Earth

Actually, she didn’t. But Teresa found it hard to say no. After all, it would be selfish to stay away from camp any longer than she had to.

“How do I board?”

As the machine drew close, the whir of the spi

Well, she who hesitates is lost…

Teresa ran to meet the little airship. At the last moment, she leaped, his grip seized her wrist and she was hauled, gently but swiftly, inside.

“Lars Stürup,” he said as the bouncing settled down. There was a hiss of released gas and they began rising.

“I’m Ter…”

She stopped and covered her gaffe by coughing, as if from exertion. “… terribly glad to meet you, Lars. I’m… Emma Neale.” It was the name on her borrowed passport, lent by a Tangoparu scientist whose skills were less needed here than Teresa’s.

Blond and fair, Lars looked more Swedish than Danish. He wore his sleeves rolled up, displaying well-developed forearms. “Pleased to meet you, Emma, I’m sure. We don’t get many new people up here. What’s your line? Paleontology? Paleogeochemistry?”

“None of the above. I’m just here to help Stan do some seismic scans.”

“Ah.” Lars nodded. “Those will be useful. Or so Dr. Rasmussen says. She hopes they’ll help us find remnants of the meteorite.”

Looking across the crushed moraine, Teresa thought that rather optimistic. “How can anything be left, after what this land has been through since then?”

The pilot gri

Tell me about it. Teresa had assisted in many such orbital surveys, using microwaves to trace lost tombs in Egypt, Mayan ruins in Mexico, and the tracks of ancient watercourses that had last flowed back when the Sahara bloomed and prehistoric humans hunted hippos in the lush fens of Libya.

She was tempted to demonstrate her own knowledge, but then, what would Emma Neale know of such things? “That’s very interesting,” she said. “Please go on.”

“Ah! Where to begin? To start off, it’s on Greenland we find some of the oldest rocks ever discovered — formed less than half a billion years after the planet itself!”

Lars gestured broadly as he spoke, frequently taking his hands from the controls to point out features of the terrain below. Teresa found his cavalier piloting both disturbing and somehow exciting. Of course, one could take liberties with a slow, forgiving vehicle like this. Still, the young man’s proud confidence permeated the tiny cabin. A streak of oil stained the calloused edge of his right hand, where in hurried washing he mightn’t notice it among the curling hairs. He probably did all his own maintenance, something Teresa envied since guild rules only let astronauts watch and kibitz when their craft were serviced.

“… so underneath we find remnants of a huge crater. One of several that asteroids made when they struck the Earth about sixty-five million years ago…”

He kept glancing sideways’ at her, pointing here and there across the tumbled terrain. Teresa suddenly realized, He’s preening for me! Naturally, she was used to men trying to impress her. But this time, her reaction came out more pleased than irritated. It was a dormant, unaccustomed feeling that made her suddenly nervous and oddly exhilarated. I should consider remaining a blonde, she thought idly.

The glacier loomed now — a chill mass that set her internal compass quivering. She could sense it stretching on and on toward the deep heart of this minicontinent, where it lay in layers so dense the rocky crust sagged beneath it. Layers that had been put down, snowflake by snowflake, over inconceivable time.

Now coming into view below the white cliff was the site where machines could be seen biting into the frozen ground, scientifically sifting a deep excavation for ancient clues. Still talking and pointing things out like a tour guide, Lars steered his craft toward the activity.

“Um… could I ask a favor?” Teresa interrupted the young pilot’s monologue.

“Of course. What may I do for you?”

Teresa pointed nearby. “Could you drop me off there? Near the ice?”

Lars clearly wasn’t one to let schedules interfere with gallantry. “Anything you wish, Emma.” With a sure hand on the controls he turned his machine into the wind spilling off the glacier, increasing spin and plowing through the stiff, cold current. As the buffeting grew, Teresa began regretting her request. After all, she could have walked. It would be silly to survive so many orbital missions only to meet her end in a wrecked utility craft, just because a young man wanted to impress her.

“Lars…” she began, then stopped herself, recalling how bravely and silently Jason used to watch whenever she let him sit behind her pilot’s seat during a launch.

Jason … A flux of images and feelings rose like steamy bubbles. Diverting them, Teresa inexplicably found herself instead picturing Alex Lustig! And especially the gray worry forever coloring that strange man’s eyes. Almost, she let herself recall the terrible thing he hunted.

“Get ready to jump!” Lars shouted over wind as he jockeyed the minicrane toward a sandy bank. Teresa slid the door open and watched the ground rise. Glancing back, she caught a look of shared adventure from the young Greenlander. “Thanks!” she said, and leaped. Recoil sent the lifter soaring as she braced for a hard landing.

The impact knocked the breath out of her, but it wasn’t as bad as some training exercises. She rolled to her feet only slightly bruised and waved to show all was well. The pilot banked his craft nimbly and gave her thumbs up. He called, but all she could make out was, “… see you soon, maybe!” Then he was gone, blown downwind by the icy freshet.

Shivering suddenly, Teresa closed her collar zip and stepped into that breeze. Soon she was scrambling over rocky debris that must have been freshly exposed only this very spring.

Ice. So much ice, she thought.

Ice like this was a spacer’s dream — to make water for life-support or fuels for transport. There were a thousand ways spaceflight could be made cheaper and safer and better, if only enough ice were available out there. Earth had her oceans. There was water in the Martian permafrost, in comets, and in the moons of Jupiter. But all those sources were too far away, or too deep inside a gravity well, to offer hope to a parched space program.

If only orbital surveys had found deposits at the moon’s poles, as if wishing ever made things so.

But this… this continent of ice.

She reached out to touch the glacier’s flank. Under a rough crust, Teresa found a thin layer much softer than expected. Deep within, though, she knew it had to be almost diamond hard.

At the very point where the ice stopped, she bent and picked up a polished pebble.

Among the oldest rocks known, he said. And I’m probably the first to touch this one. The first sentient being to stand at this particular spot.

That was why she had been drawn here, she now realized. There are no unclimbed mountains left on Earth… and no plans to let anyone scale the peaks of Aristarchus or the shield volcanoes of Tharsus.

Jungles crash to make way for houses. The world sweats in every pore the breath and touch of humanity. There’s not a single place left where you can go and say to a new part of the universe — “Hello, we’ve never met. Let me introduce myself. I am Man. ”

A new thought occurred to her.