— Barnhard Golding,

God on Quraqua: The Temple Mission (2213) Eberhardt & Hickam, Chicago

Let your courage shine before you, fear nothing, take no thought for your well-being. Live by the law, and know that, in your darkest hour, I am at your side.

— Fragment from Knothic Hours (Translated by Margaret Tufu)*

'Original hard copy includes notation "Let us hope so" in translator's handwriting, dated Friday, June 11, 2202.

The two chases constituted the essence of the find. Rescue these, with their text relatively intact, and they would have all they could reasonably hope for. Therefore, despite the urgency, Richard moved with caution. He and Henry took the time they needed to extricate the artifacts from their tomb and start them up the tunnel. George moved ahead of them, removing obstacles and where necessary widening the passage.

They reached the vertical shaft at four minutes to ten.

Henry shone a light upward. "What do you think? Wait it out here until after zero hour? If there's a quake while we're in the shaft, the chases could get damaged."

Richard could not help but admire Henry's singleminded-ness. A quake in the shaft would damage more than the chases. On the other hand, he couldn't see that they were any safer staying put. "Let's keep moving," he said.

A line stretched up into the dark. George passed it to Henry, and they secured it around the first of the artifacts.

"Melanie, we have a problem."

She had known there would be problems. There were always problems when you tried to shut down an operation this size. "What is it, Harvey?"

He looked unhappy. "Helm won't answer up."

They were inside two minutes. "Forget him. Call the control posts direct."

"1 tried. Signals are locked out. We need a password."

"Hutch." Truscott's voice. "Go ahead, Kosmik."

The director's face was red with anger. "I've been unable to get through to our stations. Detonation will proceed as scheduled."

"But we've still got people down there," Hutch protested.

"I'm sorry. We'll assist any way we can. Keep us informed."

Ten o'clock.

The southern sky brightened. A second sun might have ignited just below the horizon. Hutch looked away. "Richard."

"Okay."

"It's started. I can see it from here."

"All right. Keep cool. We're coming. We've got time."

The sea was calm.

"Ready here," said George. He was at the top of the shaft.

"Look okay?" Henry asked Richard.

"Yes. Let's do it."

George took in the slack, and they lifted the chase into the shaft, and commenced to haul. Henry swam up with it, guiding it.

Richard stayed with the second unit. He brushed silt from it; ridges of individual characters passed under his fingertips. What a treasure it was.

But he was alone in the tunnel, and he felt the weight of the sea. The walls were bleak and claustrophobic. Tiny fish swam past his eyes.

The cable came back. He secured it quickly around the chase, creating a harness.

Above, George pulled the first one out of the shaft. They grappled with it for a few moments, casting shadows down the walls, and then it disappeared. George turned back. "All set," he said.

"Go," said Richard. "Haul away."

At that moment, the water moved. Just the barest tremor, but a school of fish that had been watching darted away.

"Coming up," said George. Richard pushed the chase into the shaft. It dropped a half meter, and then began to rise. He opened a channel to Hutch. "You're not sitting on the surface, are you?"

"Of course I am. How else did you expect to get aboard?"

"Maybe not a good idea." He floated up behind the artifact.

"We're getting shock waves. Keep an eye open."

"I will."

Richard delivered some final cliche\ some plastic reassurance that could not have helped her state of mind.

On Wink, Janet Allegri strode onto the bridge, walked up to Maggie Tufu, and, without saying a word, knocked her flat.

Melanie Truscott had watched with helpless fury as the white lamps blinked on. Seconds before detonation, she noted that one unit, at Point Theta, had not armed. Locking mechanism had failed. A ten-buck part.

"What do you want to do?" asked Sill.

Goddam Helm. Some of the Academy people would likely die. Worse, if they blew off one icecap and not the other, they might induce a wobble, and possibly cause a complete reorientation of planetary spin. Quraqua could be unstable for centuries. "Tell Harding to cancel the hold. Proceed as planned."

Sill nodded.

"When you get Helm, I want to speak to him."

The design did not call for simultaneous explosions of all devices. The patterns of ice faults, the geometry of the underlying land (where it existed), the presence of volcanoes, the distribution of mass: these and other factors determined the sequence and timing of individual events. It is sufficient to note that all but one of the fifty-eight southern weapons detonated within a period of four minutes, eleven seconds. Blasts ranged from two to thirty-five megatons.

At the icecap, approximately eight percent of the total mass was vaporized. Formations that had stood for tens of thousands of years were blown away. Enormous sheets, like the one at Kalaga, fractured and slid into the sea. Millions of tons of water, thrown out by the blasts, rushed back and turned to steam. Mountainous waves rolled out of the white fury and started a long journey across the circular sea.

During the third minute after the initial detonation, a volcano buried deep in the ice pack exploded. Ironically, it was not one of those whose throat had been laced with a bomb. But it was the first to go. The others erupted according to plan. Hot rain began to fall.

Shock waves rippled out at five to seven kilometers per second, triggering earthquakes in their wake.

Hutch stood in the hold while the cable came up. The spacecraft floated beside the Temple shuttle. Carson stayed in his cockpit, as a precaution against the unexpected. The jolt that Richard had felt moments earlier in his tunnel had been indiscernible on the surface, nothing more than a ripple and an air current. But a second, more severe shock wave now arrived. Hutch was pitched forward.

Alpha filled with voices from the Temple.

"That was a big one."

"Everybody okay?"

"Damn, I think we lost part of it."

"Let it go, Richard."

"Only take a minute."

"Hutch, you've got a package." It was Henry. "Haul it in."

She winched it up and the first chase broke the surface. An impossibly corroded box. But Hutch knew first-hand the miracles of enhancement. / hope it's worth your lives.

She pulled it aboard. Water poured out of it. She disconnected, and heaved the line back over the side.

"Okay, Richard, let go." That was George. "I've got it."

The sea had turned rough. Water boiled and churned.

Sandy appeared to port. She swam swiftly to the shuttle, and Hutch pulled her in. "By God," said Sandy, "we did it."

"Not yet. Where is everybody?"

"Coming. A couple of minutes."

"Okay. Listen, we're going to get a little crowded here. Things'11 go quicker if you're in the other shuttle."

"Whatever you think," Sandy said.

Carson tossed a line, and she dived back into the sea.

"Frank," Hutch said, "I'll pick up the rest of them." She hesitated. "It might be a good idea if you got some altitude." She cast a worried glance toward a troubled horizon. "Watch for waves."

Most of the undersea lamps had gone out. Only the red trailmarkers still burned bravely within the murky recesses of the wrecked Temple.

They carried the second chase out into the clear water of what used to be the nave, where the cable from the shuttle was waiting. Richard's hair was in his eyes, and he was exhausted. He felt the drag of the sea. Undertow. Odd that it would be so strong on the bottom.