“MUD!”
The mud matched the flat grey of the desert plain so well that we were half a dozen steps into it before Lee shouted. It closed around our ankles and slid over the tops of our boots, tepid and clinging as we scrambled back to solid ground. Horace got out first and stood like an anchor, giving us each a hand out of the suction that threatened to pull us under.
Lee was the first one in and the last one out. The second his feet touched the cracked earth again he dropped his pack and fell flat on his back. “I hate this planet,” he muttered, his chest heaving from the narrow escape. “I mean it. All it’s done for five days is give us the finger.”
Mack leaned over with her hands on the knees of her grubby, tan flight suit. “I’m not complaining yet,” she muttered. “We got out of the ship in one piece, didn’t we?”
Horace unhooked the dented metal canteen from his belt and unscrewed the cap. Fine sand grated in the threads. “Mack’s right,” he said, taking a sip and passing it to me. “It coulda been a lot worse.”
