An Uncomic Book Horror Story

Начало книги

Ahdnah crawled from the ruined shell of the escape capsule and took his first look at the world on which he was marooned. His reaction was one of intense disappointment. A sheet of glacial ice stretched from horizon to horizon, and the only movement was that of snow being whipped into flurries by the bitter wind.

There was no life here, and therefore could be no food.

To a creature less superbly equipped for survival, the prospect would have meant certain death—but Ahdnah belonged to a talented and life-hungry species. He spent only a few seconds sorrowing over the fact that he would never again see his nest-mother, then he began to dig.

The surface was hard and unyielding, but he altered his body, redesigning it to cope with the task before him. He transferred the metallic elements in his tissues to the lower side of his slug-like form, creating knife-sharp fins which gouged through the black ice. Ahdnah quickly sank downwards into a well of his own making, and by nightfall had reached the inert soil of the planet itself. Here he discovered remains of vegetation compacted below the ice, and—reassured—continued burrowing to lower levels, far into the rock strata, where there were traces of residual heat.

Читать дальше →