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like inverted marquees which gave the scene a touch of the bizarre. Straight ahead, two moons sat above the horizon, lacy and insubstantial.
    Ed pointed to a distant scar in the jungle on the slopes of a rearing mountain. She brought the Poet down with the delicacy of a balloon kissing the ground, and gave Jed the command to power down the drive. Through the screen she had a perfect view along the length of the furrow as it rose in a die-straight line towards the distant mountain-top.
    “The politician told me,” Ed said, “that for some reason nothing would grow at the site of the crash-landing. He said it wasn’t radiation, or anything else that their scientists could detect.”
    Jed exchanged a fearful glance with Lania, who smiled to reassure him. “Some alien bacteria,” she said. “It won’t be harmful now, Jed.”
    He peered through the screen. “There’s still nothing growing down there.”
    Lania looked at Ed. “Perhaps we should wear breathing masks?” she suggested.
    He nodded, then pointed up the kilometre-long furrow. “Magnify the screen. Zoom in on the very end of the trench.”
    She did as commanded and the shell of a starship, very alien and rococo, sprang into view. It appeared burned out, with its upper half sheared off and its length broken in about three places.
    “Okay, let’s take a closer look,” Ed said.
    Jed powered up the drive and Lania took the Poet on a short kilometre hop up the furrow. She settled the ship beside the wreck and ordered her suit to break the link with the smartcore.
    They equipped themselves with face-masks and boarded the dropchute. Even in the shadow of the Poet , the heat was staggering. Lania kicked at the ground, wondering if this was the first time she had seen bare soil since landing on the planet. Nothing grew. She turned and stared down the length of the furrow, a stark black exclamation mark cut through the verdant jungle. The starship must have come in at some speed, which no doubt accounted for its broken-backed state now.
    She left the shadow of the Poet , wincing as the sunlight smote her unprotected head, and approached the alien vessel.
    It was, she saw now, a leviathan. Perhaps three hundred metres long and thirty high – though its height was hard to assess, since its upper superstructure was missing – it dominated the landscape, dwarfing the trees that rose on either side. She stepped into the welcome shade and stared up at its underside. A complex pattern of scrolls and curlicues flowed across the bodywork, and a dozen fins and balancers, curved like scimitars, told her that this ship was nothing that any human had designed.
    Keeping in the lee of the ship, she walked its length until she came to a great vertical rent in the flank. She hesitated, then stepped inside. Now she saw why the ship appeared to have lost its upper sections: they had collapsed on impact and fallen into the belly of the ship, and from the evidence of the blackened interior, fire appeared to have consumed the wreck.
    She told her suit to scan for radiation; a few seconds later, its soft feminine contralto spoke in her earpiece. “No radiation detected beyond background levels.”
    Ed was beside her. They climbed onto the fallen superstructure and strolled up the length of the ship, for all the world like holiday-makers taking the air on the pier on a pleasure planet.
    “It’s... magnificent,” she said.
    “It’s quite something, certainly,” Ed said, his voice muffled by the mask. “I was told it came down during the night, and it wasn’t until hours later that the first colonists were on the scene. They found no sign of whoever had crewed the ship.”
    She looked at him.
    “That’s what intrigues me, Lania. What happened to the beings who flew the ship? Where did they go? Why did they come here – and from where?” He paused, then went on, “And why are the Vetch so interested?”
    Jed joined them. “You know something, boss? This is familiar.”
    Lania