He checks the tools I brought out. He takes one of them, then pulls his sword out of its sheath and scrapes the edge of the rusty iron knife hard against the blunt side of the sword. A shower of sparks flies.
“Oh!” I say, impressed.
He does it again. A bright burst of sparks jumps into the little pile of dry bark he stuffed between the sticks.
We both lean close. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then a thread of smoke curls upward.
“Breathe on it,” I whisper instinctively.
“No, you.” He has a little smile on his lips.
“All right.” I bend down and breathe on the little ember, as carefully as on a feather. The blue smoke thickens, so I keep up the breathing. A tiny orange glow appears.
“Good blowing.” Nator’ax gently feeds a few thin twigs into the growing ember.
A moment later, the fire catches. Flames climb slowly through the little pile of wood.
We both sit back.
“Well,” I say. “There is fire.”
“Well done,” Nator’ax rumbles. “Let’s see if it works.”
The fire crackles softly between the saucer and the glacier wall. Heat spreads outward, licking the ice beside the hull. For a while, we just watch. Water begins to drip down the blue ice.
“See?” Nator’ax says with quiet satisfaction.
He’s right: the glacier is melting. But slowly. Very slowly. We add more wood.
And more. The flames grow higher. Steam hisses as ice turns to water and runs down into the crack beneath the saucer.
“Look!” I exclaim, and we both tense up. The saucer moves. Just an inch, toward a patch where the ice has melted.
But that was it. The saucer doesn’t move again. Not even a little.
After a while, the pile of firewood gets smaller. Eventually, Nator’ax places the last branch onto the flames.
We watch it burn, but if anything, the ice is refreezing and growing back.
The sun slips behind the glacier walls. The fire dies to red coals, and the saucer remains stubbornly wedged exactly where it was.
Nator’ax exhales slowly through his nose. “That was all the wood I brought.”
“It melted,” I say as brightly as I can, wanting to be encouraging. “Plan is good. It just not… work.”
He puts his hand to his mouth as if hiding a smile. “Mmm. Just not work.”
Night settles around us, and the temperature drops so quickly my fingers start hurting again.
Nator’ax stands up and brushes snow off his legs. “Let’s go inside.”
I see no reason to argue.
We climb back into the saucer and seal the hatch behind us. Outside, the glacier wind begins to howl around the saucer. Inside, the tilted floor waits with our pile of furs.
We spread the furs over the least tilted part of the floor, though that still means sleeping half against the wall. The saucer hums softly around us, the strange alien machine sounding almost peaceful now that it isn’t trying to kill us. I try not to think of the half-awake Plood in that compartment. What happens when he wakes up fully and sees us outside his locker? Those things were the servants of the dragons, and they are the aliensthat abducted all us girls from Earth. Having one this close is unpleasant.
But of course Nator’ax is here, too. I banish the Plood from my thoughts as I curl up in the furs and pull one over my shoulders. It doesn’t help much. Cold seeps in through everything. The air in here isn’t freezing, but it’s close enough that my hands and feet ache.
