She felt her control beginning to go again. Damn. “Yes,” she said. “We were friends.”

His hand touched her forearm. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “We’re all sorry.”

“How well did you know him? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Not as well as I’d have preferred. “We’d been friends for a few years,” she said. “How did you know? About us?”

“George told me.”

“I’m surprised. I didn’t think anybody knew.”

His eyes grew very soft. “They all knew.”

He let her go, but she left the wrist where it was, draped across the chair arm. She had a rule about involving herself with passengers. Even passengers with whom she had a personal connection. But at that moment, she’d have liked to draw closer to him. She’d descended into a dark place, and she needed company.

He was still talking, standing just inside the lander’s airlock, but only part of her was listening. He was saying something about how confident he felt having her in command of the Memphis, and how glad he was to be there, despite everything that had happened. She looked up at him and startled herself and undoubtedly him by drawing him down onto the chair arm.

His hands went around her and held on to her and rocked her gently.

IN THE MORNING they gathered outside the lander and listened while Hutch explained and demonstrated how the e-suits worked. They were flexible force envelopes, she said, that molded themselves to the body, and which felt rather like a loose-fitting set of cotton clothes. The exception was the hard shell effect created over the face, allowing space to breathe. They strapped on the gear, activated the Flickinger fields, and made admiring sounds as they saw how the fields glowed when lamplight hit them in the right way.

Hutch showed them how to shut the fields off, explained that it took simultaneous actions by both hands so that it wouldn’t happen accidentally. She pointed out that the fields were no protection whatever if they fell from an embankment, walked into a sharp object, or got in the way of a laser beam.

When she was satisfied, they checked their gear, which included spades, wrenches, cutters, and a hundred meters of cable. Then they climbed into the lander and launched.

They orbited the moon twice while Hutch examined the area for potential danger, saw nothing, and finally (with increasingly enthusiastic passengers) descended to the surface. She set down beside the silver-gray domes, near the vehicle they’d seen the day before.

As expected, there was no reaction. No burst of radio traffic erupted from their receivers. No lights came on, no hatches opened, no vehicles lurched out onto the hard ground. The spacecraft on the launchpad remained dark. And a few flakes of snow dropped from the sky.

The domes were connected by rounded tubes, and blanketed by sand and loose earth. Hutch saw radio antennas, sensor units, and an array of solar-power collectors. The pad was covered with blown soil.

“Centuries,” said Pete.

Alyx nodded. “I think so.”

Hutch was less sure. In her experience, any complex looked old when there was no sign of life and the wind was blowing. She decompressed and opened the hatch, expecting to lead the way, but there was a general rush toward the airlock. “Easy,” she protested.

Tor grinned. “Everybody wants to be first foot.”

“First foot?”

“Sure. You know. This is a new world. ‘One small step…’”

George suggested that Herman should have the honor. He readily accepted, and lowered himself to the ground. “It’s great to be here,” he said.

“It’s great to be here?” said Nick. “Is that the best you can do?”

The vehicle on the pad was a primitive rocket-driven lifter. She saw no sign either of the magnetics that had assisted second-generation transports, or the antigravity spike technology that had come on-line only a few years ago.

The six domes ranged in size from one that would have accommodated a hockey rink and several thousand fans to the smallest, which wasn’t much bigger than a private home.

They climbed down and joined Herman. Tor began immediately sizing up perspectives while the others spread out to look for a door.

Hutch, accompanied by Alyx, went over to the spacecraft and stared up at it. It was rusted. Clay was piled high around its treads. “You’re right, Alyx,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

“Centuries?”

“Probably.”

Tor came up behind them. “This’ll be the focal point,” he said.

“For a sketch?”

He nodded. “Lost empire,” he said. “Need to put it in a setting sun.”

Alyx tilted her head to see whether he was serious. “Isn’t that using a hammer to make the point?” she asked.

“That could happen. But the thing cries out for long shadows.”

Herman, still leading the way, found a hatch. It was built into the side of the nearest dome, three-quarters buried, so they had to dig it out to gain access.

Hutch watched placidly while he and George worked. In the middle of the effort, Bill broke in: “Outpost reports support mission is on the way,” he said.

“Okay.”

“They’ve dispatched some medical people and a team of investigators to try to figure out what happened. Until they arrive, we are advised to take no action that would endanger the Memphis. Estimate TOA approximately one week.”

“Anything else?”

“They want us to record the positions and vectors of any more wreckage that we find. And there’s a detailed set of instructions how such evidence is to be handled and stored. I should add that, while no specific references to liability were made, it looks as if they’re scrambling to avoid any legal responsibility. By the way, we are also directed to attempt no landing on Safe Harbor.”

Hutch looked up at Safe Harbor. Because the moon was in tidal lock, Safe Harbor permanently occupied the same position overhead.

The atmosphere was thin, and the night was still. Gravity was about a quarter standard.

Inside their force envelopes, they were all dressed casually, in shorts or jumpsuits or the baggy casuals they generally wore in the common room. “Hard to get used to,” said Nick.

“What’s that?” Hutch asked.

“People wearing light slacks and pullovers in an utterly hostile environment. How cold is it out there?”

Hutch was the exception: She was wearing a vest. “A hundred or so below.”

He grinned and looked at Alyx, resplendent in a khaki blouse and shorts. “Brisk,” he said.

They uncovered the hatch, which was a metal alloy and about as wide as Hutch could extend her arms. On the wall to the right there was a plate with markings, several lines of spidery symbols.

“Not much of an esthetic sense,” said Alyx.

“Here’s something.” Nick knelt to brush away dust and uncovered a curved panel. “A doorknob?” he asked.

“Could be,” said Pete. “Try it.”

He fumbled with it, opened it, and exposed a stud. He looked back at George.

“Go ahead,” he said.

Nick pushed the stud.

Nothing happened.

He jiggered it back and forth.

“No power,” said Hutch. “There should be a way to open it manually.”

“I don’t see anything,” said Pete.

Hutch pulled the cutter out of her vest. “If you folks will back off a bit, I’ll see if I can open it up.”

“I hate to do that,” said George, “but I don’t think we have much choice.”

There was a brief debate, which ended the way she knew it would. She powered up the laser, aimed it, and switched it on. A thin red beam licked out and touched the hatch. A wisp of smoke appeared, and the metal began to blacken. It curled and gave way. “Get farther back,” she said. “There might be air pressure on the other side.” But there wasn’t. She cut up and around until she’d completed a narrow circle. When she’d finished, she got a wrench from Herman, stood off to one side, and pushed the piece easily into the interior.

George held his lamp to the opening. “Small room,” he said.