Free Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) by Sam Coulson

memories that haunted me in the
Downs. All the while, Ju-lin talked and answered my questions. She told me
about the Earth, where humanity had begun. Though she had never been there, she
tried to recall all she knew. As we walked she pointed out which of the trees
and plants around us were adapted from ancient samples from humanity’s native
Earth.
    “I’d like
to see it someday,” I said.
    “Even if
you have the chance,” she responded. “It’s not like the stories. Not anymore.
My father was born there and refuses to go back. He says it’s a used-up rock.
Cities have been built upon cities. The current residents live within the bones
of civilizations that have long since passed. Though they have worked to clean
it, the air’s still close to poison and the skies are dark from millennia of
waste and soot.”
    “Still,”
I said, imagining the ancient history of the world. “I would like to see it.”
    “Shh,”
suddenly, Ju-lin pulled me down next to her, and dropped her voice to a
whisper. “If this thing is right, then the site is about forty meters ahead,
somewhere in those rocks. Keep low.”
    She
gestured for me to hold still while she stepped behind me and reached into my backpack.
As she rummaged through the pack, I looked where she was pointing, down the
slope below to a group of rocky outcroppings. There was a broad clearing; in
the center was a towering stand of chalk-white stones sticking up out of the
ground like jagged teeth. The slope down to the rocks looked easy going, but it
was open and exposed.
    Crouching
beside me, she held up the digital monocular that she had retrieved from the
backpack and studied the area.
    “No heat
signatures, no signs of tech,” she said. “That’s good. But don’t trust it.
Something could still be out there. The scanner won’t be able to pick up much
with all that Tevarite .”
    “Tevarite?”
I asked.
    “The
white stones,” she responded. “It’s pretty uncommon, and puts off a low level,
but inconsistent, electromagnetic field. It’s interesting, but from what I hear
the field is so weak that it’s generally worthless. No real technological
applications, it just sits around and messes with scanners.”
    “It’s
quiet,” I commented uneasily.
    “That’s
just because we’re up on this ridge,” she said dismissively. “You got used to
hearing the trees rustling and the birds singing. Don’t get jumpy.”
    She was
right, of course. For most of the hike we had been in the trees or undergrowth.
I tried unsuccessfully to shrug off my uneasiness.
    “Well,”
she slipped the monocular back in the backpack and pulled out two flashlights.
“Let’s find this thing, take some pictures, and get the hell out of here.”
    She stood
up, but then froze stiff.
    “Something
wrong?” I asked.
    She cocked
her head to the side listening a moment, then shrugged.
    “No,
just-eh, yeah. It’s nothing. Let’s go.”
    I stood
up and caught up with her in a few strides. Her forced confidence didn’t make
me feel any better, but I wasn’t about to be left behind.
     
    Dusk was
settling in as we stepped into the shadow of the first stone. What had looked
jagged and forbidding from a distance was downright terrifying up close. The
rocks surged up from the ground at all angles. With dusk fully upon us, the
shadows cast by the stones had a deep and abyssal darkness to them.
    “Ah
hell,” Ju-lin said as she flipped on her flashlight. “I let your nerves get to
me.”
    I turned
my light on as well. The shadows began to twist and turn as we swung our lights
from side to side. I wasn’t sure which was more frightening, the stillness of
the dark or the shapeless and twisting shadows.
    “From the
report, it sounded as if the cave entrance was in the middle here, under a
large white stone,” Ju-lin was speaking louder than necessary.
    “Right,”
I said as I followed her, slowly sweeping my light from left to right. In the
shadows I thought I saw flashes of shapes: