sites.'
It took a while; several hours of intense searching, while Alex did what he could to get himself prepared for the trip below. That amounted mostly to readying his pressure-suit for a long stay; stocking it with condensed food and water, making certain the suit systems were up to a week-long tour, if it came to that. Recharging the power- cells, triple-checking the seals, putting tape on places that tended to rub and a bit of padding on places that didn't quite fit, everything that could be done to his suit, Alex was doing. They both knew that from the time he left her airlock to the time he returned and she could purge him and the lock with hard vacuum, he was going to have to stay in it.
Finally, in mid-afternoon by the 'local' time at the site below them, she found what she was looking for. 'I found my hiding place,' she said into the silence, startling him into jumping. 'Are you ready?'
'As ready as I'll ever be,' he said, a little too jauntily. Was it her imagination, or did he turn a little pale? Well, if she had been capable of it, she'd have done the same. As it was, she was so jittery that she finally had to alter her blood-chemistry a little to deal with it.
'Then strap down,' she told him soberly. 'We're heading right into a major weather system and there's no getting around it. This is going to be tricky, and the ride is likely to be pretty rough.'
Alex took the time to strap down more than himself; he made a circuit of the interior, ensuring that anything loose had been properly stowed before he took his place in the com chair. Only then, when he was double-strapped in, did Tia make the burn that began their descent.
Their entry was fairly smooth until they were on final approach and hit thick atmosphere and the weather that rode the mid-levels. The wild storm winds of a blizzard buffeted her with heavy blows; gusts that came out of nowhere and flung her up, down, in any direction but the one she wanted. She fought her way through them with grim determination, wondering how on earth the looters had gotten this far. Surely with winds like this, the controls would be torn right out of the grip of a softperson's hands!
Of course, they could be coming down under the control of an AI. Once the course had been programmed in, the AI would hold to it. And within limits, it would deal with unexpected conditions all the way to the surface.
Within limits. That was the catch. Throw it too for off the programmed course, and it wouldn't know what to do. Never mind, she told herself. You need to get down there yourself!
A little lower, and it wasn't just wind she was dealing with, it was snow. A howling blizzard, to be precise. One that chilled her skin and caked snow on every surface, throwing off her balance by tiny increments, forcing her to recalculate her descent all the way to the ground. A strange irony, she who had never seen weather as a child was now having to deal with weather at its wildest.
Then suddenly, as she approached the valley she had chosen, the wind died to a mere zephyr. Snow drifted down in picture perfect curtains, totally obscuring visuals, of course, but that was why she was on instruments anyway. She killed forward thrusters and went into null-grav; terribly draining of power, but the only way she could have the control she needed at this point. She inched her way into her chosen valley, using the utmost of care. The spot where she wanted to set down was just big enough to hold her, and right above it, if the readings she'd gotten from above were holding true, there was a big buildup of snow. Just enough to avalanche down and cover her, if she was very careful not to set it off prematurely.
She eased her way into place with the walls of the valley less than a hand-span away from her skin; a brief look at Alex showed him clenching teeth and holding armrests with hands that were white-knuckled. He could read the instruments as well as she could. Well, she'd never set down into a place that was quite this narrow before. And certainly she had never set down under conditions that might change in the next moment.
If that blizzard behind them came howling up this valley, it could catch her and send her right into the valley wall. There. She tucked herself into the bottom of the valley and felt her 'feet' sink through the snow to the rock beneath. Nice, solid rock. Snow-covered rocks on either side. And above, the snowcrest. Waiting. Here goes.
She activated an external speaker and blasted the landscape with shatter-rock, bass turned to max. And the world fell in.
'Are you going to be able to blast free of this?' Alex asked for the tenth time, as another servo came in from the airlock to recharge.
'It's not that bad,' she said confidently. She was much happier with four meters of snow between her and the naked sky. Avalanches happened all the time; there was nothing about this valley to signal to the looters that they'd been discovered, and that a ship was hiding here. Not only that, but the looters could prance around on top of her and never guess she was there unless they found the tunnel her servos were cutting to the surface. And she didn't think any of them would have the temerity to crawl down what might be the den tunnel of a large predator.
'If it's not that bad,' Alex said fretfully, 'then why is it taking forever to melt a tunnel up and out?'
'Because no one ever intended these little servos to have to do something like that,' she replied, as patiently as she could. 'They're welders, not snow clearers. And they have to reinforce the tunnel with plastic shoring-posts so it doesn't fall in and trap you.' He shook his head; she gave up trying to explain it. 'They're almost through, anyway,' she told him. 'It's about time to get into your suit.' That would keep him occupied.
'This thing is getting depressingly familiar,' he complained. 'I see more of the inside of this suit than I do my cabin.'
