VI

Show me a man of unflinching rectitude and I’ll show you a man who hasn’t been offered his price. And it’s a good thing for the progress of the species. Throughout our long and sorry history it has been men who supposed themselves to be exemplars of integrity who have done all the damage. Every crusade, whether for decent literary standards or to cover women’s bodies or to free the holy land, has been launched, endorsed, and enthusiastically perpetrated by men of character.

—Gregory MacAllister, “Advice for Politicians,” Down from the Mountain

“Mr. MacAllister.” Captain Nicholson rested his elbows on the arras of his chair and pressed his fingertips together. “I’d like very much to oblige you. You know that”

“Of course, Captain.”

“But I simply cannot do it. There are safety considerations. And in any case it would be a violation of company policy.” He showed MacAllister his palms, signifying his helplessness in the matter.

“I understand,” said MacAllister. “But it is a pity. After all, how often does an event like this occur?”

The captain’s gold-flecked brown eyes reflected a degree of uncertainty. He obviously did not want to offend the influential editor. But if MacAllister pressed his request, Nicholson would be pushed into a no-win situation.

MacAllister didn’t want that.

They were in the captain’s reception room, sipping Bordeaux, munching finger sandwiches. A private brunch. The bulkheads were appointed with brass and leather, a few leather-bound books occupied shelves on either side of the room, and electric candles supplemented a pair of lamps. A schematic of the Evening Star occupied an entire bulkhead, and the Starswirl logo of TransGalactic Lines looked down from above a virtual fireplace.

They sat in padded chairs, angled toward each other. “I completely understand your reluctance,” MacAllister said in a matter-of-fact I’d-feel-exactly-the-same-way manner. “And I can see you’re not one to be easily intimidated.”

Nicholson modestly signaled his agreement with the proposition. There was much about the captain that was cautious. Conservative. MacAllister guessed that he had a reliable exec and a good AI tucked away somewhere to take over and run things in the event a non-routine decision had to be made. It seemed likely that Nicholson had gained his position by influence, had possibly married into it, or was the son of someone important.

“No,” the captain said, “it’s quite so, Mr. MacAllister. We do have an obligation to abide by the rules. I know you of all people would understand that.”

MacAllister kept a straight face. Me of all people? “Of course, Captain. I couldn’t agree with you more.” He used a tone designed to ease the sudden tension. “It is unfortunate, though, to let an opportunity of this nature slide.”

“What opportunity is that?” asked Nicholson.

“Well...” He shook his head, sipped his wine, and waved the subject off. “It’s of no consequence. Although my guess is that it would be quite a coup.”

“What would be quite a coup, Mr. MacAllister?”

“Deepsix is about to pass into legend, Erik. May I call you Erik?” MacAllister’s tone warmed.

“Yes. Of course.” Nicholson softened, pleased to go on first name terms with his celebrated guest. “Of course, Gregory.”

“After next week, Maleiva  III will be gone forever. People will be talking about this cruise, and wondering about that world’s ruins, for decades, and possibly centuries, to come. And”—he looked wistfully at a spot over Nicholson’s left shoulder—”pieces of those ruins are .lying around down on the ground, waiting to be picked up.” He drained the glass and set it on a side table. “A few of those pieces, on display here on the Star, would be an invaluable asset.”

“In what way?”

“They would generate a great deal of publicity. Relics from a lost civilization. Exhibited on the ship that recovered them. What a testament to the Evening Star and its captain. And to TransGalactic. I’d expect you could anticipate a great deal of gratitude from your employers.”

Nicholson made a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh. “Not likely,” he said. “Baxter and the rest of those people are too wrapped up in themselves to appreciate that kind of acquisition.”

“Maybe.”

“Still...” The captain grew thoughtful. “It would be nice.”

“It would be very easy to do.” MacAllister saw that he had judged his man correctly. Nicholson was not greedy for money. A suggestion that he pirate some artifacts for himself would have gone nowhere. But the notion that upper management might see their way to appreciate him a bit more. Ah, yes. That was working nicely.

The captain fingered his glass. “I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand me, Gregory. I abide strictly by the policies and procedures laid down for the safe operation of this vessel.”

“As any competent commanding officer would.” MacAllister refilled both glasses. “Erik, I’m sure you have certain prerogatives, conditions which in your judgment allow you to interpret procedures in a manner that would benefit TransGalactic’s passengers, and the corporation itself.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “that’s certainly true.”

MacAllister gazed admiringly at the ship’s schematic and let his companion consider the situation.

“You really think,” said Nicholson, “that stuff is just lying around on the ground?”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt. Just pick it up and cart it off. That’s all it would take. And I ask you, when that world is gone, gone forever beyond any power to recall, what do you suppose, say, an idol from a Maleivan chapel would be worth?”

“Oh, yes. I’d think so. You’re quite right on that score.”

MacAllister could see him wrestling with his fear of getting in trouble. “This would seem to be your opportunity, Erik.”

“You don’t think the archeological team that’s down there now would object?”

“I can’t imagine why they would. As I understand it, they’ve only got one lander. How much can you haul away in one lander?” He tried to look thoughtful. “There’s an excellent place down on B deck, near the pool, that would serve nicety as a museum.”

“The hyper wing.” It was an area currently given over to displaying the ship’s various propulsion systems, especially the FTL drive. “Yes,” he said. “It is tempting.”

“If you wanted to do it,” said MacAllister, “I’d be willing to go along. Cover the story. Give it some credential, so to speak.”

“You mean you’d write one of your commentaries?”

“I’d do that, if you like.”

“We could put the artifacts—”

“In the museum.”

“Stage a ceremony. Would you be willing to participate? Possibly say a few words?”

“I’d be honored, Erik.”

Nicholson nodded sagely. To himself, more than to MacAllister. “Let me think about it, Gregory. If there’s a way to manage it, we’ll go ahead.”

Marcel kept the speaker on so he could follow what was happening on the surface. That gave him access to all conversations that took place on the allcom. The transmissions were relayed out of the lander either directly to Wendy or to one of the commsats.

He was uncomfortable. Living worlds were unpredictable places, and this one especially, as it drew closer to Morgan. But they should be relatively safe for the present. Beekman was certain that gravitational effects from the giant planet would not be felt until late in the process because the collision would be direct, like two vehicles hitting each other head-on. No gradual spiraling in here.

He’d been listening while Hutch and her people prowled through the tower, watching the images being transmitted back by the microscan Hutch wore on her vest. The place wasn’t much to look at, just bare walls and floors covered with snow and dust.

They’d cut a hole in the tower wall at ground level to preclude having to climb through the window. Hutch had posted Chiang by the newly made door to watch for signs of potential predators. She then stationed Toni at the window in the astronomer’s perch, with the same responsibility.

Meantime she, Kellie, and Nightingale were trying to cut through the door on the bottom level. They weren’t talking much at the moment, but he could hear the hiss of the laser working on stone.

Beekman came in, looked at him, frowned, and sat down. “Marcel,” he said, “are you all right?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You don’t look happy.”

Kellie’s startled voice came over the speaker: “Look out with that thing, Randy.”

Marcel folded his arms across his chest in a defensive posture. “Somebody’s going to get killed down there,” he said. “If I had my way, we’d just write the damned thing off and let it go.”

Beekman had always maintained an exceedingly low opinion of the competence of Academy management. Marcel expected him to make an observation in that direction. Instead, he remarked that Marcel was probably correct, that the ground team was unlikely to find anything useful in so short a time, and that it was indeed dangerous.

“Okay.” Hutch’s voice. “That should do it. Give it a minute and we’ll see if we can break it loose.”

“You know,” Beekman said, “you might remind her that they should be more careful.”

“She knows who she’s working with.” He folded his hands behind his head. “I’d rather not become a nuisance.”

“What if something happens?”

“We’ll let management worry about it.”

Kellie’s voice: “Okay, throw some more snow on it.”

“I’d feel better,” said Beekman, “if we had a bona fide archeologist down there.”

Marcel didn’t agree. “We’re probably safer with Kellie and Hutch. They might not get all the details right, but I’d rather have them in charge if trouble starts.”

“Still won’t open,”said Nightingale.

“Let me try.”

“How big’s the door?” asked Beekman.

“A little more than a meter high. Everything’s on a small scale.”

“I don’t think we cut all the way through.”

Beekman leaned down and fingered the send key.

“What are you going to tell them?” asked Marcel.

“To be careful.”

“I’m not sure they’ll be receptive to gratuitous advice. They’ve already threatened to cut me off.”

Another laser ignited.

“Stay with it.” Nightingale’s voice. “Here. Get it here.”

It went on for several more minutes. At one point Hutch cautioned someone to relax. Take it easy. We’ll get through. Then Marcel heard the sound of scraping stone and some grunts. And finally cries of satisfaction.

When things got quiet again he switched over to his private channel with Hutch. “What have you got?” he asked.

“Used to be a passageway,” she told him. “It’s just a lot of ice and dirt now. I’m not even sure where the walls are.”

Beekman got coffee for them and began to describe how preparations for the collision were going. Much of the detail was boring, but Beekman inevitably became so enthusiastic when he started talking about the Event, that Marcel pretended more interest in the details of the observations than he really felt. In fact, he didn’t understand fine points like gravity wave fluctuations, and didn’t much care how the planetary magnetic fields were affected. But he nodded at the right times and tried to look surprised when Beekman seemed to be springing some new piece of breakthrough data on him.

Then Hutch’s voice interrupted the flow. “Marcel, are you still there?”

“I’m here. What have you got?”

“I think we’re into the Astronomer’s private quarters. They’re in pretty good shape. Looks like a suite of rooms. With cabinets—” She stopped a moment to caution one of the others to use care.

“Cabinets? What’s in them?”

“They’ve been cleaned out. But they’re in decent condition. And they’ve got symbols carved into them.”

“Good,” said Marcel. “That’s important, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s important.”

As he had with Beekman, he tried to sound enthusiastic. “Anything else there?”

“A couch. You believe that? For a little guy. You wouldn’t be able to use it, but a ten-year-old could.”

It was less than dazzling news. “Anything more?”

“A table. Pretty badly smashed, though. And another door. In back.”

He heard Kellie’s voice: “Hutch, look at this.”

“Can we have more light?”

“I’ll be damned,” said Nightingale.

Beekman frowned with impatience. But while they waited to hear what was happening, the AI broke in. “Marcel? I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have an anomaly.”

“What is it, Bill?”

“Strange object adrift.”

“On-screen, please.”

Marcel couldn’t make it out. It looked like a long pin. Very long. It extended from one side of the screen to the other. And apparently beyond.

“Bill, what is this thing? What are its dimensions?”

“I am unable to determine its function. It’s three thousand kilometers long. Roughly.”

“Three thousand klicks,” said Beekman. “That can’t be right.”

“Actually, three thousand two hundred seventy-seven, Gunther.”

Marcel made a face and pushed back in his chair. “That’s one odd-looking puppy, Gunny.” It was long enough to reach from the tip of Maine down through Miami and well out into the Atlantic.

“Its diameter is seven and a fraction meters.”

“Well,” the planetologist said, “seven meters across and three thousand kilometers long.” He looked at Marcel and shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

“Are you sure, Bill?” Marcel asked. “We don’t think those kinds of dimensions can happen.”

“I’ll recheck the results of the scan.”

“Please do.”

“Bring it up to full mag,” said Marcel. “Let’s see a piece of it up close.”

Bill complied. It consisted, not of a single very long barrel, but of a series of parallel shafts. They could see between the shafts, see the night sky beyond.

“The dimensions are correct as reported,” said Bill.

Marcel frowned. “So what is it, Gunther? What’s it do?”

“Don’t know.”

“Bill, is it a ship of some sort?”

“I do not see how it could be, Marcel. But this is not a type object with which I have any experience.”

“Is this typical of the entire construct?”

“This is typical,” said Bill. “The shafts are solid. They are connected at regular intervals by braces. A few cables are adrift at one end, and an asteroid is attached to the other.”

An asteroid. “Bill, is it doing anything? The construct?”

“There is no sign of activity.”

“You reading any energy output? Any evidence of internal power?”

“Negative.”

Beekman was staring at the image. “I just can’t figure it, Marcel. Object that long. It shouldn’t hold together. Stresses would have to break it up.”

“Wouldn’t that depend on what it was made from?”

“Sure. But something like this would have to be pretty strong stuff. Diamond, maybe. I don’t know. It’s not my field.”

“Range is sixty-two thousand kilometers, increasing. It appears to be in orbit around Maleiva III.”

“What do you think?” asked Marcel. “Want to chase it down?”

“Hell, yes. Let’s go take a look.”

Marcel gave instructions to Bill, and let Hutch know what they were doing. “It sounds,” she told him, “as if there’s more to Deepsix than the Academy thinks.”

“A lot more, apparently. You sure that place down there looks preindustrial?”

“It’s all stone, mortar, and planks. Right out of the Middle Ages.”

“Okay,” he said. “By the way, it sounded as if Kellie found something a couple of minutes ago. But we got distracted.”

Hutch nodded. “I don’t think what we have is quite as interesting as your pole. But it looks like an armored vest. It was in one of the cabinet drawers.” She turned toward it so he could see it. Like everything else, it was in miniature. It would have been secured from behind, and was designed apparently to protect as low as the groin. It was severely corroded.

Toni Hamner hated to admit to herself that she was bored, but it was true. She’d expected the expedition to be exciting. But she should have known it wouldn’t work out that way: She’d been around the archeologists at Pinnacle and knew how deadly dull excavations could be. This, she’d thought, would be different. This time she would be with the first people in the door. She’d be there when the discoveries got made. But so far it had been just a lot of digging and dredging out of debris. Now, standing guard in the entrance to the tower, looking out across that flat dreary plain, she yearned for it to be over.

A flight of birds passed overhead. They were brown, with long beaks, flying in formation. For a few seconds they filled the sky, and then they were gone, headed southwest.

She let her mind drift back to the brief shipboard romance she’d been enjoying with Tom Scolari. She hadn’t thought highly of Scolari in the beginning, but she’d begun to change her mind and was actually getting quite caught up with him when they’d come here and she’d watched him turn his back on Hutch. That seemed to her to be mean-spirited. Or cowardly. She couldn’t decide which.

She was anxious to get home. To see old friends and restart her life. To see a few live shows. Go to an expensive restaurant again. (How long had it been?)

Below, the digging went on.

Hutch was taking a break when Marcel called to tell her how difficult it was to explain the presence of the construct. Could she keep an eye open for anything that indicated the inhabitants were more advanced than we were giving them credit for? She would, but she knew they’d find nothing high-tech near the tower.

They’d opened a passageway behind the Astronomer’s apartment, and were now engaged in widening it. The work went slowly. Hutch had brought containers and digging implements so that they weren’t entirely dependent on the lasers, which were dangerous in the close confines of the corridor. They had to remove the rock, dirt, and ice, which entailed a lot of crawling around.

It was only possible for one person at a time to dig in the passageway. A second carried away the debris, dragging it back through the Astronomer’s apartment. A third picked it up there, hauled it through the connecting corridor and into the bottom of the tower, where he, or she, sorted through it looking for anything of value. They found a few shards, a knife, a broken shaft with a blade insert, and a couple of pieces of stone with engraved symbols. In time, as the bottom chamber began to fill up with detritus, they started carrying it up to the next level.

Eventually, they brought in a collapsible worktable and set it up in the ground-level room. A plan of the site was hastily put together, and the locations of the artifacts were recorded thereon. The artifacts themselves were brought to the table to be tagged and bagged.

The cabinet they’d found in the Astronomer’s apartment was made of wood. It had inlays and metal hinges, a door pull and some fasteners. It also contained several scrolls, too far gone to risk trying to unroll. They put them in separate bags, and sealed them.

“I can’t see that it matters much,” said Nightingale. “Nobody’ll ever be able to read any of that.”

Hutch set the bags carefully off to one side. “You’d be surprised what they can do,” she said.

At midafternoon, Chiang, Hutch, and Toni went back down into the tunnel. Kellie was posted topside, and Nightingale stood guard at the tower entrance. He’d been there only a few minutes when a thing came out of a patch of trees several hundred meters to the south. It was on two legs, and it had feline grace and a feline appearance. Nightingale, who’d been standing out in the sunlight, scrambled inside. The cat stood for perhaps a minute looking toward the tower. Toward him. He wasn’t sure whether it had seen him. But when it started walking casually in his direction, he alerted everyone. Within minutes, they were all in the doorway.

It was moving across the plain as if it had nothing whatever to fear. “King of the hill,” whispered Chiang, setting his cutter up a couple of notches.

The creature was considerably taller than a human male and maybe twice the mass. It was a model of muscles and grace.

“What do we do, boss?” asked Chiang.

Right, thought Hutch. Remind me I’m in charge.

It continued striding toward them, throwing a quick and unconcerned glance at the lander.

Effective laser range was about five meters. They’d be able to smell its breath. “Randy,” she said, “you know anything about this critter?”

“Nothing whatever.” Nightingale was standing well away from the entrance. “I’ll tell you this, though. It’s a cat. And cats are pretty much the same wherever you find them.”

“Which means what?” asked Chiang.

“Anything smaller than they are, they eat.”

Marcel broke in: “Shoot it, Hutch. As soon as it gets close.”

She didn’t have the option of firing a warning shot, because the cutter didn’t produce a bang, or anything akin to it. Not that this thing looked as if it would be scared off by a loud noise.

She was suddenly getting advice from everyone: “Be careful.”

“Look out.”

“Don’t let it get too close.”

She picked up some profanity from Nightingale.

There came a moment when it paused perceptibly, when its muscles tightened, when its weight shifted slightly. It had seen her.

“Hutch.” Marcel again. “What’s happening?”

No point hiding. “Stay out of sight,” she told the others. And she stepped out in full view of the creature.

The lips curled back, revealing more teeth. It came forward again. Hutch raised the weapon and leveled it.

“Shoot, for God’s sake!” said Nightingale.

Hutch told him to be quiet. The cat’s eyes brushed hers. She broke the connection, looked off to one side.

She wanted to see a sign that it was in fact hostile. She wished it would drop down on all fours and charge. Or simply pick up its pace. Or raise its claws.

It did none of these things. It just kept coming. And Hutch suspected it had no experience with weapons. It saw nothing she could do to harm it.

She turned the cutter on the stone side of the building, activated the beam, scorched the rock, and brought the weapon level again.

The creature stopped.

Chiang stepped out beside her.

It stood for several moments, uncertain.

Hutch took a step forward,

It began to back away.

“It’s no dummy,” said Chiang.

It angled off behind the lander, and it kept the vehicle between itself and the tower while it retreated back into the patch of woods from which it had come.

It was a short day, of course, less than ten hours from dawn to dusk. Nobody was hungry when the sun went down, and, other than Nightingale, they wanted to stay with the job. Hutch brought them out of the tower anyhow.

It had grown dark when they logged in their most recent finds.

These consisted mostly of vases and utensils and a few tiny hunting knives. There was also an armchair and a pack that seemed to be full of fabric.

They took the pack out to the lander cabin and secured everything else in the cargo bay. Then they called it a day and climbed inside.

Hutch opened the bag and took out a small faded blue cloak. It was ribbed, with a ring and chain at the top to fasten the collar. In its own time, it might have been a deep purple. Now it was too washed-out to be sure. The cloth was brittle, and a small piece of it broke off in her hands. She passed the garment to Kellie, who bagged it.

Next was a shirt.

And a robe.

Both were cut down the sides, presumably to accommodate limbs, but what those limbs might have looked like, or even how many there might have been, was impossible to know.

They found leggings.

And a pair of boots.

The boots were disproportionately wide. “Duckfeet,” said Kellie.

Many of the garments sported decorations, sunbursts and diamond-shapes, representations apparently of flowers and trees, and various arcane symbols.

They were delighted. Even Nightingale seemed to loosen up and find occasional reason to smile. They inventoried and packed everything, including the bag itself.

“Not a bad day’s work,” said Toni, with a satisfied smirk.

Hutch agreed. First day down, they’d done pretty well.

The lander had a washroom about the size of a closet. It wasn’t convenient, but it would be adequate to their needs.

One by one, they retreated into its cozy confines to wash up and change clothes. There was a fair amount of grumbling during the process, especially from Chiang and Kellie, neither of whom could move easily inside it. Both eventually gave up and got dressed in the rear of the cabin.

Hutch broke out the reddimeals. They had a choice among pork, chicken, fish cakes, hamburger steak, sauerbraten. The meals came with salads and snacks.

She produced two candles, lit them, and killed the lights. Then she set out five glasses and a bottle of Avignon Blue. She uncorked it and filled the glasses. “To us,” she said.

They drank the second round to the owner of the bag who’d been thoughtful enough to leave it behind for them.

When they’d finished and were sitting quietly in the candlelight, Hutch congratulated them for what they’d accomplished. “It’ll be a short night,” she said. “Dawn comes early here. But we can sleep a bit late if we need to.

“Tomorrow, I want to change the emphasis of the search. The Academy will like what we’ve gotten so far. But time’s limited. What we really need is to find something that’ll shed some light on who these people were. On their history.”

“How do we do that?” asked Toni.

“Look for engravings. Something with pictures on it. Writing. Symbols. Pictographs.

“We probably won’t find much in the way of documents on paper, or paperlike materials. We have the scrolls that somebody might be able to do something with, but what we really want is stuff that’s clearly legible. Check pottery for symbols or pictures. Anything like that, we—” A queasy sensation blossomed in her stomach, something she couldn’t quite get hold of. The candles flickered.

“What was that?” asked Toni.

They looked at one another.

Tremor.

She switched to Marcel’s private channel. “I think,” she told him, “we just experienced a minor quake.”

“Everybody okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. It wasn’t much. But it’s not a good sign.”

“We have sensors on the ground. I’ll check them, see what they say.”

“You were right,” Marcel told her a few minutes later. “It was a 2.1.”

“How strong is that?”

“Barely perceptible.”

“Scares birds,” she said.

“Yeah. I suppose.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to feel anything until the last day or so.”

“I don’t think I ever said that, Hutch. But I did warn you that the tower area is not stable. You’re sitting right on top of a fissure. The experts up here are telling me that it’s not a good place to be with Morgan coming.”

“Morgan’s still pretty far.”

“Not far enough. It’s massive. Think Jupiter.”

“All right. We’ll be careful.”

“Maybe you should leave. Get out of Dodge.”

“If it gets serious, we’ll do that.”

“I think it is serious. How about going to one of the other sites?”

“Where do you suggest?”

“Any of the cities.”

“Which one’s accessible?”

He paused. “Well, what do you mean by accessible?”

“That we don’t have to cut through ten or twenty meters of ice to get to it.”

“I don’t know anywhere you can walk in the front door. But even if you have to do some digging, they’ll be safer.”

“But probably not after the couple of days we’ll need to get into one of them.” Everyone else in the cabin had become intensely interested. “We won’t take any chances, Marcel. Okay? If things start to go downhill, we’ll clear out.”

When she signed off, Chiang leaned toward her. “I was at the University of Tokyo for a few years,” he said. “Lamps used to swing all the time. It really doesn’t have to amount to something.” He wore a cheerful short-sleeved blue team jersey stenciled Miami Hurricanes. “We’ll be okay,” he said.

They talked the problem over. How important was the tower and its contents? Hutch knew that a professional archeologist would have told them it was priceless. But she confessed there was really no way to know.

In the end they compromised. They’d spend one more day there. Then find someplace safer to work.

A wind kicked up. The sky was full of stars and the snowscape sparkled.

Chiang found it difficult to sleep, knowing Kellie was so close. Just the seat in front of him. But he hadn’t realized she was awake until he heard her moving. He leaned forward and touched her elbow. “You okay?” he asked.

She angled her seat so she could see him. Her eyes were dark and lovely. Her hair fell down around her collar, and he ached to take it, take her, in his arms. “The quake’s not good,” she said, looking toward the tower. “That thing could come down on our heads.”

“Sorry you came?”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.” Her eyes came back to him. “On the other hand ...” She took a deep breath and he tried not to stare at her breasts. And whatever she was going to say was left unfinished.

VII

Women were intended by their Maker to be cheerleaders. One has only to examine their anatomy and their disposition to recognize that melancholy fact. So long as they, and we, keep this rockbound truth firmly in mind, the sexes will perform their joint functions with admirable proficiency.

 —Gregory MacAllister, “Night Thoughts,” Notes from Babylon

Wendy was still two hours away from the object, but they were close enough to have good visuals, which were displayed in various aspects across a bank of screens in project control. The area was crowded with Beekman’s people, clustered in front of the monitors and hunched over consoles.

The object had turned out to be an assembly of fifteen individual shafts, connected by bands set at regular intervals of about eighty kilometers. Eight shafts were on the perimeter, six in an inner ring, and one in the center. They were of identical dimensions, each with a diameter of about three-quarters of a meter, each long enough to stretch from New York to Seattle. There was considerable space between them, so Marcel could see through the assembly, could detect stars on the far side.

A rocky asteroid was attached to one end, webbed in by a net. The overall effect, Marcel thought, was of a lollipop with a stick that projected into the next county.

The end opposite the asteroid just stopped. A few lines trailed out of it, like dangling cables. Marcel noticed that the fifteen cylinders were cut off cleanly, suggesting the object had not broken away from some larger structure, but rather had been released.

“Impossible thing,” said Beekman, who was delighted with the find. “Far too much mass for so narrow a body.”

“Is it really that big a deal?” asked Marcel. “I mean, it’s in space. It doesn’t weigh anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. It still has mass. A lot of it along the length of the assembly.”

Marcel was studying the configuration: The asteroid was up, the lower end of the assembly was pointed directly at Deepsix.

Beekman followed his eyes. “At least its position is about what we’d expect.”

“Stable orbit?”

“Oh, yes. It could have been there for thousands of years. Except—”

“What?”

He delivered a puzzled grunt. “It just shouldn’t hold together. I’ll be interested in seeing what the thing’s made of.”

John Drummond, a young mathematician from Oxford, looked up from a screen.”Impossibilium,” he said.

Marcel, fascinated, watched the image. It was so long they couldn’t put the entire thing on a single screen without shrinking the assembly to invisibility. One of the technicians put it up across a bank of five monitors, the lollipop head on the far left, and the long thin line of the supporting pole stretching all the way over to the far right-hand screen. “So it’s not a ship of any kind, right?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” said Beekman. “It’s certainly not a ship.” He shook his head emphatically. “No way it could be a ship.”

“So what is it? A dock?” asked Marcel. “Maybe a refueling station?” They homed in on one of the braces. It appeared to be a simple block of metal, two meters thick, supporting all fifteen shafts in their positions. “Where do you think it came from?”

Beekman shook his head. “Deepsix. Where else could it have come from?”

“But there’s no indication they ever had technology remotely like this.”

“We really haven’t seen anything yet, Marcel. The technology may be under the ice. Kellie’s tower might be very old. Thousands of years. We didn’t look very advanced a few centuries ago either.”

Marcel couldn’t bring himself to believe that all evidence of a high-tech civilization could just disappear.

Beekman sighed. “The evidence is right outside, Marcel.” He tried to rub away a headache. “We don’t have any answers yet. Let’s just be patient.” He looked at the screens and then glanced at Drummond. An exchange of some sort took place between them.

“It’s probably a counterweight,” Drummond said. He was about average size and generally uncoordinated, a thin young man with prematurely receding hair. He seemed to have had trouble adjusting to low gravity. But he’d come to Wendy with a reputation for genius.

“Counterweight?” said Marcel. “Counterweight for what?”

“A skyhook.” Beekman glanced at Drummond, who nodded agreement. “There’s not much else it could have been.”

“You mean an elevator from the ground to L.E.O.?”

“Not Earth orbit, obviously. But yes, I’d say that’s exactly what it was.”

Marcel saw several smiles. “I was under the impression there was no point putting up a skyhook. I mean, we’ve got spike technology. We can float vehicles into orbit. Why go to all the trouble—” He stopped. “Oh.”

“Sure,” said Beekman. “Whoever built this thing doesn’t have the spike. They’ve got some other stuff, though, that we don’t. We could never make one of these. Not one that would hold together.”

“Okay,” said Marcel. “What you’re telling me, if I understand this correctly, is that this is the part of the skyhook that sticks out into space and balances the section that reaches to the ground, right?”

“Yes.”

“That brings up a question.”

“Yes, it does,” said Beekman. “Where’s the rest of the skyhook?” He shrugged. “Remove the counterweight, and everything else falls down.”

“Wouldn’t we have seen it if that had happened?”

“I’d think so.”

“Maybe they cut it loose near the bottom of the elevator. If that happened—”

“Most of it would get yanked out into space and drift off.”

“So there could be another piece of this thing out here somewhere.”

“Could be. Yes.”

“But what we’re saying is that it was put up and then taken down?”

“Or fell down.”

They retired into the project director’s office, and Beekman waved him to a chair. A large globe of Deepsix stood in one corner.

“It’s crazy,” said Marcel. “You can’t hide a skyhook. Up or down.”

“Maybe the pieces that collapsed are under the glaciers,” Beekman said. “We really can’t see much of the surface.” He zeroed in on the equator and began to turn the globe. “Although it would have to be along here somewhere. Along the equator where we can see the ground.”

They called up pictures of Maleiva  III and began looking. For the most part, the equator crossed open ocean. It touched a few islands in the Coraggio east of Transitoria, rounded the globe without any land in sight, passed through Northern Tempus, leaped the Misty Sea, and returned to Transitoria a couple hundred kilometers south of Burbage Point. The tower.

“Here,” said Beekman, indicating the archipelago, “or here.” The Transitorian west coast.

“Why?” asked Marcel.

“Big mountains in both places. You want the highest base you can get. So you put it on top of a mountain.”

“But a structure like that would be big.”

“Oh, yes.”

“So where is it?” Marcel looked at both sites, the archipelago, where several enormous mountains stood atop islands that appeared to be volcanic. And the coastal range, which featured a chain of giants with cloud-covered peaks.

“I don’t know.” Beekman held out his hands.

“Tell me,” said Marcel. “If you had a skyhook, and something happened to it, so it collapsed, which way would it fall?”

The project director smiled. “Down.”

“No. I’m serious. Would it fall toward the west?”

“There’d be a tendency in that direction. But the kind of structure we’re talking about, thousands of kilometers of elevator shaft and God knows what else. Mostly it would just come down.” Someone was knocking. Beekman kept talking while he opened the door and invited Drummond inside. “If it were here, in Transitoria, the base could be hidden on one of these peaks under the clouds. But that still doesn’t explain where the wreckage got to. It should be scattered across the landscape.”

Marcel looked at Drummond. “Maybe not,” Drummond said.

“Suppose you wanted to take it down. With minimum damage to the terrain below. What do you do?”

“I have no idea, John,” Beekman said. “But I’d think we would want to separate the shaft at a point where the longest possible section would get hauled up by the counterweight. What’s left—”

“Falls west—”

“—into the ocean.” Beekman drummed his fingers on the table-top. “It’s possible. If you’ve got a hell of a good engineer. But why would someone deliberately take it down? I mean, that thing’s got to be an architectural nightmare to put up in the first place.”

“Maybe they developed the spike and didn’t need it anymore. Maybe it was becoming a hazard. I’d think one of those things would need a lot of maintenance.”

“Well.” Beekman shrugged. “There are a number of mountains in that range. We’ll have an orbiter in the area in a bit. Why don’t we run some scans and see what we can see.”

MEMO FOR THE CAPTAIN

11726 1427 hours From Bill

The cruise ship Evening Star transited from hyperspace four minutes ago. It has set course for Maleiva III and will arrive in orbit in approximately two hours.

People boarding cruise liners usually did so via standard GTOs, Ground-to-Orbit vehicles that employed the spike for lift and standard chemical thrusters for velocity. The Star’s onboard lander was a luxury vehicle, seldom used, maintained primarily to accommodate VIPs who had commercial or political reasons for shunning the more public modes of transportation.

It resembled a large penguin. It had a black-and-white hull with retractable white wings. The nose was blunt, almost boxy, with Evening Star emblazoned in black script below the TransGalactic Starswirl. The interior was leather and brass. It had a small autobar and a pullout worktable so that riders could shuffle papers or relax as they wished.

After making arrangements to send the shuttle down, Nicholson had become concerned that some of his other passengers would learn about the flight and demand places on board. He had consequently impressed on MacAllister that he was to say nothing to anyone. The news that he wished to take another journalist along had been unsettling, but Nicholson had been caught by then, committed, and wanted to do nothing to upset his illustrious guest.

This was not the first time the old editor had discovered the advantage of his reputation for volcanic outbursts against those who, for whatever reason, had incurred his wrath. Consequently he and Casey remained, aside from the pilot, the only persons aboard.

The pilot’s name was Cole Wetheral. He was a taciturn man who would have made a successful funeral director. He had morose eyes and a long nose and long pale fingers that fluttered across the controls as if they were an organ keyboard. He gave preflight instructions and information in a stentorian tone: “Please be seated.”

“You will wish to check the status board above your seat before attempting to move around the cabin.”

“We want you to enjoy your excursion; please feel free to ask if there is anything you need.” He informed them also that it would be early morning local time when they arrived.

Casey looked dazzled, and MacAllister wondered whether it was a condition brought on by the chance to visit a world a few days before it was to end, or by his own presence. He waited until she was inside, then climbed in and sat down beside her.

“Have you ever been down on another world before, Mr. MacAllister?” she asked.

He hadn’t. Had never seen a point to it. He perceived himself as the end product of three billion years of evolution, specifically designed for the Earth, and that was where he was inclined to stay. “I expect,” he told her, “that this will be the only visit I ever make to alien soil.”

She had, as it turned out. She’d been to Pinnacle and Quraqua, and to Quraqua’s airless moon, with its enigmatic city on the plain. Doing features, she explained.

The pilot closed the hatches. Interior lights came on. He spent about a minute hunched over his control board, then reached up and threw a couple of switches on an overhead panel. “We are depressurizing the bay,” he said. “We’ll be ready to depart in just a couple of minutes.”

The vehicle rose slightly.

“I appreciate your doing this,” Casey told him.

He smiled benevolently. MacAllister liked doing things for people. And there was nothing quite so gratifying as the appreciation of a young person to whom he was lending the luster of his name. “To be honest, Casey,” he said, “I’m glad you asked. Without your initiative, I’d have spent most of the next week in The Navigator.”

The lander’s motors whined and began to pulse steadily.

She smiled. MacAllister had made a career of attacking women in print, as he had attacked college professors, preachers, farmers, left-wing editorial writers, and assorted other do-gooders and champions of the downtrodden. Women, he’d argued, were possessed of an impossible anatomy, top-heavy and off-balance. They could not walk without jiggling and rolling, and consequently it was quite impossible for men of sense to take even the brightest of them seriously.

Many women perceived him as that most dangerous kind of character: an articulate and persuasive demagogue. He knew that, but accepted it as the price he had to pay for saying the things that everyone else knew to be true, but which they denied, even to themselves. To a degree, his literary reputation protected him from the rage that surely would have fallen on the head of a lesser man. It demonstrated to him the intellectual bankruptcy of both sexes. Here, after all, was this sweet young thing, beaming and smiling at him, hoping to improve her career through his auspices, and quite willing to overlook a substantial series of ill-tempered remarks on his side, should he choose to make them, simply because they would provide excellent copy. “There is a perfectly good reason, my dear, why the downtrodden are trodden down. If they deserved better, they would have better.”

The bay doors opened.

“We’ll lose all sense of gravity after we launch,” said the pilot.

Harnesses swung down and locked them in. The interior lights blinked and went out. Then they sank back into their seats and began to move through the night. MacAllister twisted around and looked back at the great bulk of the Evening Star. Lights blazed fore and aft. An antenna mounted just beyond the launch pod rotated slowly.

The power and majesty of the great liner was somehow lost when it was in dock. He’d not been all that impressed when he’d boarded her back at the Wheel. But out here the Star was in her element, afloat among strange constellations beneath a sun that wasn’t quite the right color, above a world whose icy continents bore unfamiliar shapes. This view alone, he decided, was worth the side trip.

“Did I tell you,” said Casey, “I’m checked out to pilot these things?” She looked pleased with herself.

That fact caught MacAllister’s respect. Deep space seemed to be her journalistic specialty. Acquiring a pilot’s skills told him she was serious. “Excellent,” he said. He turned away from the view, glanced at her, then looked out again at the shimmering atmosphere below. “So how did you manage that?”

“My father owns a yacht.”

“Ah.” He recognized the family name. “Your father’s Desmond Hayes.”

“Yes.” She clamped her teeth together as if she’d been caught in a faux pas. And he understood: rich man’s daughter trying to make it on her own.

Desmond Hayes was the founder of Lifelong Enterprises, which had funded numerous biotech advances, and was one of the major forces behind recent life-extending breakthroughs. He was notoriously wealthy, had a taste for power, and talked often of running for political office. He was seldom seen without a beautiful young woman on his arm. A ridiculous figure, on the whole.

“Well,” MacAllister said, “it’s always a good idea to have a backup pilot.”

They were over clumps of cumulus now, bright in the starlight. MacAllister heard and felt the beginnings of atmospheric resistance. He brought up the autobar menu. They were well stocked. “How about a drink, Casey?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” she said. “A mint driver would be nice, if they have one.”

He punched it in, handed it over to her, and made a hot rum for himself. “Wetheral,” he said, “let’s take a look at the countryside before we set down.”

It proved to be a singularly uninviting landscape, mostly just snow and ice. The narrow equatorial belt provided dense forest along its southern edge, open country to the northeast, and low rolling hills and occasional patches of trees near the tower.

At dawn, they cruised over a shoreline dominated by enormous peaks. “This is the northern coast,” Wetheral explained. Several strips of beach presented themselves. In all, it was a magnificent seascape.

They continued their exploration while the sun rose higher, until finally MacAllister informed Wetheral they’d seen enough. “Let’s go talk to the people at the tower,” he said.

The pilot brought them back toward the south, and thirty minutes later they descended toward Burbage Point. A few trees rose out of the snow.

“Dismal place,” she said.

But MacAllister liked it. There was something majestic in the desolation.

Despite the short night, they were up early and back in the tower immediately after sunrise. Hutch, Nightingale, and Kellie returned to the tunnel to recommence digging, while Chiang took over guard duty at the entrance and Toni went up to the roof.

This second sunrise on the new world was bright and enticing. The snow glittered in the hard cold light. The trees from which the cat had appeared glowed green and purple, and a sprinkling of white clouds drifted through the sky.

They’d been working only ten minutes when Kellie found a few half-legible symbols on one of the walls.

She recorded them with the microscan, and they decided to try to salvage the images themselves. But when they used the lasers to remove the segment of wall, it crumbled. “There’s a technique for this,” Hutch grumbled, “but I don’t know what it is.”

Marcel broke in on the private channel. “Hutch?”

“I’m here. What’ve you got?”

“We think it’s a skyhook.”

“You’re kidding.”

“You think I could make this up?”

“Hold on. I’m going to put you on the allcom, and I want you to tell everybody.” She switched him over.

He repeated the news, and Nightingale announced himself stunned.

“What does Gunther think?” asked Kellie.

“It’s Gunther’s conclusion. Hell, what do I know about this stuff? But I’ll give him this: I can’t imagine what else it could be.”

“That means,” said Hutch, “this place isn’t representative at all. We’ve wandered into a remote site that didn’t keep up with the rest of the world.”

“Looks like it. But there’s no evidence of technological civilization anywhere on the surface.”

“They had an ice age,” said Hutch. “It got covered.”

“We don’t think even an ice age would completely erase all signs of an advanced culture. There’d be towers. Real towers, not that debacle you have. Maybe they’d get knocked over, but we’d still be able to see they’d been there. There’d be dams, harbor construction, all sorts of things. Concrete doesn’t go away.”

“What’s going to happen to it?” asked Kellie. “The skyhook?”

“In about a week it’ll go down with Deepsix.”

“So where does that leave us?” asked Hutch. “Are we wasting our time here?”

 She heard Marcel sigh. “I don’t know anything about archeology,” he said. “We’ve forwarded everything we have to the Academy, and to the archeologists at Nok. They’re considerably closer, and maybe we’ll get some suggestions back from them.”

“There’s something else here,” said Kellie. She’d uncovered a metal bar.

“Hold on, Marcel.” Hutch moved into position to give Wendy a good look.

Kellie tried to brush the dirt away. “Careful,” Hutch said. “It looks sharp.”

Nightingale dug a dart out of the frozen clay. Feather stalks remained at its base.

The bar was attached to a crosspiece. And the crosspiece became a rack. The rack was stocked with tubes.

They were narrow and about two-thirds of a meter long. Hutch picked one up and examined it by torchlight. It was hollow, made of light wood. Brittle now, of course. One end was narrowed and had a fitting that might have been a mouthpiece.

“You thinking what I am?” asked Kellie.

“Yep. It’s a blowgun.”

They found a second dart.

And a couple of javelins.

“Stone heads,” Hutch said.

And small. A half meter long.

They also found some shields. These were made of iron and had been covered with animal skins, which fell apart when they touched them.

“Blowguns and skyhooks,” said Marcel. “An interesting world.”

“About the skyhook—” said Nightingale.

“Yes?”

“If they actually had one at one time, part of it would still be here somewhere, right? I mean, that would have to be a big structure. And it has to be on the equator, so it’s not under the ice somewhere.”

“We’re way ahead of you, Randy. We think the base might have been in a mountain chain along the coast a few hundred kilometers southwest of where you are. We’re waiting for satellites to get into position to do a scan.”

“The west coast,” she said.

“Right. Some of the peaks in that area seem to have permanent clouds over them. If we find something, you’ll want to take a run over there yourself. We might be looking at the ultimate dig site.”

They carried the blowguns, the javelins, and several darts up to ground level. Outside, the wind had blown up again, and snow had begun to fall. They had no bags of sufficient size for the rack, so they cut the plastic in strips and wrapped it as best they could. But when they tried to move it to the lander, the wind caught the plastic and almost ripped it out of their hands. “Bendo and Klopp,” said Nightingale, referring to a currently popular comedy team that specialized in pratfalls.

Hutch nodded. “I guess. Let’s leave it here until things calm down.”

They took a break. Kellie and Nightingale went back to the lander for a few minutes, and Hutch hoisted herself onto the table to rest. Spending all day bent over in tunnels, endlessly scraping, sweeping, and digging, was not her game.

Toni broke in on the allcom: “Hutch, we’ve got company.”

“Company?” She signaled to Chiang, who was standing in the doorway, and drew her cutter. It was, she assumed, the cat.

“Lander coming in,” said Toni.

Hutch opened her channel to Marcel. “Who else is out here?”

“A cruise ship,” he said. “Just arrived this morning.”

“Well, it looks as if they’re sending down tourists.”

“What?”

“You got it. They must be crazy.”

“Don’t know anything about it. I’ll contact their captain.”

She was getting another signal. “I’ll get back to you, Marcel.” She punched in the new caller. “Go ahead.”

“Ground party, this is the pilot of the Evening Star lander. We would like to set down in the area.”

“Not a good idea,” said Hutch. “It’s dangerous here. There are wild animals.”

There was no response for almost half a minute. Then: “We accept responsibility for everyone who is on board.”

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why are you here?”

“I’m carrying two journalists who would like to visit the tower.”

“I don’t believe this,” she said. “The tower is dangerous, too. It could fall down at any time.”

There was a new voice, a baritone with perfect diction: “We’ve been warned. It’s on record. So you need not concern yourself further.”

“May I ask who’s speaking?”

“Gregory MacAllister,” he said. “I’m a passenger on the Evening Star.” He implied a merely at the beginning of the sentence, which in turn suggested modesty by someone who was in fact a great deal more than merely a passenger.

Hutch wondered if this would turn out to be the Gregory MacAllister. “I don’t think you understand,” she said. “We are formally designated an archeological site. You’re in violation of the law if you land.”

“What section of the code would that be, ma’am?”

Damned if she knew. There was such a law. But she had no idea where to find it.

“Then I think we’ll have to continue as is.”

She switched to another channel. “Bill, tie me in to the Evening Star. Get me a command channel if you have one.”

Bill replied with an electronic murmur and then told her none was available. “There’s only one main link,” he said.

“Put me through.”

She listened to a series of clicks and a chime. Then: “The Evening Star welcomes you to first-class accommodations on voyages throughout the known universe.” The voice was female. “We feature luxurious cabins, a wide range of international cuisines, leading entertainers, three casinos, and special accommodations for parties. How may we serve you?”

“My name’s Hutchins,” she said. “I’m with the landing party at the dig. I’d like to speak with someone in command, please.”

“I’m fully authorized to respond to all requests and complaints. Ms. Hutchins. I’d be pleased to help you.”

“I want to talk to the captain.”

“Perhaps if you explained your purpose in making this request—”

“Your captain has put some of his passengers in danger. Would you please put me through to him?”

There was a pause, then barely audible voices. Finally: “This is the duty officer. Who are you again?” A human being this time. A male.

“I’m Priscilla Hutchins. The archeological project director on Deepsix. We have a team on the ground. You people have sent down some tourists. And I wanted you to know that there are hazards.”

“We have tourists on the surface?”

“Yes, you do.”

“I see.” A pause. “What kind of hazards?”

“They could be eaten.”

Still another delay. Then: “Do you have some sort of authority I should be aware of?”

“Look. Your passengers are approaching a protected archeological site. Moreover, it’s an earthquake zone, and somebody could get killed. Please recall them. Or send them somewhere else.”

“Just a minute, please.”

He clicked off the circuit.

The lander pilot came back: “Ms. Hutchins, we are going to set down near the tower. Since it seems to be snowing, and I assume visibility isn’t any better on the ground, please clear your people away for the moment.”

“They’re directly overhead,” said Kellie.

Hutch called everyone into the tower. “Stay inside until they’re on the ground,” she said. Then she switched back to the lander. “Are you still there, pilot?”

“I’m still here.”

“Our people are out of the way. You’re clear to come in. If you must.”

“Thank you.”

Marcel came back on: “Hutch.”

“Yeah, what’d they tell you?”

“You know who’s on board?”

“Gregory MacAllister.”

“Do you know who he is?”

Now she did. This was Gregory the Great. Self-appointed champion of common sense who’d made a fortune attacking the pompous and the arrogant, or, depending on whom you listened to, simply those less gifted than he. Years before she’d been in a graduate seminar with a historian whose chief claim to fame was that he’d once been publicly chastised by MacAllister. He’d even put an account of the assault up on the screen and stood beside it grinning as if he’d touched greatness. “Yes,” she said. “The only person on the planet who could bring church and science together. They both hope he dies.”

“That’s him. And I hope he’s not listening.”

“What am I supposed to do with him?”

“Hutch, management would not want you to offend him. My guess is that it’ll be your job if you do.”

“How about if I just feed him to the big cat?”

“Pardon?”

“Let it go.”

“I think it would be a good idea to treat him well. Let him look at whatever he wants to. It won’t hurt anything. And don’t let him fall on his head.”

The snow had grown heavier and become so thick MacAllister didn’t see anything until moments before they touched down. He got a glimpse of the other lander, and of the tower beyond, and then they were on the ground, so softly he barely felt the impact. Wetheral had the personality of a pinecone, but there was no question he was a competent pilot.

The man himself turned around in his seat and studied them momentarily with those sad eyes. “How long,” he asked, “did you folks plan on being here?”

“Not long,” said MacAllister. “An hour or so.”

The snow was already piling up on the windscreen.

“Okay. I have a few things to take care of. Make sure you activate your e-suit before you go out, and we want you to keep it on the entire time you’re here. You can breathe the local air if necessary, but the mix isn’t quite right.

“The captain also directed me to ask you both to be careful. There’ve been wild animal sightings.”

“We know that,” said MacAllister.

“Good. There’s a great deal of paperwork involved if we lose either of you.” He said it without a trace of irony.

“Thank you,” said Casey.

They went through the airlock and climbed down out of the spacecraft into the storm. “To do the interview correctly,” MacAllister said, “we’re going to want to wait until it subsides.” Ordinarily, heavy weather provided great atmosphere for interviews. But in this case the tower was the star of the show, and people needed to be able to see it. “Wetheral, how long before this blizzard lets up?”

The pilot appeared in the hatch. “I don’t know, sir. We don’t have a weather report.”

“Seems as if it might be a good idea to get one.”

“Won’t be one for this area,” he said seriously. He looked around, shook his head, and came down the ladder.

The archeologists’ lander was dead ahead. It was smaller than the Star’s vehicle, and sleeker. More businesslike.

A woman materialized out of the driving snow. She wore a blue-and-white jumpsuit and he knew from the way she walked it was Hutchins. She was trim, built like a boy, and came up almost to his shoulders. Her black hair was cut short, and she looked unfriendly. But he shrugged it away in his usual forgiving manner, recognizing anger as a natural trait exhibited by females who didn’t get their way.

“You’re the mission commander, I take it?” he asked, extending his hand.

She shook it perfunctorily. “I’m Hutchins,” she said.

He introduced Casey and Wetheral.

“Why don’t we talk inside?” Hutchins turned on her heel and marched off.

Delightful.

They clumped through the snow. MacAllister studied the tower while he tried to get used to the e-suit. He should have been cold, but wasn’t. His feet, clad in leisure shoes, sank into the drifts. But they stayed warm.

The tower loomed up through the storm. At home, it would have been no more than a pile of rock. Here, amidst all this desolation, it was magnificent. But the Philistines had punched a hole in the wall. “Pity you chose to do that,” he told Hutchins.

“It made egress considerably easier.”

“I quite understand.” He did, of course. And yet this tower had obviously stood a long time. It should have been possible to show it a bit more respect. “I don’t suppose we have any idea how old it is?”

“Not yet,” she said. “We don’t have an onboard facility for dating. It’ll take a while.”

The storm caused him to speak more loudly than necessary. He was having a hard time getting used to the radio. Hutchins asked him to lower his voice. He did and focused on trying to keep it down. “And there’s nothing else?” he asked. “No other ruins?”

“There are some scattered around the planet. And there’s a city buried down there.” She pointed at the ground.

“Really?” He tried to imagine it, a town with houses and parks and probably a jail under the ice. “Incredible,” he said.

“Watch your head.” She led him through the entrance they had made. He ducked and followed her into a low-roofed chamber with a table on which were piled some cups and darts. He had to stay bent over.

“Tight fit,” he said. The small-gauge stairways caught his eye. “The inhabitants were, what, —elves?”

“Apparently about that size.”

“What have you learned about them so far?” He wandered over to the table and reached for one of the cups, but she asked him, if he would, to avoid handling them. “Forgive me,” he said. “So what can you tell me about them?”

“We know they favored blowguns.”

He smiled back at her. “Primitives.”

Hutchins’s people drifted in to meet him. They struck him as by and large a forgettable lot. The other two women were reasonably attractive. There was one young male with a trace of Asian ancestry. And he recognized the second male but couldn’t immediately place him. He was an elderly, bookish-looking individual, with a weak chin and a fussy mustache. And he was in fact staring at MacAllister with some irritation.

Hutchins did the introductions. And the mystery went away. “Randall Nightingale,” she said.

Ah. Nightingale. The man who fainted. The man carried relatively uninjured out of battle by a woman. MacAllister frowned and pretended to study his features. “Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked with benign dignity.

“Yes,” said Nightingale. “Indeed you do.”

“You’re ...”

“I was the director of the original project, Mr. MacAllister. Twenty years or so ago.”

“So you were.” MacAllister was not without compassion, and he let Nightingale see that he felt a degree of sympathy. “I am sorry how that turned out. It must have been hard on you.”

Hutchins must have sensed the gathering storm. She moved in close.

MacAllister turned to his companion. “Casey, you know Randall Nightingale. A legendary figure.”

Nightingale took an aggressive step forward, but Hutchins put an arm around his shoulder. Little woman, he thought. And a little man. But Nightingale wisely allowed himself to be restrained. “I haven’t forgotten you, MacAllister,” he said.

MacAllister smiled politely. “There, sir, as you can see, you had the advantage of me.”

Hutchins drew him away and turned him over to the Asian. Something passed between them, and he coaxed Nightingale out of the chamber and down the child’s staircase.

“What was that about?” asked Casey.

“Man didn’t like to read about himself.” MacAllister turned back to Hutchins. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t expect to find him here.”

“It’s okay. Let’s just try to keep it peaceful.”

“Madam,” he said, “you need to tell that to your own people. But I’ll certainly try to stay out of everyone’s way. Now, can I persuade you to show us around the site a bit?”

“All right,” she said. “I guess it can’t do any harm. But there’s really not much to see.”

“How long have you been on the ground, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“This is our second day.”

“Do we know anything at all about the natives, the creatures, who built it? Other than the blowguns?”

Hutchins told him what they had learned: The natives were of course preindustrial, fought organized wars, and had a form of writing. She offered to take him to the top of the tower. “Tell me what’s up there, and I’ll decide,” he said.

She described the chamber and the levered ceiling which apparently had opened up. And she added their idea that the natives might have owned a telescope.

“Optics?” he said. “That doesn’t seem to fit with blowguns.”

“That’s our feeling. I hope we’ll get some answers during the course of the day.”

MacAllister saw no point making the climb. Instead they descended into the lower chambers, and Hutchins showed him a fireplace and some chair fragments.

Near the bottom of the tower they looked into a tunnel. “This is where we’re working now,” she said.

The tunnel was too small to accommodate him. Even had it not been, he would have stayed out of it. “So what’s back there?” he asked.

“It’s where we found the blowguns. It looks as if there was an armory. But what we’re really interested in is finding writing samples and maybe some engraved pictures. Or possibly sculpture. Something that’ll tell us what they looked like. We’d like to answer your question, Mr. MacAllister.”

“Of course.” MacAllister looked around at the blank walls. “We must have some idea of their appearance. For example, surely the staircase is designed for a bipedal creature?”

“Surely,” she said. “We’re pretty sure they had four limbs. Walked upright. That’s about the extent of what we know.”

“When do you expect to be able to determine the age of this place?”

“After we get some of the pieces back to a lab. Until then everything is guesswork.”

Wetheral was still standing by the chair fragments, trying to catch Hutchins’s attention. “Yes?” she said.

“May I ask whether you’re finished with these?”

“Yes,” she said. “We’ve already stowed a complete armchair in the lander.”

“Good.” He looked pleased. “Thank you.” And while she watched, clearly surprised, he gathered the fragments, a beam, and a piece of material that might once have been drapery. And he carried everything up the staircase.

“The ship hopes to salvage a few pieces,” MacAllister explained. His back was beginning to hurt from all the bending. “Anything that might interest the more historically minded passengers.”

She showed no reaction. “I can’t see that it’ll do any harm.”

“Thank you,” said MacAllister. ”And if there’s  nothing we missed”—he turned to Casey—”this might be a good time to go outside and, if the weather will allow, do our interview.”

VIII

The results of archeologcal enterprise at home are predictable within a set of parameters, because we know the general course of history. Its off-world cousin is a different breed of cat altogether. Anybody who’s going to dig up furniture on Sinus II or Rigel XVII better leave his assumptions at the door.

 —Gregory MacAllister, “Sites and Sounds,” The Grand Tour

It was the first time in his adult life that Nightingale had seriously considered assaulting someone. That he had resisted the impulse, that he had not taken a swing at the smirking, self-satisfied son of a bitch, was a result not of Hutch’s restraining hand or of any reluctance over attacking somebody considerably more than twice his size. It had been rather his sense of the impropriety of violence that had shut him down.

Nightingale had grown up with a code. One did not make a scene. One retained dignity under all circumstances. If an opponent was to be attacked, it was done with a smile and a cutting phrase. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to come up with the cutting phrase.

Now, working in the tunnel with Toni and Chiang, he was embarrassed by his outburst. He had not gotten it right; had not come dose to getting it right. But he had, by God, confronted MacAllister, and that at least had relieved part of the burden he’d been carrying all these years.

MacAllister had written an account of the original expedition, titled “Straight and Narrow,” as the lead editorial for Premier. It had appeared shortly after Nightingale’s return, when the investigation was still going on, and it had laid the blame for failure at his door, had charged him with mismanaging the landings, and had concluded by branding him as a helpless coward because he’d fainted after being wounded. The article in fact made light of his wounds. “Scratches,” MacAllister had remonstrated, as though he’d been there.

It had branded him publicly and, in his view, had caused the examining board to render a verdict against him, and to shut down plans for future expeditions. We need to put Maleiva III behind us, one of the commissioner’s reps had told him after the commissioner herself had cut off all contact. Didn’t want to be seen with him.

“Straight and Narrow” had appeared again, six years ago, in a collection of MacAllister’s memoirs. A fresh attack. And the man had pretended not to know him.

“You okay?” asked Chiang.

They were working to clear the chamber where they’d found the blowguns, the area they now called the armory. But he realized he had stopped in the middle of the effort and was staring off somewhere. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Toni and Chiang were both watching him. They’d asked on the way down what had caused his outburst, and he’d put them off. How could he possibly tell them? But it galled him that MacAllister, glib, irresponsible, that judge of all mankind, had been within reach, and that he had been impotent. What a pathetic creature he must have appeared.

John Drummond had made his reputation within a year of receiving his doctorate by devising the equations named for him, which had provided a major step forward in understanding galactic evolution. But he’d done nothing of note during the decade that had passed since that time. Now, at thirty-five, he was approaching the age at which he could be expected to begin tottering. Physicists and mathematicians traditionally make their mark early on. Genius is limited to the very young.

He’d adjusted to the realities, and had been prepared to spend the balance of his career on the periphery, criticizing the results of his betters. His reputation was secure, and even if he did nothing else notable, he still had the satisfaction of knowing that, during his early twenties, he’d outpaced damned near everybody else on the planet.

Despite that sense of his own contributions, he could not help feeling overawed in the presence of people like Beekman and al-Kabhar, who were known and respected everywhere they went. Drummond inevitably detected a note of condescension in his treatment by his peers. He suspected they perceived him as someone who, in the end, had to be regarded as a disappointment, who had not quite lived up to the promise of the early years.

He had consequently become somewhat defensive. His profession had passed him by, and he suspected that his selection to join the Deepsix mission had been a political choice. He had been simply too big a name to leave off the invitation list. It would have been better, he sometimes thought, to have been a mediocrity from the start, to have been perceived as a man of limited promise, than to have raised such hopes in others and in himself, and gone on to disappoint them all.

Like Chiang, he was also attracted to Kellie Collier, although he’d never made any sort of advance. He drank coffee with her when the opportunity permitted, spent what time with her that he could. But he feared rejection, and he detected in her manner that she would not take him seriously as a desirable male.

He was not entirely surprised when Beekman invited him into his office to ask whether he wanted to join the team that would inspect the artifact they’d found orbiting Maleiva  III. It was an offer most of his colleagues would have coveted, and his reputation may have left the project director with little choice. But Drummond wasn’t anxious to embrace the honor, because it seemed to mean he would have to leave the ship. And the idea of going outside frankly scared him.

“That’s very good of you, Gunther.” He loved using the great man’s first name.

“Think nothing of it. You deserve the honor.”

“But the others—”

“—will understand. You’ve earned this assignment, John. Congratulations.”

Drummond was thinking about the void.

“You do want to participate, don’t you?”

“Yes. Of course I do. I just thought that the more senior members should have the privilege.” His heart had begun to pound. He knew spacewalking was supposed to be simple. You just wore air tanks and a belt and magnetic shoes. And comfortable clothing. They emphasized comfortable clothing. He didn’t like heights, but everything he’d read about work in the vacuum indicated that wasn’t a problem either.

Before the offer had come, before he’d thought it out, he’d made the mistake of telling several of his colleagues how he’d like to cross to the assembly, to touch it and walk on it. He knew that if he refused the offer, no matter what reason he gave, it would get out.

“Do you know how to use a cutter?” Beekman asked.

“Of course.” Punch the stud and don’t point it at your foot.

“Okay. Good. We’ll be leaving in two hours. Meet in front of the cargo bay airlock. On C Deck.”

“Gunther,” he said, “I’ve never worn an e-suit.”

“Neither have I.” Beekman laughed. “I suspect we’ll be learning together.” Then, abruptly, the conversation was over. The office door opened. Beekman had picked up a pen. “Oh, by the way,” he said without looking up, “the captain says if you want to eat, you should do it now, and keep it light. Best not to have a fresh meal in your stomach when we go out.”

Drummond closed his eyes and wondered whether he could get away with claiming to be ill.

Marcel regretted having allowed Kellie to travel down to the surface. Had she been available, she would have accompanied the inspection team over to the assembly, and he could have held himself in reserve for an emergency. Or for a less arduous afternoon.

He didn’t like taking Beekman’s people outside. None of them had ever before gone through an airlock in flight. There was in fact little that could go wrong. The Flickinger field was quite safe. But it still made him uncomfortable.

At Beekman’s request, Marcel had brought Wendy to the Maleiva  III end of the assembly, the section most distant from the asteroid and closest to the planet. There, they could see quite clearly that it had been detached from a larger construct. The terminal ends of the shafts had latches and connectors.

He matched course, speed, and alignment so they maintained a constant relative position. That was crucial, not only because having the airlock within a couple of meters of the assembly was convenient, but because the sight of the two objects moving in relation to one another would almost certainly sicken his embryo spacewalkers. The only problem was that the two globes currently in the sky, Deepsix and the sun, would be in apparent motion. Enough to make you dizzy if you weren’t used to it.

“Don’t look at them,” he advised his team. “You’ve got a bona fide alien artifact out there, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Concentrate on that.”

Beekman had chosen two people, a man and a woman, to go out with him. Both were young, and both were celebrated members of his science team. The woman, Carla Stepan, had done some pioneering work in light propagation. Appropriate, Marcel thought. She was herself a luminous creature.

Drummond’s reputation was known to all. But the man himself was something of a mystery. Quiet, reserved, a bit bashful. An odd choice, the captain thought.

He demonstrated how to use the e-suit. The Flickinger field had several advantages over the pressure suits of the previous century, principal among them being that it couldn’t be punctured.

But someone could get so caught up in the drama of the moment that he accidentally released his tether. And the field itself wasn’t entirely foolproof. It was possible with a little imagination to screw up the antiradiation shielding and fry. Or make adjustments to the oxygen-nitrogen mix and thereby render oneself incompetent or maybe dead. Consequently, Marcel insisted they were all to keep their fingers off the control unit once it had been set.

Marcel had suggested to Beekman that he, Beekman, not go. The planetologist had told him he worried too much.

Theoretically, his medical record was fine, or he wouldn’t be on board. But he never really looked well. His pale complexion might have been emphasized by the black beard. But he seemed to get out of breath easily, he wheezed occasionally, and the slightest exertion brought color to his cheeks. Marcel had the authority to prevent his going, but this was Gunther’s show, and the captain couldn’t bring himself to deny the man an experience that promised to be the supreme moment of his professional career.

“Everybody ready?” Marcel asked. They were all standing by the airlock, Beekman and Carla obviously anxious to get started, John Drummond looking reluctant. He checked their breathers and activated their suits. Carla had some experience with cutters, so he’d assigned one to her, and he took one himself. They strapped on wristlamps. He handed out vests and waited while they put them on.

Each vest was equipped with a springlock so that a tether could be connected.

Marcel also strapped on a go-pack.

They did a radio check and went into the airlock. Marcel initiated the cycle. The inner hatch closed, and the lock began to depressurize. Beekman and Carla seemed fine. But Drummond began breathing more deeply than normal.

“Relax, John,” Marcel told him on a private channel. “There’s nothing to this.”

“It might be the wrong time to bring this up,” Drummond said, “but I have this thing about heights.”

“Everybody has a thing about heights. Don’t worry about it. I know this is hard to believe, but you won’t notice it at all.”

Carla saw what was happening and flashed an encouraging smile. She spoke to Drummond, but Marcel couldn’t hear what she said. Drummond nodded and looked better. Not much, but a little.

The go lamps went on, and the outer hatch irised open. They looked across a couple of meters of empty space at the cluster of parallel shafts. They were lunar gray, gritty, occasionally pocked. As thick individually, thought Marcel, as an elephant’s leg. From the perspective of the airlock, they might have been fifteen entirely separate pipes, water pipes perhaps, coming to an abrupt end a few meters to their right; but on the left they stretched into infinity. And somehow they were perfectly equidistant, apparently separated and maintained by an invisible force.

“Incredible,” said Drummond, leaning forward slightly and looking both ways.

There were no markings, no decoration, no bolts or sheaths or ridges. Simply fifteen tubes, arranged symmetrically, eight on the outer perimeter, six midway, and the single central shaft.

Marcel attached a flex tether to a clip on the hull and motioned the project director forward. “All yours, Gunther,” he said.

Beekman advanced to the hatch, never taking his eyes off the long gray shafts. He put his head out and drew in his breath. “My God,” he said.

Marcel clipped the tether to his vest. “It’ll pay out as you go, or retract as you need.”

“How long is it?”

“Twenty meters.”

“I meant, to the brace.”

There were braces along the entire length of the assembly. The nearest was— “Almost fifty kilometers away.”

Beekman shook his head. “If someone else had reported such a thing,” he said, “I would have refused to believe it.” He put his feet on the outer lip of the airlock. “I think I’m ready.”

“Okay. Be careful. When I tell you, just push off. Don’t try to jump, or I’ll have to come after you.” Marcel looked back at the others. “If anybody does contrive to drift away, I’ll take care of the rescue. In the meantime, everyone else is to stay put. Okay?”

Okay.

“Go,” he told Beekman.

Beekman hunched his shoulders. He was wearing a pair of white slacks and a green sweatshirt with the name of his university, Berlin, stenciled on it. He looked, Marcel thought, appropriately dashing. And quite happy. Ecstatic, in fact.

He leaned forward, gave himself a slight push, and cried out in sheer joy as he launched. They watched him drift awkwardly across the narrow space, one leg straight, one bent at the knee, rather like a runner caught in midstride.

Marcel stood in the hatch, letting the tether slide across his palm until he was sure Beekman wasn’t traveling too fast. The project director reached out for the nearest shaft, collided with it, wrapped his arms around it, and shouted something in German. “Marcel,” he continued, “I owe you a dinner.”

“I want it in writing,” Marcel said.

Beekman loosened his grip, found another shaft for his feet, settled down, and waved.

Carla moved up to take her turn.

Beekman and his team clambered around on the assembly while Marcel stood guard. Carla took pictures and Drummond collected sensor readings. Beekman was talking, describing what he was seeing, and taking various gauges and sensors out of his vest to answer questions for the people inside. Yes, it was magnetic. No, it did not seem to vibrate when low-frequency sound waves were applied.

Carla produced the cutter and conferred with Beekman. Marcel couldn’t overhear the conversation, but they were obviously looking for the right place from which to remove a sample. The surface had no features. The only distinguishing marks that they’d been able to see, either from the scanners or up close, were the encircling bands. And none of those was visible from here.

They made up their minds, and Carla steadied herself, took aim at one of the shafts, and brought the laser to bear.

“Careful,” Marcel advised her. The field wouldn’t protect her if she made a mistake.

“I will be,” she said.

She switched on the cutter, the beam flashed, and the view fields in all four suits darkened.

She began to work. They were going to take off the last two meters of one of the outside shafts.

Drummond had put his instruments away and was simply holding on. He appeared to be examining the assembly very carefully, keeping his eyes away from the void. Marcel left the airlock, went over, and joined him. “How you doing?” he asked privately.

“I guess I’m a little wobbly.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “It happens. You want to go back inside?”

“No.” Drummond shook his head but kept his gaze on the assembly.

“You’ll feel better in a bit. When you’re ready to go back, I’ll go with you.”

He mumbled something. Marcel only caught”... damn fool.”

“Maybe not. You might just be a little more sensible than the rest of us.”

Drummond managed a smile, still looking at the metal. “Marcel,” he said, “maybe I ought to go back over there before I become a problem.”

“Whatever happens, John, you won’t be a problem. Everything’s under control.”

“Okay.”

Drummond did not want to make the jump. Even though there was no gravity, Marcel suspected his senses were relating to the proximity of the Wendy Jay, using that to determine what was up and down. He had maintained a position which, related to the ship, kept his head up. Now he was being asked to cross that terrible void again. People who claim there’s no sense of altitude in space, Marcel thought, have never been there. He reached out to place an arm gently on his shoulder, but Drummond drew away.

“Thanks,” Drummond said. “I can manage.”

“It has plenty of juice,” said Carla, admiring her laser. From Drummond’s perspective, she was upside down. His eyes closed tight.

She had already sliced halfway through her target shaft. Beekman was hanging on the edge of it to make sure it didn’t drift away when she’d completed the job.

Drummond’s eyes opened, and he looked back at the airlock as if it were a half klick away. Its light spilled out into the vacuum.

“I thought there’d be more resistance,” Carla said.

“You’re okay,” Marcel told Drummond. “Can I make a suggestion?”

Drummon’s breathing was becoming ragged, but he didn’t reply.

“Close your eyes, John. And let me take you over.” Wendy hovered only two meters away. Bill was keeping the ship perfectly still in relation to the artifact. But Marcel was aware of Deepsix climbing slowly but steadily up the sky.

“Something wrong, John?” Beekman’s voice.

“No,” said Marcel. “We’re fine.”

“John?” Carla this time, sounding worried. “You okay?”

“Yes.” His voice was tight and angry. He looked at Marcel. “Yeah. Please get me away from here.”

Marcel put an arm gently around his waist. This time Drummond didn’t pull away. “Tell me when you’re ready,” he said.

Drummond stiffened and closed his eyes. “Just give me a minute.” But it was too late. Marcel, without waiting, anxious to end the suspense, pushed them forward, off the shaft. They floated toward the open hatch and the light.

“We’ll be there in a second, John.”

By then the others were watching. Carla’s laser went out, and she asked whether she could help. Marcel saw that Beekman was shifting his posture, preparing to join them. “Stay put, Gunny,” he said. “We’re okay.”

“What happened, Marcel?” he asked.

“A little motion sickness, I think. Nothing serious. Happens all the time.”

Drummond struggled briefly and they bumped into the hull. But he got one hand on the hatch and pulled himself into the airlock. Marcel let him do it on his own. When John was safely on board he climbed in beside him. “Damned coward,” Drummond said.

They were inside the ship’s artificial gravity field. Marcel sat down on the bench. “You’re being a little hard on yourself.”

Drummond just stared back out of bleak eyes.

“Listen.” Marcel sat back and relaxed. “There are very few people who would have done what you did. Most wouldn’t have gone out there at all, feeling the way you must have.” He looked at the assembly, and the stars beyond. “You want me to shut the hatch and we’ll go inside?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Can’t do that. They’re still out there.”

Beekman and Carla returned a few minutes later with their prize. They negotiated it carefully into the airlock, into the half-gee gravity field that was normal for ships in flight. (Maintaining full Earth normal would have consumed too much power.) The piece was as long as Marcel was high. They expected it to be quite heavy inside the ship.

Instead, a look of bewilderment formed on Carla’s features. She signaled Beekman to let go and easily hefted the object herself. “Impossibilium is the right word,” she said. “It weighs next to nothing.”

Beekman stared. “They’re pretty good engineers, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Because of the weight?” Marcel asked.

Drummond was almost breathing normally again. He wanted to speak, and Beekman gave him the floor.

“The problem,” he said, summoning each word as if it were Greek, “with this kind of construction ...” He stopped to take another breath. “Problem is that you have too much mass distributed over such an extreme length.”

He glanced at Beekman, who nodded.

“The strength of the structure at any given point isn’t enough to support the strain put on it. Think of the, ah, Starlite Center in Chicago and imagine you had to build it from cardboard.”

“It’d collapse,” Marcel said.

“Exactly right,” said Carla. “The kinds of building materials we have now, applied to this kind of structure”—she nodded toward the airlock door, toward the assembly—”equate to cardboard. If we tried to make one of these, its own mass would crumple it.”

Beekman picked up the thread. “If you’re going to erect something as big as the Starlite, you want two qualities in your building materials.”

“Strength,” said Marcel.

“And light weight,” finished Carla. She glanced at the sample. “We know it’s strong because the assembly holds together. And now we know at least part of the reason it holds together. It doesn’t have much mass.”

They closed up. Minutes later green lamps blinked, and the inner hatch opened. They shut off their suits and came out of the airlock.

“So what’s next?” asked Marcel.

Beekman looked pleased. “We analyze it. Find out how they did it.”

For August Canyon, Deepsix was aptly named. His flight to that unhappy world as pool representative for the various press services, to do a feature that was of only marginal interest to the general public, signaled beyond any doubt management’s view of his future. Is there a labor strike in Siberia? Send Canyon. Did they find water on the far side of the Moon? Get Canyon up there to do the interviews.

“It isn’t that bad,” said Emma Constantine, his producer and the only other soul aboard the Edward J. Zwick other than the pilot.

“Why isn’t it?” he demanded. He’d been simmering during the entire five weeks of the outbound flight, saying none of the things that were on his mind. But he was tired of being cooped up, tired of spending his time on virtual beaches while other people his age were doing solid investigative journalism, chasing down corruption in London, sex in Washington, stupidity in Paris.

“It’ll be a good feature,” she said. “Worlds collide. That’s big stuff, if we handle it right.”

“It would be,” he said, “if we had somebody to interview.” Canyon had all the credentials—graduate of Harvard, experience with Washington Online and later Sam Brewster. Brewster was an extraordinarily effective muckraker, and Canyon had been with him a year and a half, just long enough for Brewster to recognize he lacked a muck-raker’s stomach while Canyon alienated every power center in the capital. After their less than amicable parting, he’d been lucky to catch on with Toledo Express.

“We’ve got a whole boatload of scientists to talk to.”

“Right. You ever try to get a physicist to say something people are remotely interested in hearing?”

“We’ve done it, on occasion.”

“Sure we have. Cube theory. Gravity waves. Force vituperations. That’s pretty hot stuff.”

“I think that’s force correlations”

He took a deep breath. “As if it mattered. What we need is a good politician. Somebody to take a stand against planetary wrecks.”

“Look,” she said. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. We’ve got a database on these people.”

“I know,” he said. “Tasker’s on Wendy, and he’ll talk, but that’s the problem. He talks forever.”

“We can edit if we have to. Listen, Augie, we’re here and we have to make the best of it. This isn’t the assignment I’d have chosen either. But there’s going to be a lot more interest in this than you think.”

“Why would that be?”

“Because worlds don’t crash into each other every day.” She was frowning, maybe regretting not the assignment, but her partner. “Because there are ruins on Deepsix.”

“But no sign of a civilization. Do you think anybody’s going to care that a pile of stones goes down with everything else?”

“Augie, who built the pile?”

“I doubt that the people they’re sending down there are going to have time to find out.”

She smiled benignly. “That’s exactly my point. Look, forget Wendy. This is a world that’s been racked up. Ice age for three thousand years. No sign of cities. That means if anybody’s left, it’s savages. Savages are relentlessly dull. But vanished civilizations? That’s news. The people we want to interview are on the ground, poking around the tower. Not in the starship. Figure out where to go with that side of the story, and we’re in business.”

He let his head drop back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “You know, Emma,” he said, “sometimes I really hate this job.”

IX

Archeology is a career for the terminally weak-minded. An archeologst is a trash collector with a degree.

—Gregory MacAllister, “Career Night,” Ports of Call

Wendy proceeded in a leisurely manner along the entire length of the assembly. They took pictures, although every section looked like every other section, counted the bands (thirty-nine altogether) that secured the shafts to each other, and arrived at last at the asteroid.

A rock rather than a chunk of iron, it was almost a perfect sphere. A metallic net was wrapped around it securing it to the assembly by means of a rectangular plate. The plate, several meters thick, had rounded edges and corners.

The extreme length of the assembly tended to diminish the apparent size of the asteroid, until one drew near. It was in fact more than a kilometer in diameter.

Marcel and Beekman watched from project control as they approached. Beekman looked disappointed, and Marcel, wondering how he could possibly be out of sorts at such a supreme moment, asked what was wrong.

“I’d hoped,” he replied, “to find something that would give us an idea who put it here. What its purpose was. I thought maybe there’d be a control station at one end or the other. Something.”

Marcel put a hand on his shoulder. “People leaving stuff like this around the neighborhood should include a manual.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” Stupid remark.

They went outside again, just the two of them, and inspected the asteroid. They floated above the rockscape, using Marcel’s go-pack to get around.

Much of the net was concealed by a layer of dust. The metal links appeared to be made of the same material as the shafts. They were only a couple of centimeters thick and were linked with crosspieces at lengths of about three-quarters of a meter.

They stopped to examine the connecting plate and were pleasantly surprised to discover a series of engraved symbols. All the characters were joined, in the manner of cursive writing. “Eventually,” Beekman said, “I’d like to take this inside. Take it home with us.”

It was big. Marcel measured it with his eye and concluded it wouldn’t fit through the cargo airlock. “We might have to cut it in half,” he said.

“Whatever’s necessary—” They drifted above it and looked back the way they’d come, down the long straight line of the assembly toward the heart of Deepsix.

They took samples of everything, of the rock and the dust, of the net, of the plate. When they were finished they went back inside and had some coffee. It was after 2:00 A.M. ship time, November 27.

Beekman suggested the unknown architects had developed quantum technology, and the skyhook had simply become obsolete. Marcel was too tired to care. But just as he was getting ready to head for his quarters, Bill broke in: “Captain, we now have the satellite scans you requested of the coastal mountain range.”

“Okay, Bill.” Ordinarily he’d have asked to look. But not at this hour. “Anything interesting?”

“There is a structure of substantial dimensions on one of the peaks.”

The door opened almost at the first touch of the laser. Beyond lay shelved walls and a vaulted ceiling. Hutch played her light over a bare wooden table. Shadowy figures looked back out of alcoves.

“Bingo,”said Toni.

Statues. There were six alcoves, and at one time there had been six figures. Five lay broken and scattered in the dust that covered the floor. One remained.

The survivor resembled a falcon. But it stood upright, in a vest and trousers that suggested pantaloons. A medallion of illegible design hung about its neck. It reminded Hutch of Horus. “You think that’s what they looked like?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Nightingale. “It would fit. Little creatures, descended from birds.”

Whatever might once have filled the shelves was gone.

She flashed pictures to Wendy. Hutch half expected to hear from Marcel, but it was early morning on the ship. In the interests of diplomacy, she also sent a picture to MacAllister, who was having brunch in the Star lander.

He took it rather calmly, she thought, but made it a point to thank her and ask that he be kept informed. The manner of it implied that he thought it trivial.

The room, she suspected, had been a study. Or perhaps a library.

Nightingale agreed. “I wish we could read their scrolls.”

Indeed. What would a history not be worth?

The other figures had apparently all been representations of the falcon, in various poses. They gathered up the pieces, packed each of the six separately to the extent they were able, took them out to the lander, and stowed them in the cargo hold.

The snow had stopped and by late morning the last clouds cleared away. The environment was now suitable, MacAllister judged, for the interview.

Wetheral had loaded several pieces of the doll-like furniture, a couple of cabinets, a chair, and a table into the cargo section. Everything was badly decomposed, but that didn’t really matter. TransGalactic could process the stuff easily enough and make them look as if they were antiques in exquisitely restored condition. The details wouldn’t matter as long as some part of the original remained.

Wetheral had even made off with a javelin. It had an iron tip, and MacAllister wondered whether it had ever actually been used in combat. He tried to visualize hawks in trousers flying about trying to stab each other with these pea-stickers. The only thing more absurd than someone else’s civilization, he thought, is someone else’s religious views.

Casey had brought a couple of folding chairs along and had planned to sit out in the open with him while they talked, with the tower as a backdrop. Or possibly even sit inside the tower.

“The atmosphere’s all wrong for any of that,” he told her. “We don’t want to be outside. Either in the building or in the snow.”

“Why not?”

“It looks cold, Casey.”

“What does the audience care?”

“If we look cold, your audience will not get caught up in the conversation.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m quite serious.”

“But they’ll know we’re inside e-suits.”

“What do they know about e-suits? Only what they see in the sims. They’ll see the snow; they’ll see you and me sitting there in shirtsleeves. They won’t see the e-suit. It doesn’t look cozy.”

“I want cozy?”

“Absolutely.”

She sighed. “All right. So what do we do? Sit in the lander?”

“Correct. Roughing it, but not too rough.”

She gave him a tolerant smile, and he knew what she was thinking. They were too far from the tower. In fact, the tower was partially hidden behind the other spacecraft. “I’ll get Wetheral to move us closer.”

“I’ve a better idea,” said MacAllister. Two of the women, Hutchins and Toni What’s-Her-Name, were carrying a table out to their spacecraft. He studied Hutchins and realized that her problem was that she had no sense of humor. She was certainly not the sort of woman one would want to have around on a long-term basis. Took herself far too seriously, and seemed utterly unaware that she was a lightweight.

The table was big, and they were struggling. He excused himself, got down out of the vehicle, walked over and magnanimously asked if he could help. Hutchins glanced suspiciously at him. “Yes,” she said finally. “If you’d like.”

It was a rectangular table, so old it was impossible to be sure what the original composition material might have been. It was large, considering the scale of the other furniture, and probably would have seated twelve of the natives. A decorative geometry that might have represented leaves and flowers was carved into its sides.

Casey joined the party and lent a hand.

The cargo section was so full there was a question whether it would fit, but after some rearranging they got it in.

“Thanks,” Hutchins said. “That turned out to be heavier than it looked.”

“Glad to help.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Was there something you wanted to ask me?”

Not a complete dummy, he decided. “As a matter of fact, I could use your assistance. Casey and I are going to record an interview. I was wondering if you’d allow us the use of your lander.”

“In what way?” She looked at him, looked at the cargo bay loaded with artifacts, and showed him she didn’t much approve. “What did you have in mind?”

“Just sit in it and talk. It’s warm and out of the snow, but we still get the atmosphere of the dig. And a perfect view of the tower.”

“You can’t close it up,” she said.

He guessed that she meant they could not seal off the cabin and repressurize it. “We don’t need to. The audience won’t know the difference.”

She shrugged. “You can have an hour. After that we’ll need it back.”

“That’s good. Thank you very much.”

She turned away. Ridiculous woman.

They climbed into the cabin, and Casey removed her link, tied a microscan into it, put it on a tray, and aimed it at her subject. She set up two more in strategic locations.

There were artifacts in the rear of the cabin, which would provide additional atmosphere. MacAllister placed himself so that a weapons rack was behind him, and the tower was visible through his window. Casey was moving things out of the way in order to get shots from different angles.

Something large and dark rose out of the trees to the west, flapped in a large uncertain circle, and descended again. Clumsy creature, whatever it was. Yes, he thought, let’s have Armageddon for this cold world and all its living freight.

Hutch had turned away from MacAllister and was standing at the tower entrance talking to Nightingale when Chiang came on the circuit. “Hutch,” he said, “we might have something else.”

“What?” she asked. “What is it?”

“Looks like an inscription. It’s in pieces, but it’s writing of a sort. We’ve also broken through into an open corridor.”

“Where are you?”

“Back of the library.”

“I’m on my way.”

She descended staircases and entered the tunnels, crossed the armory, and kept going until she saw lights. Toni and Chiang were examining a wall covered with symbols.

Toni looked up, waved, and moved off to one side to provide Hutch a clear view. The wall had partially collapsed, and several large pieces lay on the ground. But it was covered with lines of engraved characters, almost all quite legible.

“Lovely,” said Hutch.

They were not pictographs, and there was a limited number of individual symbols, suggesting she was indeed looking at an alphabet. Furthermore, the text was divided into sections.

Paragraphs.

There was an ethereal quality about the script. It reminded her of Arabic, with its curves and flow. “You’ve got pictures?” she asked.

Toni patted her microscan. “Everything.”

Several sections of the script, at the top, were more prominent than the text that followed. “They might be names,” suggested Chiang.

“Maybe. It could be a commemorative of some sort. Heroes. Here’s who they were, and there’s what they did.”

“You really think so?” asked Toni.

“Who knows?” said Hutch. “It could be anything.”

The beam from Toni’s torch fell on a shard, a piece of pottery. “We really need time to excavate,” Hutch said. And to move out into the city, to find the kinds of tools these people used, to unearth their houses, dig up more icons. Maybe get the answers to such basic questions as whether they used beasts of burden, how long their life spans were, what kind of gods they worshiped. “Okay,” she continued. “Let’s get this stuff upstairs, then we’ll come back and see what else we’ve got.”

They cut the central section out of the wall. Chiang tried to move it, but it was too heavy to handle in the confined quarters. “Let it be for now,” said Hutch. “We’ll figure it out later.”

He nodded, picked up a couple of the fragments, and headed back. Toni collected two more, leaving Hutch to try to gather together the smaller pieces.

Nightingale stood in the tower entry and tried to turn his mind to other things. He couldn’t help glancing up every few minutes at the Wildside cabin, where MacAllister sat in his officious manner, gesturing and making pronouncements. Suddenly, the great man turned in his seat and looked directly at him. He got up, moved through the cabin, climbed down onto the ground, and started in his direction. Nightingale braced himself for a fight.

“Nightingale,” he said as soon as he’d gotten close, “I wonder if I could ask a favor?”

Nightingale glared at him. “What do you want?”

“We’re going to be using this whole area as a background. Could I persuade you to stay out of sight? It works better if there’s a complete sense of desolation.”

Casey snapped the recorder back on, smiled nervously at him, and resumed the interview: “In a week, Mr. MacAllister, Deepsix won’t even exist anymore. It’s cold and bleak, and that stone tower behind you is apparently the only building in this entire world. What brings you to this forlorn place?”

“Morbid curiosity, Casey.”

“No, seriously.”

“I’m never anything but serious. Why else would anybody come here? I’d be the last one to want to sound morose, but loss is the one constant we all have to deal with. It’s the price of living. We lose parents, friends, relatives. We lose the place we grew up in, and we lose the whole circle of our acquaintances. We spend ungodly amounts of time wondering whatever happened to former teachers and lovers and scoutmasters.

“Here, we’re losing a world. It’s an event absolutely unique in human experience. An entire planet, which we now know has harbored intelligence of a sort and which still serves as a refuge for life, is going to end. Completely and finally. After these next few days, there will exist nothing of it other than what we can carry off.”

She nodded, telling him what he already knew, that this was good stuff. “You had an opportunity,” she said, “to tour the tower earlier today. What were your impressions? What about it did you find significant?”

MacAllister glanced meaningfully toward the structure. “We know that whoever built it left a telescope behind, as if to say to us, we also wanted the stars.

“But they’re lost, Casey. They probably had their own versions of Homer and Moses, Jesus and Shakespeare, Newton and Quirt. We saw the blowguns, and we know they built walls around their cities, so we can assume they fought wars. They must have had their Alexandrian campaigns, their Napoleon and Nelson, their civil wars. Now, everything they ever cared about is to be lost forever. That’s a disaster of quintessential proportions. And I think it’s worth coming to see. Don’t you?”

“I suppose you’re right, Mr. MacAllister. Do you think anything like this could happen to us?”

He laughed. “I’d like to think so.”

“Surely you’re joking.”

“I’d be pleased to believe that when the time comes for us to make our exit, we will do so as gracefully as the inhabitants of this world. I mean, the blowguns tell us all we need to know about them. They were undoubtedly every bit as perfidious, conniving, hypocritical, and ignorant as our own brothers and sisters. But it’s all covered up. The disaster gives them dignity they did not otherwise earn. Everybody looks good at his funeral.

“We’re not even sure what they looked like. Consequently, we’ll remember them with a kind of halo shining over their ears. People will speak of the Maleivans in hushed voices, and with great respect. I predict that some fool in Congress or in the Council will want to erect a monument in their honor. When in fact the only thing we can be sure they achieved was that they made it to oblivion without getting caught in the act.”

During the course of his life, Nightingale couldn’t recall having ever hated anyone. Other than MacAllister. In the moment that the editor had asked Nightingale to step inside the tower, he had searched his mind for the correct riposte, the cutting remark that would slice this walking pomposity into his component parts.

But nothing had come to mind. You buffoon, he might have said, and MacAllister would have flicked him away. Windbag. Poseur.

The pilot of the Star lander walked past him with another pile of sticks. “Chair,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Hutch said I could have it.”

“Okay.”

In the end he had meekly complied with the request and stood away from the scan’s line of sight. But he really couldn’t do his job properly, stowed inside the tower, couldn’t see everything he needed to, especially couldn’t see the strip of trees from which the biped cat had emerged. So he came out every few minutes, in a small act of defiance, walked about for a bit, and then retired back inside.

He was following the conversations in the tunnels. Toni, hauling chunks of inscribed stone to the surface, announced that she’d found a coin. “What kind?” Nightingale asked, excited. “What’s on it?”

He was standing outside watching the trees. Watching Wetheral.

“Just a minute,” she said.

And while he waited, the ground moved.

It rolled beneath him. MacAllister and the woman in the lander stopped talking and turned to stare at him. Wetheral paused midway between the tower and his own spacecraft and stood with the chair held absurdly over his head.

The earth shrugged and threw Nightingale flat into the snow. He heard frightened cries on the allcom, watched the Wildside lander begin to lean over on one tread until the tread collapsed. The earth shook again, briefly. The ground and the sky seemed to be waiting. More was coming; he knew damned well more was coming.

He thought about retreating into the tower. But that would be stupid. Why put rocks over his head? Instead he moved out away from it, but had gone only a few steps when another shock hit. Big one this time. He went down again. A ripple ran across the landscape. The snow broke apart under Wetheral’s feet. The pilot tried to run, absurdly still holding the chair. The ground ripped open and he fell in. Disappeared. His lander tilted, and it, too, slid into the hole.

All this was accomplished in an eerie silence. If Wetheral had protested, screamed, called for help, he’d been off-channel. Now a roar broke over Nightingale’s ears, like an ocean crashing into a rocky headland, and the world continued to tremble. The earth shook and quieted. And shook again. An enormous stone block slammed into the snow a few meters away. He looked up, saw that it had broken off the roof, saw also that the tower had begun to lean to one side.

The hole into which Wetheral and his lander had fallen widened. Gaped. It was becoming a chasm.

MacAllister was sitting in the Wildside lander staring at him, or maybe at the tower, with his eyes wide. Now, thought Nightingale with a sense of grim satisfaction, let’s see how it goes with you.

Marcel came on the link and was demanding to know what was happening. Chiang reported collapsing walls. A cloud of dust rolled out of the tower. Hutch was on the allcom telling everyone to get outside.

Kellie, who’d been on the upper level, climbed through a window, saw him, and dropped to the ground. It was a long fall but she seemed unhurt. “Did they come up yet?” she asked.

Hutch was still on the link, saying something. He needed a moment to make it out.

“Randy, you there?”

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m with Kellie.” Just then Chiang staggered out through the entrance.

“Over here,” Kellie told him.

Nightingale caught a glimpse of their lander. It had taken off, was in the air, trying to get away from the quake. “MacAllister’s stealing the lander,” he said.

“Talk to me later. Where’s Toni?”

“Don’t know. Still inside.”

“How about Chiang?”

“Chiang’s here. He’s with us.”

“Toni?” said Hutch.

Nothing.

“Toni!”

Still no answer.

“Isn’t she below with you?” Chiang asked her.

“She was headed topside.”

Nightingale was knocked down again at the same moment that he heard a distant explosion.

Hutch was still calling Toni’s name.

As she moved through the tunnel with her artifacts, Toni was acutely aware of the considerable weight of rock, dirt, and ice overhead. Given her choice, she’d have taken permanent guard duty, preferably at the top of the tower.

She was on her hands and knees, the slabs slung in a pack around her shoulders, thinking about Scolari. He was alone in Wildside with Embry. She had no reason to be jealous, but she felt a stab anyhow. It was hard to imagine that they had not been together these last couple of nights.

She was trying to decide how much responsibility Hutch bore for her loss when the quake came.

The floor shook. Dust rained down on her, the room sagged, and a crossbeam crashed down directly in front of her. The room continued to tremble, and she threw herself flat out and put her hands over her head. Her lamp went out. She tried crawling past the fallen beam but the room kept moving, tilting, and then a terrible grinding began above her. The overhead grated and rasped and screeched. Something cracked, loud and hard, like a tree broken in two. Or a backbone.

A weight fell on her, driving the air from her lungs, pinning her to the floor. A darkness, deeper and blacker than that in the chamber, rushed through her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t call anyone.

Somewhere, she heard a voice. Hutch’s, she thought, but she couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Her last thought was that all her plans, her new career, Scolari, her return home, the child she hoped one day to bear, none of it was going to happen.

She wasn’t even going to get off this goddam world.

Hutch was crawling through the dark when Nightingale came on the circuit. “I think we’ve got some bad news out here,” he said.

“What?” she asked, bracing herself.

MacAllister watched with horror as first Wetheral and then the Star spacecraft disappeared into the chasm that had opened, that was still opening, like a vast pair of jaws. Wetheral had frozen, not knowing which way to run, had slipped and gone to his knees, and the crevice had come after him like a tiger after a deer while he futilely jabbed that pathetic pile of sticks at it as if to fend it off. He was still jabbing, falling backward, when it took him and, in quick succession, took the lander.

Their own vehicle was shaking itself to pieces. He looked at Casey, and her eyes were wide with fear.

The ground beside them broke open, and the lander began to sink. The hatch, which was not shut, swung wide, and MacAllister stared down into a chasm.

Got to get out. They would die if they stayed where they were. But the only exit was through the hatch, which hung out over the hole.

He searched for something he could use to knock out a window. Casey read his mind and shook her head. “They’re not breakable,” she cried.

A door in the rear of the cabin led through to the cargo locker, but he’d never fit. The angle kept getting more pronounced. They were sliding into the chasm. MacAllister leaned hard to his right, in the opposite direction, pushed against his chair arm, as if that might slow the process.

“My God, Casey.” His voice squeaked. “Get us out of here.”

“Me?’ Her face was pale. “What do you expect me to do?”

“You said you could fly these damned things.”

“I said I had some experience with landers. This is a bus.”

“Do it. Try it, for God’s sake, or—”

She got up and climbed into the pilot’s seat, taking care not to look toward the hatch.

“Use the autopilot,” MacAllister urged. “Just tell it to take off.”

“It doesn’t know who I am,” she said. “It has to be reset to respond to me.”

“Then reset it.”

They were sliding.

“That takes time.” She blurted the words.

“Casey—”

“I know. Don’t you think I know?” She was bent over the control board.

He was pushing hard, trying to get as far as he could from the airlock. “Do something!”

“I have to figure out how to disengage the autopilot.”

“Maybe it’s that thing over there.” He pointed to a yellow switch.

“This is going to go a whole lot better if you don’t talk too much just now. I’ll...” She pressed a stud, apparently having found what she was looking for.

MacAllister heard a few electronic bleeps, then the soft rumble of power somewhere beneath the seat. The restraints locked him down, and he gripped the chair arms and closed his eyes.

The seat lifted, and the spacecraft seemed to begin righting itself. Locked behind squeezed-shut eyelids, he couldn’t be sure what was happening and was afraid to look. He was regretting the stupidity that had brought him down to this despicable place. His life for a pile of rubble.

Gravity flowed away, and the lander began to rise. “Good, Casey,” he said, speaking from his long experience that one should encourage people when they’re doing what you desperately want them to do. As if she might otherwise crash the spacecraft.

He slowly opened his eyes. She was moving a yoke, pulling it back, slowly, cautiously, and he saw that she was every bit as terrified as he was. The ground was several meters below, dropping away. Thank God.

They rose over the crevice. It appeared still to be widening. Great mounds of earth and snow were crashing into it.

The vehicle dipped suddenly, and Casey fought for control.

“You’re doing fine,” MacAllister pleaded. “Beautiful.”

“Please shut up,” she snapped.

He wished she sounded more confident. He wished she would head for the north, where there was plenty of space, worlds of space, of quiet flat plain, and just set it down. It seemed easy enough. She’d already done the hard part. Yet she continued to wrestle with the yoke and the engine made odd noises and they spurted across the sky and then she slowed them down and a sudden wind hammered at them.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

The vehicle lurched. Dropped. Soared. “The spike,” she said through clenched teeth. “It’s different from the system I trained on.”

“Just take your time.”

“Need to use the thrusters,” she said.

“Can you do it?”

“If I can figure out how to aim them.”

MacAllister caught a glimpse of Nightingale kneeling in the snow, watching. Lucky bastard, he thought. Luck of the draw. The crevice opens under us instead of under him. In the end, survival goes not to the fit, but to the fortunate. It explains a lot about the way Darwin really works.

At that moment the thrusters roared on. The seat came up and hit MacAllister in the rear. The ground blurred beneath him, and Casey yelped and began frantically doing things to the console. He decided that his Darwinian thought would be his last, and composed himself for the inevitable. Dead in a spacecraft accident on a distant world. But not in the canyon, at least. Not buried.

They raced over the ground toward a line of hills in the northwest, and it occurred to him that they would not be able to take him back for proper disposal. Because the madwoman at the controls was about to wreck the lander. And nobody was going to volunteer to come down from orbit to pick up the pieces.

The spacecraft was trying to turn over, and it didn’t look as if Casey had any idea what she was doing. The roar of the thrusters filled the cabin and then suddenly the thunder was gone. She must have found the cutoff switch and she’d now be looking for whatever constituted the brakes.

The hills were coming up fast, and the only sounds were the wind whipping over the fuselage and the frantic pleas of his pilot.

“Come on, you son of a bitch.”

She yanked back on the yoke. The slopes rolled beneath them. Beyond the land flattened. The spacecraft, having apparently spent all forward energy, and having somehow lost the levitating power of the spike, began to fall.

“Damn,” said Casey.

MacAllister squeezed the arms of his chair, and they slammed into the ground. The impact jarred his neck, snapped his head back, twisted his spine. But the damned thing hadn’t blown up. Casey slumped in her harness. He started to release his restraints, heard an explosion in back and smelled smoke.

He climbed out of his seat and noted that they’d never closed the hatch. Just as well. Save him the trouble of opening it.

The seats were crushed together, and he had to struggle to get to Casey. She was covered with blood, and her head lolled back. A massive bruise was forming on her jaw, and her eyes had rolled up into her head. Another blast rocked the lander. Flames began to lick up around the windows.

He released her from her harness and backed out through the airlock, half carrying, half dragging her. They were just clear when it erupted into a fireball.

Nightingale watched the thick pall of smoke rising from behind the cluster of hills to the northwest. He wasn’t aware of the true significance of the last minute until he heard Kellie’s voice on the circuit.

“Marcel,” she said, “I think we just lost both landers.”