The Green Odyssey by Philip José Farmer — Read

Then Aga was blotted out by the dense cloud of dust that billowed out over her and filled the whole room. With it came an intense heat. Green opened his mouth to cry out to Amra and Paxi to cover their faces and especially their noses. Before he could do so his own open mouth was packed with dust and his nostrils were full. He began sneezing and coughing explosively, while his eyes ran tears in their efforts to wash out the dirt that caked and burned them. Clods of dirt struck him, hurled by the blast. They didn't hurt because they were so small and so fluffy. But they fell so swiftly and in such numbers that he was half-buried under them. Even in the midst of his shock he couldn't help being thankful that he'd been breathing out when the heat struck him. Otherwise he'd have sucked in air that would have seared his lungs, and he'd have dropped dead. As it was, wherever his skin had not been covered by cloth he felt as if he were suffering a bad case of sunburn.

Painfully, he rose on all fours and began crawling toward the other room, where he thought the dust would not be so thick. At the same time he tugged at Amra's arm -- at least he supposed it was her arm, since she'd been so close to him when the explosion took place. His gesture was intended to tell her that she should follow him. She rose and followed him, touching him from time to time. Once she stopped, and he turned to find out what was bothering her, even if he felt that he couldn't stand much more of the almost solid dust in his lungs and had to get out to open air or strangle. Then he knew that the woman was Amra, for she was carrying a child in her arms. The child had a scarf around her head and, as he remembered, Paxi was the only infant so dressed.