It was a decade now since Icarus had been deliberately implanted with Moonseed, by an automated probe. The purpose was to test experimental asimov circuits, to see if the Moonseed could be inhibited.

Well, since the asteroid hadn’t blown up, the asimov circuits seemed to have worked. And now, Nadezhda was here to find out what the Moonseed had built, at the heart of the asteroid. We know you can make solar sails. We know you can turn planets into black hole guns. Now let’s see what the hell else you can do…

Even now, nobody understood the Moonseed. But there were those who believed the Moonseed was not malevolent.

Look at the evidence. This hive thing crashes into a primordial Earth, that was probably too big anyhow. It creates a Moon, just big enough to kick up the geological stuff that enabled life to start up in the first place. Then, just when we’ve had time to get smart enough to survive it all — in fact, don’t forget, our intelligence, bringing the Moonseed to Earth, was the trigger for this happening — it takes Earth apart, gives us a tool kit to rebuild other worlds, and gives us a way to the stars…

This is no threat. The Moonseed is no Berserker. It’s a life-giver.

There were other unanswered questions.

Why had the destruction of Venus taken such a different course from Earth’s?

Why was Mercury spared? And Mars, come to that — after all, craft from Earth had landed on Mars before they reached Venus.

Maybe it was just accident. Or maybe it was design.

Or maybe the Moonseed, for all its power, was like plankton — the bottom of some cosmic food chain whose upper reaches humans couldn’t even glimpse.

Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody knew for sure. But as Earth receded in memory, there were more who were prepared to give the Moonseed the benefit of the doubt.

At a computer prompt, she prepared for her final burn. “Ready for Terminal Initiation.”

Copy that, Nadezhda.

One last time the thrusters fired, fat and full.

Coming up to your hundred yard limit.

“Copy that.”

She came to a dead stop, a hundred yards from the surface of Icarus. The asteroid’s complex, battered surface was like a wall in front of her. She felt no tug of gravity — Icarus’s G was a thousandth of the Moon’s — it would take her more than two minutes to fall in to the surface from here, compared to a few seconds on the Moon.

She was comfortable. The suit was quiet, warm, safe.

She blipped her cold-gas thrusters, and drifted forward a little more quickly. This wasn’t like coming in for a landing; it was more like approaching a cliff face which bulged gently out at her, its coal-like blackness oppressive.