“Wonderful!” Kara wanted to grin but instead she gave them another closed-mouth smile. “I’ll be right there.”
“We’ll see you soon!” Aunt Zeelah trilled and Uncle Grennly waved a hand at her in a friendly way before the connection was cut and her viewscreen went blank.
There, that wasn’t so bad—they’re welcoming me with open arms! Kara told herself as she pulled on her boots, grabbed her carryall cube and swathed herself in the thick vranna skin coat. She put on thermal gloves and a thermal face shield too, just to be safe. She well remembered the story her parents had told about how her mother had nearly died from exposure, even in the short amount of time it took her father to carry her from their ship to the entrance of the grotto, when she first came to Tranq Prime.
Finally, when she felt she was as shielded from the weather as she could be, Kara popped open the door to her shuttle…and was nearly knocked flat on her back by the gust of icy wind that shoved through the entrance like an overeager customer at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“Whoa!” she muttered, bracing herself against the wind. “Good thing I’m covered up!”
She stepped out into a cold so icy it seemed to steal her breath. It made her nose and mouth go numb and her lungs ached when she breathed it in, despite her thermal face shield. Kara knew that she needed to get out of it quickly before she froze.
Up ahead, moving in a group over the snowy plain, she saw the traders and merchants. Raak was among them—a head taller than everyone else. He was also the only one not wearing any kind of face and head protection. His long black hair whipped in the icy wind but Kara didn’t think he looked distressed or even particularly cold. He moved easily, walking at the front of the pack of merchants and looking around, his silver-ringed eyes taking in everything while all the other traders were solely focused on the door in the vast stone wall that rose to their left.
Kara was focused on the grotto door too. She didn’t want to draw unwanted attention from the traders or let Raak know she was there but neither did she want to get left behind. Moving quickly and blessing the fact that the thermal face shield would mask her features, she made her way to the back of the group and was the last one through the rusted metal door before it clanged shut behind her.
She found herself in a long tunnel made of rough, brown stone walls which stretched downward at a mild slope as though going into the heart of the earth.
“Whew—fucking cold out there!” one of the merchants complained, blowing on his hands—which were large and blue and had seven fingers each. He looked like a Durstan from Drusia Seven to Kara.
“You’re not kidding,” muttered another. “Hope this stop is worth it.”
“If you’ve got the right wares to sell, you’ll make it worth it,” a deep voice said.
It was Raak speaking, Kara saw, glancing up quickly. She saw his nose twitch as he caught her gaze momentarily and she was glad all over again for the face shield. It would be so awkward if he knew who she was—thankfully her cold weather disguise allowed her to be anonymous.
Not wanting to make small talk with the rest of the merchants, she hurried down the long access tunnel, the vranna fur coat trailing behind her.
“Look at him go—must have a buyer already lined up,” she heard one of the merchants say.
“Nah—just trying to get warm. Damned hard on a ball of ice like this,” came the muttered reply. And then Kara was far enough ahead that she couldn’t make out their words anymore, which suited her just fine—as did the fact that they had apparently assumed she was male.
After many twists and turns, she emerged from the long tunnel into a much larger, open area—the grotto. It was enormous for an underground space, Kara thought—at least as big as two football fields from Earth put together. It was also open and airy, so that she could only dimly see the natural rock ceiling glinting far above.
The plain brown walls of the tunnel had given way to vast sheets of pinkish rock that were streaked with what must be mineral deposits in every imaginable color. A purplish-blue vegetation that was short and fuzzy like moss covered the floor which sloped down to a center area, where a grove of pale trees with silvery leaves grew around a still blue lake.
“Oh, beautiful,” Kara breathed to herself as she surveyed the scene. Then she saw two familiar figures standing by the side of the lake—her great aunt and uncle waiting for her.
“Aunt Zeelah! Uncle Grennly!” Kara waved eagerly to them and then hurried down the purple moss-covered slope to the shores of the placid blue lake. “It’s so good to meet you at last!” she exclaimed, pulling off the hood of the vranna skin coat and stripping off her thermal mask.
“Oh yes, my dear—we’re happy to see you too.” Aunt Zeelah gave her a tight little smile. She was dressed in a furry brown dress that Kara recognized at once.
“Oh, a tharp! My mother still has hers—the one that gave her so much trouble when she and my father visited Tranq Prime before they were bonded,” she said.
Her Uncle Greenly was also dressed in furs, although unfortunately, his didn’t suit him quite as well as Aunt Zeelah’s. He was wearing a kind of furry purple skirt which came to mid-thigh and furry purple boots to match. This outfit left his scrawny, somewhat concave chest bare and didn’t do his skinny legs any favors either.
But Kara didn’t care about appearances—she was just happy to see her distant relatives and hopeful that she might soon get the treatment she so desperately needed.
“Well, well—tell me, my dear, what brings you to us so
