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Earth, of course this planet had a somewhat denser atmosphere,
and its oceans covered nearly nine tenths of its surface. But still&
I last saw such a sight from Earth orbit, about to depart for Mars
and then the asteroids& how long ago? Not even my final memory
from Earth Erica crying that she didn t want me to leave, and
Nicole s glare of cold resentment while pulling her away could
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spoil that sight! I thought surely I d see Earth, and Erica, again.
Eventually, as the letters got fewer and more dutiful, I gave up on
the second. But never the first.
And now&
He turned back to the holographic image of that rocky little satellite
that had suddenly disrupted all their calculations. The ships
following Andy J. had had advance warning before they swept
around the gas giant, and had been able to obtain far better imagery
than Levinson s hurried efforts had produced; the computers had
produced a detailed composite. Rosen was studying it dourly, while
referring to a table of figures on his perscomp.
The excavations must be extensive, he said at last. In fact, the
installation must take up most of the satellites interior. The average
density is much lower than it should be for a body like that.
Planetology was his specialty, and nobody argued with him.
The real puzzle, George Traylor rumbled, is what the hell its
doing here. Who built it?
Could it be the Korvaasha? Rosen sounded skeptical even as he
posed the question.
Varien, who had seemed lost in thought, looked up. Hardly. This
system has only one displacement point, at the end of a
displacement chain entirely unknown to them. And even if they
could have gotten here, why would they have built an outpost on a
gas-giant moonlet and ignored this? He waved a theatrical hand in
the direction of the life-bearing planet they orbited, on which
absolutely no trace of past occupancy had been observed. And
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finally, the mind boggles at the thought of them abandoning a
system they ve occupied; it runs counter to their entire mentality.
Are we, in fact, absolutely certain that the base is abandoned?
Arkady Kuropatkin sounded glum. The mind-set of the professional
security officer is not an optimistic one.
Come, Arkady Semyonovich, Colonel Aleksandr Ilyich Golovko
chided. He was the senior Russian officer, and thereby DiFalco s
second in command. You ve heard Aelanni s reasons for
supposing it is. And ever since we arrived here we ve had every
available scanner activated at full power, and we ve detected no
activity of any kind in this system.
Still, Aelanni said thoughtfully, there s only one way to be
absolutely sure. She looked at her father and DiFalco in turn. I
want to take Pathfinder back to that gas giant and investigate the
satellite in depth. This needn t delay the disembarkation here; the
preliminary landings and tests can proceed while we re outbound,
and of course we ll transmit confirmation that the base is deserted
as soon as possible.
Agreed, DiFalco said. With one proviso: I m coming. He
turned to Golovko. Sasha, you re in charge in my absence. We ll
be in continuous contact. The exiles government was still an ad
hoc affair. The old Management Council of RAMP had been
expanded to include Raehaniv members, while the military CO
continued to wield what amounted to ongoing emergency powers.
Varien wasn t a member of the Council. His position was a curious
one: an advisor whose advice was always followed.
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The whole thing would have to be regularized eventually, of course.
But for now it seemed to work.
Varien was nodding emphatically. Yes. It is essential that we learn
all we can about that base without delay. I don t take seriously the
notion that it could still be occupied, or that it was ever connected
with the Korvaasha. But the fact remains that it is a high-technology
artifact in a system with no connection that we know of to any high-
technology civilization. We can never be secure here with such a
mystery in our skies!
DiFalco and Aelanni looked at each other and then at the blue
planet that would have to wait a little longer.
* * *
Rosen had been right; the satellite s surface was little more than a
shell around the installation through whose endless passageways
they now floated, speaking in hushed voices as though in the
presence of ghosts.
They had been prepared to use Raehaniv weaponry to gain access to
the silent base, but that had been unnecessary. A vast spacecraft
hangar deck had stood open to vacuum, and Pathfinder had
maneuvered gingerly into the satellite s airless interior. By then
there had been no further room for doubt that the base was
abandoned.
Abandoned was, in fact, prepisely the right word. There was no
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indication of violence or destruction, from battle or any other cause.
The occupiers had simply packed up and left, stripping the base of
everything moveable with single-minded tidiness and leaving it
infuriatingly bare of any clues to their identity.
Some things could be inferred, though. One look at the dimensions
of rooms, doors and so forth had satisfied Aelanni that the builders
had not been Korvaasha; everything was too small. They must have
been on the same order of size and shape as humans. And they had
possessed the technology of artificial gravity that much was clear
from the installation s layout. As to their other capabilities there
was little evidence, save for one fact There was no sign that there
had ever been any way to close the hangar decks cavernous
opening, and yet various indications led the Raehaniv specialists to
conclude that the deck had not been designed for airless operations.
The builders must have used some kind of nonmaterial barrier that
allowed space vehicles to come and go but kept air in a thing
beyond Raehaniv capabilities.
And that, DiFalco thought sourly, was about all they had: inferences
from negatives. They were even having to scrounge for radioactives
with which to determine the installation s age.
His train of thought was suddenly derailed as Aelanni, floating
beside him through this wider-than-average corridor, suddenly
stopped short with a burst of compressed gas from her EVA stick.
Wait, Eric. The grav scanner indicates a very large empty
compartment beyond this. She indicated a wall.
That the door to it, maybe? He pointed at a portal, a little further
down the corridor. Like others in this sector, it evidenced attempts
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at ornamentation stylized fluted columns flanking it, and a kind of
pediment overhead which were entirely lacking in the rest of the
base, with its stark utilitarianism.
Lets find out. They drifted through the opening into a space so
large that the helmet-lamps of their heavy-duty vac suits could not
make out the walls. A short Raehaniv sentence, spoken to Aelanni s
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