Iris

important to be decided that way.' There was a look of desperation on her face. 'I don't think you people understand the magnitude of what you're suggesting. If you try to pull something that size out of the ice, you're going to chew up an entire quadrant . . . you'll ruin the whole moon!' She looked at their faces separately, seeking some form of recognition. 'Don't you realize you'll be destroying something that's as important to the physical sciences as these putative 'aliens' are to biology?'

Sealock reached up and began plugging leads into his head. 'Jana—I don't know what you're really after, but that's the stupidest argument I've ever heard.'

Hu's anxious expression turned to a harsh glare. 'Asshole,' she said. 'I suppose if this were the ruins of Troy you'd want to blow it up to see what's underneath. I'm arguing that we go about this in an ordered way, do a full reconnaissance down to meter resolution before we dig it out.' Methol rested an intended calming hand on her forearm. 'Jana. I think your principles are fine. But in this situation they're simply inappropriate. The finding of this Artifact could be the most important thing that's ever happened. We have to get it out of there.'

'And just how much of it do you think USEC will leave for us?' asked Sealock.

'I still think we should put it to a vote,' said Krzakwa .

'No!'

'Bullshit,' said Sealock. 'Why go on with this? We're ready now.' They felt the hull begin to purr as the Magnaflux generator came to life, its wings of force acting like control moment gyros to turn the ship around its center of gravity. Slowly Polaris swung about, pointing its grid toward Aello. Brendanhad an exterior view, with a superimposed reticle imprinted on his vision, and he locked the ACS avionics on the targeted area of the small moon.

Hu screamed, a tortured sound, deafening in the enclosed space, and launched herself at the man. Sealock caught her by the wrists and hurled her back down, where Methol tried to hold her in place. Krzakwa wedged his bulk between the seats, blocking entry to the upper half of the CM, simultaneously reaching up and affixing an induction lead to the back of his head, so his visual cortex could have access to the ship's optical system. This was something he wanted to see. 'Ariane?'

'It's OK. Pass me a lead.'

The twin H2/O2engines started with a muted roar, accelerating them toward the moon. When the ion drive came on they would be in perfect balance, thrusting in two opposing vectors that would cancel each other out.

'Jana?'

'God damn you all. No.'

Sealock lined up his sights on the Artifact and lit off the drill.

Singing, high on the wire, the god stood athwart a velvet-dark sky, dust-mote stars swirling around the massive spires of his huge legs. A sparkle of fire raged through his golden hair and in his right hand he clutched a thunderbolt. The thing writhed in his grasp like a glowing snake, a living thing surrounded by a violet nimbus. He raised it high above his head, laughing in his awesome power, a peal of thunder that trailed off into the distance. His body began to throw off radiance, a bright corona that lit the skies all around with its lambent streamers. He cast the thunderbolt down on his little victim. It elongated from his hand, a broad band of coruscating fire, a maze of intertwining beams, and struck the surface of Aello all about the Artifact. There was an instant of dead stillness in which the ice seemed to grow transparent. In the slowed time of Comnet they could see the ship hanging there, nose down into the surface of a world, then the crust ofthe moon, the entire visible hemisphere, was riven by an array of cracks. There was an explosion.

Aello was suddenly hidden by an expanding disk of blinding white mist, a shield that swallowed the power of the ion drill. It swelled until the wave front struck Polaris, rolling it out of its orbit. The beam winked out as Sealock shifted his attention to the matter of recontrol.

He became the bird-king again, soaring on his broad wings in the winds of the storm, riding it out, waiting for the skies to clear. It was soon over. The debris from what they'd wrought fled away in an expanding, glittery shell and was gone. They could see Aello again.

The little moon was eaten away, a great bite taken out of its surface, leaving a raw, gaping, steamy wound, the rest of its cryolith completely disrupted. In the center of this cavity the Artifact lay exposed, tumbling as it sank gently toward the center of its ancient home. It shone in the wan, distant sunlight, not like an ancient machine but like something fresh and new. Magical.

Looking out through the ship's eyes, Temujin Krzakwa was silent. What they'd done was beyond simple blasphemy. He knew of no words possessing sufficient power.

Brendan Sealock sighed, feeling his muscles slowly relax, his mind awash in a gentle afterglow, his heart slowing from its mad, orgasmic beat. A man didn't get to blow up many planets in his lifetime. Ariane Methol said, 'Well, now. That was interesting. Let's get down there and see what we've found.'

Jana Li Hu said nothing.

The alien Artifact settled faster than it should have in the negligible gravity of Aello. Perhaps this was because