'What a shame; I thought there might be someone – something – there to welcome us.'

'No such luck, I'm afraid; we're very much on our own out here. That beacon is just where we intend to land – it's near Halley's south pole and is in permanent darkness at the moment. That will make it easier on our life-support systems. The temperature's up to 120 degrees on the Sunlit side – way above boiling point.'

'No wonder the comet's perking,' said the unabashed Dimitri. 'Those jets don't look very healthy to me. Are you sure it's safe to go in?'

'That's another reason we're touching down on the nightside; there's no activity there. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get back to the bridge. This is the first chance I've ever had of landing on a new world – and I doubt if I'll get another.'

Captain Smith's audience dispersed slowly, and in unusual silence. The image on the viewscreen zoomed back to normal, and the nucleus dwindled once more to a barely visible spot. Yet even in those few minutes it seemed to have grown slightly larger, and perhaps that was no illusion. Less than four hours before encounter, the ship was still hurtling towards the comet at fifty thousand kilometres an hour.

It would make a crater more impressive than any that Halley now boasted, if something happened to the main drive at this stage of the game.

16 – Touchdown

The landing was just as anticlimactic as Captain Smith had hoped. It was impossible to tell the moment when Universe made contact; a full minute elapsed before the passengers realized that touchdown was complete, and raised a belated cheer.

The ship lay at one end of a shallow valley, surrounded by hills little more than a hundred metres high. Anyone who had been expecting to see a lunar landscape would have been greatly surprised; these formations bore no resemblance at all to the smooth, gentle slopes of the Moon, sand-blasted by micrometeorite bombardment over billions of years.

There was nothing here more than a thousand years old; the Pyramids were far more ancient than this landscape. Every time around the Sun, Halley was remoulded – and diminished – by the solar fires. Even since the 1986 perihelion passage, the shape of the nucleus had been subtly changed. Melding metaphors shamelessly, Victor Willis had nevertheless put it rather well when he told his viewers: 'The "peanut" has become wasp-waisted!'

Indeed, there were indications that, after a few more revolutions round the Sun, Halley might split into two roughly equal fragments – as had Biela's comet, to the amazement of the astronomers of 1846.

The virtually non-existent gravity also contributed to the strangeness of the landscape. All around were spidery formations like the fantasies of a surrealistic artist, and improbably canted rockpiles that could not have survived more than a few minutes even on the Moon.

Although Captain Smith had chosen to land Universe in the depths of the polar night – all of five kilometres from the blistering heat of the Sun – there was ample illumination. The huge envelope of gas and dust surrounding the comet formed a glowing halo which seemed appropriate for this region; it was easy to imagine that it was an aurora, playing over the Antarctic ice. And if that was not sufficient, Lucifer provided its quota of several hundred full moons.

Although expected, the complete absence of colour was a disappointment; Universe might have been sitting in an opencast coal mine: that, in fact, was not a bad analogy, for much of the surrounding blackness was due to carbon or its compounds, intimately mixed with snow and ice.

Captain Smith, as was his due, was the first to leave the ship, pushing himself gently out from Universe's main airlock. It seemed an eternity before he reached the ground, two metres below; then he picked up a handful of the powdery surface, and examined it in his gloved hand.

Aboard the ship, everyone waited for the words that would go into the history books.

'Looks like pepper and salt,' said the Captain. 'If it were thawed out, it might grow a pretty good crop.'

* * *

The mission plan involved one complete Halley 'day' of fifty-five hours at the south pole, then – if there were no problems – a move of ten kilometres towards the very ill-defined equator, to study one of the geysers during a complete day-night cycle.

Chief Scientist Pendrill wasted no time. Almost immediately, he set off with a colleague on a two-man jet-sled towards the beacon of the waiting probe. They were back within the hour, bearing prepackaged samples of comet which they proudly consigned to the deep-freeze.

Meanwhile the other teams established a spider's web of cables along the valley, strung between poles driven into the friable crust. These served not only to link numerous instruments to the ship, but also made movement outside much easier. One could explore this portion of Halley without the use of cumbersome External Manoeuvring Units; it was only necessary to attach a tether to a cable, and then go along it hand over hand. That was also much more fun than operating EMUs, which were virtually one-man spaceships with all the complications they involved.

The passengers watched all this with fascination, listening to the radioed conversations and trying to join in the excitement of discovery. After about twelve hours – considerably less in the case of ex-astronaut Clifford Greenburg – the pleasure of being a captive audience started to pall. Soon there was much talk about 'going outside' except from Victor Willis who was quite uncharacteristically subdued.

'I think he's scared,' said Dimitri contemptuously. He had never liked Victor, since discovering that the scientist was completely tone-deaf. Though this was wildly unfair to Victor (who had gamely allowed himself to be used as a guinea pig for studies of his curious affliction) Dimitri was fond of adding darkly 'A man that hath no music in himself, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.'

Floyd had made up his mind even before leaving Earth orbit. Maggie M was game enough to try anything and would need no encouragement. (Her slogan 'An author should never turn down the opportunity for a new experience' had impacted famously on her emotional life.)

Yva Merlin, as usual, had kept everyone in suspense, but Floyd was determined to take her on a personal tour of the comet. It was the very least he could do to maintain his reputation; everyone knew that he had been partly responsible for getting the fabulous recluse on the passenger list, and now it was a running joke that they were having an affair. Their most innocent remarks were gleefully misinterpreted by Dimitri and the ship's physician Dr Mahindran, who professed to regard them with envious awe.

After some initial annoyance – because it all too accurately recalled the emotions of his youth – Floyd had gone along with the joke. But he did not know how Yva felt about it, and had so far lacked the courage to ask her. Even now, in this compact little society where few secrets lasted more than six hours, she maintained much of her famous reserve – that aura of mystery which had fascinated audiences for three generations.

As for Victor Willis, he had just discovered one of those devastating little details that can destroy the best-laid plans of mice and spacemen.

Universe was equipped with the latest Mark XX suits, with non-fogging, non-reflective visors guaranteed to give an unparalleled view of space. And though the helmets came in several sizes, Victor Willis could not get into any of them without major surgery.

It had taken him fifteen years to perfect his trademark ('a triumph of the topiary art,' one critic had called it, perhaps admiringly).

Now only his beard stood between Victor Willis and Halley's Comet. Soon he would have to make a choice between the two.