Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

Sunlight on his face, bringing the familiar tingling prior to burning, had his hand up and closing his mask before he was fully awake. He looked across the dead ashes of the fire at Hirald and got the unsettling notion that she had not changed position all night. He sat up, then after a muttered good morning, went behind a rock and urinated into his condenser pack. Following the ritual of every morning for many years now he then emptied the moisture collectors of his under suit into it as well. The collector bottle he emptied into his drinking bottle before dipping his toothbrush and cleaning his teeth. By the time he had finished is ablutions and come out from behind the rock, Hirald had opened a breakfast-soup ration pack and it was bubbling under its lid. Snow reached for another pack, but she held up her hand.

“This is for you. I have already eaten.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“A little. Tell me, how is it you are in possession of proscribed weaponry?”

“Took it off someone who tried to kill me,” he lied, but he could hardly tell her he had brought it here before the runcible proscription and modified it himself over the so very many years since. He sat and drank his breakfast. When he had finished, they set out across the Thira. Hirald noted him looking at her after an hour’s walking and closed her mask. He thought no more of it; lots of people did not like the masks and were prepared to pay the price of water-loss not to wear them so much.

By midmorning the temperature had reached forty-five degrees and was still rising. A sand shark broke out of the surface of a dune and came scuttling after them for a few metres, then halted, panting like a dog, either too tired or well fed to continue, that or it had sampled human flesh before and found it without nourishment. When the temperature reached fifty and the cooling units of Snow’s under suit were labouring under the load, he noted that Hirald still easily matched his pace. When a crab-bird dropped clacking out of the sky at them she brought it down with one shot before Snow could even think of reaching for his weapon. She was a remarkable woman, yes, remarkable.

Shortly after midday Snow called a halt. “We’ll rest until evening then continue through the night and tomorrow morning. The following night should bring us out the other side.”

Hirald nodded in agreement. Snow wondered why she had not suggested this earlier. Surely, she had not travelled only by day across here? Surely not.

They slept under the reflective shelter of Snow’s day tent, then moved on at sunset after Snow had checked their position by the satellite beacons. They walked all night and most of the following morning and when they finally set up the tent again Snow was exhausted. With a hint of irritation, he told Hirald he wanted privacy in the tent and suggested she set up her own. Once inside is tent he sealed up and stripped naked. He then cleaned himself and the inside of his under suit with a cycle sponge; a device that made it possible to stay clean with a quarter litre of water and little spillage. After this he pulled on a pair of towelling shorts and lay back with his miniature air cooler humming away at full power. It was luxury of a kind. After half an hour’s sleep he woke and opened the tent to look outside. Hirald was sitting in the sand with her mask open. She was watching the horizon intently, her stillness quite unnatural.

“Don’t you have a day tent?” Snow asked.

She shook her head.

“Come and join me then,” he said, reversing back into his tent. Hirald stood and walked over, the effects of the baking sun seemingly negligible to her. She entered the tent and closed it behind her, then after a glance at Snow she began to remove her survival suit. Snow turned away for a moment then thought, what the hell, and turned back to watch. She had not asked him to turn his head. Under her suit she wore a single skin-hugging garment that ended above her knees and elbows and in an arc exposing perfectly formed collarbones. The material of the garment was like white silk, and almost translucent. Snow swallowed dryly, then tried to distract himself by wondering about her sanitary arrangements. As she lifted her legs up to remove her trousers from her feet, he saw then how the matter was arranged and wondered if a blush was evident on his white skin. The garment had a hole from the lower part of her pale pubic hair round to the top crease of her buttocks.