Paradox Read Online Free PDF Page B

suddenly.
    Todd jumps a little, then says, “Well, we did come in the same rocket.”
    “I know. It just …” She can’t express that flare of
knowing
she gets every time she looks at him. “It seems like something more than that. I don’t know. I’m probably crazy.”
    Todd shifts his pack around on his back. “Do you want to take a few minutes’ rest?” he asks. “We’ve been going for an hour straight, maybe more. Whatever that creature was, it’s long gone by now.”
    Ana frowns, and her eyes flick to her circlet. “What about the countdown? Don’t we need to keep moving?”
    Todd casts an uncertain look at the trail ahead of them. “Yeah, I guess,” he says.
    Ana frowns. “Got anything more than that?”
    “What?”
    “Well, you said you know stuff about this place,” Ana says. “So what happens when the timer hits zero? Do you know?”
    He’s already shaking his head. “Not exactly …”
    But something’s making him jumpy, and the idea that he might know more than he’s saying is suddenly too much. “Come on,” she snaps. “You obviously know something. This timer, all these seconds ticking away and toward
what
? Death? Life? Destruction? Dinner?”
    Todd grins, then seems to catch himself, and his face goes serious again. “Okay, this is what I do know. You’ve noticed the movement of the suns, right?”
    Ana squints at the sky. “Sure. The bright one seems to be doing all the moving so far.”
    “Torus,” Todd says. “That’s the brighter sun. Its orbital period takes about a day on-planet. We’re in a binary star system, of course, but Anum, up there”—he motions to the steady overhead orb—“moves much more slowly. You can hardly track it with the naked eye. I think Anum’s orbital period takes about a year.”
    “Okay,” Ana says, “thanks for the astronomy bulletin, but—”
    “But,” he interrupts, “once each day—the middle of the day, I guess it would be considered—Torus passes directly in Anum’s path. It’s called the sunsmeet, and we
don’t
want to be outside for it.”
    “That’s it? That’s the big countdown, some kind of eclipse?”
    Todd frowns. “It’s more than just an eclipse. The solarresponse is fierce and dangerous. Trust me, we need to get to the colony by zero hour, before the sunsmeet.”
    Ana nearly stops walking. “Wait, a colony?”
    Todd nods, turning to continue down the narrow path. Head spinning, Ana turns to follow him. But as she thinks about it, she realizes there’s an echo of recognition around the word. It fits. They’re headed for a settlement on this planet, where they will find safety.
    This bit of knowledge warms her as she follows Todd down the narrow path. The countdown has shifted from a threatening specter to a friendly cheerleader.
Keep going!
the glowing numbers seem to chant.
Just reach your destination and everything will be okay!
    And something else: a colony means people, people who will know what’s going on, who maybe can even fix their memories—or who can at least fill in the gaps. Relief ripples through her.
    Then they step around a bend and her feeling of relief slips away. About a half mile ahead the path dips down a shallow incline, then leads straight into a bank of trees so dense it looks like an impassable wall.
    The Dead Forest.
    They’ve been making their way toward it for hours, but now that they’re right here, she can’t believe it looks so … dead. Ana shivers.
A name is just a name, right?
But its still, silent look, the dark cast of the shadows between the trees, sets her nerves on edge. Something in there isn’t right.
    On the path ahead of her, Todd has stopped walking. Ana thinks back to his earlier hesitation, of how he knows the landscape….
    “This is what you’ve been nervous about, isn’t it?” she asks.
    When he turns toward her, though, there is a look of purpose in his eyes. “We’ve got to go through it,” he says. “There’s no other way. It’s just a