Simpson turned to stare at a videoscreen that covered most of one wall. It displayed a computer-generated topographical map of the explored portion of Acheron. The map was not very extensive, and the features it illustrated made the worst section of the Kalahari Desert look like Polynesia. Simpson rarely got to see any of Acheron's surface in person. His duties required him to remain close to Operations at all times, and he liked that just fine.
'Tell him,' he informed Lydecker, 'that as far as I'm concerned, if he finds something, it's his. Anybody with the guts to go crawling around out there deserves to keep what he finds.'
The tractor had six wheels, armoured sides, oversize tyres and a corrosion-proof underbody. It was not completely Acheron-proof, but then, very little of the colony's equipment was. Repeated patching and welding had transformed the once-sleek exterior of the tractor into a collage composed of off-colour metal blotches held together with solder and epoxy sealant. But it kept the wind and sand at bay and climbed steadily forward. That was enough for the people it sheltered.
At the moment it was chugging its way up a gentle slope, the fat tyres kicking up sprays of volcanic dust that the wind was quick to carry away. Eroded sandstone and shale crumbled beneath its weight. A steady westerly gale howled outside its armoured flanks, blasting the pitted windows and light ports in its emotionless, unceasing attempt to blind the vehicle and those within. The determination of those who drove combined with the reliable engine to keep it moving uphill. The engine hummed reassuringly, while the air filters cycled ceaselessly as they fought to keep dust and grit out of the sacrosanct interior The machine needed clean air to breathe just as much as did its occupants.
He was not quite as weather-beaten as his vehicle, but Russ Jorden still wore the unmistakable look of someone who'd spent more than his share of time on Acheron. Weathered and wind-blasted. To a lesser degree the same description applied to his wife, Anne, though not to the two children who bounced about in the rear of the big central cabin. Somehow they managed to dart in and around portable sampling equipment and packing cases without getting themselves smashed against the walls. Their ancestors had learned at an early age how to ride something called a horse. The action of the tractor was not very different from the motion one has to cope with atop the spine of that empathetic quadruped, and the children had mastered it almost as soon as they learned how to walk.
Their clothing and faces were smeared with dust despite the nominally inviolable interior of the vehicle. That was a fact of life on Acheron. No matter how tight you tried to seal yoursel in, the dust always managed to penetrate vehicles, offices homes. One of the first colonists had coined a name for this phenomenon that was more descriptive than scientific. 'Paniculate osmosis,' he'd called it. Acheronian science. The more imaginative colonists insisted that the dust was sentient, that it hid and waited for doors and windows to open a crack before deliberately rushing inside. Homemakers argued facetiously whether it was faster to wash clothes or scrape them clean.
Russ Jorden wrestled the massive tractor around boulders too big to climb and negotiated a path through narrow crevices in the plateau they were ascending. He was sustained in his efforts by the music of the Locater's steady pinging. It grew louder the nearer they came to the source of the electromagnetic distur bance, but he refused to turn down the volume. Each ping was a melody unto itself, like the chatter of oldtime cash registers. His wife monitored the tractor's condition and the life-support systems while her husband drove.
'Look at this fat, juicy, magnetic profile.' Jorden tapped the small readout on his right. 'And it's mine, mine, mine Lydecker says that Simpson said so, and we've got it recorded They can't take that away from us now. Not even the Company can take it away from us. Mine, all mine.'
'Half mine, dear.' His wife glanced over at him and smiled.
'And half mine!' This cheerful desecration of basic mathematics came from Newt, the Jorden's daughter. She was six years old going on ten, and she had more energy than both her parents and the tractor combined. Her father grinned affectionately without taking his eyes from the driver's console.
'I got too many partners.'
The girl had been playing with her older brother until she'd finally worn him out. 'Tim's bored, Daddy, and so am I. When are we going back to town?'
'When we get rich, Newt.'
'You always say that.' She scrambled onto her feet, as agile as an otter. 'I wanna go back. I wanna play Monster Maze.'
Her brother stuck his face into hers. 'You can play by yourself this time. You cheat too much.'
'Do not!' She put small fists on unformed hips. 'I'm just the best, and you're jealous.'
'Am not! You go in places we can't fit.'
'So? That's why I'm the best.'
Their mother spared a moment to glance over from her bank of monitors and readouts. 'Knock it off. I catch either of you two playing in the air ducts again, I'll tan your hides. Not only is it against colony regulations, it's dangerous. What if one of you missed a step and fell down a vertical shaft?'
'Aw, Mom. Nobody's dumb enough to do that. Besides, all the kids play it, and nobody's been hurt yet. We're careful.' Her smile returned. 'An' I'm the best 'cause I can fit places nobody else can.'
'Like a little worm.' Her brother stuck his tongue out at her.
She duplicated the gesture. 'Nyah, nyah! Jealous, jealous. He made a grab for her protruding tongue. She let out a childish shriek and ducked behind a mobile ore analyzer.
'Look, you two.' There was more affection than anger in Anne Jorden's tone. 'Let's try to calm down for two minutes okay? We're almost finished up here. We'll head back toward town soon and—'
Russ Jorden had half risen from his seat to stare through the windshield. Childish confrontations temporarily put aside, his wife joined him.
'What is it, Russ?' She put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as the tractor lurched leftward.
'There's something out there. Clouds parted for just a second, and I saw it. I don't know what it is, but it's big. And it's ours. Yours and mine — and the kids'.'
The alien spacecraft dwarfed the tractor as the big six-wheeler trundled to a halt nearby. Twin arches of metallic glass swept skyward in graceful, but somehow disturbing curves from the stern of the derelict. From a distance they resembled the reaching arms of a prone dead man, locked in advanced rigor mortis. One was shorter than the other, and yet this failed to ruin the symmetry of the ship.
The design was as alien as the composition. It might have been grown instead of built. The slick bulge of the hull stil exhibited a peculiar vitreous luster that the wind-borne grit of Acheron had not completely obliterated.
Jorden locked the tractor's brakes. 'Folks, we have scored big this time. Anne, break out the suits. I wonder if the Hadley Cafe can synthesize champagne?'
His wife stood where she was, staring out through the tough glass. 'Let's check it out and get back safely before we start celebrating, Russ. Maybe we're not the first to find it.'
'Are you kidding? There's no beacon on this whole plateau There's no marker outside. Nobody's been here before us Nobody! She's all ours.' He was heading toward the rear of the cabin as he talked.
Anne still sounded doubtful. 'Hard to believe that anything that big, putting out that kind of resonance, could have sat here for this long without being noticed.'
'Bull.' Jorden was already climbing into his environment suit flipping catches without hunting for them, closing seal-tights with the ease of long practice. 'You worry too much. I can think of plenty of reasons why it's escaped notice until now.'
'For instance?' Reluctantly she turned from the window and moved to join him in donning her own suit.