Nightingale cleared his throat. "It's why we're here," he said. "If we don't get some answers, we'll never hear the end of it." He looked directly at Mac.

Kellie laughed, and the momentary tension fell apart.

When Beekman's people named the various continents, seas, and other physical features across Deepsix, they'd called the range along Transitoria's western coastline the Mournful Mountains. It contained several of the highest peaks on Deepsix, soaring to seven thousand meters above sea level. At sixty-six hundred, Mt. Blue was not quite the tallest, but it was one of the more picturesque. A bundle of white clouds enclosed the upper levels. Granite walls fell away at sharp angles for thousands of meters, before mutating into gradual slopes that descended into foothills and forest.

Marcel had assigned Mira Amelia to provide weather updates and tracking information to the lander. She also kept them updated on the rescue effort. Mira maintained an optimistic front without becoming annoying. Kellie commented that Mira was a good analyst and that she wouldn't sound that way unless the program was very likely to work. It was an interpretation that they all needed to hear. Even MacAllister, who was visibly shaken at the notion of flying into a midair net, seemed to take heart.

They'd been aloft an hour and a half when Mira reported that the river they were now approaching eventually passed close to Mt. Blue. "There's some open country nearby. This would be the place to refuel. And maybe stock up."

Hutch went down through heavy weather ("It's worse everywhere else," said Mira) and landed in a driving rain on the south bank. The trees were loaded with fruit. They picked some pumpkin-sized de-lectables that they'd had before. The edible part was quite good, rather like a large dried raisin encased within a tough husk. They hurried back into the lander with them, out of the downpour. And ate up.

The simple pleasures of being alive.

They stored a hefty supply in cargo. Optimistically, Mac pointed out. Then they ran out the hose and refilled the tanks. When the job was finished they lifted off again.

Mt. Blue was on the coast. To the west, offshore, the sea had withdrawn and left a vast expanse of muddy bog.

"The water's on the other side of the world," Mira explained. She provided a course correction and instructed Hutch to go to sixty-eight hundred meters. She also relayed pictures of the mountain, taken from satellite.

"Here's something odd," she said. The north side was sheer precipice, from summit to ground level. A ninety-degree drop.

Nightingale stared at it. "That almost looks artificial."

"That's what we thought," said Mira. "Here's something else." She zeroed in.

Hutch saw vertical and horizontal lines along the face of the cliff. A framework of some sort. It ran from the summit all the way to the base, at ground level.

"What is it?" asked Kellie.

"We have no idea. If you get a chance, take a look."

Then she showed them what the scanners had seen at the moun-taintop: The summit was perfectly flat. And there, in the middle, was the hexagon.

Mira enhanced the image. The structure was enormous, occupying perhaps sixty percent of the total available ground space atop the mountain. It was half-submerged in a tangle of vegetation. But they could make out windows and doorways. Hutch noted an almost classical symmetry, unlike the overblown and overdecorated styles currently favored by her own civilization. The corners were flared. Otherwise, the structure was unadorned.

The top was jagged, as if upper levels had been broken off. On average it was about six stories high, less in some places, more in others. The top-one couldn't really call it a roof since it appeared the upper level was exposed to the sky-was covered with snow.

"Here's what it looks like under the snow," said Mira. She removed it, and they were looking down on chambers and passageways and staircases. All in a general state of collapse.

Mira sent them a reconstruction, revealing its probable appearance in its early years. The computer replaced the bushes and weeds with sculpted walkways and gravel courts, and installed gleaming windows and carved doors. The roof became an oval gridwork that rose into the clouds. It was magnificent.

"We think we found the missing pieces, by the way."

"You mean the mountaintop?"

"And the north side of the cliff. They're a group of hills about twenty klicks east. It's all a big river valley now. Most of the granite is covered by forest."

"So that means-"

"It came off a very long time ago. At least a thousand years. Probably a lot more." She paused. "Okay, if you're ready, I'm going to take you in."

"We're ready."

"There's plenty of room to set down," Mira said.

"Doesn't the cloud bank ever go away?" asked MacAllister. He meant the one that shrouded the mountaintop.

"We don't have any records that go back more than a few weeks," said Mira. "But it's been a permanent feature during the time we've been here. Several of the other peaks in this area are the same way."

She provided a course correction. Hutch slowed and eased into the clouds.

"Doing fine," Mira said. "No obstructions ahead. You're two hundred meters above the rock."

The mist grew dark.

Hutch turned on the spike. The seat pushed up slightly against her spine. She continued to reduce airspeed, lowered her treads, and put the thrusters into vertical mode.

Snow began to fall across the windscreen, and they picked up some interference.

Mira's voice disappeared in a burst of static.

Hutch switched to another channel and recovered the transmission.

"You're now approaching the lip of the plateau," Mira said. "You've got plenty of clearance, so there's nothing to worry about. Give me a descent rate of five meters per second."

Hutch complied.

Thunder rumbled below them. "Thirty seconds to touchdown, Hutch."

She watched them tick off on her counter, fired the thrusters, reduced airspeed to zero, and drifted in.

"Priscilla," asked MacAllister, "what happens if we lose radio contact?"

She was too busy to answer.

"No problem," said Kellie after a moment. "We just go back up. Sky's clear overhead."

"Fifteen seconds. Go three-quarter spike."

They dropped slowly through the mist. And touched down.

Hutch resisted the impulse to take a deep breath. She looked out through the side window but couldn't see more than a few meters into the fog. "Mira," she said, "thanks."

"My pleasure. I'll notify Marcel."

The four superluminals, directed by the Star's AI, assumed their positions along the assembly, in each case drawing up at one of the four locations marked with yellow dye, facing the asteroid. The smallest of the four, the Zwick, halted approximately thirty-eight kilometers from the rock. The others were spaced over the next 332 kilometers, Wildside second in line, followed by the Star, which could generate far and away the maximum thrust of the group, and finally, Wendy.

The positioning of the ships had been the most difficult part of the problem for John Drummond and his team. Posted in a shuttle drifting across the rocky surface of the asteroid, he went over his numbers one last time and found everything in order.

Janet Hazelhurst sat beside him to provide technical assistance to the Outsiders. And Miles Chastain, the skipper of the media ship, was in a shuttle roughly midway between the Star and Wildside, prepared to come to the assistance of anyone who got in trouble. Other shuttles were strategically placed to help. Each person who had gone outside was being tracked by one of the attending vehicles, which would immediately sound an alarm if anyone drifted away, or if any indication of distress or undue difficulty showed itself.