At first the dense, dark mass looked like sludge, an almost wormlike concentration of mineral deposits and flattened rocks.
The asteroid was the scarred remnant of several cycles of planetary formation, with surface layers hinting at heavy isotope concentrations within.
The funnel of the nuclear furnace split the small world in half, and the dense core was exposed.
It took a few seconds for the particle beams to confirm the bad news that was obvious in the glare of the floodlights.
At the heart of the asteroid was ten billion tons of worthless gold.



Hanging motionless in space, the astronaut watched the craters emerge from the shadows of the small world's night side.
"Rotation is 3.23 hours. The topography of the sunlit hemisphere is complex, with contraction faults and pitted terrain."
470 kilometers over the Indian Ocean, the astronaut reached out.
Slightly larger than a watermelon, Earth's second moon felt surprisingly massive.



The best hard SF novel ever: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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