He had just arrived, having come all this way, and it was already time to leave.

Jays took a last glance down inside the rille. He tried to peer down as deep as he could, straining to see to the bottom. The slope looked easy; he wished he could go a little further, deeper into the rille. But he knew he mustn’t. He was a long way from Tom’s helping hands, if he ran into trouble. And anyhow, he was behind the timeline.

He knew he wouldn’t mention what he’d seen to Tom.

On impulse, he leaned over, scooped up another fragment of the bedrock sample, stuffed it inside a sample bag and crammed it into a pocket on his leg.

Then, his bedrock under his arm, he snapped shut his sun visor and clambered back up the slope, towards Tom and the waiting Rover.

After a four-billion-year wait, the visit with its burst of activity had lasted only three days, the final flurry of dust settling after only seconds.

At Aristarchus Base, Rover tracks and footprints converged on the truncated base of the abandoned Lunar Module. The blast of the departed ascent stage’s engine had left a new ray system, streaks of dust which overlaid the footprints.

Now the Moon was inert once more, the sculpted hills of the Aristarchus ejecta blanket rising above this puddle of pitted, frozen basalt, their slopes bathed in sunlight, shining like fresh snow.

Waiting.

In places, the disturbed dust stirred. Glowed softly silver.

PART II

ARD TOR

1

Geena Bourne woke up before dawn. She was, of course, alone in the apartment.

She got up in the dark and walked around putting on lights.

Henry had gone.

Fled. But he’d taken nothing. No furniture, no carpets or curtains, no CDs or books, not even his own clothes. Nothing but his geology hammer, as far as she could see.