Strange things were happening on the icy planet called Petaybee. Unauthorized genetically engineered species had been spotted, while some people were simply disappearing. None of the locals were talking to the company, so the company sent disabled combat veteran Yanaba Maddock to spy. But a strange thing happened. With her relocation to the arctic planet came a return of Yana's health and strength. And the more she got to know the people of Petaybee, the more determined she became to protect her new home....
From the Paperback edition.
1
Stifling in the crowded processing center of Petaybee's
spaceport, Yanaba Maddock eyed the side door as a drowner would eye a
drifting spar. Unobtrusively making her way to it, she hoped it wasn't
locked. It was, but the lock was not proof against the skills she had
acquired in her years as a company soldier, investigator, explorer,
training officer, and, most recently, long-term resident of a medical
facility. Automatically checking to see if her activity was being
noticed, Yana slid the door open just wide enough to accommodate her
thin body. She paused to pull on her gloves: she had been warned in the
briefing -- and she always took briefings seriously -- of the danger of
bare skin sticking to frozen surfaces.
For a moment she leaned back against the slide panel, to secure it in
case she had been observed. Then the cold air hit her.
She knew from previous cold-weather training not to inhale the freezing
blast that whipped around the corner of the building and slammed into
her face.
"The temp-er-actch-chur of Planet, Terraformation B, commonly called
Petaybee, at certain locations during certain points in time during the
winter can range as low as minus two hundred degrees fare-in-height,"
the computer aboard the shuttle from ship to port had cautioned. "That's
cold, troops. Do not touch metal objects with your unprotected
epy-dur-mus. Do not run, or the air will freeze into small icicles in
your lungs and lacerate them. Wear or carry your winter gear with you at
all times. Do not count on a nice warm vehicle for warmth. For one
thing, there is a shortage of nice warm vehicles on Petaybee, because
machinery that doesn't freeze and crack in the extreme cold is
expensive. For another thing, even the expensive equipment breaks down,
and you may find yourself stranded. The temper-atch-chur at Kilcoole
SpaceBase today is minus fifty degrees fare-in-height. Some of the
locals have been known to regard this as relatively tropical by
comparison with what they consider real winter. Bear in mind that
summer to these same individuals consists of two months of fairly
constant daylight as warm as fifty-five to sixty degrees above zero,
still twelve to seventeen degrees colder than regulation shipboard
settings of seventy-two degrees. So button up your outer gear, 'cause
the wind blows free, and take good care of yourselves, remembering at
all times that your ass belongs to the company. That is all."
Yana had smiled to hear the computer briefing given in the gruff voice
and speech patterns of a senior NCO, but she was no more inclined to
ignore the warning than she would have been had it been issued by a
flesh-and-blood top sergeant. Minus two hundred, huh? Good thing she'd
gotten here during a "heat wave." Icicles lacerating her already trashed
lungs would do nothing for her convalescence.
Fumbling with outerwear that had been broiling her in the facility, she
pulled her scarf across her mouth, flipped the hood to her head, pulled
it down over her forehead, which was fast becoming wooden with cold, and
tucked the scarf securely up to her eyes before she tied the hood under
her chin.
Cold though the air was, and despite a taint of overheated oil and space
fuel from the snow-rimmed plascrete landing pad, the freshness of it --
warmed by her breath as she inhaled through the muffling fabric -- was
clean! One of the small joys of her life were those first moments of
breathing fresh, unadulterated, unrecycled air: the real stuff.
