The Rockhopper, an ice miner captained by Bella Lind, is the closest spacecraft to the rapidly accelerating moon, and it is sent in hot pursuit as Janus aims for a giant structure, light minutes long and centuries away. Then, in a moment, the moon Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, begins to leave first the orbit of the gas giant and then to chart a course out of the solar system.all without showing any sign of the machinery it has hidden carefully for millennia. Read moreįorty years from now, we have stepped out into the solar system, mining the asteroids and salvaging ice from comets to provide resources for humanity's expansion. In accepting this mission, she sets her ship and her crew on a collision course with destiny-for Janus has more surprises in store, and not all of them are welcome. The Rockhopper is the only ship anywhere near Janus, and Bella Lind is ordered to shadow it for the few vital days before it falls forever out of reach.

It's some kind of machine-and it is now headed toward a fuzzily glimpsed artifact 260 light-years away. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.Īs layers of camouflage fall away, it becomes clear that Janus was never a moon in the first place.

Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form.

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds