Cosmic Rift Read Online Free PDF Page A

investigating the ship,” Mariah said.
    At the other end of the communication, Mariah heard Donald Bry’s sharp intake of breath. “Is that wise?” he asked.
    “I have full monitoring equipment here,” Mariah reassured him. “And I’m just activating the camera unit now. There’s no sign of hostile life, just some rather beautiful plants.”
    “Okay,” Bry replied. “Keep me apprised.”
    “Will do.”
    Mariah closed down the communication with Cerberus and reached into her rucksack for the portable video camera she had brought. The unit was roughly the size of her balled fist and fit snugly into the palm of her hand. Its carrying strap doubled as a handle, so that all she needed do was point and shoot. She flipped open the screen and checked the battery life—it was fine, there was plenty of recording space in the little unit, more than enough to film the inside of a Sandcat, or something of equivalent size.
    Leaving her laptop, Mariah began to march back to the clearing where she had left Domi.
    * * *
    B Y USING THE TROWEL , Domi had worked her way around the edge of the hatch in the spaceship’s skin. Revealed, it was three feet wide and just a little more than that high. She figured that whoever used it was either very short or they were used to ducking.
    There was no sign of a handle or door lock of any kind; both the surface of the door and its surrounds were smooth. In fact, had it not been for the way the specks of dirt had become lodged in the seal, Domi might not have noticed the hatch at all.
    Gingerly, she worked the head of the trowel around the hatch’s edge again, using both hands to wiggle it here and there as she sought a way in. When she reached one of the shorter edges—the one she had come to think of as the top edge, even though the hatch plate was actually lying parallel to the ground right now—Domi felt something begin to give. She wiggled the trowel again, scraping it back and forth along the lip until she located what seemed to be a catch. The blade of the trowel was too thick to hook beneath the catch, so Domi placed it to her side and drew her knife once more.
    In less than a minute, Domi had her knife under the part of the hatch she had snagged, and she felt something pop as she placed pressure there. There was a gasp of release as the hatch popped open, and Domi rolled back as the door pulled away on sliders, disappearing into the body of the ship. She smelled the trace of stale air as it dissipated around her.
    Domi peered into the hatch, her free hand reaching automatically for the pistol she had tucked into her waistband. The hatch appeared dark and empty, the only illumination coming from the sun’s rays filtering down through the tree canopy.
    Domi took a step forward, scenting the air for danger. Unlike Mariah, Domi’s Commtact was embedded beneath her skin, giving her immediate access to her communications. The radio communications device traced the line of her mastoid bone.
    Like Domi, most of the members of the Cerberus field teams had a Commtact surgically embedded beneath their skin. The subdermal device operated via sensor circuitry, incorporating an analog-to-digital voice encoder that was implanted in each subject’s mastoid bone. Once the pintels made contact, transmissions were picked up by the wearer’s auditory canals. Dermal sensors transmitted the electronic signals directly through the skull casing, vibrating the ear canal. In theory, even if a user went completely deaf they would still be able to hear normally, in a fashion, courtesy of the Commtact device.
    Commtacts also functioned as real-time translation devices, providing they had enough raw vocabulary from a language programmed into their processors. Furthermore, because they were directly connected to the body of the user, they could amplify speech no matter how quiet. For a moment, Domi wondered if she should radio back for advice...but where was the fun in that?
    Her mouth set in a grim smile,