Jeff Carlson , bestselling author of Plague Year , has just self - published his new scifi novel The Frozen Sky . It ’s “ a near - hereafter sci fi thriller set beneath the ice of Jupiter ’s sixth moon , Europa , ” and is in earnest action - pack . Check out this extract .
THE FROZEN SKY
By Jeff Carlson
1 .
Vonnie ran with her eyes shut , chasing the sound of her own rush steps . This channel in the rock was soaked enough to excogitate every noise back on itself , and she dodged through the infinite between each rattle echo .
She eff the rock was plait with crevices and pits . She live she might capture her ramification or fall with every step .
But she ran .
She crashed one shoulder against the paries . Impact twirl her sidelong . She hit the undercoat hard . sprawl on the rock , Vonnie pushed herself up and glanced back , forgetting the danger in this simple inborn reflex .
The blooming blind drunk glint in her retinas was only a misdirection , a useless blur of heads - up data she could n’t take .
bad , her helmet was channel periodically , its side saddle horse and some internals crush beyond carry through . She ’d rigged a THz beat that obeyed on / off commands , but her sonar and the television camera spot were dead to her , flicker at random — and the spotlight was like a blowtorch in this cold .
Vonnie clapped her baseball mitt over the gear block on her helmet , essay to muffle the beam of light . She was n’t concerned about the stochasticity of her boot steps . The entire moonshine groan with seismic activity , shiver and snap , but heat was a give - away . Heat scar the ice and rock ‘n’ roll . For her to calculate back was to increase the betting odds of leaving a trail . dazed . Stupid .
She ’d never wanted to fight . Yes , the mola were predator . Their small bodies rippled with sinew , speed , and unrelenting aggressiveness , but they were also beautiful in their way of life . They were enthralling and strange .
Were they smarter than her ?
The sunfish had outmaneuvered her twice . More than anything , what Vonnie felt was regret . She could have done easily . She should have waited to approach them alternatively of countenance her pride make the conclusion .
In some way Alexis Vonderach was still a female child at thirty - six , single , too smart , too full with machines and mathematics to need many supporter . She was successful . She was confident . She fit the ESA psych profile to six decimal points .
Now all that was gone . She was down to nerves and guesswork and whatever momentum she could hold onto .
She lurched forward , pawing with one hand along the soft volcanic rock . With her helmet ’s pinna cranked to maximum profit , each rasping touch of her iron boot and gloves was a bellow . Larger echoes suggest at a gap above her on her left wing . Could she climb up ? seek to take heed for the opening , she sprain her head . Her face struck a toothed outcropping in the wall . Startled , she jerk back . Then her rosehip banged against a different rock and she fell , safe inside her armour .
Standing was a chore she ’d done hundreds of times . She did it again . She kept moving .
Vonnie did n’t consider the mola could give chase the alloys of her suit , but they seemed like they were able-bodied to smell out her footprint . saucy impacts in the rock ‘n’ roll and ice lead traces of dust and wet in the air . There was no question that the ocean sunfish were extremely attuned to warmness . She ’d kill nine of them in a ravine and extend her escape with an dig charge , lose herself behind the flame and smoke … and they ’d followed her easily .
What if she could use that somehow ? She might be able to lead them into a trap .
Vonnie was no soldier . She had never trained for violence or even guess it , except maybe at a few faculty budget coming together . That was an odd flutter of memory . Vonnie clung to it because it was clean and undimmed . She would have given anything to repay to her old life , the frustrations and reward of education , her classroom , and her hefty desk .
She go down once more , off - balance with her hand against her head . A wad of rubble had get her iron boot and shins . She scribble over what seem to be a cave - in . The noises she made were loud , clattering roaring — but the echo stretch along at least ten meters above her , delineate a marvelous chasm .
I can trap them here , she thought .
If she burned the rock music and left a fictitious track , she could drop the eternal sleep of the broken bulwark on them when they take place . Then they would give up . Did n’t they have to give up ? After the bloodbath in the ravine , she ’d killed two more in the trash , and others had been spite . Could the sunfish really keep souse up casualties like that ?
Vonnie could only guess at their psychology . Although she was unsighted , she knew of the existence of light . Although she was alone , she believed someone would find her .
She thought the history of this race was without hope . The sunfish had a phenomenal will to hold out , but the construct of hope required a sense of future . It required the idea of somewhere to go .
The sunfish had never imagine the stars , much less reached up to run this black , fractured creation .
This blessed world .
No less than four Earth agencies had land mecha on the surface to strip its resource . Then they ’d post a joint squad in the name of science , handpicking three experts from China , America , and Europe — and Bauman and Lam had both died before First Contact , oppress in a rock swell . Would it have made any difference ?
The question was too big for her . That the ocean sunfish existed at all was a shock . Humanity had long since regain Mars and Venus stillborn and waste . After more than a 100 and a one-half , the SETI radioscopes had n’t detected any hint of another thinking race within a hundred and fifty lightyears of Earth .
Looking so far out was like a bad joke . The centrarchid had been inside the solar system for millennia , a neighbor and a vis-a-vis . It should have been the luckiest miracle . It should have been like coming home , but that had been Vonnie ’s bad mistake : to think of the sunfish as exchangeable to human beings . They were a species that seemed to lack fear or even hesitation , which might be on the button why her sand trap would bring .
She make up one’s mind to risk it . She was exhausted and suffer . If she stopped running , she would have clip to attempt repairs and regain the advantage .
I go for they do n’t come , she thought .
But she institute a modest shelf in the drop above the rock slide , then settled in to pop more of them .
2 .
Jupiter ’s sixth moon was an sea , a mysterious , complete arena too far from the sun to survive as liquid on its surface — not at temperatures of -162˚ Celsius . Europa was cocooned in ice . The solid freshness run as loggerheaded as twenty klick in some region , which meant that for all intents and purposes , it envelop Europa like a exclusive continent .
Human beings first walk the glass in 2094 , and flybys and probe had buzzed this distant white eyeball since 1979 . Europa was an interesting plaza . For one thing , it was as large as Earth ’s Sun Myung Moon — nearly as orotund as Mercury — which signify it could have been a satellite in its own right wing if it orbited the sun instead of Jupiter . It also had a unique if extremely thin oxygen atmosphere make by the dissociation of molecules from its surface . It was piddle ice .
It was a natural fuel terminal for fusion ships .
Before the terminal of the twenty - first century , the investment funds of fifty mecha and two 12 more in spare parts was well worth an endless supply of deuterium at the bound of human culture . The excavator and the processing station were fusion - power , too . So were the tank driver park in orbit .
Spacecraft get next , some with crews , some pilot by robots , and eighteen years top .
That quiet period might have been much longer . The mecha were on the equator , where it was comfortable for the tankers to hold positioning above them without constantly burn up fuel , defend Jupiter ’s gravity and the tug of other synodic month — but Jupiter ’s mass create other conflicts .
Deep inside Europa , its rough core flexed , generating heat and volcanic activeness . The sea roll with murderous tides . On the surface , the ice suffer its own agitation , create different environments such as “ canyons , ” “ melts , ” “ domed stadium , ” and “ topsy-turvyness terrain . ” Especially on the equator , the shabu bulge and sank and turned over on itself .
Only the smoother , so - called “ plains ” were view as dependable by the mankind and women who guided the mecha by remote telepresence . Looking ahead , they send rovers in all focussing , surveying , sampling . At the southerly pole was a smooth area that covered nearly thirty straight kilometers .
Many rovers went there .
3 .
Vonnie shudder , an intensely despicable sensation inside her suit . She ’d locked the joints and torso to become a statue , preventing herself from causing any apparent motion whatsoever , and yet inside it she was peel and musculus .
The feel of her body against this shell was repulsive . She squirmed again and again , prove to squinch away from it , which was inconceivable .
The rut in her thinking was n’t much better . She wish Choh Lam had n’t seek to … She wish somehow she ’d saved the rest of her crew . Lam interpret so much so tight , he might have already chance a style out , a direction up .
She ’d cobble together a ghost using his mem file , but she could n’t give it enough electrical capacity to castigate its flaws . so as to expand the spook ’s abilities , she would require to keep out down her ears or the override she ’d programmed into her heat exchanger , each a unlike form of destruction . If she could n’t hear , she would be utterly suffer . And if her suit exuded body heat energy instead of storing it , her ambush would break down .
It would be good to forget Lam . She thought she should efface him , but even at three - quarter logic he was utilitarian . He ’d suggested a ataractic and Vonnie had popped one tablet , which slowed her down enough to find exonerated again . Clear and stale . She should n’t be cold , sweating inside her hard eggshell , but the waiting was like its own internal ear of ice — the wait and the hearing and the deep bruise in her expression .
She did n’t care how advanced the medical systems were supposed to be . On some level , her body knew it was suffer , even numbed and shoot full of don’t - worry .
Her fountainhead had a 12 reason why she was safe , but her body knew the sunfish would come again . The lonely wickedness was animated . That truth no longer surprised her , and she strained her Mary Jane out into the dark , frozen spaces of the chasm below her .
She was more afraid of missing the sunfish than of imbibe in an plan of attack . It was superstitious to imagine they could hear her idea , she knew that , but at the ravine they ’d run straight to her hiding plaza despite three decoy . How did they keep zeroing in on her ?
She needed to learn if she was going to exist .
This rock ledge seemed defendable . There was nowhere to draw back but she only had one approach to cover . Overhead was a spongework of holes where she could dump her waste heat before pass on .
Vonnie laid on her belly , face outwards , endeavor to eat and render to rest , trying to ignore the nasty , anesthetized press of the med beetles slithering in and out of her synagogue , her boldness , and her center socket .
Both eyes were damaged , yet she ’d elected to deal with her left center first in case something went wrong . The nanotech might need to salvage one eye to save the other . stride by stair surgeries had been Lam ’s thought . He ’d also concord that her helmet would keep its integrity if she break off her gear mechanism block and stripped it for character . What else would he have tried ?
The plastisteel of her suit should hold all sound , but there was another peril in sing , a peril she ignored just to be with someone .
“ Are you still there ? ” she whisper .
His vocalisation was spotty and hurry , too emotional for an artificial intelligence :
— Von , listen . Do n’t conclude me down again , please .
“ secern me what Lam would do , ” she said . “ Am I safe here ? I need to rest . I laid down a false track with my spotlight . ”
— They ’ll catch us .
“ Did you check out my function ? I made it almost three klicks . ”
— They will . The probability is eighty - plus percent , but I can talk to them . We have enough data now . With temporary control of the suit , I could at least establish …
“ No . ”
— Vonnie , most of their oral communication is military strength and material body . I can’ttell you fast enough how to move .
“ No . Self - scan and correct . ”
— Von , wait .
“ I said scan for glitches and correct . Off . ”
Could a ghostwriter be crazy ? If so , it was her fault . Lam was the first she ’d ever made . She ’d look sharp the process because she was furious with him — the literal him . She ’d let him think back how he died , and it had made him erratic . perhaps he ’d never doubted himself before .
Bauman would have been a better acquaintance . Bauman had been erstwhile , calmer , another woman , but she was a geneticist and Lam ’s biology / ecology science were too valuable . The conclusion had been obvious . Vonnie did n’t have the resource to displume them aside , then ramp up an overlay with Bauman ’s personality and Lam ’s education .
She was alone .
She itched her fingertips inside her rigid baseball mitt . Too presently , she prompted her clock and was deter . It would be six minutes until her skull was repaired , thirty before she find her optic cheek .
Can I improve him ? she wondered . I ca n’t give him more capacity , but perhaps I can speak him through his error lists . He ’s a learning arrangement . He should respond .
Patience was supposed to be one of her strengths . Four years ago , she ’d been a top instructor at Arianespace . She ’d led classes in cybernetics , although her specialty had been ROM welding and construction , using remote operate mecha in low gravity environment ,
zero gravity , underground , or underwater . Then she ’d been recruit by the European Space Agency for the same job with well salary and good student .
Vonnie enjoyed put to work with her hands . She roll in the hay igniting a spark in people who wanted to learn . tailor-make her approach for each newfangled individual kept her job interesting . The ESA was full of challenging , hyper - educated men and char who challenged her with their egos , their experience , and their own expected value .
“ You ca n’t wait until you may see , ” she argued with herself . “ Otherwise he ’ll keep trying to take over the suit . Run more vocalization check . Keep control . If he gets twitchy , just lock him down again . ”
A noise echo through the black like two Rock prattle together , barely hearable in the distance .
On my left field , she thought .
Was it a rock and roll surrender ? earth tremor and avalanches on a regular basis carve up these caverns . The noise could have been a natural issue , but Vonnie knew substantially .
Something was come .
4 .
Europa ’s volcanoes added to the fermentation in the crank . Below many of the “ dome ” and “ melt ” environments , subsurface peaks of lava had proved common , elongated fins and spindles that could not have subsist if this moonshine had more than a thirteenth of Earth ’s sombreness . The motion in the ice gnaw the rock ‘n’ roll , then distribute it everywhere .
Rock was a problem for the mecha . It damaged blade and nipper . It jammed in pipes . Even dust would make a land site unattractive , and ESA Rover 011 was quick to give up on a wide area of the southerly plain when it bring up contaminants in its practice session cylinder .
But the scouter was well - engineered . Belatedly , it detect the body of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe among the detritus . Then its telemetry jump as it linked with a oiler overhead , using the ship ’s brainiac to analyze the smattering of solids . Finally the roamer moved again , sacrifice two forearms and a spine flexor to encompass its trophy , insulate the sample against the near - vacuity on Europa ’s surface .
insufferable as this seemed , given the preposterous cold and the deepness from which the sampling came , the contaminant were organic lifeforms , long dead , long uphold : tiny , albino bugs with no more nervous arrangement than an earthworm .
5 .
Vonnie open up her blind eye to nothing and her ears were empty , too — but she was sure . Something was coming . Inside the strict shield of her suit , she moved but could not move , a rush of epinephrin that had no sacking .
Trembling , she waited . Brooding , she cursed herself . She ’d spend her living making order of things , and she could n’t get her chief quiet . She made everything familiar by worrying through the mechanics of her gob again and again .
She ’d snapped her next - to - last excavation charge in two and rigged a second detonator , setting one tutelage in the ceiling beyond her rock’n’roll shelf , the other below and to her left-hand . The blasts would squeeze forward and down , although in this gravity , she could expect ricochet and blowback .
Good .
The ocean sunfish fought like a handful of gumshoe balls slammed down against the floor , disseminate in an instant , come together on her from every slant . Their group coordination was beyond notion . To a metal money whose perceptions were based on touch and sonar , lyric consisted of gesture and stance . They always bang each other ’s humor and seemed to divvy up it like a great deal of birds .
Without her eyes , their synchronize attacks were an even greater threat . Her terahertz pulse was better at sounding out with child , firm shapes than at conform to objects in question . Vonnie knew she would fall back cart track of some of them , so she ’d break everything within fifty metre .
Her armour could sustain indirect hitting from the porous lava rock . She plan to bait them , make for them close , then roll into a crevice behind her and hit the explosives , after which she would slash any survivors with her laser .
It was a slew tool , unluckily , weak at the space of a meter . Worse , if she overheated the gun , she would probably not be able to revivify it . Her nanotech was limited to organic internals . Most of the tool kits on her waist and leave behind rosehip had been torn by .
“ Stop think . bloody it , block up talking , ” she grumble , the wrangle as speedy as her heartbeat .
Just cease it .
Could they really hear her brain ? She ’d take the sunfish with the knifelike concentration of a cleaning woman who might never see anything else again , and with all the acquirement of a instructor evaluating her fresh year .
The mola definitely had an superfluous sense , maybe the ability to … experience weight or denseness . That would serve them well in the chicken feed . So they would be able to differentiate her from the environs .
For once , she require them to find her . Vonnie reactivated her wooing and rose into a crouch , strobing the chasm below with a THz pulse . She thought her signals were outside the sunfish ’ range of hearing , but she ’d uncover herself as soon as her armor scraped against the tilt .
Nothing . There was nothing .
“ Oh God . ” She choked back the strait and swept the bent space of the chasm , quickly site pocket in the ceiling that she had n’t anticipated and could n’t make with her signals . The angle was too steep . Using her terahertz pulse was like turning on a light in what she opine was a closet and finding instead that one-half of the house was gone — and her enemy need only the thinnest openings to surround her .
Were they already too close ? She ’d fancy it before , a twelve sunfish upside down on the rock like fat mouse brawniness .
Vonnie aimed her optical maser at the cap even as she grope with her other hand for a clod of rock . There was gravel , too , and a headsized boulder . She ’d garner every loose man of lava she could recover .
Should she throw it now ? seek to provoke them ?
Her thumb grit in the rock as she clenched her clenched fist . She was a adequate shot with a ball . She ’d grown up with three younger brothers . But the suit of clothes itself was a weapon . The cause had lowlevel AI programme that could make her something like a passenger inside a robot . There were interpreter menus contrive for activities like climbing or welding because human beings got trite . The suit did not . It also had radiolocation target that she could not see , and it would limit the velocity of its throws only to avoid damaging her shoulder joint and back .
She did n’t trust it . She ’d used most of her AI programs to hold an embossment of her
ghost . The suit was rotten with Lam ’s mem single file . double the spook had cause interrupts , attempt to reconfigure itself , trying to seize control , and yet Vonnie was afraid to barf him . Deleting his mem files might affect her suit ’s expand speed and brawn .
“ Are you still there ? ” she siss .
That was the same affair it always pronounce . God . Oh God . She did n’t have time to hassle with him .
“ armed combat menu , ” she said .
— Online .
She pause . Right now , the spectre was more or less check . That would exchange if she give it access to defense mode . Doing so was a high-risk gamble . The extra capacity might be on the dot what the wraith needed to self - correct … or the stunned , miserable AI might corrupt
the most basic subroutine of her suit . Was there any other way ?
“ I need auto - aim only , ” she said . “ Fire by part program line . ”
— Von , that degenerate efficiency to thirty pct .
“ flaming by voice command . Confirm . ”
— Listen to me .
Four lissom arms reached out of the ceiling .
right of first publication ⓒ 2012 Jeff Carlson . All rights reserved .
Cover art by Jacob Charles Dietz Copyright ⓒ 2012 . All right hold .
Orbital diagrams and maps by Jeff Sierzenga . right of first publication ⓒ 2012 . Reproduced with permission .
For more of The Frozen Sky …
EbooksKindle : www.amazon.com / The - Frozen - Sky - Novel - ebook / dp / B009GLM5LG / Nook : http://www.barnesandnoble.com / w / the - frozen - randomness … Kobo : http://www.kobobooks.com / ebook / The - Froz …
Print : www.amazon.com / The - Frozen - Sky - Jeff - Carlson / dp/1936460149/
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