Dark World

Book excerpt: Iceworld, a savage planet of rugged mountains, vast plains, wild forests, and myriads of long, wide rivers snaking through flat lands to empty their turbulent waters into huge lakes. It is a world plagued by vicious thunderstorms, hurricanes, and torrential rains in the summer and by violent snowstorms in the long winter. One would think that nothing could survive on such a planet, but it is inhabited by ferocious beasts and a race of savages, the Sras. The Sras are not the only inhabitants. Explorers from a race of space-faring aliens became stranded 1,000 years before humans set up their research station. Their descendants grew in numbers and spread across the planet. They are the Jnaar, and they have become nearly as savage as the Sras. Both races live much of the time below the surface of Iceworld. Thirty-five humans reside inside the research station. When one of the scientists, Regina Seagul, is abducted by a group of Jnaar, three men enter the dark tunnels in search of the missing woman. The subterranean world holds the secret to the future of the humans. When Cameron meets the entity the Jnaar call Dark Goddess, he discovers a terrible truth.