As, some hours later, she finally approached the planetoid, Orlandine noted signs of occupation. Large areas had been ground flat in a landscape of contorted ice seemingly formed by the water freezing while large bubbles had spread through it, and subsequently subliming away so that only curves and sharp edges remained. A few blasts from the air jets brought her ship down in one of the clear zones, and she wondered if the craft would have survived a landing in one of those other unlevelled areas. At this temperature water-ice could possess the consistency of steel and much of that contorted ice looked dangerously sharp. Heliotrope’s hull might be constructed of layered composite with an outer skin of ceramal, but it still could be damaged.

As the ship skidded on a gritty layer of flattened ice, blowing up an iridescent cloud, she fired the mooring harpoons and observed their explosive heads drive home. Possibly there were seismic detectors on this planetoid, but hopefully what they detected would be dismissed as just natural settling of the crust.

Now the difficult part. . .

Controlling Heliotrope’s external hardware directly, the ship being designed as a working vessel rather than simply for transport, Orlandine extruded a drill from its belly and immediately started boring down through ice and rock. While this was in process, she assessed her various supplies and considered her options. Heliotrope contained only five slow-burn CTDs, of the kind used at the Cassius project for melting and causing ice build-ups on large structures to sublime. These might melt a hole through the planetoid’s outer crust, but would have little effect on the USER unless she could position them right next to it, which seemed highly unlikely. However, carefully studying the sensor returns from the drill head, she began to see . . . possibilities.

Orlandine found the crust of this planetoid rather interesting, and wondered what spectacular events had resulted in such a high concentration of sodium chloride—in the form of frozen brine -and the abundance of other chlorine compounds. Perhaps the planetoid had formed from the debris of a gas giant, for similar concentrations also could be found at the Cassius project. The presence of these chemicals indicated the possible presence of something else here, and eighty yards down she found it: a layer of pure chlorine frozen solid at these temperatures. Whatever process had formed this planetoid must have involved extremely rapid freezing for so reactive a compound not to combine with others. Perfect.

The drill bit finally broke through a hundred yards down and, until Orlandine injected sealant around the shaft, the Heliotrope sat momentarily on a geyser of methane turning partially to snow, but quickly subliming in near vacuum. Withdrawing the drill shaft’s central core, she then pushed a probe down into the methane sea and, using a passive seismic detector, scanned the planetoid’s interior. Very soon she built a virtual image in her mind.