Her words gave me an idea. She might be stuck here, on O’nagga Nine, but there was no reason she had to feel like she was freezing all the time.
“Here,” I said, taking off my coat and holding it out to her. “Take this, at least.”
Natalie looked at me in disbelief.
“I can’t take your overwrap! You’ll freeze to death.”
“No, I won’t,” I said firmly. “I’ll go right back upstairs and ask Sir to synthesize another for me. He can bring it across before we have to go back to his ship.”
Of course, this meant admitting to Sir that I had left the Baron’s living quarters and gone downstairs by myself—I was betting he wasn’t going to like that one bit. I might even get punished for it. But Icouldn’tleave Natalie with nothing at all! It would be worth the punishment, I told myself, to know that she was warm.
“Take it,” I told her, when she still hesitated. “It’s nice and warm and I won’t need it again after we leave here.”
“Well…if you’re sure.” I could see the hunger in her eyes—the desperate need for warmth.
“Positive.” I shoved the bulky fur coat into her arms and hugged her impulsively. “I hope I see you again,” I told her. “And that we both get back to Earth someday.”
“I hope so too.” Her eyes were bright with tears as she pulled away with the coat in her arms. “Thank you, Elli. I won’t forget you.”
“I won’t forget you either,” I promised. “I’ll come back to help you, if I can.”
Her face filled with sadness.
“Nobody can help me—this is my life now. I—”
But just then the boominggong, gong, gong,sounded again. Natalie’s eyes widened.
“Got to go!” she exclaimed. “And you’d better get back to where you came fromfast!Sweepers will be here any second.”
“Okay.” I nodded and watched as she turned to run to the mouth of a far tunnel. She disappeared inside it and suddenly I heard awhish, whish, whishsound coming from over my head.
I looked up and saw, to my dismay, something that looked like a cross between a spider made of ice and a vacuum cleaner. It had eight shiny, clear legs and a fat, round body. Its head looked like one of those rollers covered in bristles. You know, the kind you see when you turn your vacuum over because you’re trying to unclog it? It’s the bristles that pick up the dirt and debris and sweep them into the vacuum’s sucking hole.
The weird spider-thing that Natalie had called a “Sweeper” had a similar arrangement, though the bristles on its roller mouth were clear, just like the rest of its body. It was like it had evolved to blend in with all the ice on this frozen world. It scuttled over the ceiling above me, its roller brushing crumbs into its open maw, which was located right below it and ringed in long, needle-like fangs.
It was a horrible shock—seeing a giant spider on the ceiling right over my head—and I couldn’t forget Natalie’s warning about being “chewed up” when I saw those deadly fangs. Was it going to try to eat me? Although it was the size of a Doberman Pincer, its mouth wasn’t big enough to suck me in…unless it ground me up with its long, sharp bristles, that was. Whatever its intentions, I had no wish to have a close-encounter with it. It was time to get the Hell out of there!
I ran for the ice elevator as fast as I could, throwing a look over my shoulder to be certain the weird spider-like ‘Sweeper’ wasn’t following me. It wasn’t, but now I could see more of them—alotmore, scuttling across the high ceiling. Oh God, Ihatedbugs—especially big ones! I needed to get out of herefast.
Anxiously, I pushed the call button for the elevator. Then I pushed it again…and again.
I looked up, trying to tell if the ice lift was coming, though it made me wince to see all the Sweepers scuttling over the ceiling. But for some reason the lift appeared to be stuck at the top on the Baron’s floor.
“Come on…come on!”I muttered, jamming my thumb into the button again and again.
Suddenly a little lighted message appeared over the button.
End Serviceit said.
“What?” I muttered, jamming the button some more. “What the hell does that mean? Come on—please!”
But no matter how much I pressed the button, the same message just kept appearing.
End Service, End Service, End Service…
Suddenly one of the Sweepers—a really big one, the size of a Great Dane—scuttled down the icy elevator shaft and came right at me. I gasped as it rushed towards me, pushing me away from the elevator and towards the doors at the front of the building.
“Hey! Ouch!” I protested, as the sharp bristles on its roller-mouth pierced my leg. They went right through all those layers I was wearing like they weren’t even there and my skin stung like fire where they stuck me.