Later, as she steered an eva suit into the dark, a single riding light glimmered to no purpose against the dim yellow rim of the asteroid. Data flickered in her helmet head-ups. ‘No activity,’ she said. It was as she expected. A very old nuclear powerplant could be detected inside, towards the prow of the wreck. It was lightly shielded, and had been designed with no controls or moving parts, as a single mass, like an Oklo reactor. At the stern end, chemical engines and  a Dynaflow driver: first-class equipment  bolted on less than fifty years before. It looked as if someone had made an attempt to salvage the wreck, machining new parts at a base on the asteroid, then giving up when test-accelerations broke it in two. ‘I don’t know how they found it in the first place. Modern cosmology tells us that if there’s an arse-end of the universe it’s probably here.’ There was a click. ‘I’m approaching the fracture now.’ After that, communications  would remain poor for the duration.  Back on the Nova Swing, displays showed the feed from her headpiece cameras failing briefly before offering a series of uninterpretable still pictures of hull plates, detached structural members, and sudden voids which seemed to imply a completely different spatial relationship  with the asteroid. Miles of cable had unreeled  into space. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s interference  in the pipe.’ Then: ‘I’m in now.’ A cross section of the wreck would have revealed brittle, organic-looking  structures  of tubules and fibres in faded blues, purples, pinks and browns. Inside, however, it was dark. Curiously  leaning  speleothems  divided  the  passageways, which eventually gave way to more recognisable architecture. ‘Whatever this started out as, it wasn’t a ship. I think it might have been an animal. The ductwork and cabling was laid in by hand. Even the hull is a retrofit. It’s an afterthought.  I’m getting near the reactor now.’ There was a long pause, then: ‘Jesus. Holes.’ Fifty million candlepower jittered around  an undefinable space, throwing the shadows of pillars at odd angles on to the walls. ‘Are you getting this?’ She was in some sort of chamber. Wherever she looked, perfectly straight, perfectly circular tunnels, half a metre in diameter, had been bored through the ancient organic mass. They displayed the surface glaze of high-temperature events. ‘This is new. About the  time  of the  salvage attempt,  or  perhaps  just  before. Fuck. What’s that? What’s that?’

The light flew about the walls, then went out.

A further silence.

‘Antoyne? Antoyne? Are you getting this? Antoyne, something’s in here with me.’

Up in the pilot room of the Nova Swing, shadow operators whirled around, their hands to their faces, whispering:

‘What has she done now? Oh, what has she done now?’