“Right. Bloody luminous.”
“Not one of the things we just saw.”
“No. Bigger. A lot bigger.”
It grew. Yellow bars of light moved in the suspended wash of particles. The craft bucked and turned against sudden currents.
“It’s moving.”
“A pattern. Look, see, it repeats.”
“Revolving.”
“Yeah. Spins around in ’bout two minutes.”
The thing swelled. It was huge and pitted with fire. Brownish gold and orange swept across its face. From each bright flare point burst a cascade of bubbles, each working with its own inner fire.
“Damn thing’s more’n a click across.”
“Yes. See those big bags attached?”
“Balloons.”
“To keep it afloat?”
“Must. Spectrometer says that’s rock there. Hot.”
“The free radicals.”
“Dead right.”
“They come from that?”
“Big fat energy source.”
“Samplers out?”
“Yeah, got it. Lots of energetic molecular stuff.”
“Food.”
“For …”
The three humans shifted uneasily in their couches. Their spotlights ebbed away in the silted darkness. They watched the thing that spun slowly in the black and pulsed irregularly, throwing out gouts of orange and burnished green and gold and red, showers of hot bubbles. They strained forward, trying to see farther.
“Lot of radioactivity.”
“Figures.”
“I’m … getting kind of nervous.”
“Yeah. You feel it, Nigel?”
“What?”
“Like … something’s out there.”
“Moving.”
“Beyond our lights? … Yes.”
“We’re in the updraft from it now. Getting a lot more Geiger.”
“Dangerous?”
“No. The gammas can’t get through our skin.”
“Blowoff from that thing.”
“Suppose so. That big rock …”
“Right. A crude nuclear reactor.”
“Duct chemicals through it, they get bombarded—”
“—you get excited molecular forms.”
“What’s the source of organic molecules?”
