Iris

'Then we die in the dark,' said Hu.

Krzakwagrinned. 'Imagine how that'll confuse the next people who manage to get in here.' Sealock turned and stared at them. 'There must,' he said, 'be some evolutionary advantage to being an asshole. Let's go.' He turned and strode in the direction of the machine that somehow he knew was used to launch 'people' to the door nodes on the far side when the central cavity was evacuated. It was very dark now, and he activated a microwave emitter and played it over the corridor in front of them. Finally they reached the place, which looked just like the dais upon which they had first landed. Holding his breath in suspense, he stepped onto the circular spot and jumped for the other side. Miraculously, it worked. Brendan found himself reversing the long ballistic arc between sides. Apparently Aello's gravity was being compensated for, and he landed, hands first, on the gently cradling game board opposite. The others followed, landing in their own peculiar ways. Looking'up' at the dying world below, Krzakwa said, 'Good thing the field still works.'

'Let's get the fuck out of here, if we still can.' Sealock stood on the node and cranked up his friction coefficient. The door irised open and he was accelerated through.

They left.

Back in Polaris, on the ventral surface of the now dead-seeming alien craft, not far from an airlock door which had failed to shut properly, they sat around suitless and had a meal, mostly in silence. Krzakwa, tidier than usual and perhaps more subdued, put aside his sandwich with a gusty sigh. He tugged softly on his beard and said, 'All right, what have we seen? We might as well face this now.'

'Obviously,' said Hu, 'a landing craft.'

'We all saw the mother ship in the playback. Given the generally sealike nature of that scene, I think it's safe to say that this Artifact housed some sort of aquarium . . . maybe a whole ecology. And the purpose of it all was to cart this marine ecology down to the surface of a planet.'

'Do you believe all that?' asked Ariane.

Brendan paused. 'I—I don't know what I believe.'

'Could this larger ship be embedded in Ocypete ?' asked Krzakwa . 'Or is this some sort of abandoned lifeboat, left behind by its mother?'

Jana said, 'Something that large would have shown up even in the low-res gravitational survey. This ship just happened to be overlooked because the large empty cavity perfectly camouflaged the mass of the shell.'

'Is there a chance that it's—' said Ariane.

'I'm afraid you're on a wild goose chase,' said Jana. 'It's not here. Now that we've done a preliminary reconnaissance in the Artifact, I feel we should write up a quick resume and transmit it to the authorities. Then we should go back in.'

There was a moment of stunned silence.

'What?' growled Krzakwa . 'You want to go back in there?'

'Sure,' said Hu. 'Why not?'

'I don't know about you, Jana,' said Methol, 'but it's too dangerous in there for me. I'm afraid.'

'What are you going to do—just go back to Ocypete ?' asked Jana, anger rising in her voice.

'That's what I had in mind,' said Brendan.

Jana began to struggle in the cramped quarters, trying to get back into her suit. 'I'm staying here. There's no point in coming here and then just leaving. I'm not going to share this with the USEC people.' She began to push her way into the worksuit.

Tem grabbed her and pulled her out, like the meat from a crab's claw. 'You are crazy, lady.' He held her in a crushing bear hug, and eventually she stopped wriggling.

'Hey, Tem,' said Sealock. 'When we get home, want to help me build a quantum conversion scanner?'

The Selenite's eyes seemed to light up. 'You've got the components?'

'We can make what we don't have.'

'Let's go.' Brendan relaxed into his command chair and began to plug in. They would make a quick transit home.