“Sounds like it might work,” Len said, and Nigel felt a surge of anticipation. He was going to do it; they couldn’t turn him down.

“You know those interceptors aren’t reliable in that dust cloud—that’s why you guys are out there now. And the closer to Earth we hit Icarus, the less the net deflection before zero hour. If anything screws up at the last minute it might still smack into us.”

“The risk is worth it, Dave,” Len said.

“You’re really going along with him, Len? I had hoped—”

“We’ve got hopes, too,” Nigel said with sudden feeling. “Hopes that we might learn something here that will get the human race out of the mess it’s in. A new physical concept, some invention that might come out of this. The beings who built this were superior to us, Dave, even in size—the doorways and corridors are big, wide.”

“The risk, Nigel! If the Egg doesn’t do the job and—” “We’ve got to take it.”

“—we sent you men out there to do a job. Now you’re—”

Nigel wondered why Dave sounded so calm, even now. Perhaps they had told him to be deliberately cool and not provoke anything more. He wondered what his parents thought of this, of his taking a stand for exploration at the cost of people’s lives. Or whether they knew of it at all—NASA had probably stopped news coverage as soon as they knew something was wrong; it wasn’t just a heroic life-saving mission any more. He noticed his hands were trembling.

“Wait a minute, wait,” Dave said. “I didn’t mean to blow up that way, you guys. We all know you think you’re doing the right thing.” He paused amid the quiet burr of static, as though marshaling his words.

“Something new has come into the picture, though. I’ve just been handed the recomputed trajectory, allowing for the reduced Icarus mass. It makes a difference, a big one.”

“How’s that?” Nigel said.

“It was coming in pretty oblique to the top of the atmosphere already, you remember. With less mass, though, it’s going to skip a bit—not much, but enough. It’ll skip like a flat rock on a pond, and then drop. That takes it clear of the Indian subcontinent, and moves the impact point west.”

Nigel felt a thick weight of dread form in his stomach. “The ocean?”

“Yes. About two hundred miles out.”

The finality of it consumed him. An ocean strike was vastly worse. Instead of dissipating energy as it ripped through the mantle rock, Icarus would throw up from the sea floor a towering geyser of steam. The steam jet would fan out across the upper atmosphere, leaving a planet swathed in clouds, driving great storms over a sunless world. The tidal wave splashed up would smash every coastal city on Earth, and most of civilization would vanish in hours.

“They’re sure?” Len said.

“As certain as they can be,” Dave said, and something veiled in his voice brought Nigel back out of his contemplation.

“Cut off Houston for a minute, Len,” he said.

“Sure. There. What is it?”

“How do we know David isn’t lying?”

“Oh…I guess we don’t.”

“It seems a little funny. A big rock skipping on the top of the atmosphere—one of the astrophysicists mentioned it in a briefing, but he said for a mass as large as Icarus it couldn’t happen.”

“What about for a tenth of that mass?”

“I don’t know. And—damn it!—it’s crucial.”

“An ocean strike…If that happens, billions of people…”

“Right.”

“You know…I don’t think I want to…”

“I don’t either.” Nigel paused. And something flitted across his mind.

“Wait a second,” he said. “Something odd here. This rock is hollow, that makes it lighter.”

“Sure. Less mass.”

“But that will make it easier to fragment, too. The chances of having a big chunk of rock left around after we set off the Egg is less, too.”

“I guess so.”

“But why didn’t Dave mention that? It makes the odds better.”

A silence.

“He’s lying.”

“Damn right he is.” Saying the words made Nigel sure of it.

“So our chances are good.”

“Better than Dave says, anyway. They must be.”

“If the Egg goes off at all. We’ve hauled it all this way, maybe it’s crapped out by now. They told us there would be a seven percent probability of that even before we left, remember? The thing might not work at all, Nigel.”

“I’ll bet it’s going to, though.”

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much will you bet? The lives of the rest of the human race?”

“If I have to.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No. The odds are good. Dave is lying to us.”

“Why would he do that?”

Nigel frowned. Len’s doubts were beginning to reinforce his own. How sure was he? But he shook off the mood and said, “They don’t want any risk, Len. They want two heroes and a lot of lives saved and no worries. They want to just keep it simple.”

“And you’re after—”

“I want to know what this thing is. Who built it. How they propelled it, where they came from—”

“That’s a lot to expect of a bunch of artifacts.” “Maybe not. I saw some panels and consoles in there, I think. Could be the computerized records they used are still around.”

“If they used computers at all.”

“They must’ve. If we could get to some of the storage units—”

“You really think we could?”

Nigel shrugged. “Yes, I think so. I don’t know—nobody does. But if we can find out something new here, Len, it could pay off. New technology could get us out of the mess the world is in.”

“Like what?”

“A new power source. Maybe something with higher efficiency. That would be worth the chance.”

“Maybe.”

“Well …” Nigel felt his energy begin to drain away. “If you’re not with me, Len…”

There came a silence.

Ping went the capsule, stretching with the sun’s uneven heating. A metallic voice, asking tick ping its own questions. Could he really do it? No, absurd. Pointless. For what, after all? Why this comical risk? (Why leave England? Why go into space? Ping.) His parents had wondered that, he knew, though they’d never said it. Worried, even as they nudged him onward, where it would lead. And what was he going to look for in there? New wine, in this rocky old bottle? Or had humanity had enough wine already, thanks, hand held flat over the mouth of the glass, no. No, absurd. He was being impolite. All this stuff he’d done, all the work, really, you see, what was the point? Very well to search, but who pays the bill? Did he know—here his hands clenched, whitening—did he know what he was looking for? Step aside for a moment. Look at this matter. Was it rational? No. Absurd. No. He couldn’t. He spun from tick the voice but could not escape it. No. Ping. He spun… spun…

Nigel wet his lips and waited. The sun lay hot on the rock rim above. Its light reflected in the cabin and deepened the lines of strain in his face. He found he was holding his breath.

Then: “Nigel… look… don’t put me on the spot like this.”

Nigel sealed his suit again, automatically. He reached up and popped the hatch cover.

“I… I’ve got to go with Dave, buddy. This thing is too big for me to—”

“Okay,” Nigel said abruptly. “Okay, okay.”

“Look, I don’t want you to feel—”

“Yeah.” He reached up and pulled himself through the hatch, into the full glare. Looking up, his inner ear played a trick and he suddenly felt as though he was falling down a narrow canyon and into the sun, drawn by it. Automatically he clung to the hatch and twisted himself out, letting his equilibrium return with the sense of motion. He felt curiously calm.

“Nigel?”

He said nothing. Halfway along the module’s length was a flat brown box the size of a typewriter. He went for it hand over hand, legs free, his breath sounding abnormally loud. The clamps around the box opened easily and with one hand he swung it to his side and clipped it to his utility belt.