‘We're not here to pass judgement on anybody’, said Vertain, the chairman of the Commission. ‘We're here to find out what happened. Just the facts: straight, accurate, and objective. Without any emotionalism. That's all.’

They sat in the Institute's little conference room, the specialists from the Office of Investigation and the members of the expedition team—the ones who had returned, that is. The only movement in the room came from a five-year-old girl whose image was projected onto the giant videoscreen. Although she was surrounded by toys, the child showed no interest in anything except the candy that had been set out for her. She played with the colourful foil-wrapped bonbons, alternately tucking them behind the pillows and stuffed animals and then retrieving them, only to find another hiding place after a cautious look around.

Vertain turned to the heavy-set man at the far right of the row of team members. ‘Why don't you start off, Govin?’

‘All right.’

Govin tore his eyes away from the child playing on the screen. In a slightly hesitant voice, he began to speak. ‘You all know the background. The Institute for Ecological Research needed some data. A change in the composition of the outer air had been registered—there'd been an increase in carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and the bacteria count was up as well. Our job was to find out why. The government issued a special permit for us to go on to the mainland.’

The chairman filled in the silence with a question. ‘Were you given adequate equipment?’

‘Of course. We had everything we needed—food, water, respiratory filters, medication—’

‘But no weapons’, put in Petrovski, the chief technician at the Institute.

‘No, no weapons; whatever for? At that point, we had no idea—I mean, who would have imagined that—out there—’ Govin's glance involuntarily strayed to the window. A shaft of milky green light fell across the floor of the room. ‘We thought the outside world was dead. After all, it'd been years since anyone had left the suboceanic cities.’

‘That's just it’, said Petrovski.

Vertain waved his hand, a gesture of impatience. ‘Go on’, he told Govin.