When he reached the opening, he simply stared for a few moments.

Four tiny glow-phosphors glimmered above the corners of a carved stone bier. Upon this lay a man-shaped figure. Suleiman Ould-Harrad.

Saul floated out into the chamber. No gravity tugged at him. He was completely weightless.

He grasped one horn of the altarlike bier. The symbiotic Halleyforms had dropped away, leaving Ould-Harrad looking like an old, old man who had gone to his rest after more years than he would have chosen. The eyes, closed in final sleep, nevertheless gave an impression of severe dedication—to his people and to the deity who had so disappointed, yet nurtured him.

Saul paid his respects, remembering.

At last. he looked around. Virginia had spoken of a “bequest.” And yet the chamber wasbare empty save the Blow-bulbs, the corpse, and the carved bier.

“Wait a minute…” Saul muttered. He swiveled upside down and peered closer at the stone. “I… I don’t believe it.”

He fumbled at his belt and pulled forth his rarely used flashlight. Its sharp beam momentarily blinded him and he turned it down while blinking away spots.

Then Saul touched the stone in wonder, his hand bright under the narrow light, stroking faint but clearly symmetrical outlines. His voice was hushed.

“This is what Suleiman found, when he sought his Truth at the heart of the comet. This…”

This was a scientific discovery, and more.

This was astonishment.

He traced the ribs of an ancient sea creature, fossilized n sedimentary rock. Saul stared at the patterned ribcage, at the rough-edged, half-opened mouth, gaping as if caught in mid-chase, frozen in hungry pursuit…and at once he knew that the form he was touching had to be older, vastly older, than even the sun itself.

All around him, the close press of trillions of tons of rock and snow was as nothing to the sudden weight of years.

Lani’s breath sighed like the soft brush of stone against rough fiber. A weary warrior on the soft battlefield, Carl thought lazily. He snuggled against her, spoon fashion, and she wormed backward in her sleep, seeking him. It was in such seemingly slight, unconscious gestures that people truly knew each other, he thought. Much could be disguised between people, but not the elemental seeking of flesh for comfort and closeness. A delicate sheen of sweat glistened on Lani’s forehead and her legs stirred, fanned, finding him. Then she settled with a small shiver, her breath slipped back into a regular sighing, and she descended into sleep again.

He pushed off gently and drifted out of bed. It was time to make his rounds, but there was no need for her to stir.

His legs and arms reminded him of yesterday’s labors with a sweet tingling pain. Even in barely perceptible gravity, he now felt a hitch there, a tightening there … I’ve lost track, but I must be well past forty, he thought as he brushed his teeth. The mirror agreed: delicate crow’s feet spreading from the eyes, jowly lines, more lightening at the temples. All badges for tours of duty.

In the last thirty years he had been awake about a third of the time. The crises had come and gone, though none that matched the troubles on the outbound orbit. Each time of Lazarus Carl made things right again. He stuck out his tongue at himself in the mirror. And they, gave you the credit. Nobody noticed that you just got them to think out loud until the answers were obvious.

He pulled on a fresh blue coverall, relishing the crisp feel of the soft, native-grown fabric. He had always been messy before, seldom noticing that clothes were dirty until a chance breath informed his nose. It was through such seeming details that Lani transformed his world. They resolutely and precisely divided household chores, so there was no less work for him to do over-all…yet somehow everything seemed in order now, neat and clean.

Yeah, she’s civilized me. He bent and gave her soft kiss. She murmured and burrowed farther into her pillow as he left.

The tunnels were more crowded now than anytime he could remember since the beginning of the Nudge. All through the long dark years a skeleton watch had remained—more crew awake than originally planned, of course, because the Nudge was never finished. There were flinger tubes to polish and realign, launchers to outfit with new shocks and focusers. A steady hail of maintenance, as parts broke or simply wore out. The north-pole launchers had fired right up to the last minute, when the outgassing ice and flying dust made operations impossible. They had to. The outbound Jupiter flyby demanded a large velocity change.

Now the launchers lay snug in their pits, buried thirty meters down, awaiting revival. For they had more bullets to spit at the stars, more momentum to impart… if anyone survived the next few months.

As if we’ll ever really see Jupiter.

Carl sped down Shaft 3, checking every detail along the way. It was an old habit from the days before gene-crafted animals patrolled to eat unwanted Halleyforms. He stopped to pet a pair of hybrid mongoose-ferrets. Saul had tailored for Halleyform policing. They crawled over him, nuzzled at his hand, discovered it was not suitable foodstuff, and lost interest.

He entered Central and gave the screens the usual daily once-over. They were only six weeks from perihelion now, and with every advancing kilometer the comet accelerated them toward almost certain doom. Carl called up the few remaining views available from weathered relays on the surface.

Worse today. Much worse.

He selected a camera looking toward the dawn line. Far away, ivory streamers boiled from promontories that caught the sunrise. The sun slit the sky from the ice, a spreading line of chewing brilliance. Golden fingers stretched between the horizon hills and lit the first smoke of morning. Where the slanted sun found fresh ice, gouts of pale blue and ruddy-green erupted. High above waved plasma banners, auroras already more vast than any seen by Amundsen or Peary.

They had spun Halley again, to even the thermal load. Jeffers had mounted an array of absorbent panels to partially control the outgassing and use it for some crude navigation, but in this howling chaos it was impossible to get even a good fix on the stars and tell how they were doing.

Sailing into the storm, he thought. And no compass to steer by.

Halley was no more a ball of ice. Instead it resembled a snowy land mysteriously pocked and acned, all trace of man erased. Countless centers of more-active gas sublimation had riddled the dusty plains, ripping free to join the high vacuum. Layers of heavier particles smeared the hollows. Occasional brown patches of dust suddenly blew away, joining the swooping upward lift of the bright yellow-green coma, visible to Carl as a diffuse haze that stretched across the sky. As he watched, a slow darkening rippled through the gauzy glow, an outward wave from some eruption of dust on the sunward side.

“Pretty bad,” Jeffers said at his elbow. He had grown even leaner in the sleep slots, his skin sallow. “Particle per sec is up three times over what it was last week.”

“It’ll rise almost exponentially from now on,” Carl said. He gave this as a fact when it was only Virginia’s prediction; she had been so accurate lately there hardly seemed a distinction any longer.

“Lost the last of the velocity meters.”

“Not surprising.”

“Just clean blew away.”

“Temperature.”

“The night side’s at two hundred eighty Kelvin atop the dust beds. Dayside’s ’bout fifteen degrees higher. Clapein’ big gradient.”

The thermal load was crucial. As the surface warmed steadily, heat seeped into the core. Over most of Halley, the dust layers would act as a thermal blanket, but only for so long. “What’s the reading at the ice level?”