They found the first body a short while later. It had decayed so much, with the skin stretched tight across the dry old bones, that it almost looked like a bag of discarded waste. Only when they came up to it did the human form become apparent.
“Stars of Earth,” Aaron swore, jumping back. “What is that?”
Isaac crouched and gripped one of the curled up arms as gently as he could with his oversized gloves. The suit did not transmit the sensation of touch, but the blackened skin peeled off like dry paper, the bone snapping off at the elbow joint. In the eerie silence of the station, the crack of the broken bone sounded surprisingly distinct through the external mike.
“What are you doing?”
“Investigating,” Isaac said softly as he laid the bone back in place. The body was curled up in a fetal position, with ribs poking out from the stomach and stringy black hair still hanging from the scalp. It was roughly adult-sized, with the gaunt remains of facial muscles pulled back from two rows of worn, flat teeth. Strangely, there was no sign of clothing—perhaps the colonists had preferred organic fibers over synthetics. Either way, the only indication of the body’s sex was in its bone structure, and Isaac didn’t know enough about that to tell whether it had been a man or a woman.
“Sol, Earth, and Luna, Isaac,” Aaron swore. “Step away from that thing.”
It’s not a thing; it used to be a person, Isaac wanted to say. Instead, he stood up slowly and took a step back.
“I can’t tell how long it’s been since he died, but clearly, it’s been a while. Years, at least.”
“At least,” Aaron agreed. “Stars, it gives me the creeps.”
Brothers in Exile (Sons of the Starfarers, Book 1) is coming out this weekend to Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. It is a novella about 36,000 words long–about the same length as Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII), perhaps a bit longer. It will be $.99 the first week, and $2.99 after that.
To be notified when it comes out, be sure to sign up for my new release email list if you haven’t already. Or you can just keep watching this blog.
Thanks for reading!
