steady pinging. It grew louder the nearer they came to the source of the electromagnetic distur bance, but he refused to turn down the volume. Each ping was a melody unto itself, like the chatter of oldtime cash registers. His wife monitored the tractor's condition and the life-support systems while her husband drove.
'Look at this fat, juicy, magnetic profile.' Jorden tapped the small readout on his right. 'And it's mine, mine, mine Lydecker says that Simpson said so, and we've got it recorded They can't take that away from us now. Not even the Company can take it away from us. Mine, all mine.'
'Half mine, dear.' His wife glanced over at him and smiled.
'And half mine!' This cheerful desecration of basic mathematics came from Newt, the Jorden's daughter. She was six years old going on ten, and she had more energy than both her parents and the tractor combined. Her father grinned affectionately without taking his eyes from the driver's console.
'I got too many partners.'
The girl had been playing with her older brother until she'd finally worn him out. 'Tim's bored, Daddy, and so am I. When are we going back to town?'
'When we get rich, Newt.'
'You always say that.' She scrambled onto her feet, as agile as an otter. 'I wanna go back. I wanna play Monster Maze.'
Her brother stuck his face into hers. 'You can play by yourself this time. You cheat too much.'
'Do not!' She put small fists on unformed hips. 'I'm just the best, and you're jealous.'
'Am not! You go in places we can't fit.'
'So? That's why I'm the best.'
Their mother spared a moment to glance over from her bank of monitors and readouts. 'Knock it off. I catch either of you two playing in the air ducts again, I'll tan your hides. Not only is it against colony regulations, it's dangerous. What if one of you missed a step and fell down a vertical shaft?'
'Aw, Mom. Nobody's dumb enough to do that. Besides, all the kids play it, and nobody's been hurt yet. We're careful.' Her smile returned. 'An' I'm the best 'cause I can fit places nobody else can.'
'Like a little worm.' Her brother stuck his tongue out at her.
She duplicated the gesture. 'Nyah, nyah! Jealous, jealous. He made a grab for her protruding tongue. She let out a childish shriek and ducked behind a mobile ore analyzer.
'Look, you two.' There was more affection than anger in Anne Jorden's tone. 'Let's try to calm down for two minutes okay? We're almost finished up here. We'll head back toward town soon and—'
Russ Jorden had half risen from his seat to stare through the windshield. Childish confrontations temporarily put aside, his wife joined him.
'What is it, Russ?' She put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as the tractor lurched leftward.
'There's something out there. Clouds parted for just a second, and I saw it. I don't know what it is, but it's big. And it's ours. Yours and mine — and the kids'.'
The alien spacecraft dwarfed the tractor as the big six-wheeler trundled to a halt nearby. Twin arches of metallic glass swept skyward in graceful, but somehow disturbing curves from the stern of the derelict. From a distance they resembled the reaching arms of a prone dead man, locked in advanced rigor mortis. One was shorter than the other, and yet this failed to ruin the symmetry of the ship.
The design was as alien as the composition. It might have been grown instead of built. The slick bulge of the hull stil exhibited a peculiar vitreous luster that the wind-borne grit of Acheron had not completely obliterated.
Jorden locked the tractor's brakes. 'Folks, we have scored big this time. Anne, break out the suits. I wonder if the Hadley Cafe can synthesize champagne?'
His wife stood where she was, staring out through the tough glass. 'Let's check it out and get back safely before we start celebrating, Russ. Maybe we're not the first to find it.'
'Are you kidding? There's no beacon on this whole plateau There's no marker outside. Nobody's been here before us Nobody! She's all ours.' He was heading toward the rear of the cabin as he talked.
Anne still sounded doubtful. 'Hard to believe that anything that big, putting out that kind of resonance, could have sat here for this long without being noticed.'
'Bull.' Jorden was already climbing into his environment suit flipping catches without hunting for them, closing seal-tights with the ease of long practice. 'You worry too much. I can think of plenty of reasons why it's escaped notice until now.'
'For instance?' Reluctantly she turned from the window and moved to join him in donning her own suit.
'For instance, it's blocked off from the colony's detectors by these mountains, and you know that surveillance satellites are useless in this kind of atmosphere.'
'What about infrared?' She zipped up the front of her suit.
'What infrared? Look at it: dead as a doornail. Probably been sitting here just like that for thousands of years. Even if it got here yesterday, you couldn't pick up any infrared on this part of the planet; new air coming out of the atmosphere processor is too hot.'
'So then how did Operations hit on it?' She was slipping on her equipment, filling up the instrument belt.
He shrugged. 'How the heck should I know? If it's bugging you, you can winkle it out of Lydecker when we get back. The important thing is that we're the ones they picked to check it out. We lucked out.' He turned toward the airlock door 'C'mon, babe. Let's crack the treasure chest. I'll bet that baby's insides are just crammed with valuable stuff.'
Equally enthusiastic but considerably more self-possessed Anne Jorden tightened the seals on her own suit. Husband and wife checked each other out: oxygen, tools, lights, energy cells all in place. When they were ready to leave the tractor, she popped her wind visor and favoured her offspring with a stern gaze.
'You kids stay inside. I mean it.'
'Aw, Mom.' Tim's expression was full of childish disappointment. 'Can't I come too?'
'No, you cannot come too. We'll tell you all about it when we get back.' She closed the airlock door behind her.
Tim immediately ran to the nearest port and pressed his nose against the glass. Outside the tractor, the twilight landscape was illuminated by the helmet beams of his parents.
'I dunno why I can't go too.'
'Because Mommy said so.' Newt was considering what to play next as she pressed her own face against another window. The lights from her parents' helmets grew dim as they advanced toward the strange ship.
Something grabbed her from behind. She squealed and turned to confront her brother.
'Cheater!' he jeered. Then he turned and ran for a place to hide. She followed, yelling back at him.
The bulk of the alien vessel loomed over the two bipeds as they climbed the broken rubble that surrounded it. Wind howled around them. Dust obscured the sun.
'Shouldn't we call in?' Anne stared at the smooth-sided mass.
'Let's wait till we know what to call it in as.' Her husband kicked a chunk of volcanic rock out of his path.
'How about 'big weird thing'?'
Russ Jorden turned to face her, surprise showing on his face behind the visor. 'Hey, what's the matter, honey? Nervous?'
'We're preparing to enter a derelict alien vessel of unknown type. You bet I'm nervous.'
He clapped her on the back. 'Just think of all that beautiful money. The ship alone's worth a fortune, even if it's empty. It's a priceless relic. Wonder who built it, where they came from and why it ended up crashed on this godforsaken lump of gravel?' His voice and expression were full of enthusiasm as he pointed to a dark gash in the ship's side. 'There's a place that's been torn open. Let's check her out.'
They turned toward the opening. As they drew near, Anne Jorden regarded it uneasily. 'I don't think this is the result of damage, Russ. It looks integral with the hull to me. Whoever designed this thing didn't like right angles.'
'I don't care what they liked. We're going in.'
A single tear wound its way down Newt Jorden's cheek. She'd been staring out the fore windshield for a long time now Finally she stepped down and moved to the driver's chair to shake her sleeping brother. She sniffed
