“Energy meetings. I get to explain to the United Nations why the world’s top engineers have been shuttled to the moon for an emergency fusion summit.”

A beeping truck horn demanded our presence outside. Two medical technicians entered the trailer, carrying a thermal medevac bag. Dharma was placed inside, then carried out to the transport vehicle, followed by Lara and Dr. Bruemmer.

Uncle David gripped my wrist. “Bruemmer gave you a taste of what to expect. Remember, most of the crew have been training together for more than a year. They’ll be suspicious of you—good! Step on a few toes. If one or more of them have sold us out to the coal industry, I want to know about it.”

We embraced. Then I put on my parka, left the trailer, and climbed into the backseat of the awaiting truck.

The battery-powered transport accelerated past several trailers and four fuel tanks on skids labeled FLAMMABLE: ROCKET FUEL. Up ahead, Oceanus I glistened like a giant crystal ball, its surface inverting reflections of its surroundings, its four double-jointed anchor legs giving the structure a “spider” effect. As we moved closer to one of these silo-size supports, I noticed both the top and bottom of each vertical appendage were charred.

The truck parked at a mobile gantry, its heated aluminum steps leading up to a portal situated in the habitat’s third level. Dharma was carried up the stairs by an EMT.

I waited, then followed the others up the gantry into Oceanus.

“Whoa.”

The 360-degree panoramic view was startling, like entering a giant fishbowl. Twelve leather lounge chairs, equipped with harnesses and adjustable tabletops were set in pairs facing the aero gel surface. Above, the heavens yielded to the aurora, running across the endless blue sky like a spearmint river. Below and all around us the camp had mobilized; trucks, trailers, and fuel tanks formed a convoy that I knew was en route to reconvene several miles to the east.

Tearing myself away from the view, I inspected the rest of the chamber. Rising up along the walls like latitude lines on a globe were six tubular support buttresses. These five-feet-in-diameter hollow acrylic beams continued up the curved ceiling where they met at a centrally located vertical shaft.

The vertical column was ten feet around. Composed of aero gel, the see-through plastic tube was filled with an orange-colored fluid, more oil than water.

As I watched, a round object floated up through the flooded shaft like a glob of wax in a lava lamp. An acrylic sphere, its interior was filled with a clear viscous liquid, but appeared to be of a thinner viscosity than what was in the shaft.

The object ascended to my eye level, revealing its internal workings, and thus its identity.

GOLEM …