Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 8
Day 191
The scouts have located the supply airship.
Looking at the blackened, collapsed airframe, it
reminds me more of a giant, ruined greenhouse
than something which once flew. Melted aluminium
forms cold, gleaming puddles where the crew
nacelles were. Stacks of heat-warped silicon-gallium
solar panels lie inside the ruined skeleton.
car, which flips over and begins to burn.
There is no clear evidence of what happened,
the airframe lies in a huge oval of burned grass and
scrub. The engines, fallen from their mounts, lie on
the ground, their propellers folded back against the
cowlings.
Later, Mitchell and Kosygyn return with a
pair of armadillos and a new type of dwarf kudu,
with four long, spiralling horns. We roast the
armadillos in their shells. They are delicious.
Rumours fly, and I wonder if Gardiner was
right after all. Then the truth emerges: another
platoon has shot a dozen eland. The scout car was
hurrying to bring them back before hyenas and lions
caught the scent. The two men in the car are dead,
our first casualties.
Day 197
Kosygyn is badly hurt during the river
crossing, crushed between two tr Ս