From horizon to horizon, the prairie steppe rolled with dominant confidence, ignoring them, ignoring all humans, concerned only with its dreaming fecundity. Its surface provided some of the richest land on Gaia, where water was available. To the west, a clean orange-yellow sun was within half an hour of falling below the horizon. The sky was cloudless and pure, the blue of Athene’s hemline spread over her domain, with a few bright stars or perhaps planets twinkling in the expanse, drops of glitter from Aphrodite’s makeup box.

The cargo plane made its descent to ground a couple of stadia distant, followed by the tanker, their motors obscenely loud in this calm, this aloofness.

They stood, all the expedition, beneath the still blades of the beecraft, looking down the gentle slope into the swale. They had arrived at their destination without real difficulty. Nobody, judging from their expressions, expected the absence of trouble to continue. Atta kept glancing at the horizon all around, one heavy eyebrow lifted doubtfully.

The Kelt stood beside Rhita with his weapon ready. The other palace guards followed a few moments after, expressionless, alert. Birds returned to the grass, tiny feather bullets shy and curious.

Rhita lifted her clavicle. “It’s there,” she said. She swallowed. “I’ll go down and look at it. Nobody comes with me…except him.” She indicated the Kelt. It would deeply insult her bodyguard to keep him away when she walked into danger.

Demetrios stepped forward, still pale from his ordeal on the beecraft. “I’d like to go with you,” he said. “I’m here to make an opinion about what we’re seeing…I’m useless if I just stand here.”

Rhita was too tired and nervous to object. “Just Lugotorix and you, then,” she said, hoping there wouldn’t be any more brave men volunteering. There weren’t. Oresias and Atta stood at the edge of the swale, arms folded, surrounded by the beecraft crew and kybernetes and the other expedition members, while Rhita, the Kelt and Demetrios walked down the gentle slope to the muddy streambed.

Not of her own volition, Rhita lifted the clavicle into a better position and carried it before her. She saw the gate in the display as a red circle now, barely five arms ahead of them. “Is it close?” Demetrios asked.

Rhita pointed. “Right there.” She could finally make it out with her eye, an almost invisible lens floating about eight arms above the ground, slightly darker than the sky around it. It seemed quiescent, but still it terrified her.