To Crush the Moon

Appendix D Further Voyaging

Pumpkin orange, Conrad noted with surprise and mild disappointment. There were hints of rainbow at the edges, hints of laquered sheen at the center, but the dully glowing “white dwarf” was fundamentally orange, not much different in appearance than the neutron star had been. More than anything it looked like a wellstone nightlight in the wall of a child’s bedroom. But unlike the neutron star—really just a tourist stop along the way—this planet-sized sphere contained riches: stable transuranics by the gigaton, held tightly in the core by a hundred thousand gravities.

“If only we could pry them loose,” Tilly said to him as they stood together on their yacht’s observation deck. “We’d be richer than the Biarchy itself.”

“I think I’ve got an idea,” Conrad replied. And so he did, though its implementation was more difficult than he could possibly have imagined. But that’s another tale entirely.