“It’s a cold hell made of methane and dust. Methane liquifies at -260 F. Those polar seas are -300 F. There is no oxygen or phosphorus. The atmosphere is soup, dense and nitrogen-rich. The snow is made up of hydrocarbon particles.”

I zoomed in on one of the continents near the equator and the uniform rust broke into individual swirls and ridges as if some enormous being had left a fingerprint on the planet’s surface.

“The dunes of Karron are born of electrified sand and methane winds. The wind blows east, but the dunes point to the west. That’s because the electricity makes the hydrocarbon particles of the sand stick together. At the equator the dunes are over 100 yards deep. A craft attempting to land there will be swallowed whole. The static charge of the sand will fry circuitry and wiring, and most of the typical ship drives will stop functioning.”

“Buried alive, blind, deaf, and unable to move,” he said.

“Yes. Even if the craft hovers in the atmosphere without landing, it would be like flying through a sandstorm except that the sand is sticky and would immediately clump to the hull. Within minutes, the craft would become a ball of sand with a hefty charge. If the weight didn’t bring it down, the havoc that the dust would play with all the systems would.”

“What about the oceans?”

“The file on Karron,” I told the inn.

The screen blinked. A dark ocean spread in front of us, a deep olive green. Something rippled under the surface. The liquid bulged, and a mass of flesh emerged, formless but solid, like a microscopic organism somehow enlarged to a gargantuan size. The pallid flesh slid and slithered, pulsating, twisting, a Lovecraftian nightmare, and vanished into the frigid depths.

“I thought you said no oxygen or phosphorus,” Sean said, his face grim.

“It’s cyanide-based life. Vinyl cyanide membranes instead of lipid ones. That’s about all we know about the Karr. They live in the oceans, they destroy anything that tries to intrude into their domain, they do not trade, and they do not communicate. They never leave the planet.”

“What do they eat?” Sean wondered.

I spread my arms. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Sean’s eyes were dark. I knew exactly what he was thinking. There was no way in. We would never make it to the surface, let alone land safely.

A tendril brushed my arm. Gertrude Hunt had sensed my anxiety. I patted the tendril gently.

A soft pulse of magic told us the recording was ready. Sean waved it onto the central screen.

The shop lay empty except for Gorvar dozing on a padded pillow on the floor. I fast forwarded. Hours flashed by in minutes. Occasionally Gorvar rose to stretch or drink some water.

More footage.