The Frozen Sky Read Online Free PDF

The fourth column was the most deteriorated, and among the confusion of arms were several that had crumbled.
    "Genius."  Bauman clapped her on the back, a dull clank.
    Seconds later they had their sample, and Lam and Bauman bent over it together like cavemen protecting a spark, bumping their thick shoulders, both of them chattering into the radio at the same time.  They might have stayed all day.  They might have stayed until the other ships arrived, happily absorbed in chem tests and new theories.
    It was Vonnie who convinced them to move on.

13.
    The left knee gave out in mid-bounce and she pinwheeled sideways, bashing against the rock.  In an instant Vonnie hit the opposite side of the gap.  But the ghost was quick to compensate. Her right heel and then one hand touched lightly and the ghost had already corrected their spin, regaining speed, clawing forward through the maze.  
    "Lam?" she said, heart pounding.  
    — You're all right.  There's no breach . 
    Christ.  She hadn't even thought of decompressing and tensed at the idea, hurting her neck when the ghost bent to fit a hole. For twenty minutes they’d been fighting through a series of cave-ins and grinds, and now the suit spidered forward with the bad leg trailing awkwardly, protecting it.
    "How long for repairs?" she asked.
    — That may not be possible.  Every anterior cable in the knee snapped and one medial .
    They were falling apart.  The suit had never been designed to take this kind of abuse and Vonnie wasn't doing much better, punch drunk on stress and stimulants and more than thirty hours on the run, nearly fifty since she'd really slept.  She didn't want to make the wrong decision.
    "How long, Lam?"
    — Without the toolkit our best option might be to scavenge material from the ankle, weld it solid and restore some function to the knee.  I estimate that would take an hour .
    "No."
    If they stopped she was afraid she'd close her eyes.  It would only be smart to rest but it would be too much like being blind again.  “No, keep going,” she said.
    If his sims were correct, they were still at least two kilometers down — and at some point they'd have to transition from rock to ice.  This mountain rose up like a fin, always narrowing, disappearing completely a kilometer and a half from the surface.  There would be islands suspended in the ice, broken-off hunks as large as New York and gravel fields like sheets and clouds.  The trick would be to find a gas vent that went all the way up.  The trick would be to climb through without touching off a rock swell.
    Vonnie clenched her teeth, trying to avoid the thought.  She knew that too much planning would overwhelm her.  
    They ducked another gap and suddenly the rift opened into a huge volcanic bubble, open on one side.  It was half full of ice, but just to look across three hundred meters of open room was disorienting.  Vonnie felt the same uncertainty in Lam.  The ghost hesitated, scanning up and back.
    “What do you think?” she said.  "There's definitely some new melt over there.  If we dig we might get into a vent, get out of this rock, close the hole behind us."
    He lit her visor with radar frames.
    — Look .
    "Oh."  Vonnie surprised herself.  Her fear twisted in her like a saw but even now, after everything, she also felt a strong, clear surge of excitement.
    There were more hieroglyphs across the cavern, a long wall of symbols cut into the rock itself.  It was easily twenty times larger than the site they’d found at the surface, and she only wrestled with herself for an instant. 
    "How fast can you get a recording?" she said. 

14.
    The pellets in the ice were more than Bauman and Lam had hoped for, and swept away any last hint of doubt.  This was a sentient race, or had been long ago — because each little ball  looked to be feces mixed with other biologics like saliva or blood and swamped in hormones.  Vonnie could only admire the elegance of it.  In