"What about the hole with the lid?"

"There are trapdoor spiders in America. On Earth. I remember, when I was a kid... the spiders make burrows, lined with silk, with hinged lids."

"Why make burrows on Pluto?"

"I don't know. Maybe the eggs can last out the winter that way. Maybe the creatures, the flakes, only have active life during the perihelion period, when the atmosphere expands and enriches." She thought that through. "That fits. That's why the Poole people didn't spot anything. It's only fifty-five years since the construction team was here, and even then Pluto was receding from the Sun. Pluto's year is so long that we're still approaching the next aphelion--"

"So how do they live?" Cobh snapped. "What do they eat?"

"There must be more to the ecosystem than one species," Lvov conceded. "The flakes -- the spiders -- need water glass. But there's little of that on the surface. Maybe there is some biocycle -- plants or burrowing animals -- which brings ice and glass to the surface, from the interior."

"That doesn't make sense. The layer of nitrogen over water-ice is too deep."

"Then where do the flakes get their glass?"

"Don't ask me," Cobh said. "It's your dumb hypothesis. And what about the web? What's the point of that -- if it's real?"

Lvov ground to a halt. "I don't know," she said lamely. Although Pluto/Charon is the only place in the System where you could build a spider-web between worlds.

Cobh toyed with a fitting from the drive. "Have you told anyone about this yet? In the inner System, I mean."

"No. You said you wanted to talk about that."

"Right." Lvov saw Cobh close her eyes; her face was masked by the glimmer of her face plate. "Listen. Here's what we say. We've seen nothing here. Nothing that couldn't be explained by crystallization effects."

Lvov was baffled. "What are you talking about? What about the eggs? Why would we lie about this? Besides, we have the desks -- records."

"Data desks can be lost, or wiped, or their contents amended."

Lvov wished she could see Cobh's face. "Why would we do such a thing?"

"Think it through. Once Earth hears about this, these flake-spiders of yours will be protected. Won't they?"

"Of course. What's bad about that?"

"It's bad for us, Lvov. You've seen what a mess the Poole people made of Charon. If this system is inhabited, a fast GUTship won't be allowed to come for us. It wouldn't be allowed to refuel here. Not if it meant further damage to the native life-forms."

Lvov shrugged. "So we'd have to wait for a slower ship. A liner; one that won't need to take on more reaction mass here."

Cobh laughed at her. "You don't know much about the economics of GUTship transport, do you? Now that the System is criss-crossed by Poole wormholes, how many liners like that do you think are still running? I've already checked the manifests. There are two liners capable of a round trip to Pluto still in service. One is in dry dock; the other is heading for Saturn--"