The Color of Distance Read Online Free PDF Page A

hand. Its skin felt cool and moist.
    The alien visibly relaxed. Rapid explosions of turquoise and azure flickered across its skin. Juna sighed in relief. She felt as though she had crossed a barrier, gaining the alien’s trust. It was a good beginning.
    When Juna finished the second fruit, the alien got up and ambled to the end of the branch, beckoning her to follow. It bounded across a two-meter gap to the next tree. Then it turned and looked at her, flushing purple, its ears lifted.
    Juna climbed as far out on the branch as she dared. It bowed under her weight. A wave of sick dizziness overwhelmed her. She looked across the gap at the alien, then down at the distant ground.
    “No,” she said. “I can’t do it.” She shook her head and backed away from the end of the branch, her skin blazing orange with fear. What would she do if the alien abandoned her?
    The alien beckoned to her with the same limp-handed gesture, dark green ripples passing over its body. Juna shook her head and backed farther up the branch.
    The alien turned bright yellow and leaped lightly across the gap. The impact of its landing shook the branch. Juna cried out and dug into the tree limb with her claws, fighting for balance. The alien reached out to her. She reached up and grasped its hand. Despite the cold wetness of its touch, the strength of the alien’s grip reassured her. The sick dizziness began to ease.
    “Thank you,” she said, knowing it didn’t understand her.
    Before Juna realized what it was doing, the alien levered her onto its back. She started to struggle, then froze, afraid she would knock them both off the narrow branch. The alien leaped across the gap between the trees with Juna on its back. It released her as soon as they were across. Beckoning her to follow, it set off again.
    Juna followed the alien. She wanted to get down onto safe, firm ground where she could cry and shake for an hour or so, but that wasn’t an option. This
is no harder than the obstacle course at the Survey Academy,
she told herself. She focused on the details of the climb, finding footholds, pulling herself up, proving both to the alien and herself that she was capable of surviving.
    The alien waited for her by the main trunk. As she drew closer, it leaped nimbly up the trunk to another branch about six meters higher and about a quarter of the way around the tree. It paused again, watching, as Juna clambered up the massive trunk. As soon as she reached the limb where the alien waited, it bounded to the end of the branch, pausing at the gap between the trees.
    Several thick vines bridged the space between the branch they were on and the next tree. The alien purpled and raised its ears in what was becoming a familiar, inquisitive gesture. It swung hand over hand across the gap, as though the sixty-meter drop didn’t exist, then sat waiting for her on the other side. Juna looked at the vines, and then up at the alien, then back at the bridge of lianas.
    “All right,” she muttered, “but if I fall and kill myself, it’s your fault.”
    She grabbed hold of the vine and let herself swing down. It sagged, but didn’t break. Her stomach tightened and her heart beat wildly as she crossed hand over hand between the trees, but she made it over in one piece. The alien reached down and helped pull her onto the branch. As soon as Juna was settled, it turned and bounded off again.
    Juna lost all track of time on that terrifying trip through the treetops. Twice, she nearly fell to her death. Each time the alien was there to steady her, or pull her back onto the branch. Then it continued on as though nothing had happened. Finally, the alien paused and beckoned her close. It smeared a sticky liquid on Juna’s back. When it was finished, it leaped across the gap, beckoning Juna to follow.
    A cloud of brightly colored, loudly buzzing bees swarmed around Juna as soon as she landed on the next tree. Juna ducked and hid her head between her arms. These same bees had