EDGE OF DAY

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dazed, she took in her surroundings. She was floating in a round pod about two-meters across. Dim light lit the silver panels. There were no windows. But she could tell the pod was speeding up because her back was up against one of the concave walls, and when she pushed herself off, she found herself back against it a second later.

She gave up trying to do anything, tilted the back of her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She was alive. A tear trickled down the side of her cheek and her limbs went slack with relief.

Ferdinando must have released the pods from Mars when the PD squad attacked the ship. And the pods had an inbuilt command to find life and bring it back to the Veda's base.

Unless it was a police squad pod which had tracked her bracelet... No, the pod had come from Mars. And there were no prisons orbiting Mars, no colonies, no need for a police base.

She wondered how the pod had enveloped her without causing injury on impact. She wondered if the computer had located everyone else in time. What about Will?

Around forty minutes had passed when the pod began to tremble. The silver walls shimmered in Day's vision as she passed into Mars' thin atmosphere. Removing the life-pack had proved too difficult, so it slapped against the wall, and simultaneously knocked the breath from her lungs. There came a wild flapping noise. The air-tubes around the pod had inflated to increase the surface area and help the pod slow down.

There was nothing to hold on to. Nothing to do but ride it out. Day gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. In her head, she heard the fragments of a song.

Here comes the sun,

Here comes the sun...

She concentrated to see if she could remember the name of the singer or any other words. Instead, she saw her father's smiling face twice the size of her own, planting an enormous kiss on her cheek and laughing.

The sound of retro rockets fired up with a deafening explosion. They were nearing the surface. Because of its thin atmosphere, landing on Mars was complicated. Landing on the moon, you didn't have to worry about drag or pressure or heat. But on Mars you had big dust storms, and you couldn't use a parachute to slow the descent—the air was too thin.

Finally, the shuddering and banging faded, and then the burning rocket fuel died out. Gravity gently pulled Day to the bottom of the pod, though she felt as light as a soap bubble. Mars' gravity was three times less than the earth's. Another piece of information she knew without remembering where she'd learned it.

Day's insides clenched. Dayna had learned it. And now Amber and Ferdinando would be eager to get Dayna back, because they had what they wanted: Will. Did it matter to them if he was dead or alive?

The pod seemed to shudder and move differently, like it was being carried. Her stomach flipped over as there came a sudden vertical drop. There was nothing to hold on to, so she sat down, cross-legged on the metal floor and hoped the entire thing wouldn't turn upside down.

The pod slowed to a stop. In the silence, she heard the swish of blood in her ears, and her heart pounding. The curved wall on one side of the pod rearranged itself. Many small panels vanished into the rest of the structure, and a doorway appeared. Day got to her feet.

A humanoid poked its head into the capsule. The droid was different to an earth droid. It was half Day's height and twice her width.

"Please step out of the pod."