What now?

Darya stared around at the featureless horizon. She began to walk forward, moving across Glister in the direction away from the Dreamboat. As she went she scanned the surface ahead. It had not occurred to her before, but without light from Mandel, visibility was going to be much reduced. Even using the image intensifiers in her suit she could not see details more than fifty meters away.

Darya slowed her pace. Kallik was a lightning calculator, but the Hymenopt was fifty meters behind and Darya would have to work it out for herself. A little more than a kilometer in radius. So the surface area of Glister was a bit less than seventeen square kilometers. And she could see things clearly for at most fifty meters in each direction. Assume that they split up and found an efficient way of covering the whole area. Then each of them would have to walk over fifty kilometers to be sure of finding whatever might be there.

Not good enough. And she should have thought it through before she left the ship. Darya waited for Rebka and Kallik to catch up with her.

“I’ve changed my mind.” She outlined the problem. “It will take us too long. I think we ought to go back inside and use Nenda’s ship; he doesn’t need it at the moment. And we should do a low-orbit traverse of Glister, a few hundred meters up, and use every sensor on board to explore the surface. Anything odd that we find — cracks, openings, hatches, markings, whatever — we’ll have the ship’s computer make a note of it, and then later we take a closer look ourselves. On foot. Can you fly the Have-It-All, Hans? If not, we can go back and use the Dreamboat. Though I’m sure the equipment there isn’t as good.”

“It isn’t. As you saw, Nenda travels first-class. I can fly his ship. And I bet that Kallik can fly it at least as well as me.”

“I have flown it often, on both planetary and stellar missions,” the Hymenopt concurred.

“So let’s go back inside.” Darya was turning toward the ship when she noticed an odd effect on the horizon behind Hans Rebka. It was as though she were suffering slight vertical double vision, with a thin brighter layer added above the sphere’s original curved boundary. As she watched, the region thickened and solidified; faint sparkles appeared within it as random points of light. Part of Glister looked the way it had when she first saw it, from far out in space. Darya halted for a closer inspection.

Increased intensity added color. The cloud became a gauzy orange patch, lying close to Glister’s uniform horizon, and extended over more than a quarter of the circle. As Darya watched the nimbus grew in size. The twinkle of interior lights became brighter.

“Hans!” She pointed. “Look there. Did you see anything like that before, when you were out on the surface?”

He stared, and at once took her arm to begin pulling her toward the Have-It-All.

“We sure didn’t. Come on. And hurry.”

“What is it?”

“Damned if I know. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I think maybe me and Kallik weren’t too smart when we banged on the surface to learn more about the interior structure. Bit like knocking on the door to say, hey, we’ve arrived.” He was still holding her arm. “Come on, both of you, get moving. I prefer to watch that thing, whatever it is, from inside the ship — with the shields up. Close your suit completely, just in case. And don’t look back.”

Darya at once felt an irresistible urge to look behind her. The orange shimmer was bigger, spreading more than a third of the way across the horizon and perceptibly closer. Kallik had not moved, but that did not mean she would be left behind. When she decided to travel, the Hymenopt’s eight wiry legs could carry her a hundred meters in a couple of seconds.

“It has a discrete structure.” Kallik’s calm voice came through Darya’s suit phone. “The points of light are reflections of incident radiation from Gargantua on individual small components, each no more than a few centimeters across. Their angles change constantly, which is why they sparkle like that. To appear as bright as they are, those components must be almost perfect reflectors. I can see no sort of connection between the parts.”

The leading edge of the cloud was within twenty meters of the Hymenopt when Kallik finally turned. The thin black legs became a blur, and a second later she was by Darya’s side. “I concur with Captain Rebka. This is a phenomenon outside my experience.”

“Outside anyone’s.” The Have-It-All was only forty meters away. Darya could not resist looking back again. The cloud was not gaining. They could crowd inside the airlock and have it closed before the twinkling fog arrived. With the ship on standby, there was a good chance they could even take off from Glister before the leading edge touched the hull.

“Ahead!” Kallik spoke at the same moment as Hans Rebka began to swear.

Darya turned. A gauzy light was in front of them, rising like a sparkling vapor up through Glister’s impervious surface. It thickened and spread as she watched, forming a tenuous barrier between them and the starship.

Rebka jerked to a halt, and they stared around them. The cloud behind was still moving forward. It had become opaque, and its edges were spreading wider. In a few more seconds its borders would meet with those of the fog ahead, to encircle the three completely.

Kallik was already moving forward. Rebka shouted at her. “Kallik! Come back. That is an order.”

“Ck-ck.” The Hymenopt kept moving. “With apologies, Captain Rebka, it is an order I cannot obey. I must not risk the life of a human when perhaps that can be avoided. I will report my experiences for as long as I am able.”

Kallik was entering the cloud. It swirled up around her thin legs and tubby body. She was quickly reduced to a sparkling outline of light.

“I am not able to see the structure of individual components.” The voice was as calm as ever. “They appear to be unconnected, and each one is different and has independent mobility. They have a definite crystalline nature. In their appearance I am reminded of water-snowflakes — there is the same diversity of form and fractal structure. I feel them pressing against my suit, but there is no sensation beyond simple external pressure. And now… they are within my suit — despite the fact that it is set for full opacity! Apparently they penetrate our protective materials as easily as they move through the planetoid’s surface. I question whether a ship’s shields can offer any obstacle or protection.

“The flakes are now in contact with my thorax and abdomen. They are touching me, sensing me, as though in examination of my structure. They are inside me, I feel them. Their temperature is difficult to estimate, but it cannot be extreme. I feel no discomfort.”

Kallik had vanished from sight. Her voice briefly faded, then came back to full strength. “Can you hear me, Captain Rebka? Please reply if you can.”

“Loud and clear, Kallik. Keep talking.”

“I will do so. I have now taken seven paces into the cloud, and it is tenuous but quite opaque. I can no longer see the sky or the surface of the planetoid. I also register a power drain from my suit, but so far I am able to compensate. Eleven paces. There is minor resistance to my forward progress, although not enough to impede my movements. The surface beneath my feet feels unchanged. I am having no trouble breathing, thinking, or moving my limbs.

“Eighteen paces. The resistance to my motion has lessened. Visibility is improving, and already I can see the outline of Master Nenda’s ship ahead of me. Twenty-two paces. I can see the stars again. Most of the cloud is behind me. I am standing on the surface of the planetoid, and I appear to be physically unaffected by my passage through it. Twenty-seven paces. I am totally clear.