Cosmic Rift Read Online Free PDF

Domi climbed into the rectangular hole and dropped down. Inside, the ship smelled musty, the faint aroma of sweat—or perhaps it was pheromones—on the air.
    Out of the sun’s glare, Domi waited for her keen eyes to adjust. Unlike the hull exterior, the inside walls were soft. Domi stepped closer, pressing her hand against one wall. It was covered in some kind of padding; small roundels of cushioning bubbled across the surface like the grips on a sneaker shoe.
    She moved away from the wall, stepping deeper into the interior. It took a moment to work out what she was looking at—not because it was alien but because, Domi realized, the ship was upside down. She was standing on the ceiling in what amounted to a small cabin that might fit four people comfortably, six if they squeezed. The cabin was empty and there was a viewport on the far wall through which she could only see darkness—the soil that the ship had sunk into.
    In front of the viewport was a desk-like series of controls arranged in a graceful arc. Despite the controls, there was no sign of a pilot’s chair—instead, there was a simple bench arranged to either side of the control board, running the length of the walls and large enough to seat two adults each.
    Between the two benches was a square block that— reversing it in her mind’s eye—Domi guessed would touch as high as her belly. The square unit was decorated with cuneiform patterns and looked damaged by smoke, a watery gray-black streak marring most of its surface. Though she shouldn’t understand them, Domi thought she recognized the patterns—they looked a lot like the writing she’d seen on Annunaki objects.
    “Damn snake-faces,” Domi growled as she padded across the ceiling to get a closer look at the box unit that dominated the cabin.
    * * *
    “D OMI ? A RE YOU THERE ?”
    Standing at the clearing, Mariah saw immediately what had happened. The top of the space vehicle was exposed, showing a five-foot tract of uncovered metal where Domi had worked at the earth. Even here it was barely twelve inches below the surface, just enough to hide it from prying eyes.
    Mariah stepped closer, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “Domi?” she called again, raising the camera to shoulder height.
    She saw the hatch then, a dark square in the ground. “Domi?”
    Domi’s voice came back a moment later, echoing in the cavern of the ship’s cabin. “Down here,” she said. “Just taking a look around.”
    Mariah toggled the switch on the side of the camera and set it to record, using the eyepiece to frame up a clean shot of the open hatch. “Time now is 11:45,” she began, before giving the date and location. “Domi and I have found what appears to be an alien spaceship, which I speculate may have crash-landed here within sight of the river.”
    Mariah took a step back, belatedly deciding to get a full shot of the area, as well as a wider view of the exposed hull of the spacecraft and the open hatch. As she did, she became aware of a noise that she had not noticed before. It sounded like the old stable her uncle used to keep, the sound of agitated horses as they stomped their hooves on the ground.
    Mariah stopped to listen, still holding the camera up at head height. The sound was distant but it was getting louder, which meant it was coming nearer.
    “What the heck is that?” Mariah muttered, peering up at the sky.
    For a moment there was nothing, just the clear blue sky peeking through the green canopy of the forest. Then a flock of birds took flight from the trees all around her—and she saw it for the first time. It was a golden streak in the sky, like a falling star.
    “What is that?” Mariah repeated, tilting the camera up to capture what she had just seen. But now there was nothing; whatever it was had moved past her field of vision.
    But the noise was even louder now, like a hundred horses galloping by overhead.
    “Domi!” Mariah called, stepping back away from the buried