Excerpt: The Lost Ship

On that moon, as on any other planet, the forest was alive with sound. Leaves rustled under the weight of red and green insects like jewels, strange mammals cried out in the misty distance, droplets of water rolled and fell from leaf to leaf like tiny imitations of stars, and long legless things slid through black mud and under strange plants that bloomed orange and white and yellow. Six-legged monkeys swung across gaps in the canopy high above, and wings flapped sudden and close. The thick air hummed with the talking of insects.
Penelope sneezed.