Samarkand grew and grew until an arc of it filled the screen; frozen oceans of a sulphurous yellow edged with shores of pure malachite; rolling mountain ranges that seemed made of desert sand. Chaline pointed out a spreading stain of reddish-green across the surface of one ocean. It issued from one point on the shore.

‘Heat-sink station,’ she said. ‘The colouring is from adapted algae. They should survive the freezing process and start oxygenating, once the seas thaw out.’

‘That will take a lot of energy,’ Cormac observed.

‘Well, you’ve seen how much energy one human body can carry in.’

She looked to the side, where the brown ring at the edge of the blast-site could be seen. It was just coloration to the level ground and over a nearby range of hills, from fallout—from the heat flash. They all knew that nothing could have survived within it. Cormac pursed his lips in thought for a moment, then turned to the two Sparkind.

‘What was your brief,’ he asked, ‘exactly?’

Thorn said, ‘Quite simple, my friend, we are here to make sure nothing . . . military gets in the way of re-establishing runcible link. Beyond that, we were told to do whatever you tell us to do. There was a briefing that, for this initial survey, only Gant and I would be needed, and that further orders from you might be . . . lacking.’

He gave a crooked grin, to which Cormac could not help but respond.

‘Anything else?’ he asked.

‘Only that the other two were to hold themselves in readiness. I suppose you don’t need the big guns yet. Anyway, they were orders that were surprisingly lacking in detail. I hope that what detail there is doesn’t conflict.’

‘It won’t,’ said Cormac, and clamped down on his frustration. He had learnt nothing. Only two for the initial survey. Where or when would all four be needed? Cormac cursed Blegg’s reticence. It seemed to him now he had only been sent here to learn something which was probably already known, and to be rehabilitated. He did not like playing this sort of game.

A dull droning sound told them they were entering the thin and frigid atmosphere. The droning grew to a roar as cloud whipped against the shuttle. The shuttle banked and spiralled down towards the planet. This noise precluded speech, but it seemed no time before they were hurtling above a mountain range under a sky the colour of old brass, and before the roar became a dull and distant thunder.

‘We’ll be approaching the station shortly. The weather is very bad. Ground temperature one-seventy Kelvin. You’ll need your suit heaters on, and full seal on your masks,’ Jane told them.