“They must have been nearly ready to begin colonization when this happened.” She spoke into her portable log, partly to keep her mind moving. “We’ve already determined their habitat atmosphere had been almost identical to the Earth’s, so that we can assume that was their target.”

She turned slowly, speaking her impressions as she scanned the chamber.

“Perhaps the mother probe was programmed to modify the original gene information so the colonists would be perfectly suited for whatever planet environment was avail…”

Ursula suddenly stopped. “Oh my,” she sighed, staring. “Oh my God.”

Where her headlamp illuminated a new corner of the chamber, two more mummies lay slumped before a sheer-faced wall. In their delicate, vacuum dried hands there lay dusty metal tools, the simplest known anywhere.

Hammers and chisels.

Ursula blinked at what they had been creating. She reached up and touched the mike button on her helmet.

“Gavin? Are you still awake?”

After a few seconds there came an answer.

“Hmmmph. Yeah, Urs. I was in the cleaner though. What’s up? You need air or something? You sound short of breath.”

Ursula made an effort to calm herself… to suppress the reactions of an evolved ape—far, far from home.

“Uh, Gavin, I think you better come down here. I’ve found them.”

“Found who?” he muttered. Then he exclaimed. “The colonists!”

“Yeah. And… and something else, as well.”

This time there was hardly a pause. “Hang on, Urs. I’m on my way.”

Ursula let her hand drop, and stood for a long moment, staring at her discovery.

9

Greeter, Awaiter, and the others are getting nervous. They, too, have begun trying to awaken dormant capabilities, to reclaim bits of themselves that each donated to the whole.