not work out some bizarre puzzle. He was equipped for a routine check of minerals, not some unpleasantly real phenomenon which defied all his equipment. He kicked at the loose rocks at his feet, sending them away in a dusty spin across the flat. It was like walking on an ice-skating rink. But it shouldn't be there! He wondered about getting a transfer to some other part of the moon, where there were only normal rocks. That would make his life simple again.

The other men were not unimpressed by the uncanny nature of their discovery either. They stood about, helpless before the enigma, like rag dolls in space suits, muffled by dust.

"I would say," said John, voicing what the others were thinking, "That we have come across the first real evidence of a superior race of creatures outside of Mankind."

"I think you have jumped to a conclusion which is by no means obvious," said Paul. "We have not yet discovered all there is to know in the universe. This may be the result of some new force. It may be crystalline. It may be the result of a collision of several unknown molecular forms?"

"True," agreed John, "But unlikely. The scale is something to deal with. Look at the size of this surface. The proportions are not part of Nature, because crystals cannot grow this large without some impurity upsetting the lattice. It only takes a few million atoms of some impurity to set the crystal growing in another direction. This flat area is not consistent with a natural phenomenon, but it is consistent with the work a tool-maker. A tool-maker would deliberately exclude impurities to maintain the equilibrium of the surface, but Nature wouldn't because Nature has conscious overseeing Mind. It just operates on inherent laws."

"Perhaps we could just cover it over and forget it" said Ralph smiling.

His comment was really dry wit. He knew there was no way this discovery could be hidden for long. There were dozens of other mines on the moon, all working the surface. It would be only a matter of time before another team moved this way and hit the same riddle.

Phillip came over to his men. He swung his hand out and pointed to the perimeter of the flat.

"We've found it, now we have to investigate. Let's see how far this surface extends," he said, his voice sharp through the ear phones, "Well go to the edge, and then cut downwards for a while. I want to get an idea of the overall shape of this thing!"