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warned that there may be an explosive device aboard the
Gremlin
, which is currently en route to Barton’s World at Lalande 21185. We do not have confirmation about the bomb. Nevertheless, until we can be certain, we will assume the threat is real. Proceed immediately to Lalande 21185 and render assistance. Acknowledge.
    Priscilla glanced at Jake, who nodded. “Okay, Benny,” she said, “set course. Let’s move. Acknowledge and let them know we’re on our way.”
    â€œAcknowledging message, Priscilla.”
    She checked the numbers. Just getting to the system would require thirty hours. The transmission was already four days old. “Not good,” she said. “How do we help? You know anything about bombs?”
    â€œI think we’ll settle for an evacuation. Get everybody away from the ship and let the experts deal with it. If it hasn’t gone off already.”
    Priscilla was shaking her head. “What kind of lunatic would put a bomb on an interstellar?”
    Jake sighed. “They’ve been getting threats for a while now.”
    â€œYou mean because of the terraforming?”
    â€œA lot of people are outraged about Selika.”
    She took a deep breath. “Incredible. Well, whatever the bosses are thinking, this isn’t the best way to respond. They had to know we wouldn’t receive the transmission within a reasonable time frame. Why didn’t they send somebody from the station?”
    â€œThey probably would have,” said Jake, “if they’d had anyone available.”
    Â * * * 
    JAKE LISTENED AS they increased power flow to the engines. “Adjusting course,” said Benny. The
Copperhead
swung slowly toward Lalande and began to accelerate. He put a graphic of the system on the auxiliary display. He hadn’t been there for several years. Lalande was a red dwarf, about half as massive as Sol, with six known planets. Barton’s was the second, a living world orbiting at a range of one hundred million kilometers.
    Barton’s had an ordinary moon, sterile, airless, cold. There was, however, a second satellite that was not a natural object at all. It was a
monument
, a four-kilometer-wide ring with a pair of crossbars. The centerpiece, the object that made the monument truly spectacular, was held in place by the crossbars. It was a massive diamond, about a third the size of the ring.
    It was the second of the Grand Monuments to be discovered, an event which, twenty years earlier, had stunned the world. The first of the monuments, of course, had been found on Iapetus. Everyone had assumed that the Iapetus sculpture was unique, a solitary piece of art left thousands of years ago on a remote Saturnian moon for reasons no one could imagine. Whatever its purpose might have been, it had changed the human perspective for all time. And it had required almost a century and a half before we’d learned how wrong we’d been. Since then, twelve more of the monuments, each a unique figure, had been found.
    â€œYou think that’s why the
Gremlin
was going there?” asked Priscilla. “To see the monument?”
    â€œI can’t imagine any other reason,” he said.
    â€œHave you ever seen it? The Lalande Monument?”
    â€œA long time ago. It’s spectacular.” He put it on the display. The central diamond glittered in the sunlight. “They think it was made out of an asteroid.”
    â€œWhen I was about twelve,” Priscilla said, “my class was given a virtual ride around it.”
    â€œThat must have gotten everybody pretty excited.”
    She laughed. “I decided I wanted to go out there one day and touch it.”
    Â * * * 
    THEY SLIPPED INTO transdimensional space, bound for Lalande. All sense of movement stopped, and the cold gray fog enveloped them. They moved through the mist like a ship at sea. Occasionally, when he’d been alone under these conditions, Jake