Iris

They crept along at a slug's pace, supplies dwindling. Sea-lock and Krzakwa seemed to eat continuously.

They were nearly to the center of the eye now and could see that both the surface of the regolith and the underlying ice were darkening. Krzakwa pointed out that the meteoric impacts, few though they may have been, acted to redistribute material evenly across the terrain, resulting in a dark water ice deposited atop the neon in a microthin layer. Though the vast majority of the regolith had originated in larger impacts outside the ocellus, the smaller, more recent impacts nearby controlled the appearance of the surface.

Sealock was driving, with Tem at his side and Prynne crammed into the narrow space behind the seats. This turnedout to be his usual station: Sealock would consent to crouch there on occasion, but Krzakwa was simply too fat. Really, it wasn't that bad—with both legs slung over the passenger seat, his feet on Tem's shoulder, Harmon could lie back on a pillow and look out the rear window in fair comfort. They all had on pressure suits, using them as constant-wear garments for lack of room to take them off. Finally, there was something. A pair of dead hydraulic volcanoes, looking like half-melted, monochromatic sundaes, stood before them, a large rille snaking between the two cones. It was almost impossible to gauge their size, with nothing for comparison, but they looked large. The ice had taken on a marbled, irregular texture, veined with ripples of dirtier material, and they had to slow down further because of irregularities in the surface. Sealock stopped the car. 'OK,' he said. 'Let's go sacrifice a virgin to the gods.'

'I think it may be a little hard to find a virgin in these parts.'

'Nearest one's probably somewhere near Uranus,' said Prynne. 'Pretty long drive.' Tem turned to gaze in amusement at the man. Some people, he told himself, are less than aware of their own words. . . . 'Right. Scratch that idea. Let's go look anyway.' It was something of a letdown. The low gravity gave the lie to even a fairly steep slope, made it seem flatter than it really was. The fact that the darkest ices had probably been spewed up made it seem a little more impressive, but only if they thought about it first. The summit pit on one did have an open channel reaching who knew how far down, but no one wanted to jump in and find out. Tired from leaping around, they went back to the car and got in.

The craters to be found on the ocellus were usually irregular, shallow depressions, but suddenly the car was skirting the rim of a great hole more than a hundred meters across. It was new enough so that the edges were sharp and the shape was a distinct bowl. It was easy to see the layering of successively darker materials that had formed the central planitia , and in the distance bright rays could be made out where they mantled the bed-ice. At the bottom there was a pool of nowfrozen meltwater. This ice was translucent, smooth as new glass, and looked very much like the frozen surface of a terrestrial lake. Sealock gazed at it silently, slowing down and steering the car around the rim. He tried to look at the layering, to examine it in a detached, scientific fashion, but his eyes kept drifting back to that big patch of clear ice. There was something about the smooth, glassy surface that tickled his memory and he wished for 'net access. What was it? He tried to remember on his own, and at last succeeded. He'd been sitting in his room at NYU one day, more than ten years ago, and had fallen into the grip of an unbreakable boredom. In desperation he'd hooked up to the CoNY Entertainment 'net and tapped a cast of the well-known epic fantasy series 'Nineteen Sixty-six'—by luck, it had been the last episode, so the whole two hundred hours was available at one time. He watched, enthralled, pausing for sleep only when he could put it off no longer.

It detailed a grand year of adventure for four young men, crossing the vast expanses of the once open and free continent of North America. The men had had long, shaggy hair, unshaven faces . . . they'd worn fantastic dirty costumes and spoken in a rich, almost incomprehensible dialect that had a romantic appeal to modern ears.

There was one specific thing he was trying to remember, something they'd done during one of the riotous winter scenes. Dammit, that episode was legendary . . . they'd had a car very much like this one—just a bit bigger, and with some kind of fold-back roof. They ... It came back to him suddenly, and he acted.

As the car lurched to one side, Tem looked over at Sealock and saw that a sudden change had come over the man's features. Brendan was hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it hard in gloved hands. His lids were narrowed, green eyes glittering with what looked like . . . Krzakwa fished for a good phrase and the expression 'psychotic glee' came to him in response. The rim rushed at them, and Tem wondered, What is he going to do? in dismay.

Prynne cried out suddenly, a squeal of rage and horror, as

Sealock ran 60vet over the edge, yet the wheels somehow managed to stay in contact with the ice as they fell onto the 45-degree slope. Accelerating rapidly, they shot out onto the clear ice and Brendan slammed the wheels into a hard-over position. The car whirled sickeningly through a series of complete turns, sliding forward as it spun, then they hit a small ridge and were launched on a low, whirling trajectory. Sealock, deep in the clutches of the fantasy, screamed, 'Far fuckin' out!' They landed tail first and the rear wheels grabbed the ice, pulling the nose down with a jolt. Tem found himself unable to imagine how they were staying upright as they went into another series of vertiginous spins. Sealock was giggling like a child and Prynne, buffeted helplessly in the back, was cursing angrily. Krzakwa held on, shut his eyes, and waited for the end to come. When it was through, he looked out into the spinning stillness and said, 'OK, asshole. How do we get it out of here now?' Sealock's eyes were still bright. 'Why, we carry it up, of course!'

Demogorgon and Vana Berenguer were sitting in the garden of the CM dome, sprawled naked in lawn chairs and doing nothing, which was coming to be their usual activity. The CM itself had been somewhat modified and, in this setting, it looked rather like an avant-garde cottage. The platform that surrounded its base had been covered with a layer of soil in which shrubbery would soon sprout. Floodlights, intended for the good of the plants, felt warm and prickly on their skins, projecting shadows that easily overcame those from the sun.

Vana slid her hand down over her vulva and squeezed, hard, then snarled, 'I'm fucking bored!' The Arab looked at her and smiled. 'Really, dear? And just how bored is that?' She peered over at him and said, 'I don't suppose you'd like to . . .'

'I have a much better notion.' He grinned and stretchedlanguorously. 'Would you like to visit the Illimitor World with me? It's been ready for some time now.'