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with so much violence that he was relatively certain his teeth
would have perforated his tongue pretty thoroughly if he hadn’t had
his jaws clamped together.
    The deployment of the chute sent a hard
jolt through his body that traveled up his spine and gave him a
splitting headache. It was his cue that the pod would be slamming
into the planet’s surface very shortly, however, and he unclenched
his eyes and fought another round with his safety harness, finally
managing to get the last two straps secured seconds before
impact.
    Feeling a little outdone when the
actual contact with the ground paled by comparison to ejection and
freefall, he unfastened his harness and looked around for the hatch
release. The pod was tilted crazily and rocked unnervingly as he
struggled out the hatch once he’d opened it. When he emerged and
looked around, he saw why. The pod was perched precariously on a
rather steep drop off.
    No doubt the trees between his position
and the bottom would halt its progress even if the pod did begin to
roll, but that thought didn’t particularly comfort him and Aidan
eased the remainder of the way out of the pod with great care. His
knees were a little wobbly, he discovered, once he was on solid
ground and he sat down to allow the weakness to pass, studying the
terrain around him with a good bit of dismay.
    He hadn’t expected to find himself in
the middle of a jungle, on the dark side of the planet, and he had
the uneasy feeling that it was going to take him a lot longer to
find what was left of the satellite than he’d
anticipated.
    * * * *
    Physical distress superseded fear after
a time. Anya stopped to catch her breath when she realized she was
in danger of passing out and turned to look back at the threatening
obelisk, mildly heartened that it hadn’t blown up … yet. As she
stared at it in the gathering gloom, however, she thought she
detected a dark plume of smoke rising out of it and forming a
shifting cloud. She stared hard at that shifting cloud, huffing for
breath and trying to figure out what seemed strange about
it.
    There was no wind to account for the
shifting, she realized after a moment, instinctively looking up at
the tops of the trees to see if there was wind higher up that might
explain the phenomenon. There seemed to be a slight wind ruffling
the tops of the trees, but it didn’t seem to be enough to explain
so much movement.
    Transferring her gaze back to the
obelisk, she realized the movement seemed more purposeful than
random—like a swarm of insects.
    Bees.
    She didn’t stop to consider the
unlikelihood that it would be bees swarming from something that
seemed so alien—or in fact a missile or rocket of earthly origins.
Swarm connected in her mind with danger and she whipped a frantic
look around for cover.
    There was a virtual sea of smashed and
crumpled cars on the highway. Not only did they look to offer
little in the way of shelter in their current condition, however,
the thought instantly leapt into her mind that there could be a
body or bodies in any of them.
    All of them weren’t wrecked, she saw
now that she was close enough for a better view. Quite a number of
them appeared intact or relatively intact, as if the drivers had
skidded to a halt and merely leapt out and abandoned them but the
possibility of finding a body was enough to instantly redirect her
mind to some other shelter.
    That stretch of highway seemed bereft
of human habitation, though. Nothing but woods and more woods
bordered the highway without a sign of a friendly light to indicate
the presence of people. There was an overpass behind her and
another that looked like it might be a mile or two away.
    A culvert caught her eye and she rushed
toward it before she had time to consider what might be
inside—besides water. She’d had time before she reached it to
consider slithering things, though. Bending down, she grabbed a
handful of dirt, grass, and rocks and pitched them inside. When
there was no