Beyond the Stars (29 page)

***

We started on our way back to the ship. All traces of our footprints leading to the cave were already swept away by the frigid wind. It didn’t matter. We walked farther along the mountain trail instead of returning the way we had come. Even if it was the wrong way, I wasn’t going to argue. I think my being here caused more of a hassle than I was previously aware of. I relived Enos’s words in my head about how I put everyone at risk. I didn’t even ask for this.
Trust me, I would rather be at home right now
. I stomped my boots in frustration through the powdery white snow. I didn’t feel like making the journey down the mountain with these heavy rocks in my bag. I wished I was already safely sitting on the ship.

Pascal stopped and dropped his bag. “This looks good,” he said.

“Let’s do it,” cheered Noah.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Go back to the ship, Sami,” explained Karis. “You don’t think we’re going to walk down, do you?” She scoffed at me like I was a complete idiot.

“How exactly are you planning on getting back?” I retorted, looking down at the steep snow-covered ravine. The snow was packed down into a slick slab of ice. It looked way too dangerous to survive. Plus, there wasn’t a ski or snowboard in sight.

“We’re going to slide down,” Karis said proudly, with a snotty smirk on her face. “Our suits are designed for it.”

“
No way
, are you crazy? It’s suicide! We’ll die!” Everyone started to laugh at my frantic reaction.

“Sami, it’s okay. We’ll be fine,” Gaelan said, trying not to laugh. “I know that on Earth it would be extremely dangerous, but Decca has about three-fourths the gravity of Earth. Plus, our suit material will help act as a braking system.” I suddenly understood why the hike up the mountain had been so easy. It wasn’t so much due to my renewed body as it was to the lack of the planet’s gravitational pull.

Noah shot me an ornery smirk. “See you at the bottom, Sami. Cow-a-bungaa!” he shouted before he stepped right off the mountainside. He was never one to delay. His fearlessness bordered on insanity.

I gasped. “
Noah!
” I peered over the edge of the extremely steep hillside to see him sailing smoothly down towards the bottom of the mountain, feet first. Karis enthusiastically followed after him. I watched as everyone else joined them without hesitation. They simply sat on their bottoms with the backpacks strapped to their backs and slid straight down the slope. They glided in a controlled manner instead of tumbling down in the giant snowball I had envisioned.

“Are you ready?” Gaelan reached for my hand while he sat down in the snow, letting his feet dangle over the side of the cliff.

“
No
, but whatever I have to do …” I bit my lip. There was no other option, so I bravely sat down next to him, closed my eyes briefly, and pushed myself off the edge. The initial sickening feeling of falling downward was quickly replaced with a smooth, gliding sensation. We descended side by side as though we were riding on an elevator. A mound of crushed up soft snow gathered up like a growing platform, supporting my feet while I descended. I was at the bottom in no time. It was the best sled ride I’d ever had in my life. It was so much fun that I’d even do it again.

We trekked back across the flat landscape, but this time our faces were against the wind. It pushed against us as though we were in the heart of a hurricane. We had to lean forward and plant our feet firmly with each step to keep from blowing backwards. It started to snow hard. It also felt much colder than it did earlier. The vapor from our breath seemed to freeze as soon as it left our lips. The tremors seemed to be occurring more often now, too. I wasn’t sure if there was a storm on the horizon or if the planet experienced night, but it looked really dark in the distance. The rolling gray clouds coming our way looked ominous. At last, we could see the lights of our ship arising through the thickening haze of giant snowflakes.

“This sucks!” Zaric complained.

“It’s relentless,” Pascal shouted back.

“We’ll live. I’ve been in worse,” Tyden added.

Gaelan pointed towards the ship. “Come on … keep your eyes on the prize. We’re almost home,” he encouraged. Was that a metaphor I just heard? Perhaps I really was rubbing off on him.

We all moved at a steady pace, bracing ourselves against the powerful wind. Now, the ship had to be less than a mile ahead. Suddenly, a tremendous tremor shook the ice below our feet. The rumble spread across the terrain far and wide. The icy path we traveled across violently cracked open and split apart beneath our feet in a ferocious eruption. Large chucks of ice broke away and shot up through the frozen ground in massive blocks, exposing the deep lake below. Dark gray water rippled through the exposed cracks and gushed across the ice floor, splashing over our boots.

Before I knew it, the ground under Tyden and me was no longer stable and began to split apart. It broke loose from the ledge of solid ground where Gaelan and the others were standing and started to tear away. I fought to maintain my balance, afraid to make a move. Gaelan motioned for us to join them. Another aftershock brutally quivered beneath us, pushing our frozen landmass farther away from the icy shore. Tyden and I didn’t hesitate any longer and leapt over to them. Gaelan grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the stable shore. I turned after I landed, sensing that Tyden didn’t make it. He had slipped and hit the back of his head on a raised piece of ice. Bright red blood was splattered across the white ice on the spot where the back of his skull had struck. He rolled and barely made a splash as his lifeless body fell into the icy water and swiftly started to float away face down.

“
No!
” I screamed. I went to go after Tyden.

Gaelan held me back. “Samantha, no—you can’t!
Stop!
” he shouted at me.

“Let me go.” I struggled against him to break free. I succeeded, leaving Gaelan holding only my backpack. I ran and jumped straight into the icy water after Tyden. I glanced over at Gaelan and the others as they yelled and hysterically waved for me to swim back, but I ignored their demands. The current was swift and strong. It quickly pulled me away from the shore. I attempted to avoid the passing chucks of floating ice, but one pounded into my shoulder. Ignoring the painful blow, I swam with all my determination to catch up with Tyden. I stretched out my arm and finally managed to grab the hood of his coat.

Gaelan and the others kept screaming for me to swim back. They ran along the shore beside us to keep pace with the current. I tried to swim to the icy edge, where the group was frantically waving as I pushed Tyden’s body to move him but made little headway. I not only struggled against the current but the weight of my waterlogged snow gear. It was hard to keep afloat. Although I couldn’t feel the coldness of the water through my snowsuit and boots, they must have become saturated with water and felt heavier on my body than the pile of rocks I’d been carrying. Their bulkiness made swimming difficult. If I were on Earth, they surely would have sucked me under.

“Sami,” Noah shouted. “Get out of there before you get eaten!”

I could barely hear him with all of my splashing. What did he say?
Eaten?
I nervously looked down at the dark water, but couldn’t see anything at first. Then I noticed something unusual. Thousands of tiny bubbles were rising to the surface.
Oh please, let it be my imagination
.

Gaelan was yelling, too. “Come on, it’s dangerous in there.”

Dangerous?
Oh no
, the bubbles were not my imagination. I shuddered to think what was below me. I started to paddle and kick harder. Gaelan lassoed the rope, which we had used to tether us all together on our climb, high above his head and threw it out to me. I desperately paddled over to grab it—its end quickly sank into the murky water. It was hard to hold onto with my gloved hand. He and the others swiftly pulled me in while I towed Tyden behind me to the ledge.

“Here, t-take him,” I stuttered to Gaelan and Noah. They quickly pulled Tyden out of the water and rolled him onto his back. He was still unconscious.

“Let’s go, Sami. Hurry up! Get the hell out of there,” yelled Noah frantically.

I reached up, and before I knew it, he and Gaelan grabbed my hands and lifted me to my feet in one quick swoop. I couldn’t maintain my balance and fell to the ground on my hands and knees next to Tyden, struggling to catch my breath. The cold wind instantly turned the water on the surface of my suit to a crispy, thin layer of ice. It froze my hair into icicles and burnt my skin as it whipped across my wet face. I would have frozen to death if it weren’t for the miracle fabric inside my snowsuit. The suit’s lining was radiating heat. The cold water must have activated some sort of built-in warming system.

“Come on, we need to move. We’ll take care of him on the ship. There’s a storm brewing,” Zaric yelled out over the gusting wind.

I gazed up at the gray, darkened sky coming over us. The tumbling black clouds lit up with a huge flash of lightning. A deafening clap of thunder followed immediately after and seemed to resonate through the cracked ground. I crawled over to Tyden and leaned my ear over his face to check if he was breathing. I pulled off my gloves and felt for a carotid pulse. I felt nothing. He was motionless. His dark complexion made his lips look dark purple. I sucked in a deep breath, despite the cold air stinging my lungs and started CPR. Everyone stood around me silently.

“Sami, no, don’t. Please, you have to stop,” begged Karis. I looked up to see Noah hold her back.

“Wait, Karis, please. It’s okay,” he whispered. Within a minute, Tyden took in a couple of shallow gasps of air before coughing up an explosive fountain of water and sucking in one deep breath. He became semi-awake and bolted upright to take in a few more deep breaths while he continued to choke up mouthfuls of water.

Gaelan pulled on my arm. “Sami, come on—we have to go,” he insisted.

“
I will!
Can you give him just a minute?” I answered, annoyed.

“No!
Not here,
we can’t,” he said urgently.

I followed his eyes and turned back to look at the water. While I was busy doing CPR, I had failed to notice that the currents that rippled across the water had changed. Large bubbles were now rumbling across the dark surface like a hot tub on full blast. Before I knew it, Gaelan grabbed me by the waist and pulled me up. Zaric and Noah put Tyden’s arms around their shoulders and lifted him up together before breaking into a full sprint towards the ship. Gaelan and I ran directly behind them. Pascal, Karis, and Enos were already far ahead. They were about to start their ascent up the ship’s ramp.

“What was that?” I asked as I ran. I could barely get the words out and gasp the cold air into my lungs at the same time. We were now in the midst of a full-blown blizzard and lightning storm.

“The Paramante,” Gaelan replied while he sprinted beside me effortlessly.

“The
Para-what?
” I was expecting to hear that there was an underwater volcano erupting.

“The Paramante,” he repeated. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen to me. You’re
so
stubborn. Did you even stop to consider the risk? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he said in an irritated tone.

“No, of course not. I was trying to save Tyden,” I shouted back defensively over the howling wind. He looked at me with what looked like a tinge of guilt when he realized saving Tyden was more important to me than my own safety.

“The Paramante are ancient sea creatures that live here. They were swimming right below your feet. No one really knows that much about them. There are some horrific stories about them, though. The tremors must have disturbed them from their sleep.”

My eyes widened. “Are they dangerous?”

“Oh yeah, they’re enormous and can eat you in one gulp,” he explained.

Suddenly, I acknowledged my rash behavior, realizing they could have swum up to get me. I turned around to look at the water. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw what appeared to be a giant dragon head floating across the water. It looked prehistoric. The thing had enormous, yellow, snakelike eyes that seemed to be looking right at me. Then, I noticed several more swarming around. I gasped when I saw the scaly tail of one creature rise ten feet above the surface before it came crashing down, splashing a huge wave of water with its force. I shivered at the horrifying sight and the freezing wind pushing against my body. No wonder everyone was frantic when I jumped in to save Tyden. We reached the ship’s ramp and ran through the open hatch. I exhaled in relief. As the ship’s ramp closed, I turned back once more to look at the broken ice where the Paramante had surfaced. I could no longer see them, only big splashes of water hitting the icy shore.

Noah and Zaric laid Tyden down on the floor. Karis paged all available medical personnel to the landing. Gaelan and Noah helped me to pull off my sopping wet snowsuit. Zaric and Pascal undressed Tyden. He was conscious but looked stunned. Enos stood there helplessly watching us without offering any assistance. Two other men who were stationed there, awaiting our return, seemed to be getting the ship ready for take-off.

With the heavy, wet clothing off, I plopped down on the floor next to Tyden. Urit and the two other medics, Hayden and Bryson, entered the landing through the emergency slides. They were at our sides in a flash. Gaelan leaned down and tapped my shoulder. He murmured something to me about having to get to the command deck. He said he was needed to get the ship underway. Zaric, Noah, and he all ran out before I could say goodbye. A small crowd had formed around Tyden and me. I explained to Urit that I had to give him CPR. I told him about his head injury. I watched while Urit and the other doctors carefully examined him with the Remi-Scan and some other bizarre medical tools.