Harlan Ranson checked the landing spot for any problems. The ice seemed solid, walls projecting up to protect from wind, a space big enough for the Cordie. It looked good to him. All he had to do was bring the ship in so the crew could push their drone out and let it go to work.

“Everybody ready?,” he asked. He glanced over at Anderson sitting in the co-pilot's seat. Anderson only had eyes for the screens. “I'm bringing us down.”

He watched as the Cordie floated to the surface. A heavy thump when the skids contacted the ice reverberated through the ship. He cut power to the engines, but left them ready to power up in case something happened.

He didn't expect any trouble, but it was better to be ready to launch just in case than have to wait the start time before he could leave.

Ranson had flown out of hot launch spots often enough not to like it.

“We're down,” said Ranson, thumb on the intercom button. “Everything looks clear up here.”

“We're going to deploy the drone,” said Herd. She sounded cheerful. “If it can cut through the crust and give us access to the liquid underneath us, we'll get ready to drop a swimmer to locate the energy source.”

“I'm ready, Doc,” said Ranson. “We have some protection here, but if we have problems, I'm ready to lift off and leave the robot.”

“Understood, Captain,” said Herd. “We're opening the bay hatch to drop it out.”

Ranson watched his screens. A camera underneath the Cordie caught the belly door dropping down. A tracked conglomeration of rails with a drill in a cradle rolled off on the ice. It picked a spot yards away and swung the drill in position. The augur dug into the frozen ground.

He didn't have access to the information from the drill. He assumed the scientists he was carrying would alert him if the ice started fracturing under the ship. He would have to shut the belly door and lift off before they crashed through the ice.

He wasn't about to try to hover and lose crew and cargo to the water.

“We're going to be here for a while, Captain,” said Herd. “The ice is deeper than what we thought it would be.”

“Mister Anderson and I are ready in case we have to lift off,” said Ranson. “I'm not sure we should leave the controls if we don't have an idea how things will crack.”

“I imagine that we'll know for sure how things will go when we breach,” said Herd.

“Understood,” said Ranson.

The ice might hold steady until they were through cutting their hole, or it might crack at any time. It was more likely to stay together if it didn't break apart while they were digging.

Ranson hadn't been on a job where a crew had been tasked with delving under the surface of a planet, or moon. He had been on jobs where he had dropped crews and ferried supplies. He had thought this was going to be that type of a job. He hadn't thought he would have to remain on station until the crew was ready to leave.

And he would have to remain in his seat until they were sure the ice wouldn't break and plunge the Cordie under. He wished he had been able to just drop them off and sit in orbit until he had to pick them up.

He supposed that would have been too easy for the money they were paying him to fly them around.

“If you need to do something, I can handle this,” said Anderson. “I know enough to hover us until you get back.”

“I'm fine, Mister Anderson,” said Ranson. “Have you been on many expeditions like this?”

“No,” said Anderson. “I lucked into this because of my connection to the university labs. Anyone else could be here, but no one wanted to spend time on Titan.”

“What makes Herd think the Argo is down there?,” asked Ranson.

“She has been chasing the stories for a long time,” said Anderson. “Your report was enough for her to narrow things down for a prelim survey.”

“A lot of people have been chasing the stories,” said Ranson. “The salvage for a wreck like the Argo was supposed to be would make a mint if it could be pulled up. Every shipbuilder and museum in the system would cut off a hand to get it.”

“You don't seem convinced that we have found the Argo,” said Anderson.

“The Argo supposedly blew up in a million flinders facing the machines,” said Ranson. “That was the last of both of them according to reports.”

“The machines are still out there,” said Anderson. “Reports have come in about engagements with the Navy.”

“I haven't heard anything like that,” said Ranson. Any chance of a machine return was bad in his opinion.

“They are keeping things under wraps,” said Anderson. “They don't want to throw the System into a panic.”

“How do you know that?,” said Ranson. Some intern on Mars knew more than anyone about enemy troop movements seemed unlikely to him.

“The University has been contracted with new ship designs to better handle the machines in the future,” said Anderson. “The problem is the Argo was the best ship we had, and no one knows how it did what it did.”

“So they want to dig it up and figure out what happened in the last battle,” said Ranson. “I can see that.”

“There's probably no way to adapt the Argo to modern standards,” said Anderson. “If we could figure out how it destroyed a machine fleet on its own, that would be worth anything.”

Ranson agreed with that. The Argo had been a relic when it had entered into service. It had survived several battles in the outer planets orbits. Then it had blown apart and took its enemy with it.

The threat of another machine incursion in system would make anyone desperate enough to chase a fairy tale. Ranson didn't believe for a second the ancient warship was buried under the Cordie.

It looked like Herd was wasting the school's money on this. Still, if they found something, that might be enough to make him rich as part of the salvage rights.

He could get a loan for more ships with others captaining them so he could avoid the risks of space travel. He could settle on a planet and enjoy life under a sky instead of roaming around in the black. It would feel good to have ground under him.

He had enjoyed traveling a lot more when he was younger. He had enjoyed living in space, even if was by shoestrings and duct tape.

It was just now he didn't want to depend on artificial gravity when he could have real gravity.

“We have a clear reading of the energy signature,” said Herd. “Something is down there.”

“What's the next step?,” asked Ranson.

“We need to ready a submersible and drop it through the hole,” said Herd. “Once we do that, we can actually look at what's down there and decide on the next step.”

“Any problems with the ice?,” asked Ranson.

“No,” said Herd. “We have some remote sensors that we dropped to give us an early warning in case of a break. We should be good to power down except for life support.”

“All right,” said Ranson. He didn't want to cut the power down to nothing, but they needed to conserve fuel until he had to fly back to Mars and resupply. He had the base number in his mind of the minimum they needed for the Cordie before they had to leave.

Once they reached that number, the expedition would have to pause while he made sure they weren't trapped on Titan and waiting for rescue.

He knew a few captains that had cut it too close and had to glide in to a crash landing somewhere. It had cost some of them their license, some their ships. He didn't plan to lose either one in this situation.

At least he was staying with the ship. He didn't fancy being in a submersible and crashing into something under the ice. Freezing seemed better in space where you had a small chance of a rescue from a passing ship.

“All right,” reported Herd. “We're geared up. We're pushing the submersible to the hole and getting ready to drop it.”

“How long do you think you'll need?,” asked Ranson.

“I don't know offhand,” said Herd. “We should be getting an external radio signal as soon as the sub starts working.”

“I guess we're ready up here,” said Ranson.

“We're at the edge of the shaft,” said Herd. “Submersible away.”

“Signal is clear up here,” said Anderson. He echoed his screen to Ranson's. A picture cobbled together from the various sensors on the submersible marked things for the captain.

“Also clear on the main panel,” said one of the engineers. Ranson didn't recognize the voice. “It's dropping like a rock.”

“All right,” said Herd. “We're coming in to watch the survey.”

Ranson was reassured by the walls of ice under him. The Cordie would have to be ten times bigger before it cracked through that. The only thing they had to worry about was plate movement causing problems and he didn't see that happening.

He wouldn't rule it out. He just didn't think where they were would be the cause of any problems. Actually trying to raise anything they found would be more risky than anything in the thin air around them.

As long as he kept an eye on things while they were working, he would be ready to fly at the first sign of any trouble. He had seen a few captains whose crews had ruined them while they were off watch.

“What do you think we'll need to raise the Argo from here?,” said Anderson.

“A tug bigger than this unless the Argo can lift itself off the bottom,” said Ranson. “one engine, for example, could potentially be enough to lift it to the surface. I wouldn't know if it would be enough to lift it into orbit without looking at it. Gravity is not that bad here. It might be a nonfactor.”

“I think Doctor Herd wants to fly it back to Mars,” said Anderson.

“I wish her the best of luck with that,” said Ranson.

“You don't think we can do it with the crew we have onboard?,” asked Anderson.

“Everything depends on how much is wrong with the Argo, and if this is the Argo at all,” said Ranson. “This could be some other ship that got shot down before the machines withdrew.”

“Doctor Herd will want to check over the surface again if this isn't the Argo,” said Anderson.

“As long as the check clears, I will gladly take you anywhere we can reach,” said Ranson. “If we find a wreck, and that wreck can fly, I will gladly fly it back to Mars for the expedition.”

“I think the people Doctor Herd picked to help her can build a new Argo with access to the old one,” said Anderson. “I wouldn't underestimate what they can do.”

“I'm good as long as the machines don't come back and try to take this from us,” said Ranson. “If they do, we'll have to lift off before they shoot us to pieces.”

“I'm ready for that to happen,” said Anderson. “We don't know why they pulled back, and we don't know what would trigger them to come back.”

“Maybe the Argo fighting until it broke scared them,” said Ranson. “If they get scared.”

“I'm hoping it was something we can repeat if we are forced to do that,” said Anderson.

“Tell me about it,” said Ranson.

“We're back onboard,” reported Herd. “The screen looks remarkably clear of obstacles. We should be seeing things on the bottom if the submersible is able to dive deep enough.”

“We're watching,” said Ranson.

Anderson was glued to his screens as the swimming robot slowly circled in an expanding search pattern. He marked places with his finger for closer looks as the submersible passed over patches in the ground.

They had hours of looking ahead of them. He was prepared to keep at it until told to stop.

Ranson knew he was superfluous until they needed someone to lift off. He might as well get some coffee while he waited for something to happen.