فصل 36

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Big Brother

‘I’m coming round to the daylight side again, and it’s just as I reported on the last orbit. This place seems to have only two kinds of surface material. The black stuff looks burnt - very like burnt toast.

‘I still can’t make any sense of the white area. It has a very sharp edge, and there are no surface details at all. Picture a sea of frozen milk - though sometimes I feel that it’s moving slowly.

‘… I’m over the white area again, on my third orbit. This time I hope to pass closer to that mark I noticed at its center, on my way in. If my calculations are correct, I’ll go within eighty kilometers of it - whatever it is.

‘…Yes, there’s something ahead, just where I calculated. It’s coming over the horizon - and so is Saturn. I’ll move to the telescope…

‘Hello! - it looks like some kind of building - completely black. No windows or other features. Just a big object standing… at least a kilometer high. It reminds me - of course! It’s just like the thing you found on the Moon! This is TMA-1’s big brother!’