THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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In his spare time he was studying, along with his other work, everything
he could find on Koshchei, with an intensity he had not given to
anything since cramming for examinations at the University. There was a
lot of it.

The fourth planet of Alpha Gartner was older than Poictesme; geologists
claimed that it was the oldest thing, the sun excepted, in the system,
and astrophysicists were far from convinced that it hadn't been captured
from either Beta or Gamma when the three stars had been much closer
together. It had certainly been formed at a much higher temperature than
Janicot or Poictesme or Jurgen or Horvendile. For better than a billion
years, it had been molten-hot, and it had lost most of its lighter
elements in gaseous form along with its primary atmosphere, leaving
little to form a light-rock crust. All that had remained had been a core
of almost pure iron and a mantle that was mostly high-grade iron ore.

The same process had gone on, as it cooled, as on any Terra-size planet.