Collingdale waited until everybody else was on board—there were seven of them, excluding the pilot—took a last look around, and climbed in. The omega was almost down. Only a black ridge of clouds was visible in the west, and a few streaked plumes soared above the horizon. The pilot started the engines, and the lander rose. Nobody said much.

Jerry commented how scary it was, and Collingdale couldn’t restrain a smile. He himself was of the old school. He’d started his archeological career in Iraq, had been shot at, threatened, deported. When archeology went interstellar, as it had a half century ago, it had become, curiously enough, safer. There were no deranged local populations defending sacred tombs, no warlords for whom the security payment might be insufficient, no national governments waiting to collapse with dire consequences to the researchers, who might be jailed, beaten, even killed. There were still hazards, but they tended to be less unpredictable, and more within the control of the individual. Don’t take foolish chances, and you won’t get burned. Don’t stay too long in the submerged temple, as had famously happened to Richard Wald twenty-some years earlier, when you know the tidal wave’s coming.

So Collingdale was getting his people out in plenty of time. But it didn’t prevent them from thinking they were having a narrow escape from something dire. In fact, of course, at no time were they in danger.

He was looking down at the receding city when the pilot informed him he had an incoming transmission from the al-Jahani. He opened the channel, turning up the volume so everybody could hear. Alexandra’s blond features appeared on-screen. “We’ve launched, Dave,” she said. “All twelve running true. Detonation in thirty-eight minutes.”