Killer Dust Read Online Free
Author: Sarah Andrews
Yes, I have made it. Yes, I have prevailed. Yes, I can do this, I can make it at last, I can rise above this ground —
A seagull glided into her field of vision. It was mottled with dark feathers. It swooped closer, eyed her coldly. An untamed corner of Lucy’s mind found something all too familiar its primitive gaze, and issued a fearful thought. He sent this bird—no, worse yet, he has climbed inside the creatures of the sky! Her adrenal glands jolted their chemical stimulant into her unwitting bloodstream, ramming her heart against her ribs like a trapped animal trying to escape its cage.
She wanted to scream, “No! Not here! Not now! Someone might be watching, someone might see, and even now shake his head, say Lucy is weak, and scratch me from the duty roster. Oh, God …”
The worst part of waiting is going back to Houston to wait, where he can find me … .
Her gait fumbled. She slowed for a moment to correct it, bring it back under control. Forcing herself not to look over her shoulder, turning her vision instead to the far horizon,
away from the evilness of gulls and those who would inspire rage, Lucy transformed the shot of adrenaline into an even faster gallop. Yes, that’s good; anyone watching will think I’m simply forwarding my training, and never know what’s truly chasing me up the beach. In fact, yes, I can now already slow my pace, move it back into an easy lope. Easy now, remember where I am, remember that I am the predator here, not the prey. No matter that the space program puts its scientist astronauts at the bottom of the food chain, and treats those women among them even worse; money is the bottom line here, and they have invested plenty in my training. I am part of a team. An essential part of a team, a team that has prepared rigorously to do a job .
Lucy pounded on up the beach, building her future one footprint at a time. NASA would not fail to use her now, she assured herself, and when she rode that thrumming monster into the sky, no adolescent gull, or any of the searing memories it unearthed, could possibly reach high enough to find her.
– 3 –
Calvin Wheat bent over his apparatus, cussing at the cone-shaped filter that was once again acting up. How in hell was he supposed to get a valid dust sample if the filter kept slipping? He had committed himself to all these days on board in order to get it, and now this. Damned budgetary constraints, how was he supposed to do science with no data? This experiment had just better work, because in order to collect these data, he had begged and fussed his way onto this Caribbean cruise, selling his soul to the tune of giving three dumbed-down lectures to the paying passengers so he could inhabit the so-called free scientist’s berth on this ship— This over-decorated party tub on steroids, he mentally grumbled to himself, this techno-idiot’s equivalent of snake oil; this gold-plated floating spa; this sheltered workshop where Joe and Betty eco-tourist loll about in their carpeted staterooms, gorge on fish that ought to be on the endangered species list, cultivate their tans, never quite make it to the squash courts, swill their rum punches with the little parasols, and feel noble about paying twenty-five dollars for three-dollar “I ‘heart’ sea turtles” T-shirts. I wish they’d all just go on home to New Jersey and get it over with, tell their neighbors what a deep and meaningful time they had learning about the natural splendors of the Caribbean, and leave me to my frigging work!
Calvin bared his teeth at his sampling equipment. All
this I suffer in the faint hope of catching a midocean dust sample, and now I can’t get the damned filter paper straight. What crap!
He stepped over the bright yellow “CAUTION, KEEP OUT!” tape he had strung from rail to rail across the bow of the ship and began jimmying the apparatus from another direction, his head bent close to the intake valve. The caution tape had become an essential bit
A seagull glided into her field of vision. It was mottled with dark feathers. It swooped closer, eyed her coldly. An untamed corner of Lucy’s mind found something all too familiar its primitive gaze, and issued a fearful thought. He sent this bird—no, worse yet, he has climbed inside the creatures of the sky! Her adrenal glands jolted their chemical stimulant into her unwitting bloodstream, ramming her heart against her ribs like a trapped animal trying to escape its cage.
She wanted to scream, “No! Not here! Not now! Someone might be watching, someone might see, and even now shake his head, say Lucy is weak, and scratch me from the duty roster. Oh, God …”
The worst part of waiting is going back to Houston to wait, where he can find me … .
Her gait fumbled. She slowed for a moment to correct it, bring it back under control. Forcing herself not to look over her shoulder, turning her vision instead to the far horizon,
away from the evilness of gulls and those who would inspire rage, Lucy transformed the shot of adrenaline into an even faster gallop. Yes, that’s good; anyone watching will think I’m simply forwarding my training, and never know what’s truly chasing me up the beach. In fact, yes, I can now already slow my pace, move it back into an easy lope. Easy now, remember where I am, remember that I am the predator here, not the prey. No matter that the space program puts its scientist astronauts at the bottom of the food chain, and treats those women among them even worse; money is the bottom line here, and they have invested plenty in my training. I am part of a team. An essential part of a team, a team that has prepared rigorously to do a job .
Lucy pounded on up the beach, building her future one footprint at a time. NASA would not fail to use her now, she assured herself, and when she rode that thrumming monster into the sky, no adolescent gull, or any of the searing memories it unearthed, could possibly reach high enough to find her.
– 3 –
Calvin Wheat bent over his apparatus, cussing at the cone-shaped filter that was once again acting up. How in hell was he supposed to get a valid dust sample if the filter kept slipping? He had committed himself to all these days on board in order to get it, and now this. Damned budgetary constraints, how was he supposed to do science with no data? This experiment had just better work, because in order to collect these data, he had begged and fussed his way onto this Caribbean cruise, selling his soul to the tune of giving three dumbed-down lectures to the paying passengers so he could inhabit the so-called free scientist’s berth on this ship— This over-decorated party tub on steroids, he mentally grumbled to himself, this techno-idiot’s equivalent of snake oil; this gold-plated floating spa; this sheltered workshop where Joe and Betty eco-tourist loll about in their carpeted staterooms, gorge on fish that ought to be on the endangered species list, cultivate their tans, never quite make it to the squash courts, swill their rum punches with the little parasols, and feel noble about paying twenty-five dollars for three-dollar “I ‘heart’ sea turtles” T-shirts. I wish they’d all just go on home to New Jersey and get it over with, tell their neighbors what a deep and meaningful time they had learning about the natural splendors of the Caribbean, and leave me to my frigging work!
Calvin bared his teeth at his sampling equipment. All
this I suffer in the faint hope of catching a midocean dust sample, and now I can’t get the damned filter paper straight. What crap!
He stepped over the bright yellow “CAUTION, KEEP OUT!” tape he had strung from rail to rail across the bow of the ship and began jimmying the apparatus from another direction, his head bent close to the intake valve. The caution tape had become an essential bit
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