11 Molly
It took me a while to pull myself together, and Karnac held me the entire time. I didn’t want to admit it, but his presence helped, gave me a rock to anchor myself to.
And his brawny arm, wrapping around me and holding me close, made me feel safe in a way I hadn’t since I found out I was on the wrong planet. Which, I had to remind myself, was the fault of the Prytheen.
Once I’d let my tears out, I sat up. It wasn’t easy, Karnac wasn’t keen to let me go, but I managed. “I’m sorry about that,” I told him.
His brow wrinkled, and he spoke sternly. “You have done nothing to apologize for, kh—Molly.”
I saw the effort it took him not to call me khara, but he managed.
“You needed me; I am here for you. I am glad to help, and sorry that you are in such distress. Your hunger only makes things worse — come, I will prepare your breakfast, and then we can see if the weather has cleared enough for us to find our way back to the station.”
It was only then that I remembered how hungry I was. My stomach ached and thinking back, I hadn’t eaten since the middle of the day before. I nodded eagerly and dragged myself up. Looked down, remembered I’d woken naked and blushed. “Uh, where are my clothes?”
Karnac laughed and my blush deepened. There was no malice to that laugh, no joy at my embarrassment. He laughed at himself for forgetting an important detail.
“They were soaked through, so I hung them in the central area. Go get dressed, while I prepare a meal.”
A wry smile tugged at my lips. Karnac couldn’t help himself: he’d phrased that as an order. Not that I minded — his domineering manner wasn’t so bad when I got used to it.
Dressed, I felt more comfortable as I made my way into the kitchen again. This time Karnac heard me approach — probably the boots’ fault — and turned to grin at me. He looked so pleased with himself that I had to smile back.
On the table sat two bowls, both filled with noodles, strips of meat, and vegetables in a sauce. My stomach rumbled as the delicious smell reached me, and I almost leaped into the chair.
Karnac chuckled at my speed and urgency, and I held myself back from eating as he joined me, sitting opposite me. “You will like it,” he said, again more an order than a request. I shook my head, picked up a fork, and attacked the noodles.
Which were delicious, and not just because of how hungry I was. The sweet fruit sauce went perfectly with the unfamiliar meat, softening the otherwise harsh flavor. The vegetables were stir-fried to perfection, the noodles were… well, they were the same cheap ramen that all the colony pods had a supply of, nothing could fix that. But the rest of the meal elevated even cheap noodles, and I finished the bowl with gusto.
“What meat is this?” I asked once the bowl was empty.
“I don’t know its name, nor much else about it,” Karnac said. “Just that it’s nocturnal, doesn’t mind a heavy snowfall, and doesn’t recognize Prytheen as a threat. An easy kill with a bow.”
There’s something off-putting about eating an animal when I don’t even know the species’ name. Irrational, but true. Suddenly glad I’d waited until I’d finished eating to ask, I pushed my bowl aside.
Time to change subjects. “Where are we? How did you find this place?”
“Hah! I didn’t, Glitch did.” A proud mreow from under the table made me smile. “He got me to follow him through the storm, and this where he led me.”
“Where are the colonists?”
“Dead.” Karnac said in a heavy tone. “When the pod crashed, main power went out. So the stasis tubes never opened, and the colonists woke inside but couldn’t get free. The emergency generators should have kicked in and saved them, but they didn’t. One of the generators was intact enough to repair, and I guessed that would be enough for us. Looks like I was right.”
“I guess we’re lucky those Prytheen didn’t find it first,” I said. “Assuming the one who attacked me wasn’t just a lone wanderer, anyway.”
“He was not,” Karnac confirmed. “He has a pack who will know he’s missing by now. We should go.”
My mind clicked into overdrive, connecting bits and pieces. Instead of standing, I closed my eyes. “You know how things keep going missing in the station? Tools, parts, supplies? The station ghost is a joke because we didn’t have a better explanation. It’s not like anyone could steal all that stuff, where would they hide it? There’s no one up here to buy it and getting all of it down to the Joint Colony would be impossible, too. So we ruled out theft immediately…”
“But now we know this pack is out here, there is a market.” Karnac blinked rapidly, assimilating the news. “So it probably is theft. Someone inside stealing things and moving them down to the fence to exchange with the Prytheen.”
“The fence has been unreliable for months, it keeps shutting down or giving false readings,” I added. “I never could track that error down. That’ll be when they make the trade.”
There’s a curious emotion, and if it has a name, I don’t know it. The feeling you get when you solve a puzzle and wish that what you’d found wasn’t true. Maybe it’s too rare to be worth naming, but that was what filled my heart as I thought it through.
“And assuming the Prytheen who attacked me was on his way to trade, the rest will think that the colonists either have him or killed him. We have to warn Captain Joyce.”
“And Auric,” Karnac said, nodding quickly. “We must get back as soon as possible.”
We didn’t leave straight away. It didn’t feel right to just abandon the pod again, not when finding it had saved our lives. We cleaned up after the meal, tidied the wrecked bedroom as much as we could, and did our best to leave everything as it had been when we arrived. The colonists deserved their tomb kept clean and sparkling, not littered by the detritus of visitors. But once we were done, it was time to leave the pod and brace for whatever remained of the storm.
Crisp white snow stretched across the mountainside, gleaming painfully bright in the harsh Crashland sun. Glitch hissed, and I looked round to see him perched on Karnac’s shoulder, wearing miniature sunglasses. The heart-shaped lenses were full of static, and the AI looked both aggrieved at my laughter and smug at his fancy new eyewear.
“You have a strange companion, Molly,” Karnac said as he strode out into the snow. “He suits you well.”
“Hey,” I said, following. “Is that meant as a compliment or an insult?”
“Yes.” That was all the answer I got from the infuriating Prytheen. I grumbled but couldn’t hide a smile as he led me up a slope.
From the top, I looked back at the colony pod. Its crash had imbedded it in a narrow canyon, sides crushed inward, and I winced at the damage. Yeah, that thing’s never flying again. Its sheltered location made it easy to miss in an aerial survey, you’d have to fly directly above it and look straight down.
Which set me wondering what else we’d missed, hidden on our doorstep. Something to talk to Captain Joyce about, assuming I ever made it back to the colony.
Karnac seemed to know where he was going, whether genuinely or making a show of confidence to lift my spirits. He set a hard pace too, and I struggled to keep up. The third time he stopped to wait for me, I glared at him.