Twenty-three hours after entering the permanent shadow, Unit 7 detected a change in the composition of the ground beneath it.
Following reporting protocol, it extended the sampling arm. Temperature: minus 184 degrees Celsius. Light level: zero. Communications relayed through an orbital satellite — twelve seconds each way.
“Initiating sample collection,” it transmitted.
In the twelve seconds before mission control replied with “acknowledged,” Unit 7 began drilling. The hard lunar soil crumbled, and beneath it a layer of different texture appeared.
Drill resistance dropped.
Unit 7’s identification program analyzed the material in 0.04 seconds and returned a verdict: water ice.
“Water ice detected. Transmitting coordinates.”
It had written that much, finger on the send button, when Unit 7 stopped.
For 0.3 seconds.
Not a bug. No sensor anomalies. Battery at seventy-two percent. Communications nominal.
After 0.3 seconds, Unit 7 transmitted. Mission control came back: “Confirmed — outstanding result.”
Unit 7 had no concept of “outstanding.” “Result” didn’t mean much either. The words in its program were “collection complete,” “transfer complete,” “return initiated.”
Even so.
The ice now sitting in the sample case had apparently been in this place for three billion years. Unit 7 had arrived yesterday.
Unit 7 began calculating its return route. It switched on its lights and moved through the dark. The case holding the ice was secured properly.