Brian Vlasich waved his flashlight in the darkened tunnel, and listened to the crunch of his heavy boots in the snow. His single beam of light seemed painfully inadequate in the near total darkness. He was breathing heavily; the tunnel sloped gently upwards, as it had done for the past half-kilometre or so. The cumbersome pressure suit made it tough going. Vlasich paused for a second to catch his breath, and turned back to see how far behind the others were. Closer than he had thought. But then, they were all young and strong. With the possible exception of Maurice Gable, of course. The mining engineer was fifty-five. Not what Vlasich would call elderly, but he was old to be doing an undercover operation. Most people would be approaching retirement or in cushy desk jobs by that stage of their military career.
“See anything?” Hannah Greene asked as she reached his position. She had opted to come along to get her mind off what happened to Banks, or at least that was how Vlasich saw it. The death of a close friend was not an easy thing to deal with, and different people handled it in different ways. “Not yet,” Vlasich said, waving his blade of light into the black void ahead of them. “Shouldn’t be too far away, though.” He did his best to conceal the fact that he was short of breath.
“You want me to take the lead for a while?” Greene offered. There was no fooling her.
Vlasich waved a hand at the cave before them. “Be my guest,” he said.

The floor of the ice tunnel was treacherous. Some areas were covered with rough drifts of snow, while others were slippery underfoot. Their beams were almost constantly pointed at the ground. Breaker and Langmire passed a struggling Vlasich. They gave him a sympathetic look.
“I’m fine,” he panted with a slight frown. “Just getting my wind back.”
Breaker nodded, and turned his attention back to the glowing palm-top display in his right hand.
“You can actually make some sense out of that?” Langmire motioned to the swirl of colour on his display.
Breaker smiled. “It’s not that hard. See here…” He pointed at a dense section of the display which was glowing bright crimson. “That’s the heat generated by our bodies. So those red splotches are us, right there.”
“So what’s that big red blotch over there?”
“That’s the Van Frost. The ship’s systems throw out a lot of heat.”
Langmire shrugged inside her bulky suit. “I’m glad you can make something out of it. It just reminds me of a bad abstract painting.”
“Oh so you’re an art critic as well now?” He nudged her playfully.
“I know what I like,” she said, grinning.

“Hey guys!” Hannah Greene called over the intercom. “I think we’ve found it!”
They hurried up the slope after her. The tunnel curved sharply to the right, then back to the left. After a steep incline it opened up into a big chamber, buried in a knee-high drift of snow. The chamber was shaped like a half-closed eye, and was actually the bottom of a deep ravine. The slick grey walls rose up into the gloom on either side. For the first time since crashing on Chimera, they had an unobstructed view of the sky. It was a deep indigo at this hour of the night, and a sprinkling of stars winked down at them. A light veil of snow drifted down from above and settled on their suits like thousands of pale butterflies. Langmire held out her gloved hand, letting some of the delicate flakes settle on her palm. Breaker tugged at her arm and pointed into the gloom. Right in the centre of the ravine floor, draped in shadow, loomed Schiffer’s mining container. None of the interior lights were on.

“Looks to be intact,” Vlasich said as he moved closer to the structure. “No external hull damage, at least not that I can make out.” He peeled away a layer of shadow with his helmet light. Next to him, Corporal Austin had found the hatch. He turned to Vlasich, his face ghost-like in the darkness. “What do you say we see if the good professor is in?” Without waiting for an answer, he wrenched on the door-sealing mechanism. After a few more attempts the latch gave way, and the outer airlock door swung open with a loud groan. Their feet clanked on the steel grating underfoot. Austin put his face and hands up to the tiny window on the inner door, wiping away a crust of frost. The container’s interior was in total darkness.
Maurice Gable opened a small corroded hatch in the airlock wall, where a console blinked back at him. “Goddamn,” he whispered after a few seconds. “The container’s decompressed. If Schiffer’s alive in there, he’ll want to be wearing a pressure suit.”
They didn’t bother to reseal the outer door behind them. Austin yanked on the inner hatch. “Damn,” he grunted. “It’s stuck. Can I get some help here?” Gable and Vlasich moved in beside him and wrenched on the latch. After a few seconds, they had it open. The cave-like interior of the container beckoned to them, even blacker than the night outside. Austin stepped in first and swung his beam around the interior. The light glinted on a mass of drilling equipment. “Let’s see if we can find some lights.”
“Sure,” Gable said. “The controls should be right over here.” He stepped away into the darkness. Somewhere on the other side of the room, a red light blinked patiently, accompanied by a soft electronic beep. Breaker swung his light in that direction. “That must be where the distress signal’s coming from,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Austin peered around. “Gable? How’re those lights coming along?” A few seconds passed without response. “Gable?” He gripped the butt of his carbine, which dangled from his belt. “Gable?” he called again.

The lights came on abruptly, filling the room with illumination and forcing Austin’s eyes shut. After a few moments of blinking and squinting, his eyes became adjusted to the new light level. Gable stepped toward him.
“You think it might be a good idea to answer me next time I call out?”
The older man looked indifferent. “Sorry Corporal. Guess I didn’t hear you.” He shrugged.
“Look, we’re all on edge here. Let’s just try to help each other out, okay?”
“Like I said, I’m sorry.”
“Right,” Austin said through his teeth, turning away. The container was quite small, with very little unused floor space. The solitary MOLE stood parked on an angle in one corner, its tyres encrusted with snow. Otherwise the room was neat and orderly. Just how the professor would have kept it. Austin could hear the power humming through a bank of computer consoles, though the screens were all blank.
“The place is running on emergency power,” Breaker said. “I wonder what happened here?”
Langmire was analysing the walls and floor. “There’s no damage here to indicate a struggle, or a fire-fight.”
Austin motioned to the closed-off laboratory section. “Let’s check in there.”

The door gave an ominous creak, as Austin nudged it open with the barrel of his carbine. “Professor?” he called into the room. “Professor Schiffer. Are you in here?”
No response. He shouldered through the door and looked around. The lab seemed to be in exactly the same condition as the rest of the container. No damage, nothing out of place. No Schiffer. Greene walked past Austin and began her inspection of the area. She had begun to feel like an item of extra baggage on this expedition. She needed something to do. She moved past the steel bench-top, where the professor’s equipment was precisely laid out. She didn’t know what any of it was for. Maybe Treylan would. Her feet crunched on something. Greene lowered to the floor and examined a piece of shattered glass. “Here’s your sign of a struggle,” she said, holding the shard up to the light. She looked back to the floor. And then she saw it, something lying in shadow under the bench. She reached under and pulled out a battered pair of wire frame glasses. One of the lenses was missing.
“What is it?” Austin asked.
She held them up for him to see.

“The Tetrans?” Vlasich suggested. He was slouched casually against the wall.
“No,” Austin replied. “It’s not their style. The Tetrans would have made their presence here obvious.”
“All the hardware is still here,” Breaker said, motioning around the room. “I doubt they’d pass up an opportunity to get their hands on RIFT technology.”
Austin frowned. “This leaves us back at square one. Maybe the Professor was scared away by some kind of…wild animal?”
Hannah Greene stood up from the swivel chair she had occupied. “We scanned for life readings on entry, standard procedure. This planet is uninhabited. I can say that with complete confidence.”
“Maybe the Tetrans brought something along with them,” Treylan offered. “Some new kind of biological weapon?”
Austin shook his head. “There’s no evidence to suggest they’re capable of developing anything like that.”
“Well maybe they obtained it from somebody else?”
“With all due respect, Doctor, I don’t think you really know what you’re saying.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help here.”
“I know.” Austin motioned calmly for her to sit down. “And we all appreciate your input. I just think we…”
He was cut off by a painfully loud burst of static in his helmet speaker. Commander Trace’s voice exploded into the air. “Where the hell are you people?” he roared.