This time Toller’s attention was caught by what appeared to be a bright double planet which had risen above the pre-dawn spray of luminance. On impulse he threw the blankets aside and struggled to his feet, lips moving silently as the wound in his leg exacted its due toll of pain. He gathered up his crutches and negotiated his way across the tiled floor to the nearest of the telescopes. His disability complicated the task of aiming and focusing the instrument, but within a few seconds he was gazing into the eyepiece.
And there, suspended before him in velvety blackness, was a shimmering world accompanied by a single huge moon. The larger component of the binary was bluish in color, perhaps a signal that it had an abundance of water, and as his eyes drank in the radiant spectacle Toller felt a touch of the uncanny, a stealthy coolness spreading down his spine.
“You may be right about the ringed world, father,” he whispered. “But—somehow—I wonder…”