Lost And Found - A Short Story From ODIN'S EYE

LOST AND FOUND

  - A short story from ODIN'S EYE -

  By Maria Haskins

  Copyright 2015 Maria Haskins

  ODIN'S EYE

  'CUTS & COLLECTED POEMS 1989 - 2015'

  Table of contents

  Lost And Found

  Two poems from 'Cuts & Collected Poems 1989 - 2015'

  Dragon

  Grandmother

  About the author

  Cover designed by Maria Haskins using Canva.com

  LOST AND FOUND

  She was standing by the window, gazing out at the disappearing frost while sipping the last of the soup from the thermo-jar. The pain in her left foot was always worse just after waking, and she was leaning on the wall to take the weight off it until the pills kicked in.

  She liked looking at the frost in the mornings. The ground was covered with a thick layer of sprawling ice crystals, and the windows were coated with swirls and intricate patterns, shimmering like glass prisms in the first sunlight. Soon it would all melt away, and trickle down the capsule’s metal hull to be absorbed by the sand. Only in the deeper, shaded valleys would the frost remain until afternoon, the sand there hard and frozen, shattering beneath the soles of her boots.

  How long now? she wondered, instinctively checking her watch. It was flashing the same useless numbers over and over again. The same numbers the computer gave her, as if time had stood still since the crash.

  How long?

  But trying to remember was pointless. She had lost track of the days and nights sometime after the first two weeks. When she awoke she never knew how long she had been asleep, if it was days or just a couple of hours. Sometimes she would wake at the first light of dawn, but more often she woke up much earlier, laying there in the dark, waiting. In the darkness, sleep and wakefulness blended together, with the wind ever-present. Its high, lamenting, pitiless tone was always there, penetrating even the thick walls of the capsule, piercing every dream and thought.

  Maybe one of the others had a watch that still worked.

  The thought took her by surprise and made her throw the empty thermo-jar against the wall in sudden frustration.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

  I could go and get it, she mused, looking out the window at the steep rise, its shadow creeping slowly across the ground as the sun rose higher in the sky. It wasn’t far. It would just take a couple of minutes to climb up the rocky bank, shuffle down the slope on the other side, and then she would be there, with them.

  She felt the food turn inside her, the vomit burning in her throat.

  No. She should have thought of that before she moved them. It was too late now. She couldn’t go back, she couldn’t face them again.

  Two had died in the crash. The third had managed to stay alive the first night, but she hadn’t been able to help him. When he too was dead, she had hauled out the bodies one by one, dragging them up the hill and then rolling them down into the hollow on the other side, out of sight. They had been much heavier than she had expected, so difficult to move, their cold skin resembling some kind of syntho-material when she touched them, their eyes still wide open, their mouths ajar as if they were about to speak.

  What would you say? she had wondered as she watched them. But she knew it no longer mattered.

  When the last one had been placed in the hollow, she had stretched out on the cold ground next to them to get some rest. She stayed there for a long time before recovering enough strength to go back. It had been so quiet, protected from the sand and the wind, and it would have been so easy to stay with them. But night had fallen and the cold had come with it, so in the end she had crawled back up the sandy incline. She had left her gloves behind, and her hands had been so stiff, numb fingers searching for something to hold on to, scratching and scraping.

  How long ago now?

  She studied the palms of her hands. On the crest of the ridge she had fallen, slamming her hands hard into rock and sand and gravel. The cuts had healed by now. How long did it take for a wound to heal? A week, two weeks, three? But it must have been longer than that, months probably.

  The frost was melting, glistening drops running down the window. She followed one of them with the tip of her finger, saw it join other droplets, becoming larger, heavier, until it finally fell out of sight, into the dry sand.

  Falling.

  The screech of the emergency signal stabbing her eardrums.

  She had always assumed that people would scream in situations like that, but nobody had screamed. The only voice had been the computer’s voice, calmly repeating that the rescue capsule’s emergency landing system had been activated. And then there had been the noise of the bodies slamming into each other.

  The guidance system was defective, she thought, nodding to herself and wetting her chapped lips with the tip of her tongue.

  She went over what had happened before, during, and after the crash quite often in her mind: memorizing the details, recapitulating the sequence of events, making sure that she remembered everything. Her report had to be complete and accurate when the rescue team arrived. She had tried to document it all, had even attempted to make a voice-record of it. It had been like reading a fairy-tale to herself at bedtime, but when she reviewed it the next morning she couldn’t stand listening to it and had erased the file.

  They had to know about the crash by now. The emergency signal must have reached the beacons. It wouldn’t be long before someone came to get her.

  There was so much to do until then. She had put most of the intact scientific equipment to use, setting up atmospheric and seismic testing stations in three different locations. The wireless relays were not working, and the stations were not situated as far apart as they ought to be, but all the stats she had gathered so far looked promising. She was already preparing several terra-forming proposals as well as a preliminary resource plan, suggesting which transformation methods would be the most suitable. In ten years this planet would be ready for limited colonization and maybe then she could return here: apply for a settlement permit and get a place of her own. Ten years of service gave you top priority in the colonies, so they couldn’t deny her that.

  Her breath was fogging up the window and she wiped off the mist with her sleeve. A few drops on the outside of the glass were all that was left of the frost now, but tomorrow morning it would be back again.

  It always came back.

  Today she would take readings from the station she had set up by the cliffs. She was always hesitant about going outside and especially to that location, because it was so far away from the capsule. But by now the pills she had taken had numbed the pain: her foot hardly hurt at all when she pulled on the thermal suit and put on her boots, tightening the straps of the left boot to give her ankle enough support for the walk.

  The inner airlock opened with a sharp hiss, then closed behind her before the outer hatch opened. Dust and grains of sand drifted in, sparkling in the sunlight, and she snapped the UV-shield down over her eyes so as not to be blinded.

  When she stepped over the threshold, the wind immediately grabbed hold of her, pulling at her hair and clothes as she walked around the capsule to perform the mandatory, daily check of its exterior. The wind didn’t seem to have changed direction at all since they arrived, and the dunes surrounding the vessel built up higher every day. They almost covered the windows by now. Soon she would have to remove some of the sand, or the capsule would end up completely buried.

  Halfway around she suddenly stumbled, causing her left ankle to bend awkwardly underneath her. She banged the hull hard with her fist so that her knuckles ac
hed, sucking on the pain through clenched teeth.

  They were back. The tracks were back.

  They looked the same as before, and trailed across the sand in exactly the same direction. She already knew that trying to follow them was futile: a short distance from the capsule the ground turned stony for a stretch and after that they didn’t reappear.

  Crouching down, she studied the tracks. There were more of them this time, crisscrossing each other, coming and going, leaving and returning. Ripples and marks in the sand. Nothing strange about that. Wind patterns. Yes. The wind had made them, and now the wind was erasing them, and in just a few hours they would be obliterated.

  She squinted past the capsule, towards the crest of the ridge, but there was nothing to see there, nobody could see her anymore. Turning around, she stood up and kicked sand over the tracks, trampling them until the only marks were the ones