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I'm looking for a short sci-fi story of a pilot who crashed with her spaceship on a small, low gravitate planet or asteroid.

In order to survive she must run/jump around it to catch the sun and power her life supporting suit, until the rescue force arrives.

This story is very similar to another question that was asked here before, but with a small twist: Short story involving survival on a small asteroid; people stranded on it must keep off 'day' side

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    There's also a Futurama episode that roughly follows this premise. Although they were on the moon rather than a planet/asteriod. And they didn't crash, just...dropped the keys to their spaceship into one of those "claw-game" arcade machines.
    – aroth
    Sep 21, 2020 at 2:42

1 Answer 1

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This is probably "A Walk in the Sun" by Geoffrey A. Landis. But it's the Moon. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

The story follows Trish, the final survivor of a terrible crash landing on the Moon. After regaining her senses, she contacts Earth and learns that it will be thirty days before a rescue mission can reach her. In the meantime, she depends on a wing-like solar panel to provide power to her suit's recycling facilities, and lunar night is approaching.

To stay alive, Trish has to keep walking continually in order to stay in the sunlight. Due to exhaustion and loneliness, she starts hallucinating that her elder sister Karen is with her, whose death some years earlier Trish has not yet fully coped with.

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    For those that are bothered with such setups left unconcluded: Fur vf riraghnyyl erfphrq. Sep 21, 2020 at 0:31
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    @EngineerToast: Interesting observation, and note to self: When attempting to hide a spoiler with rot13, do not choose a simple, very straightforward sentence, as the content is otherwise quite obvious even in the rot13'ed form. Sep 21, 2020 at 10:26
  • This is a great story. It's in year 9 of the Dozois anthology if anyone is trying to track it down.
    – tbrookside
    Sep 21, 2020 at 16:03
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    @O.R.Mapper: it's easily intelligible, but I didn't instantly decipher it - I had to make enough of an effort that it would have worked well as a spoiler-hider. Maybe you have more practice de-rot13-ing ...
    – Ben Bolker
    Sep 21, 2020 at 16:54

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