Something was prodding his back.
Something else was lodged firmly against his cheek, and he knew that his right eye was swollen.
He felt cold, impossibly cold, and he tried to gulp in great quantities of air to ease his burning lungs. It did not help much.
A hissing noise—what was that hissing?
Abruptly, he remembered. He tried to get to his feet, but something held him down. The safety strap still clung to his waist, although it seemed dangerously close to parting. He saw the shambles all around him inside the little ship and realized that the strap had saved his life.
But not for long—unless he could do something.
The cold was numbing, and so completely unlike anything he had encountered before that at first he did not even know it was cold. He had nearly frozen to death in Antarct
