Vinn said. He lifted one hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound as if I was giving orders."
"No problem," Kara said, her fingers flying as she punched in the problem. A few quick bursts of flux power positioned the Rose into the desired orbit. Instruments charted the surface. Pete and Sarah left control to have a meal and a rest. Iain was alert, watching the detectors diligently.
Kara was monitoring the viewer as the grid of regularly shaped metal objects was charted. Vinn was using the most powerful of the optics to examine the surface.
"Oh, ho," Kara said.
"What? What?" Vinn asked.
She read off figures to indicate a specific spot on the surface. Vinn focused the optics on a mound of ice that protruded slightly above the level plain.
"See anything interesting?" Kara asked.
"Something on the surface. It's not covered as thickly as its surroundings."
"Durametal," Kara said.
Vinn felt his heart flip. "Program for stationary orbit," he said.
"Aye, aye."
Holding her position directly over the mass of durametal, Rose used all of her sensors and detectors. "There are two separate objects," Kara said.
"The mass of one matches that of a Mule, the other a Zede Starliner."
Iain said, "It's decision time, kiddies."
Vinn chewed on his lower lip, thinking of Sheba. They couldn't know for sure, not just yet, but it was odds on that the two durametal objects under a shallow coating of ice were Old Folks and David's Starliner. "Iain, before we call Pete and Sarah in for a conference, let's complete the surface sweep."
"I can understand how civilians might disregard standard procedure and land on an untested planet," Iain said, "but I don't think you're going to find an X&A explorer down there."
"Resuming polar orbit," Kara said.
They did not, of course, find an X&A ship on the surface of the planet.
They found only more of the grid installations. Twenty-four hours later,the planetary sweep completed, Rose floated in stationary orbit above the two durametal objects. A port opened. A small, projectile-shaped drone fluxed away toward the surface.
The drone represented Zede technology at its best. It was thought controlled. Kara wore the control helmet. As the probe reached the icy mound on the surface, she projected the probe's binocular vision images onto a screen. The little vessel hovered, sent out a beam of heat.
Durametal was quickly exposed. Kara shifted the drone's position and the heat beam penetrated the open lock of a Zede Starliner.
Sarah held her breath as the optics of the probe took them inside the hull of the ice-bound ship.
"Look at this," Kara said, zooming in on a specimen container that hovered on flux two feet above the icy deck.
"How long would the power last in that flux engine?" Iain asked.
"Just over a year," Vinn said. "Kara, can you clear away the frost there on the front of that bin?"
The probe flared heat, and he knew that Sheba was dead, for the ice melted to show the X&A logo, and, under it, the name Erin Kenner. The specimen bin had belonged to Joshua's ship. He felt heavy. He wanted nothing more than to be alone, to grieve for what might have been. But Kara, in grim silence, had moved the probe to scan the control room of the starliner. There were four bodies on the deck. Through the film of ice came a definite tinge of Service blue.
"You might not want to see this, Sarah," Kara said, as she positioned the probe and focused. The frozen face looked up at them with an expression of surprise.
"Oh, Josh," Sarah whispered. "Oh, please, no."
"That's your brother?" Iain asked.
Pete put his arm around Sarah. "Yes," he said. "That's Joshua Webster."
"What's in the bins?" Iain asked.
"Let's have a look," Kara said.
It took a while, after the probe was positioned above the bin, to make out the mass inside. Kara played the heat beam lightly over the frozen contents. Ruth Webster's face emerged, ruptured eyeballs looking upward past a male head.
It took some time to discover the second specimen bin, which had been left outside when Josh and his party entered the Fran Webster.
"They are all here," Sarah said weakly, when she recognized the ruined faces of her mother and father. "All except Sheba."
"So now we know," Iain said. "Is it time to call in the shock troops?"
"I'm going to take Sarah to our cabin," Pete said.
"That wasn't an answer, was it?" Kara asked, after the de Condes were gone.
"I'm feeling a small suggestion of outright panic," Iain said.
"Pete de Conde didn't get to be one of the richest men in the U.P. by following the letter of the rules," Kara said.
"I'm going to bring up the probe," Iain said.
"No," Vinn said sharply.
"Huh?" said Iain.
"There are eight bodies down there," Vinn said. "And we have no idea what happened to the Erin Kenner and the rest of her crew."
"That machine represents a lot of credits," Iain said. "And I'm signed for it."
"Leave it. Park it. Maybe we can retrieve it later."
"Leave it, Iain," Kara said. "He's right. We don't know what we're dealing with here."
"I want no physical contact with the surface, either direct orsecondhand, not until we know a lot more."
Iain bristled, but subsided. He'd had not a few conversations with Vinn during the trip out, and he knew that Vinn had good credentials. "All right," he said, "what's your suggestion?"
"Run all the tests again, and any others that we can think of."
"Polar orbit?" Kara asked.
"Please, Kara," Vinn said.
The monotonous task of scanning the entire surface of the planet again.
Iain took a sleep break, leaving Kara on weapons and Vinn watching the instruments. The long hours passed.
"Do you mind if I have a look at the planet's magnetic field?" Vinn asked.
"Not at all," Kara said. "Punch in magnoscan."
"I think I know the procedure," Vinn said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
There was nothing unexpected about the planet's magnetic field. A
series of solar flares were sending strong flows of radiation into the thin atmosphere. Vinn measured the power of the flares and the intensity of the auroral display at the north pole. He used the computer's files to compare the readings to those of other planets and found nothing out of the ordinary.
Rose's instruments located an area of relatively thin ice which covered a broad, flat zone lacking the gridded metallic installations. Kara investigated.
"Hey, Vinn," she called out, "this empty area was hit by no less than three blasts from a laser cannon within the last year."
"The Erin Kenner," Vinn said.
"That's my guess, too," Kara said.
"Anything else?"
"Nope. No metal directly under the blast area. At least not enough to show on the ore field detectors. Whoever shot up the joint was using full power, because destruction was complete."
It was, it seemed, another blind lead, another dead end. Vinn looked at the viewscreen moodily. His fingers rested lightly on the keyboard. He sent out another search for life signals and there was nothing. Idly he punched in an order for detection of gravitational waves. That test hadn't been run previously because the duration and strength of the waves could be readily predicted by measurement of the planet's density, mass, and position in relationship to other solar system bodies. He was looking at the screen with only half of his attention, his thoughts once again with Sheba. It is human to hope, and he was trying desperately to abandon the mindset that she was dead.
At first he didn't realize what he was seeing. In addition to the image and measurements of standard gravitational waves there was a connected grid of waves covering the surface of the planet. Directed gravitational force joined each of the metallic installations of the grid.
"Vinn, what is it?" Kara asked, as he bent forward in obvious agitation.
"I don't know," he said. What he was seeing was impossible. While it was true that gravity could be created artificially aboard ship and nullified by the flux engine, it was not possible to direct such forces in straight lines, as was obviously being done under the ice of the planet.