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Eight hundred and eighty-two Earth Days after leaving the deGrasse Tyson, Coppélia arrived back at the quicksand. The weight of the tube would have been no problem, but it had been impossible to carry it such a long distance with only one useful arm, so she’d rolled it in front of her all the way from the landing shuttle. Slung over her left shoulder she had the laser-cutter (which she had recharged whilst she herself was recharging) and the two shovels, all three hanging from makeshift straps fashioned out of now redundant electrical cabling. She let the cutter and shovels drop from her shoulder and laid them on the ground, being careful to keep them away from the quicksand. Then she checked her data banks so that she could start the next stage of her project at precisely the right sp
