...were there but color in the center of his sorrow...

The winds, deadly, hit him at such a speed that he could hear its terrifying force shatter against the small ray shield.  It sheared and pitched, making an awful noise.  The equipment would hold, but it took all of his effort to remain upright.  He had to be tightly focused on every aspect of his movements.  The shield had thickened to create feet, his shoulder bore the weight of his forward momentum.  A misstep and he would propel himself, like a jack-in-the-box - over the chasm and to certain death.

The sweat was constant.  The shield was as confining as it was when he trained.  Russian burlap postal sacks, three at a time at fifty pounds each were wrapped around him.  His instructor, Vladamir, would kick him constantly.  It was to teach an invaluable lesson: if the shield should fail, even momentarily, his death would be as quick and complete as an explosion.  He would be an ice block in less than two seconds.

Not only did he have to exaggerate his movements to make any forward momentum, but the shield distorted his view.  It shimmered, inaccurately reflecting what was outside.  He strove along the flattest path he could, constantly figuring center mass.  He worked his way toward the dark blob of the cave ahead.

This went on for fifteen minutes and he felt he had moved about twenty feet.  Shift-E calculated about a minute per foot.  AI isn't always right.  Anytime Bar found a place where AI was not 100%, he made a mental notation.  Probably been seven times his whole life.  How many times have I've been wrong?  But, then again, I wasn't born to be perfect.  Human.  Being imperfect is how solutions are found.  An AI would...he stopped.  He knew the argument ended with him being wrong.

He turned to the ship behind him.  It too had a shield.  Somewhere beyond the gold glimmer of two shields, he could make the silhouettes of the crew facing him through the port glass.  It was a thin sliver of carbo-steel, like the fore.  Gunny called it the 'visual last resort'.

Bar adjusted his air.  Claustrophobia did that.  He needed more.  After some deep breaths he continued.  "You alright?" came that calm voice of the AI.

"Yep," Bar returned.  Shift-E was a bother.  But he was programmed to ask.  After 1.5 minutes.  That's the other problem with AI, it's too predictable.  It distracts me as I can anticipate what it will say next.

He moved another twenty feet and made it to the mouth of the cave.  The wind calmed considerably, a cross wind that seem to bypass the cave's threshold behind him.  He lowered the shield slightly to compensate.  He waited ten minutes to make sure there were no sudden gusts to push him back. Nothing.  He suffered another AI status request.

"Shift, I'm going to peer over the lip.  The probes seem to have stopped here for some reason."  The shiny metal skin of three of them were clumped in the same foot square.

"What do you think?  A pulse of some kind?"

"They are all stopped in the same place, virtually.  This means there is some threshold boundary or something."

"Don't walk into it?"

"I know I'm safe about two feet from the pile.  We know from the force of the probe for it to land here."  It was dangerous.  Whatever brought them down would be faster than he could react.  Plus, he had nothing but the shield to protect him.  I could take the shield down.  It was at a degree that his survival suit could take it.  Then he saw what looked like a light.  About two kilometers ahead.  Two amber lights.  Eyes?

"Shift, I see something ahead.  It looked as if it were turning."

"Go ahead and come back.  We know enough."

"I could speak to it."  Bar was half-joking to calm himself.  He edged panic for a second.  He increased the shield again.

"Feel like dying then?"  Bar didn't even answer, he picked up a probe by walking over it and then twisting it through, it was frozen solid.  Had he not been wearing his gloves, it would have destroyed his hands.  He started to walk back, a feeling of exposed dread upon him.

Then he heard the growl.  How does anything survive here?  He turned around and only saw dark.  His twenty feet in fifteen minutes would have to be much, much better..."Hey Shift, what's the standing record for a run of forty feet?"