Page 2 of Fall

Snakes were easy. On Earth, they didn’t attack unless you threatenedthem, and they seemed to have the same personalities here. But that didn’t meanLenna wasn’t paralyzed as she darted her eyes between the coiled reptile and thepacing wolf. She almost felt like laughing, in bitter irony rather than humor.

What the hell was shedoinghere?

A noise beneath the tree distracted her, and she saw a small mammal—itlooked like a large rodent of some kind—darting into the clearing at the baseof the tree. When it saw the wolf, it turned quickly and sprinted away. But thewolf had seen it, and—evidently preferring easier prey—took off after the newarrival.

Lenna waited several minutes before she was brave enough to climb downagain.

The whole thing was surreal. She wasn’t a survivalist. She’d been indangerous situations before, but they’d always been threats from other peopleand not from wildlife.

And she’d always had a gun and a ship to get her out of trouble.

Yet here she was, rooting around in an alien wilderness for food andbarely escaping wild animals.

Lenna had always considered herself confident and cynical. She’d beenorphaned at fifteen and living on her own ever since. She was more than capableof making her way through a complex, sophisticated world on her own. She’d usedher wits and her skills to handle boorish men, hostile customers, and atotalitarian government.

This wasn’t the world she knew, however, and she was realistic enough toadmit that she wasn’t going to make it here for long.

Shaking herself off, she reoriented her sense of direction and then retracedher steps. All she could do was find the stream again and keep walking, sinceshe couldn’t risk losing her one source of water. Her feet were aching, and thecuts on her hands and shins were stinging, even after she’d washed them as bestshe could. Every muscle in her body was hurting, particularly the biceps she’dpulled so brutally in her attempt to haul herself up into the tree.

Lenna was as miserable as she’d ever been, but she forced herself to keepmoving forward.

If she didn’t, she would die for sure.

It was late on the third day—she didn’t have a time-keeper, but shesuspected that the days here were longer than twenty-four hours—when shenoticed the vegetation was starting to change.

Feeling a new hope, she summoned the remains of her energy and sped upher trudging. The foliage above her was finally starting to clear, and she sawsome plants that looked like they needed more sunlight than could be found inthe depths of the woods.

Maybe she was finally going to clear the forest.

She was so intent on getting out of the trees that she almost missedsomething very promising just at her feet. She might not have noticed it at allhad she not stubbed her toe on a tree root.

Swearing under her breath, she stopped and looked down at her aching foot,noticing that her shoes were getting worn.

That was when she saw the green leaves—green leaves that looked a lotlike leaves she knew from Earth. Panting, she crouched down and pushed asidethe leaves to discover little red berries. They looked a lot like raspberries,and the broad leaves would have hidden the berries completely had she not beenintentionally looking for them.

She picked one and nibbled it carefully.

It was sweet and berry-ish. So she picked some more, stuffing them intoher mouth ravenously.

If they were poisonous, she’d be in big trouble. But at this point shecouldn’t make herself care.

When she’d eaten all of the berries in sight, she got up again and keptwalking, keeping her eyes near the ground.

Several minutes later, she found some more berries.

She picked all of those too, but this time she collected them in theloose pockets of her trousers.

She didn’t know how widespread the berries would be, and it would be a shameto eat them all at once if there weren’t going to be anymore.

Keeping the berries safe, she kept walking as fast as she could. It wasstarting to get darker, and she didn’t want to spend another terrified nightalone in this forest.

Maybe, if she could ever break out of it, she could find civilization. And,if she found civilization, maybe she could find a way off this horrible planet.At this point, it was her only hope.

A bird fluttered to her right, making her choke out a startled sound. But,when she saw it wasn’t dangerous, she leaned down and picked up a rock—tryingto aim well enough to knock it unconscious.

The rock she’d thrown barely grazed the bird, and it flew away before shecould try again.

She’d tried to kill a small mammal yesterday with similar lack of success.She wasn’t a hunter. The closest she’d come to killing animals was swatting atbugs.

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