Reckless Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page B

also a social task. She wanted to be on her own.
    “Firewood. I’ll collect firewood.”
    Kalim wrote her name on the board, and she headed outside to find a wheelbarrow. Nelor stood alone in the field, hacking at the dirt with a hoe. He didn’t even look up as she went by. Her heart heavy, she continued past him towards the distant tree line.
    Ice crunched under her wooden clogs, but the thick woollen socks inside kept her feet warm. The wind whistled around her, trying its hardest to find a crack in her coat, and when that failed, forced its way through the felted wool to chill her skin. She didn’t stop even when the wind pulled her shawl from around her head. The pin at her throat kept it from being lost, though it now hung uselessly down her back. She hefted up the wooden handles of the wheelbarrow and pushed on, needing to get as far away from the village as she could.
    Only when she had reached the stark, bare branches of the woods did she pause, putting down the wheelbarrow handles and breathing heavily on her hands in a futile attempt to warm them. The trees did little to hide her from the other workers back in the village, but the distance helped, and she felt a little better.
    She rearranged her shawl then looked around for firewood. A fruitless search. Although recently fallen twigs and sticks littered the ground, most of this area had been picked bare in the last few weeks. She picked up the wheelbarrow handles and pressed deeper into the trees.
    Each step away from the village lightened her step, and a bit further in, she began to find decent sized pieces of wood. She wasn’t in the least bit afraid of being away from the village. The sky above her was clear, and no animals had run wild in these woods for as long as she had lived here. No mammals, birds or reptiles had been able to withstand the reduced fertility caused by the effect of the anysogen. Even though they’d stopped mining right after the meteor hit, it had been too late. The animals had all died off within a few years.
    She picked up pieces of wood and threw them into the wheelbarrow, dislodging a few scurrying insects. These, along with water dwelling creatures, seemed to be the only ones that could overcome the effects of the anysogen. Her fellow humans refused to accept the inevitable. Eventually their species would lose its tenuous hold on this planet and be as much history as the other mammals were.
    Marlee shook herself. Why were these thoughts intruding today when she just wanted to lose herself in the mindless tasks?
    Jaimma’s comments signalled the end of her period of grace. She and Nelor had been apart two weeks, the accepted grieving period. Her mother’s visit yesterday, Kalim’s insistence that she needed to move on—those were just the beginning. Over the next week, the hints would become less subtle, her friends and family would start suggesting possible partners. The pressure would intensify. She’d seen it before.
    Eventually, everyone gave in and made a choice. Not many had held out to three weeks, and none to four. But she had no intention of giving in. Not this time. She didn’t want that anymore.
    What would happen when she continued to refuse to choose? Would everyone eventually accept her choice? Her mother? The council? How far would they push?
    She didn’t know. It hadn’t happened before.
    She jerked her head up, listening. Far off in the distance, she heard it again. Screams. Something was horribly wrong. Abandoning the wheelbarrow, she turned to run back to the settlement when a loud boom sounded overhead. Instinctively, she ducked.
    A large object burned through the sky above her.
    Marlee crouched, frozen to the spot, staring at it in disbelief. All her life she had heard tales of the meteor that had decimated her mother’s home planet before she was born, but she had never expected to see one for herself.
    She needed to get back to the village, to find shelter. Would any kind of shelter protect her from