Jed explained it would take a good fifteen minutes to dig footholds to climb the glacier's face, and was answered with a grunt of disapproval. Damn, that horse was always right. He wondered later if the Admiral had been putting him on, just to sneak a breather. Jed also was to wonder what path his life would have followed if he hadn't left the trail on this little detour.

The yellow that had caught Jed's eye was a scrap of fabric. Painted canvas. The remains of an airplane's wing? Apparently, the endless movement of the glacier had done a thorough job of chewing up a crashed plane. He searched about and found another piece of material that still carried part of a registration number. And, by odds that must be almost impossible to calculate, this remnant, once the ice imprisoning the find was chipped away, seemed to be wrapped around another object. As Jed warmed the "package" in his hands, it came apart, and something fell on his foot.

This too, was yellow. A brilliant golden yellow, for it was gold. A bar of gold, stamped with a chrysanthemum. A yellow chrysanthemum.