In a ragged line, with Zack closing in on her, Williams—surprisingly—in third, followed by Dale and Valya, they emerged into the harsh bright sunlight of a Keanu day and quickly headed upward to the surface. She had only studied the imagery of the original exploration by the Brahma and Destiny crews…the snowy, shadowed crater with the obviously artificial ramp spiraling up one side. But she remembered the ramp as relatively clean, bare rock. Now it was covered with debris…easily avoided or jumped over, but obviously new. And great swatches of snow were gone, especially in the higher reaches. “It looks so different!” she said. “Setting off a nuke will do that,” Zack said. Makali and now Zack were taking giant leaps as they gained altitude. “Careful,” Zack said. “It’s easy to overshoot in microgravity.” Makali acknowledged the warning without really altering her actions. She judged the vent to be at least thirty meters deep, a hole big enough to swallow a ten-story building.
