Science Fiction: Welcome to my Worlds

“Dead?” Darin felt a twinge from his newly sharpened senses. He’d known that he needed to get home, but he still wasn’t good enough to get a clear why. “How can they all be dead? Your cousins and uncles and others too?” She nodded miserably, tears leaking from closed eyes. “Who killed them Cesily?”

“Outworlders I think. Rumor has it there’s something here they want.”

“On Targus?” Darin would have laughed if Cesily wasn’t hurting so much. Everyone knew there were no gems or precious metals here. Targus was a dense world so there had been a lot of speculation, when it was settled, about the possibility of heavy metals. Nothing was ever found but rock and snow and ice. He looked across the chasm to the glazed hills beyond. Lots and lots of ice.
Darin wanted to ask her more questions about what happened to her family but his psi sense was telling him to get moving. “You’re coming home with me,” he decided.
“Thanks,” she said, the quiver in her voice tearing at him. “That’s where I was headed. I was hoping they’d take me in. I have nowhere else to go.”
They stepped very carefully through the oily spot on the path and managed to get by it without any further mishap. “What do you think the story is on the oil?”