Hunt's final stop brought him back to Nearside—to the base at Copernicus near which Charlie had been found. Scientists at Copernicus had been studying descriptions of the terrain over which Charlie had traveled and the accompanying sketched maps; the information contained in the notebook had been transmitted up from Houston. From the traveling times, distances, and estimates of speed quoted, they suspected that Charlie's journey had begun somewhere on Farside and had brought him, by way of the Jura Mountains, Sinus Iridum, and Mare Imbrium, to Copernicus. Not everybody subscribed to this opinion, however, there was a problem. For some unaccountable reason, the directions and compass points mentioned in Charlie's notes bore no relationship to the conventional lunar north-south that derived from its axis of rotation. The only route for Charlie's journey that could be interpreted to make any sense at all was the one from Farside across Mare Imbrium, but even that only made sense if a completely new direction was assumed for the north-south axis.

Attempts to locate Gorda had so far met with no positive success. From the tone of the final entries in the diary, it could not have been very far from the spot where Charlie was found. About fifteen miles south of this point was an area covered by numerous overlapping craters, all confirmed as being meteoritic and of recent origin. Most researchers concluded that this must have been the site of Gorda, totally obliterated by a freak concentration of meteorites in the as yet unexplained storm.

Before leaving Copernicus, Hunt accepted an invitation to drive out overland and visit the place of Charlie's discovery. He was accompanied by a Professor Alberts from the base and the crew of the UNSA survey vehicle.

* * *

The survey vehicle lumbered to a halt in a wide gorge, between broken walls of slate-gray rock. All around it, the dust had been churned into a bewildering pattern of grooves and ridges by Caterpillar tracks, wheels, landing gear, and human feet—evidence of the intense activity that had occurred there over the last eighteen months. From the observation dome of the upper cabin, Hunt recognized the scene immediately; he had first seen it in Caldwell's office. He identified the large mound of rubble against the near wall of the gorge, and above it the notch leading into the cleft.