Stitching Snow Read Online Free Page A

glances, I didn’t like having him behind me. My instincts said to keep an eye on him.
    Side by side it is.
    “Keep a sharp eye where you step,” I advised as we got deeper into the woods. “And if you fi nd yourself out here alone, mind you don’t veer to the north. We’ve had a few sinkholes up that way.”
    “Lovely planet.”
    “If you wanted lovely, you should’ve crashed in the Bands.”
    “What are the Bands?”
    Blazes, he doesn’t know even that much?
    “Equatorial zones,” Ticktock provided, “comprising fi fty-seven percent of Thandan population with native fll ora including—”
    “That’s enough, you,” I cut in. “It’s the one place on the planet that still manages a glimmer of warmth now and again.”
    “If it’s better, why aren’t you there?” The incessant questions were getting me right rinked off, yet I answered just the same. “Busy enough here, aren’t I?”
    “Do you ever go down there?”
    The men did. Every ten days—two weeks by Thandan reckoning—a different rotation of miners went down to the Bands for a fi ve-day visit with their families, lovers, or bottles of something better than Petey’s jack-ale. I could have, too, but I didn’t. Ever.
    21

    S T I T C H I N G S N O W
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “No place nor need for me. The Bands is all women and children, and men too old or too crippled to work the mines anymore.”
    “You are a girl,” he pointed out.
    I braved his eyes long enough to shoot him a glare, and there was no doubt he felt the heat of it as his step stuttered. “I am, and I may be the only one living in Forty-Two. But I’m no one’s wife and no one’s good time, and I’ve no intention of letting that change anytime soon.”
    “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be here. It’s intriguing, that’s all.”
    Intrigue . . . not something I was looking for. A grunt was response enough, and he fell mercifully silent. The reprieve continued until we emerged onto the fll ats, where a sharp gasp signaled Dane’s fi rst sight of his damaged ship. His only sure way of ever going home no longer looked sure at all.
    “Come on, now,” I said, marching ahead toward the shuttle.
    When he gave no response, I turned back. Dane was leaning against the last tree, breathing heavily, his arm held tight against his ribs. “You all right?” I asked, heading back to him in case he collapsed. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought you out here before you’d recovered.”
    He grabbed my arm. Fire shot through me at the point of contact. My fi ngers curled into a fi st, but he pulled himself upright and released me.
    “I’m fi ne,” he muttered. “Let’s go.” 22

    R.C. ll E WI S
    To fi gure how seriously botched the ship was, I had to stitch up my own mess. When I’d told the drones to cut the power, they’d done a right thorough job of it.
    “There,” I said to Ticktock. “Splice that last connection. Try it now, Dane.”
    He threw a switch, and a fll ickering hum ran through the ship, but only a few indicator lights fll ashed to life. “We’ve got power. Looks like everything’s offl ine, though.”
    “Good, that’s how I want it. Last thing I need is another spark-shower.”
    He handed me a water-pack, and I pulled a thumb-size device from my pocket and waited for the readout to turn green before taking a drink. When Dane tilted his head curiously, I grunted.
    “It’s not personal,” I said. “I always check the water. Right, time to see what we’re facing.” I retrieved a boxy contraption from my case and patched it into the ship’s systems.
    “What is that?”
    “An Essie exclusive. Lets me have run of the place without asking its permission,” I said, taking my slate from my coat pocket and initiating an interlink with both the panel and the schematics in Ticktock’s memory banks. “This way I can run my own diagnostics. Given the state of this place, I don’t trust its computer to tell me the truth.”
    “Makes