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Lis caught sight of a lone planet twinkling high in the ultramarine atmosphere. Clapping his hands once, he said, “All right, we’ve just lost the sun! We need to get this back to the camp.”
    Waters retrieved the winch while Valagua wrapped up the cord and placed it over his shoulders. With Shajda donning the group’s rucksacks and leading the team back to the camp, de Lis, Valagua, Gilmour and Mason hoisted the debris up between the four of them and arduously began the trek back with their cargo.
    What are we doing here?
    The two agents headed away from the jumpjet after leaving the impactor in the mobile lab. De Lis had dismissed the group afterwards, instructing them to get a good night’s rest. But the same question kept repeating in Gilmour’s mind, forcing him to rethink their true purpose here.
    “Why did de Lis select us? Our specialty is intel and investigation, not archaeology,”
    Gilmour said, his irritation getting the better of him. “De Lis said we’d do nicely, but at what? So far, we’re just his grunts.”
    After entering and sealing off their end of the tent, Mason removed his rucksack and his hiking clothes, replacing them with his warmer slumber garb. “This is the government’s baby...there’s a reason they sent us. The Russians don’t know we’re here. If we can keep this quiet, then we’ve won.” He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Maybe that’s why. We’re discreet.”
    Gilmour slung his rucksack to the floor. “Get me behind the lines...but don’t have me digging up two-hundred-year-old garbage. That’s not my game, nor the IIA’s.” Privately, he wondered just who de Lis was really serving; himself, or someone above them all. The morning alarm roused Gilmour and Mason from their respective cots. A blinding dawn sun steadily infiltrated the tent canopy’s thin fabric, inciting them to dress once again into their hiking gear.
    Exiting the tent after a sponge wash and a quick course of field rations, Gilmour’s and Mason’s ears picked up the jogging footfalls of Javier Valagua rounding the corner from the jumpjet. The historian stopped before the two and removed his sunglasses, his feet blowing dust into the morning air.
    “Agent Mason, Agent Gilmour. We’re about ready to open up the wreckage.”
    Gilmour’s attitude hadn’t shifted much since the night before. “And we’re needed for this...?”
    Oblivious to the agent’s facetious words, Valagua said, “This is the big moment, why we’re here.” He checked his wrist chrono. “We’ve got two minutes, agents.”
    Trained to obey their orders despite any personal misgivings, Gilmour and Mason joined Valagua on the return path to the jumpjet, shelving their thoughts for now.
    Once inside, the trio bypassed the cramped seating to enter the mobile laboratory, situated at the rear of the craft. The lab itself was not much larger than three square meters, and came equipped with a island centered exam table, which was now inhabited with the debris recovered from the crater. Each wall was sloped down from the ceiling to the floor, brimming with cabinets, racks and shelves of diagnostic tools and other scientific equipment unknown to the two agents.
    De Lis welcomed the trio back to the lab, where he and Waters had donned goggles. Waters crossed in front of the trio to a box-shaped console bolted to the lab wall, where she drew a half-meter long laser torch. After typing in a short sequence of buttons on the console, Waters stepped back to the exam table and the wreckage.
    De Lis tossed goggles to Valagua, Gilmour and Mason. “You’ll need those.”
    Whipping the torch’s hose around her, Waters soon fired up the device, eliciting a blue spark from its curved head. She minutely adjusted its intensity with a twist of its nozzle, then subjected the debris to the torch without hesitation.
    Gilmour and Mason watched the invisible laser pierce through the debris’ outer layer, a twisted bar of dark metallic material. The