He was met with several biologically unlikely suggestions for methods of storing gold, but they included no undertone of rancor. The chance of such strong readings being false positives ranked slightly higher than finding a leprechaun sitting on the gold. But only slightly. The atmosphere was one of jubilation, and everyone was giddy with the possibilities.

Even Tenn was swept up in it. He slapped Ivan on the back. “Let’s go get ’em, sprout.”

They cycled through the airlock to find the scooter waiting. Aspasia Nevin came in close and paid out a towing line. Tenn took shotgun as senior crew member, and the others attached their safety harnesses to bights on the line.

With exaggerated care, Aspasia took flight for AN2138.14.

* * *

“Seriously, Seth, it should be right over there.” Ivan glanced back and forth from the heavens to his heads-up display. The anomaly, by his estimate, was less than 200 meters away, in the small rock that orbited this much more massive asteroid. Probably lightly buried under the dust and gravel that inevitably accumulated in hollows over geological time scales.

“Don’t care, sprout. The anomaly might or might not come to anything. This clump below us, if it proves out, will allow us to each retire anywhere the hell we want. You see where I’m going with this?”

“Straight down?”

“Yeah, like that. And if you could find the time to come over here and help, I’m sure the whole crew would appreciate it.”

Ivan sighed and, with an effort, set aside his curiosity. He grabbed the piton gun and spent a few seconds estimating distances. Then he laid down a pattern of anchors that would allow Seth to take several core samples from different angles.

Seth set his drill in roughly the right area, then attached it to several pitons with cables on the drill casing. Small electric winches tightened the cables until the drill was held securely against the surface.

Seth consulted Cirila’s diagram for a few moments, then adjusted the drill’s angle. A quick double-check, and he pressed the Start button.

The drill made short work of the task, extracting a long cylinder of asteroid material. The mechanism ejected the cylinder out the back end—a process that was the butt of many jokes—and Ivan carefully sleeved the core and labelled it.

As soon as they gave the all-clear, Seth repositioned the drill for the next core.

In less than two hours, they had a half-dozen long cores extracted.

“These don’t even go halfway through the node,” Tenn commented. “And if that isn’t iron ore on the end, there, I’ll eat it.”

No one needed to add anything. Mining crew knew what different ores looked like. They had to, for this job. The deep radar was only good for the overview, not for the eyes-on-the-ground evaluation.