Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [259]
As Rlinda watched, lights began to sparkle through the icy coating, as if the woman was gradually melting from the inside out. She and BeBob could see the features of Karla Tamblyn, her skin pale and waxen beneath the glacial placenta. A pool of warmed water began to spread out like a base around her feet.
“Hey!” Rlinda shouted. “Anybody want to take a look at this?”
Some eerie form of internal energy was working through the woman’s frozen tissues, a spark that turned the icy cocoon transparent. Slowly, like a snake shedding its skin, the water slid off, one thin layer at a time.
“Maybe she’ll want a thermal blanket once she wakes up,” BeBob said. “Or some hot tea.”
“If you want my bet, she’d rather have a shot of something strong.”
The twin brothers Wynn and Torin came out to stand beside Rlinda and BeBob. “She’s changed a lot in the past day,” Wynn said to his brother, as if inspecting a cargo box. “I just wish Jess had told us what we’re supposed to do with her...or what to expect.”
“Something’s happening, that’s for sure,” Torin said.
BeBob wrapped his arms around his chest. “It’s so cold down here I don’t see how she can be melting.”
Rlinda looked at the dead woman’s face, saw delicate features, strong cheekbones, and a noble forehead. Her eyes were strangely open and staring through the frozen sheath.
Wynn saw the two prisoners’ curiosity and let out a sigh. “Ah, Karla and Bram had quite a romance, you know. Not that my brother was the easiest man to get along with, but Karla was smart. Bram could complain like no one else, but it never bothered Karla. She simply ignored him when he was being irrational, or she made him feel foolish for pointing out the deficiencies in everyone and everything but himself.”
“That’s why I never got married,” Torin said, standing close to his twin. “Seeing an example like that, I decided I just didn’t need all that grief.”
Wynn scowled at him. “Then you didn’t see all the love they had too. Better to have a few lows along with the highs than just live on a flat line, like you do.”
“I’ll remind you of that the next time you go grumbling—”
The thin ice surrounding Karla’s body cracked and splintered. The twins stopped their banter and drew a simultaneous breath. Spiderweb fractures crazed the frozen shell covering the woman’s body. The cracks grew wider with a sound like twisting bones. Torin shouted.
Behind them, an administrative hut popped open and Andrew, the other brother, stepped out, looking around.
“She’s thawing,” Wynn called.
Karla’s arms were spread, bent at odd angles, and now one arm slowly straightened. The ice cracked and peeled off, falling in chunks to the slushy pool that surrounded her on the ice shelf. The Tamblyn brothers yelped simultaneously in excitement and fear.
Rlinda took BeBob’s arm and pulled him back a step. “Let’s...give the lady a little bit of room.”
The remainder of the ice fractured and fell like hail onto the ground. Karla swiveled her head, and small frozen shards dropped out of her stiff hair. Filmy debris peeled like scales off her clinging uniform. Her skin had a strange luminous quality, and her hair, though damp, began to twitch and writhe like Medusa strands. With a sound like glaciers slamming together, Karla’s chest expanded.
Without bothering to throw on a thermal jacket, Andrew sprinted across the ice shelf, unable to believe what he saw.
Glowing, Karla lifted one foot, broke it free from where it had been fused to the ground, and took a step forward. Her movements were clumsy and wooden, but as she moved and gained balance, the phosphorescent energy within her swelled, filling her garments, her flesh, and her hair.
“Karla, do you know us?” Wynn stepped tentatively