Chapter Nine
Breakdown
Flat and boring indeed. No longer having hidden glacial fissures to worry about, Kiyoshi had been charging along at full speed. They took turns watching the monitors through the night but nothing showed up that had to be dealt with. And by midmorning the next day they were beyond the reach of snow and ice. It was still deathly cold outside, but the surface was just sand and rock. Featureless sand and rock.
By the third day Valentina was heartily sick of it, something she would never have thought possible when she lived underground and dreamed of someday seeing the surface beyond a glimpse of ice outside the science station windows of her childhood. But sicker still was the feeling she got when she consulted the GPS and realized just how little of the plain they’d
