It's hard to call someone a liar when they're seven feet tall, blue, and horned. When I'd woken up? It had been so cold my bare feet had stuck to the metal floors, and strange blue aliens occasionally entered to chat with the humans. Which would have been hard to believe except that I'd come from Houston, Texas, and my air conditioner had gone out, so I'd spent the evening sweating and praying the repairman would come by soon. Then, a few weird dreams later, I woke up, shivering and weak, pulled from a tube and told I'd been abducted by aliens. Weeks ago, I went to sleep in my own bed, and the biggest concern on my mind was when I'd start my chemo.

It's just one more thing I must adjust to in an endless stream of new and frightening things.

It's like I've been transported to a Goldilocks house, except instead of just right, everything's too large. Really, everything feels just a wee bit too big. I'm a decent height for a girl, but the average person on this planet seems to be seven feet tall, and the snows are deep, the caves huge. Everything here on Not-Hoth is sa-khui sized. The bone handle is smooth in my hand, though it's a little too big for my human-sized palm to grip comfortably. I have Haeden's knife, since he's too wounded to use it. I trudge forward over a drift-covered hill, and when I see the pink, wispy eyelashes of trees in the distance, I pick up the pace. There's no time to fix them or reinforce the insides with warm dvisti fur. My feet sink into the snow with each step, and my leather boots quickly become sodden. I'm used to technology, and it still freaks me out to think of the cold, emotionless voice of the computer.Īlso, I know what it's like to fear the doctor. They don't trust it, and I guess I understand that. I don't know why they don't go back to the alien ship and get healed.

They need my help, and I can't let them down. Kira's gone, and both aliens are wounded. My heart races wildly in my chest as I sprint through the snow, looking for the thin, pink, wispy trees of this planet. We need to make a travois and take Haeden back to the healer. There's got to be trees in the distance, and I'm strong and whole.Īehako's instructions ring through my mind, over and over.

Ice planet barbarians book 4