“How?” Vanita looked at him in the slowly brightening roof light.
“I’m going to lift the vessel into the air and keep it on a very low altitude and then deliberately plunge its nose into that molten metal lake near the mountain foothills. The metal is plasmic, so it will cloy over the fissure in the form of a paste. After that—out into the void, with the nose turned away from the sun, of course. The cold will instantly solidify the metal, and there it is. Risky, but necessary, because we can’t remain much longer in these space-suits: the air cylinders will run out.”
There was nothing Vanita could say or do, so she waited for what would happen next. Earmar looked about him, studying the meters on the switchboard and then glancing up at the now white light in the roof. After perhaps fiftee
