Science Fiction: Welcome to my Worlds

Cold Comfort

by Don

Chapter One

What a homecoming this was. Darin groaned, reaching for his head. The ice-covered shelf of rock he lay on was smeared with a reddish stain from the blood seeping out of his scalp. He couldn’t be that out of shape; he’d only been away for two years training in the Psi program. The grav-and-a-half of Targus clutched at his body and dragged him to it’s surface as though he were an immigrant outworlder just stepping on the planet.

Darin levered an elbow under him and started to get up from the icy surface, pulling the parka hood back over his head. Better he bloody it than freeze his face. “Uuuh!” His foot slipped and dropped his butt back to the ice with a painful thump. Even short falls were no joke on Targus and a chasm yawned to his right. Getting clumsy, he thought, then he noticed a liquid sheen on the ice. It was all around him on the ledge, like a big water spill, but he knew it couldn’t be water. It was mid-Spring on Targus but the temperature was still thirty degrees below freezing. He dipped a gloved finger in the liquid and brought it to