Page 42 of Crash Landing
“Well, we get even more dirty.”
I bent forward and slid my hands into the mud, slowly moving them around until I found a thin vine buried beneath the surface. I pulled it out to show her and then followed it until I could feel the fruits of my labor deep in the soil. I gripped it with one hand and hauled it out to reveal a round, palm-sized root dripping with sludge.
“Moon potato,” I said.
Sam chuckled and reached out to take it from me. She tried to clear the mud away, but it was no use.
“How many do you think are here?”
“Start looking,” I said, taking the root and tossing it onto a patch of moss.
Sam was quick to start dipping her hands in the mud in search of more roots. She found one half the size of the first and pulled it out, so fascinated it was like she was finding night gems.
After a while, we’d found three more between us and we were both covered in mud up to our shoulders and knees. But Sam seemed to be enjoying herself.
“I wonder what they’ll taste like,” she said. “We have a lot of roots on Earth. Beets, carrots, radish. It could taste like any of them or none of them.”
“You’ll have to find out.”
“Do you grow these on Sylos, then?”
“Yes. Many of our plants come from Phesah.”
Sam tugged on a particularly thick vine and nearly lost her footing, but her determination bade her to keep trying. I started to move toward her to lend a hand when she suddenly yankedhard and uncovered a root the size of her head. The sudden dislodging of it sent her falling backward into the mud, the root clutched in her hands.
“Holy shit,” she laughed. “I win.”
“You win?”
“Yes. Mine’s the biggest.”
“I wasn’t aware we were competing.”
I held out a hand to her and she took it. Our fingers were covered in mud and my grip nearly gave out, but I caught her elbow before letting her slouch into the mud again.
“Weweren’t competing.Iwas competing,” she clarified. “It’s a problem, I know. Just let me have it.”
Trudging out of the mud, Sam set the large root down with the others we’d found and put her mud-caked hands on her hips with a huff.
“Think that’s enough?”
“I think it’s plenty,” I said.
She paused for a moment, covered from head to toe in the filth of the potato patch. Then her wicked eyes crept toward me and scanned my comparatively clean body.
It was the sly grin that gave her away. She lunged for me and shoved her hands against my chest. There wasn’t much power behind her attack, but instinct forced my reaction. I sidestepped and used her own momentum against her, watching her careen back into the mud.
“Saleuk!” she complained.
Her smile turned to a grimace and she charged out of the mud with handfuls of it.
“Sam,” I warned.
“It’s not fair I got this dirty and you didn’t.”
“It’s not my fault you’re unstable. Look at your tiny feet. How do those even support you?”
She came at me with the mud and smeared one big handful of it down my front. While I was distracted \by that, she shoved the other handful across the side of my face. I stilled, nostrils flared.
