Strontium Swamp. James Axler

was still burning, but nowhere near as intense as it had been before. She opened her eyes and immediately screwed them tight again. She had been lying on her back and the light was too bright to take. She rolled over, feeling the hot sand against her face, and opened her eyes again. After adjusting, she tentatively raised herself onto all fours. Once she felt steady, she groped for some of the bottled water they had rescued from the redoubt and distributed among themselves. It was tepid and unpleasant, but it was liquid, and it helped rehydrate her. She was slick with sweat, yet the military OD green jacket she wore had covered her skin and saved her from too much direct exposure to the sun.

      But what of the others?

      Mildred slowly raised herself to her feet and looked around. Jak was sitting up, drinking. Like her, he looked as though he had only just regained consciousness. He managed a weak grin and slowly rose. Ryan and Krysty seemed to be coming around slowly, and J.B. appeared by her side as though from nowhere.

      â€œDoc’s not so good,” he said simply, guiding her to where the old man lay. He had less covering than the rest of them, and so had suffered most from being unconscious under the harsh sun. Mildred settled herself beside him. His skin was burned and flaky, and there was froth flecked at the corners of his mouth. He was mumbling incoherently to himself.

      While J.B. lifted his head, she used some of the water to wet his lips and gums, then pried away the dry skin of his mouth where it stuck to his teeth and gums. He reacted to this, and she risked pouring a little of the liquid into his mouth. He choked at first, but soon began to swallow.

      While J.B. continued to feed Doc the water, Mildred fumbled in her jacket pockets for salt tablets. She had been able to replenish her supply from the redoubt its infirmary. Doc would be in dire need of these after being so long exposed to the sun.

      By the time Doc had recovered enough to realize where he was, Krysty, Ryan and Jak had joined Mildred and J.B., clustered around the old man.

      Doc managed a weak grin. “Always the liability, I fear,” he whispered through chapped lips. “If I were a horse, then the knacker would be a necessity. And if I were a carpenter—”

      â€œShut up, you old fool,” Mildred interrupted. “You’re in no fit state to be talking sense, let alone the drivel you always come out with. You need to drink some more, for a start.”

      Doc agreed, taking a water bottle from her.

      Ryan had been surveying the area while they stood over Doc, and he didn’t like what he saw. Stretching in every direction was nothing but sand. It was an almost entirely flat landscape, only the occasional undulation of a dune to break the monotony. The sand covered everything so completely that even now he couldn’t be too sure where the redoubt entrance had been situated.

      J.B. joined him. “Doesn’t look so good, does it?”

      Ryan shook his head. “Nothing but this fireblasted desert, and no way of getting back to make a jump.”

      â€œWhich direction gives us the best chance?”

      Ryan shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Just looks like sand, as far as you can see. Figure the best thing to do is form into pairs and fan out, see how much territory we can survey.” He looked up at the sky. “Hard to tell with this cloud, but I reckon we’ve got a couple of hours before sundown.”

      â€œOnly plan that makes sense,” J.B. stated. “But one of us should go solo. I can’t see Doc being up to it,” he murmured, indicating the prone figure.

      Ryan shook his head. “Mebbe a good thing. Doc can be our anchor. Gives us somewhere to head back to.”

      â€œMy dear boy, you are too kind—making an asset from my infirmity,” Doc wheezed. “But, I suppose, if it is all I can do, it is, at least, something.”

      The five companions used their baggage to form a sun-break around Doc, offering him at least some shading from the sun, angling it to shield him from the angle of its descent. That angle also gave them some kind of compass point from which to try to determine their location. But their first task was to see if they could find shelter before the night fell.

      Ryan trekked alone, while Jak accompanied Krysty and J.B. marched with Mildred. The plan was simple, but backbreaking. Taking a different position, they were each to fan out from the point of their location to see if they could sight anything other than sand on the horizon.

      Simple, and also soul-destroying, for it soon became apparent that they could march for hours and see nothing but sand stretching out before them, rolling in dunes and broken only by the occasional patch of grass or scrub. As they marched outward, so the sand pulled at their calves, each step an effort to drag their boots from the grip of the sand, sapping what little reserves of energy they had.

      It was nearing twilight when they converged once more on where Doc lay. The old man had used the time well, taking more water and resting, and was now almost back to normal. It was little consolation, however, when they compared their lack of sightings.

      â€œIt would appear,” Doc said with a glimmer of a smile after listening to them, “that we are caught between a rock and a hard place, except that there are no rocks and the sand is far too soft.”

      â€œWish I could see the funny side, Doc,” Ryan muttered. “We’ve got little option other than to pick a direction at random and keep marching, or try to find the redoubt and force our way on for another jump—and that’s always assuming we could dig our way in, which I doubt.”

      â€œSo it’s just the marching, then,” Mildred said wryly. “Pick a direction—any direction.”

      â€œHow about that away,” J.B. said, pointing to his left. “Or mebbe not…’cause I think that’s where trouble’s coming.”

      Before he even finished, they knew he was right. A mistral wind was reaching them, tendrils of sand picked up in the light breeze that was getting stronger with each second. The chem clouds had gathered densely in the twilight, and the air became damp as chem rain started to drizzle. The speed at which it gathered was phenomenal.

      â€œFuck it! Try to get some cover. It’s coming down too fast!” Ryan yelled as the first fat, heavy drops of rain began to splatter them and the tendrils of sand became sharp bullwhips of grain, lashing against them.

      Within minutes, as they tried to dig a trench into the sand, the storm had risen to a pitch where the sand and the rain made it impossible to see in front of them and the gathering clouds turned twilight into darkest night.

      They could no longer see one another.

      As the sands were whipped up by the storm, it became hard to even tell where the ground began and ended.

      Chapter Two

      Ryan Cawdor shuddered and groaned as he raised himself slowly, painfully, from the tomb of sand he had made for himself. Every part of his body was in pain, and parts of his skin felt as though they would slither from his flesh at the slightest touch. He was thankful that there had been no open wounds for the rain to run into, which would have been too painful to contemplate.

      He looked around, trying to locate the others, there was no sign of them. No sign of any other life at all. And no sign of the storm, which had blown over as quickly as it had arrived. The sky above was clear, the stars illuminating the dark, the crescent moon casting a pale light over the sands, which now seemed as calm as they had before the storm hit, as flat and undulating, and showed no relation to the whirling clouds of flaying grit that had battered him just a short time before.

      They were also completely unrecognizable as the sands on which he had stood before the storm. Although there had been no real landmarks by which to judge, the shape of the dunes had become familiar as they had recced the area. Now, the landscape was unrecognizable,