“I’m okay. Just…getting used to it,” I assured him.
Taking tiny sips of air to get myself acclimated to the extreme temperature, I concentrated on keeping up with my Master’s long strides.
The ship had landed on a large black square of land that was coated in some kind of rough asphalt. Several other ships were parked nearby—at least, I thought they were ships. They were all covered in thick tarps which showed nothing but vague outlines.
“Hey, do we need one of those for the ship?” I asked, nodding at them and looking up at Sir.
He shook his head.
“I’ve left the ship running to keep it warm. But if we were staying for more than a fewarns, then yes, we would need a heated tarp.”
“But…should you really leave it running?” I asked. “Won’t somebody steal it?”
Sir frowned.
“How could they? My ship responds only to me—I have only to touch it and it will open for me but it is permanently locked against anyone else. Now hurry, little one, we must get to the Baron’s building.”
He pointed across a broad street where I saw very few vehicles driving, to an enormous, towering building which seemed to be made of glass. But then I remembered that Sir had told me all the buildings were made of ice on O’nagga Nine.
Was that really possible? The building soared overhead, as big or bigger than any skyscraper I had ever seen on Earth. It seemed to be built on pillars of ice—each one as big as an entire house in its own right. There was a set of steps that led from street level up to the front doors, which were also made of ice, though they appeared to be coated in some kind of non-stick surface.
Sir and I walked briskly—well, it was more of a jog on my part, trying to keep up with him—across the street, dodging around the slow-moving vehicles which lumbered up and down the road.
There was no snow or ice on the road, though it seemed like there should be in a place like this with such extreme temperatures. Maybe it was heated or treated with something to make it ice resistant, I speculated. I was glad that my feet in their new boots didn’t slip or slide around at bit.
There were, however, huge drifts of dirty gray snow on either side of the road between buildings—some of them ten or twenty feet high. There was also an icy wind blowing which made me glad of the furry face coverings Sir had insisted that I wear. I was pretty sure my nose would have been frozen off without it. And even with the face coverings, my face felt stiff—like I was wearing a mask made of ice.
I wondered what time of day it was. The sky was a uniform gray which seemed to indicate some kind of twilight but the sun was still out—I could see it glimmering faintly when I looked up. Maybe it was dim because O’nagga Nine was so far from its sun, I speculated, remembering that Sir had said the planet was located on the far edge of the solar system’s habitable zone.
At last we reached the broad steps of the building. There were other buildings clustered around it, but it was definitely the biggest and the most ostentatious on the block. The ice pillars that supported it had been carved with all kinds of designs and decorations and there was also some kind of script that must be the Naggian language. I wanted to see if I could decipher it, but Sir was already pulling me up the stairs.
We went up quickly and found ourselves in front of a vast set of double doors. There were more carvings on the framework around them and this time I had time to let my eyes do their thing, where the alien language looked like gibberish at first and then resolved into letters I could read.
“Honor, Integrity, Hard Work, Candor, Independence,” I read aloud, scanning the frame.
Sir looked down at me in apparent surprise.
“Can you read Ancient Naggian too then, little one?”
“Is that what it’s written in?” I shrugged. “I guess so.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given your facility with languages,” he murmured. “Well, come on—we must go in.”
I was all for getting out of the biting wind—which felt like it would like to claw my face off if it could—so I followed him quickly through the double doors and into the huge ice building.
There was a little entryway where we took off our face coverings—Sir said it was rude to wear them inside—and then we pushed through another set of doors, into the main part of the building.
Inside it wasn’t nearly as grand as I had imagined it would be. I had expected to walk into a vast lobby, like something you might find in an expensive hotel. Instead, we seemed to be in the middle of a warren of tunnels, with different hallways leading off in every direction. People were rushing back and forth, coming out of one tunnel and going into another, all of them with their heads down and intent looks on their faces.
“What’s all this?” I asked Sir, frowning and looking around. “I thought this place was supposed to be fancy.”
“This is only the bottom floor,” Sir told me. “The Baron’s building has a central location and it serves as a hub—a place where the tunnels and walkways that lead to all the other buildings in the city converge. You see, they’re all connected—all the buildings, I mean,” he explained. “That way the residents can keep out of the elements as much as possible.”
“But I thought they could regulate their body temperature to keep themselves warm,” I protested.
Sir nodded.
“They do. But though they do not feel the cold as you do, it can be bothersome trying to get through mounds of snow and ice which accumulates during their cold season—which lasts most of their year.”