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“I know you've had contact with this—vessel—before, Flinx, but shouldn't we be taking some kind of precautions before going down? Shield activation, maybe, or initiation of—”

“Of what?” He interrupted her gently, nodding out the port at the immense mass of cloud, metal, and who knew what else. “Weapons? I've told you what the Krang can do. This world-sized ship is probably capable of generating a big enough discontinuity to swallow a whole system. At least, that's what we're hoping. Otherwise there's no point to this encounter. What would you suggest as a defense if it decided we were deserving of a hostile response?”

She considered his words, then nodded slowly. “Faint praise, maybe. I see your point.”

As a tiny portion of the swirling, dense, synthetic atmosphere was sucked away by gigantic intakes, a portion of the surface of the weapons platform became visible to those huddled in the control room of the Teacher. There were no gasps of incredulity, no mutterings of astonishment at the sight thus revealed. The relic was simply too big, too overwhelming, to inspire any more than an abiding, awed silence. External edifices of metal and ceramic, crystal and metallic glass, and other exotic materials came into view. Some of the structures were the size of cities, others as big as bits of continents. Illuminatories in all colors and hues flashed to life where the veiling methane haze was drawn away.

“It's not just big,” Sylzenzuzex murmured. “It's beautiful. To think that somebody built it, that it's a construct and not a natural object, would try belief if I wasn't looking at it myself.”

On Flinx's shoulder, Pip was stirring. “Don't forget that it's a weapon,” he reminded her. “Quite possibly the biggest weapon ever built.”

Standing at his right side, Clarity eyed the artifact as the Teacher began to descend. “I once saw a picture of an ancient Terran weapon, a metal projectile gun that dated from an era well before Amalgamation. It used combustible powder to propel a piece of lead toward a target. What struck me was not the primitive technology; it was the ornamentation. Gold filigree, gemstones, and ivory inlay.” She studied the view outside. “Why do so many sentient species find weapons worthy of decoration?”

A curious Flinx pondered her question as he turned to lead the way to the shuttle bay. “What's ivory?”

Bolts of lightning kilometers high slashed through the thick atmosphere in the vicinity of the downward-spiraling vortex that was clearing a path through the clouds down to the surface. As the Teacher's shuttlecraft descended, jostled and rocked by the surrounding synthetic cyclone, an opening appeared below it as a portion of the surface irised open to welcome the diminutive arrival. The aperture was more than wide enough to admit the visitor. It was more than ample enough to admit any city on Earth, had one possessed the means and the inclination to embark on such a visit.

“If the solitary Krang on Booster is powered by the energy of the planetary core itself,” Tse-Mallory was speculating aloud, “then what could possibly drive an artificial world of these dimensions? Not to mention the multiplicity of comparable destructive devices it supports.”

“Plainly an energy source beyond our limited ability to engineer, kissaltt.” Truzenzuzex was gazing raptly out the foreport. “Some sort of matter-antimatter drive, which has long been theorized and sought after. Or perhaps the vessel is able to channel the energy of a small white hole for which its builders were somehow able to devise containment.” The valentine-shaped head inclined toward his old friend. “We hardly have the theoretical mathematical underpinning from which to begin to envisage such technology.”

A miracle of alien engineering itself, the vast acreage of alloy that comprised the portal began to close behind and above them as the shuttlecraft dropped down onto a vast, open, and otherwise unoccupied deck. The Teacher promptly informed those on board that outside gravity was tolerable and the external