Resurgence

Only years of experience made Hans shake his head. “We finish the survey, then if it still looks safe we go down.” He glanced at a display showing current progress, and knew his next words would not be popular. “That means two more days in orbit.”

“But—” “Two days!” “Why do—”

The response came at once from the other three. Hans cut them off. “I’m sorry. This isn’t negotiable. Ben and Lara, I know you’re impatient to have your turn and show what you can do; and Darya, I know you can’t wait for a chance to explore the interior of Iceworld. I feel the same way myself. But as long as I’m in charge, it’s going to be safety first.”

His face wore a mixture of uncertainty and bewilderment. Darya could guess the reason for that changing expression. Safety first, when there was no reason to expect any form of danger? Safety first, when Hans was as relaxed about descending to Iceworld as he ever was about anything? Why was he doing this?

But Hans was not ready to hear questions. He ducked his head, and repeated, “Two more days to complete the survey of Iceworld. Then we’ll see what else we’ve learned. And then we make a decision.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Orbiting Iceworld

As the hours wore on Hans felt the cabin walls of the Savior crowding in on him. He had established an electromagnetic cancellation field for the whole ship, and also one for each of the suits. Now there was nothing more to do and no way to escape the others. The ship moved constantly over new areas of Iceworld, but the image on the displays did not change. The other three stared gloomily at the monitors, then turned to stare accusingly at Hans. Their faces said it all: Why are we wasting time up here? Why don’t we go down and get on with it?

They didn’t seem to realize that Hans was as keen for action as they were. He was constantly checking the progress of the surface survey, without any idea what he might be looking for. Whatever it was, he didn’t see it. Before the first sleep period arrived he lost patience—not with them, but with himself.

“All right. I know that none of you likes this. Let’s try something different.” He did not need to invite them to where he was sitting at the control console. They were out of their chairs and crowding in on him in seconds. He went on, “Ben, you are better with the display equipment than I am. Give me a hand to produce displays of what we have, then I’d like everyone’s opinions.”

The Savior was flying a polar orbit. As the planet rotated, on each pass the ship covered a different swath of the surface, with every strip overlapping the others at the poles. Hans and Ben, working together, converted the results they had to a 3-D graphic.

Hans said at last, “That’s good enough. Thanks, Ben. As you can all see, we’ve covered only about one-fourth of the surface, so no one could say this is close to a complete survey. On the other hand, we’ve covered the polar region many times, and what we see so far there and elsewhere shows an absolutely regular and unchanging pattern. First, the obvious: Iceworld is a perfect sphere made from unknown materials, held at a temperature lower than anything has any right to be. Most places give no return signal, but dotted on the sphere in places about fifty kilometers apart from each other we have a grid of points of something else, places where the laser’s return spectrum suggests the surface has a different composition. These areas look like they’re made of Builder materials. Each one is a circular patch only a few hundred meters across, but they are all connected by narrower lines of the same material. The grid patches form a network of perfect equilateral triangles.”

Hans gave the others a minute or two to digest the display, then went on, “There’s an obvious question here. As I said, we haven’t had a close look at almost three-quarters of the surface. If we did, would we simply find more of the same, or is there a chance that if we stop the survey now we’ll miss something new and important?”

He didn’t need or want their reply, and went on at once, “The honest answer is, we simply don’t know. So here’s what I propose. It’s close to the time when we usually go to sleep. Let’s do that. By the time we are up again and have had something to eat, the ship will have surveyed another fifteen percent of the surface. We’ll look at the whole result, and if the pattern continues as we have seen it so far, we’ll make the bet that the rest would show nothing new. We’ll go down, to one of the spots that shows Builder material, and tackle the next problem: How do we penetrate below the surface to take a look at the interior?”

It was a compromise, between the two full days needed to complete the whole survey and everybody else’s urge to descend at once. Hans knew it, and so did the others, but they didn’t realize how strongly he wanted to agree with them.