hatch. I m going for a walk inside me, she said. Would you like to
come?
Drew blinked. Don t you think you d better
Oh well, said Rhiannon with a sigh. Never mind. There ll be time for all
that after the culling. If you re still alive.
She left the observation lounge smiling gently. The hatch slid shut behind
her, cutting off Drew s astonishment, confusion and quickly growing fear.
In the cockpit Urquardt watched as Ace fought to bring the navicomp back
on line. Without the subsystems routing, the collision shields were locked
down and that left the observation lounge vulnerable to flying debris. The
glass shield was strong but a direct hit from one of the bigger rocks would
crack it easily.
I need to run a bypass, Ace said tersely.
What can I do to help?
Find me a screwdriver. And a sharp knife.
As Urquardt hurried to obey, the hatch slid open and Paul Moran rushed in.
You ve got to come! Rhiannon s left the shuttle, Drew s gone after her, so has
Gail, and I can t find the Doctor or Bernice anywhere!
Gail didn t waste her breath yelling out Rhiannon s name as she pulled herself
along the spine of the shuttle. Shouting was useless; the hiss and scrape of the
gravel against itself and the hull was practically deafening. Instead she stud-
ied the field of rocks whirling around her. As yet only the outriders of the field
had reached them, a minor limb consisting mainly of sand and gravel, shot
through with the occasional slow-moving chunk as big as a marble. This was
both good news and bad. Good because it meant neither Rhiannon nor Drew
could really get hurt in it, but bad because she couldn t see where they were
or if any bigger rocks were coming towards them. Conversely, she assumed
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neither of them could see to find their way back assuming they wanted to,
of course.
Drew had left to follow Rhiannon; Gail had no idea why Rhiannon had left.
She hadn t even realized her friend had regained consciousness. She had left
her sleeping while she helped organize the twelve remaining students into
teams. The last time she had checked on Rhiannon her friend was out for the
count and looked as if she was going to stay that way for a long time.
Gail sighed. Logic told her to stay by the shuttle. The last thing she needed
was to get separated from her only source of food, water and shelter while
looking for her friends.
But then through a rare pocket of clearer air, she saw a distant figure move
among the debris of the rock field. The arms and legs swung limply. Whoever
it was looked like they were unconscious.
Gail swore, the first time since quitting church when she was seven. She
leaped from the hull towards the figure.
Ace flung herself from the airlock into utter chaos. She was pummelled by
small rocks. Sharp chips of flying stone stung her face and hands. Weed
festooning the rocks tangled about her arms and legs, and water drenched
her as she propelled herself through the field.
She yelled out to Drew but her voice was drowned in the continuous clatter
of gravel and rocks bouncing off one another and, more distantly, the hull of
the shuttle.
Once she thought she heard someone call out to her but the voice was swept
away and lost in the racket.
She forged on, occasionally catching a glimpse of a distant figure moving
through the field of rocks. She wondered who it was; at this distance it was
impossible to tell. It could have been anyone.
She shivered. Rubbing her arms where the drifting grit and sand were rasp-
ing at the skin she was reminded, not for the first time, of her unwelcome visi-
tors. The wounds the tiny animals had left in her body when they d burrowed
into her flesh were healing though underneath the lumps were still apparent.
Ace thought some of them might even be growing larger. She wondered if she
ought to
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