Dragon Pearl(68)

The goblin nodded and produced their spork. They waved it around, conjuring packets of shrimp crackers. I could almost hear my mom scolding me for eating junk food. A wave of homesickness washed over me. Would I ever see her again? I wanted nothing more than to bring Jun home to her.

Sujin passed the crackers around, and we ate in glum silence, trying not to think about the vastness of space and how tiny the escape pod was. Then we returned to our couches and harnessed ourselves back in to prepare for landing. I stared out the viewport at the planet and prayed to every ancestor I knew to watch over us. Soon enough we’d find out whether we’d land near the Dragon Pearl—if we made it at all.





The planet loomed below, with great tumbling whirls of lightning-lit clouds set in a deep azure sky. I had a difficult time catching sight of the surface with its violet-green haze. The colors were deceptive and the ground might look quite different once we got up close, without all the mist and dust in the way.

I’d learned a long time ago that a planet’s atmosphere didn’t start or stop abruptly like a boundary wall. Rather, it faded gradually, extending into space like an ever-thinner blanket the farther you got from the ground. But when you were making a landing, there was a moment when you knew you’d entered an atmosphere.

The temperature inside the pod rose uncomfortably as the friction of entry took its toll. The tiny ship was supposedly shielded so the excess heat wouldn’t cook us, but it grew hot enough that sweat was pouring off me. My fear didn’t help, either.

Haneul and Sujin didn’t say anything about it, but I could smell their perspiration as well. The entire capsule had a rank stink that only grew worse by the minute. It was almost a welcome distraction from the knowledge that soon we’d be crash-landing on the surface.

I dozed fretfully, then woke to Haneul and Sujin conversing in low tones. “Anything happen?” I asked.

“No, we’re just waiting for the inevitable,” Haneul said. “I was talking about ways I might be able to use weather magic to soften the landing, but my control over air is not as strong as I’d like. I don’t suppose you could change into an airbag big enough to protect all of us?”

“I could,” I said dubiously, “but I wouldn’t be a very good airbag, and I couldn’t keep myself from smothering you if we landed wrong and I got knocked out. How much longer until we land?”

“Another ten minutes,” Sujin said. Despite the forced cheer of their tone, their voice wavered. “At least we haven’t seen any ghosts yet.”

“They’re waiting to greet us as equals,” Haneul said. Her attempt at a joke was followed by a dismal silence, and she sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”

I twisted and turned in the harness, trying to find a more comfortable position. All my limbs ached, and my back was sore from being stuck like this for the past several hours. I wondered if whoever had designed the straps had ever been forced to put them to the test. The heat kept rising. By now I was soaked with sweat, and thirsty, too.

“I should have had more to drink while I was unharnessed,” I said. I couldn’t get anything now, when we were so close to landing.

“Maybe after we walk away from this I’ll conjure you some plum soda,” Sujin said, and we both laughed uneasily.

The capsule began to brake, and it became hotter than ever.

“I see trees,” Haneul said abruptly. “This might not have been the best place to land.”

All thoughts of thirst vanished. A forest was a sign we might be near Jeonbok. But I didn’t want to crash into it. . . . Unless the branches would soften our landing?

I strained for a glimpse of any signs of past civilization, hoping that Captain Hwan’s maps were up-to-date. “If even the most recent survey maps aren’t reliable,” I said, suddenly full of dread, “who knows what we’ll find on the surface when we get out. . . .”

“Ghosts,” Sujin said. “Navigating is going to be interesting, that’s for sure.”

We lapsed into an unhappy silence.

“Five minutes to landing,” Sujin announced. “See you all on the other side.”

“To survival,” I said.

To my surprise, Haneul laughed, although not without some bitterness. “To survival.”

The pod’s emergency-landing parachute deployed. One moment we were slowing, slowing, almost to the point where I imagined us as a feather burning up as it floated down. The next moment, we collided into something—a great overgrown copse of trees, from the crazed impression of branches and leaves and broken twigs that I glimpsed through the viewport as we turned topsy-turvy.

We rolled and tumbled. I yipped in spite of myself, digging my fingers into the harness as if it could keep me from swinging from side to side. The safety straps helped, although not as much as I would have liked. I heard the others shouting as well. At last the ship settled into a less alarming back-and-forth rocking.

“Everyone okay?” Sujin called out.

I shook my head to get rid of a crick in my neck, staring cross-eyed at the hatch. I was almost upside down and all the blood had rushed to my head. The second time Sujin asked, I was able to answer, in a shaky voice. “Still here. Do you think it’s safe to get out?”

“Safe is relative,” Haneul said.

It was good to hear her voice. “We can’t stay in here forever,” I said. “We need to grab whatever supplies we can from the pod and go out and retrieve the Pearl. Then we can figure out what to do next.”