Malleus stood in his allotted place upon the dais as it descended from the Mu moon towards the sparkling surface of the planet. The suns were bright in his eyes through the thin atmosphere and there was a cold chill to the rushing air, yet he and the others were protected from the sub-zero temperatures of high altitude, just as they"d been protected from the searing heat of atmospheric insertion and the hard vacuum as they left the moon. The disc manoeuvred, aiming itself at some predetermined spot on the waters, but no one was flung into the air or even had to brace themselves. The dais held them perfectly safe and still.
It was a white disc of material no more than twenty metres across. It had risen from the grey surface of Mu in the same organic way that the pathways had appeared: see
