The crater that Sempa materialized in was larger than normal. It wasn’t the typical circular shape either. The edges were rimmed with cracks and a wide crevasse extended off to her right, travelling toward the straight horizon. It made the hole look like it was a sidelong meteor impact, which was absurd. She’d come from the sky, certainly. Worlds away even. But not as anything so primitive as to leave a traditional impact.
The ground, aside from the crater, was featureless and smooth in all directions. No vegetation, no hills, not even stones and pebbles. It was an expansive plain of flat packed dust, comprised of lead and potassium, that surrounded her. She climbed up to the edge of the lip and peered over.
She knew right away that she was not in the right location. Looking up at the silver bands of liquid clouds in the indigo sky she suspected she knew why.
There was always a degree of inaccuracy to radcasting. Creating a new body, remotely, out of the materials available a the destination planet, required proximity to the necessary elements. It wasn’t even possible in many places, due to insufficient building matter.
The presence of metals, in liquid state, in the hot upper atmosphere had presented a false positive. When construction of her new body started, it was on the surface, far beneath where she’d needed to be. As a result, the radcasting had wandered, seeking out the ingredients to create a form that could hold her consciousness on this world. As it searched out the components, she’d drifted further and further from her intended landing point.
She wondered how long the process had taken. The landscape certainly didn’t have any clues to glean. There was nothing to gauge weather or erosion on. Flat, barren, motionless. For all she knew, her crater had begun forming a billion years ago.
There was nothing to be done about it. She was here now, however late it may be. She climbed up out of the crater and began to walk, following the long black crack that extended away from her origin point.
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Sempa materializes on a another planet, light years away from home and centuries in the future. But what, or who, is she looking for? Sign up and travel to another world!
