This is part three of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan, and Anton is starting to panic...
Anton clambered up into the crawler's
tiny, squat turret, and looked around. With the benefit of the
additional height, he could see the narrow scar of the drop-off, even
through the howling methane wind. He had maybe a minute.
He glanced
up the slope. There was still a considerable mass of permafrost
cascading down behind the crawler. Anything to stop the crawler would
have to stop the black ice, too. The comm laser could not melt away
that much ammonia.
He looked round wildly for any type of outcropping
that he could try to get to. Nothing. He knew he should have stayed
in space. He was a ringminer, not a groundhog repairman!
The pace of your writing, and his tone, are slowly escalating the tension. It's very subtle and artful. Great snippet!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteIf he was a groundhog repairman, then maybe he would have been scared of his shadow and stayed in his hole for six more weeks. That would certainly be better than his current predicament. I'm really enjoying this story so far.
ReplyDeleteBeing on the ground is definitely a bad idea, as far as Anton is concerned!
DeleteWonderful no-win situation you've got going! I can certainly appreciate his sentiments preferring to be in space rather than groundside. I eagerly await your solution to this problem.
ReplyDeleteSolution? Nah, he's just going to tumble into the trench and fall to his doom - except that then I couldn't write any more stories about him. I suppose I'd better come up with a cunning plan...
DeleteA wonderful bit of tension here in this snippet. Looking forward to seeing how Anton gets out of situations of impending doom.
ReplyDeleteThe job of a hero - to get into interesting situations and to find an exciting way to get out of it.
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