And there before them, just as Poole had glimpsed before, was the Cache’s inner world.
A rough sphere, like a captive asteroid, dominating the inner space. A hasty check of Grantt’s data showed that it was six hundred kilometres in diameter, compared to the Cache’s thousand. Yes, about the size of a big asteroid, like Vesta.
But this was a miniature world, of land and oceans, lakes that shone like mirrors as they reflected the soft light of the distant, planet-sized walls. On the land Poole thought he saw uplifted plains, even chains of stubby mountains cut through by winding river valleys. The object was Earthlike in some ways, then, but not in others; aside from the whole being so small, these landscapes were wrought in dark colours, sombre crimsons and greys and blacks.
But like Earth it was clearly inhabited. Clusters of lights shone on those dark plains, and along the river valleys. There were even what looked like roads, threads through the compact geography along which some of those gleaming shards seemed to travel.
-Xeelee: Vengeance, Ch. 31