"Is there time?"
"There is an hour."
Krylov thought for a long moment. Then he straightened, smiling.
"Of course. You will go. We will both go."
Diavilev stepped out onto the surface of the moonlet. That Krylov was with him did not matter. He had set foot on an alien world.
He stood upon metal, gazing with wide shining eyes at the crags and the cracks, the dark jagged peaks of the thing out of space. This was something of which, in his life, he had never dreamed. Now that he had done this his life was complete. He moved forward carefully down a ragged cleft, turning to speak to Krylov....
... who was not there.
"Krylov!"
Emptiness.