A Deepness in the Sky

"Lord of All Trade, will you look at that!" Benny pointed off to the left: a reddish glow near the horizon. Benny did a zoom. The light was still small, sliding quickly out of their field of view. It really did look like a fire, though it changed shape rather slowly. Something was blocking the view now, and Ezr had the brief impression of opacity rising skyward from the light. "I've got a better view from high orbit," came a voice from farther down the aisle, Crewleader Diem. He did not forward the picture. "It's a volcano. It just lit off."

Ezr followed the image as it fell behind their point of view. The rising darkness, that must be a geyser of lava—or perhaps just air and water—spewing into the spaces above it. "That's a first," said Ezr. The planet's core was cold and dead, though there were several magma melts in what passed for a mantle. "Everyone seems so sure that the Spiders are all in corpsicle state; what if some of them are actually keeping warm near things like that?"

"Not likely. We've done really detailed IR surveys. We could spot any settlements around a hot spot. Besides, the Spiders just inventedradio before this latest dark. They're in no position to be crawling around out-of-doors just yet."

This conclusion was based on a few Msecs of recon and some plausible life-chemistry assumptions. "I guess." He watched the reddish glow until it slipped beyond the horizon. Then there were more exciting things directly below and ahead. Their landing ellipse carried them smoothly downward, still weightless. This was a full-sized world, but there would be no flying around in atmosphere. They were moving at eight thousand meters per second, just a couple of thousand meters above the ground. He had an impression of mountains climbing toward them, reaching out. Ridgeline after ridgeline whipped past, nearer and nearer. Behind him, Benny was making little uncomfortable noises, his usual chitchat temporarily interrupted. Ezr gasped as the last ridgeline flashed by them, so close he wondered it didn't clip the lander's dorsum.Talk about the transfer ellipse tohell.

Then the main jet flared ahead of them.

It took them almost 30Ksec to climb down from the point that Jimmy Diem had selected for the lander. The inconvenience was not frivolous. Their perch was partway up a mountainside but quite free of ice and airsnow. Their goal was at the bottom of a narrow valley. By rights, the valley floor should have been under a hundred meters of airsnow. By some unexpected fluke of topography and climate, there was less than half a meter. And almost hidden beneath the overhang of the valley walls was the largest collection of intact buildings they had found so far. Chances were good that this was an entrance to one of the Spiders' largest hibernation caves, and perhaps a city during OnOff's warm time. Whatever was learned here should be important. Under the joint agreement, it was all being piped back to the Emergents... .

Ezr hadn't heard anything about the outcome of the Trading Committee meeting. Diem seemed to be doing everything possible to disguise this visit from the locals, just as the Emergents should expect. Their landing point would be covered with an avalanche shortly after they departed. Even their footprints were to be carefully erased (though that should scarcely be necessary).

By coincidence OnOff was hanging near the zenith when they reached the valley floor. In the "sunny season" this would be high noon. Now, well, the OnOff star looked like some dim reddish moon, half a degree across. The surface was mottled, like oil on a drop of water. Without display amplification, OnOff's light was just bright enough to show their surroundings.

The landing party walked down some kind of central avenue, five suited figures and one come-along walking machine. Tiny puffs of vapor sputtered around their boots when they walked through drifts of airsnow and the volatiles came in contact with the less well insulated fabric of their coveralls. When they stopped for long, it was important not to be in deep snow, else they were quickly surrounded by sublimation mist. Every ten meters, they set down a seismo sensor or a thumper. When they got the whole pattern in place, they would have a good picture of any nearby caverns. More important for this landing, they would have a good idea what lay inside these buildings. Their big goal: written materials, pictures. Finding a children's illustrated reader would mean certain promotion for Diem.