فصل 38

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

The Watcher

‘There’s been no reaction to my signals, and every time I fly over, I’m a bit further away from TMA-2. At the moment my closest approach is a hundred kilometers. That will increase slowly as Japetus turns beneath me, then it will drop back to zero. I’ll pass directly over it in thirty days, but by that time it will be in darkness.

‘So I’d like you to agree to this plan. I want to leave the ship in one of the space vehicles and take a close look. If it seems safe, I’ll land beside it - or even on top of it.

‘I’m sure this is the only thing to do. I’ve come more than a billion kilometers - I don’t want to be stopped by the last hundred.’

For weeks the Star Gate had watched the approaching ship. Its makers had prepared it for many things, and this was one of them. It watched, then it listened to the ship’s signals, but it did nothing.

There was a long pause, then it saw that something was falling down towards it. It searched its memory and made the decisions it was built to make.

Beneath the cold light of Saturn, the Star Gate woke its sleeping powers.