Chindi

Chapter 14

“WHAT DO YOU want me to say?” George hurled the question at her, across the common room. The wounds on his leg and both shoulders were cemented together and wrapped.

Hutch had said nothing to provoke the outburst, but he must have seen it in her eyes. Like him, she was glued together. Ankle, thigh, waist, and neck had been slashed. Alyx had given her another trank, and she’d slept soundly through a second night. The painkillers were working fine, but everything was secured to prevent movement.

Tor was with them, seated quietly at a console, reading something. He turned at the comment and looked first at George, then over at Hutch.

Everyone had studiously avoided discussing the judgment that had led to the event. Instead, there were only general comments. Never had a chance.

Damned savages.

“Nobody’s accusing you,” said Tor quietly.

“She is.”

Hutch was lying on her back, her head propped up on pillows. “Don’t push it, George,” she said.

“So what happens now?” asked Tor, trying to change the flow of conversation.

“We report in, fold our tent, and go home,” said Hutch.

The room grew still. “Can’t do that, Hutch,” George said evenly.

“What do you mean? What would be the point of hanging around here?”

“I wasn’t suggesting we hang around here. We’ve nothing to learn from these savages.”

“Isn’t that what this was supposed to be about? Go out and talk to the Others? Find out what they think?” She realized what he was contemplating. To the degree that the cement would allow her, she turned her head to look at him. “No,” she said. “This is the end.”

“You are employed by me, Hutch. I’ll decide when it’s the end.”

“You know,” she said, “I could shut this operation down anytime.”

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? But you’re under contract. We have an agreement.”

“I don’t have to stand by while you kill yourself.”

Tor got between them and looked down at her. “Hutch,” he said, “we want to go on. To find out what this is about.”

To follow another outbound signal.

She closed her eyes and visualized the planet-wide receiver formed by the three stealths, collecting the transmission coming in from Point B, maybe adding something it picked up down in the country of the angels, relaying it over to a second planetwide system, a transmitter, composed of three more stealths, and forwarding the signal—Where? And to what purpose?

“Along the rim of the bubble,” said Tor. “Actually, the transmission angles back toward the bubble. In the general direction of Outpost.”

“Fourteen degrees above the plane of the galaxy,” George said.

“It’s not exactly aimed near Outpost,” Tor corrected himself. “But it’s close enough.”

“It’s aimed toward the Mendelson Cluster,” said George.

“The Mendelson Cluster’s a long way off.”

“We’re sure it doesn’t go that far,” said Tor. “Looks as if the new target is either a class-G 156 light-years away, or a red supergiant at more than 400 light-years. Probably the supergiant. The track passes at about 50 A.U.s out from the class-G.”

“Whichever it is,” said Hutch, “it’s a pretty good ride.”

“We can’t just walk away from it,” said George. “Especially now.” He was talking about Pete and Herman.

Tor nodded and sat down on the edge of her couch. “What we want to do is to stay with it. We’re far beyond the kind of discovery we started out with. There’s a network here. We have to figure out what it’s about, Hutch. So we need to keep going. But we’ve talked, and we know you were right. So we learn from our mistakes. We become a little more cautious. Use common sense.”

“A lot more cautious,” said Hutch.

George’s eyes closed. “Yes,” he said. “We’re all in agreement on that.”

“Is everybody in agreement about continuing?”

“We discussed it last night. Nobody wants to turn back.”

“How long to get there?” asked George.

“The nearer one, eleven days. One way.”

“That’s not so bad,” he said. “Why don’t we just go take a look? See what’s there? And we’ll handle it as Tor suggests. We take no chances.”

Hutch closed her eyes and examined the little globs of light exploding behind her eyelids. “We’re starting to run into a supply problem,” she said. “We’re not equipped to tack on another three weeks.”

“What do we need?” asked George.

“Food. Nobody expected the mission to go this long.”

“Surely we can do something about that,” said Tor. “You could have them send a supply ship. Meet us somewhere. Look at what the Academy is getting from this.”

It went quiet again. Hutch could not sort out her own feelings. The mission, her side of it, had lost two people. And who knew what lay ahead? She wasn’t a researcher. Her entire career had been devoted to moving people and supplies around. She had happily left others to stick their noses into dark corners.

Still, she empathized with the Contact people. They were onto something pretty substantial. Well beyond anything the superluminals had found before. Somebody was out there, somebody they might talk to, somebody who was apparently interested in neutron stars and living civilizations. After all these years, it would be a splendid door to open. And she had a chance to be there, on the threshold. With this least likely of crews. “I have a suggestion,” she said. “George, why don’t you get on the hypercomm, tell the director what we’ve run into. If nobody has an objection, we’ll go take a look at the closer target. The class G. If the director agrees, they might be willing to dispatch a second ship from Outpost. They can bring sandwiches and meet us at the target.”

“Suppose there’s nothing there,” said Tor. “Suppose the transmission is aimed at the supergiant?”

“We deal with that when we have to,” said Hutch.

“Suppose,” said George, “they won’t send the second ship?”

“They will,” said Hutch. “The discovery’s too big. When we report what we have, there’ll be a fleet running up our rear ends.”

GEORGE’S BODY HEALED more quickly than his psyche ever would. He sent a report of the Paradise incident to the Society’s acting secretary which, following on the deaths of ten of their colleagues on the Condor, would be devastating. It was even more painful for him personally because he could not avoid the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of two close friends.

It was as if their loss had been a direct result of his poor judgment. Yes, they had understood the danger and accepted it willingly; yes, he had put no pressure on anyone; yes, he had accepted the same risk as the others, had in fact stood in the forefront.

Nonetheless, they were dead, Pete struck down in the early stages of the attack, Herman killed while coming to George’s defense.

Hutch had sent out the required reports to the Academy and to the Department of Transportation, which would duly conduct their investigation of the incident. But George would have to handle the more difficult procedure, notifying Herman’s widow Emma, and Pete’s family. A son and daughter there.

Well, it was the responsibility of the chief of mission, he supposed. It was a task he’d never given thought to before setting out.

He had always believed that one day he’d succeed at his one prime ambition, that he’d make contact. It had happened, and it should have brought with it a sense of absolute pleasure. Even if the contact had come with savages. (Who could have thought?) So everything was skewed, and it had brought unrelenting bitterness down on his head.

Why had he not listened?

Hutchins had been right, and for that reason he resented her.

And yet…. He knew in his heart that, given the same situation, he’d make the same choice. How could he not? Even to show more caution, to hide in the lander, to have waved at the angels from behind a safe barricade of metal, the hatches locked and bolted, these would have been despicable acts, inviting someone with more heart to arrive and seize the glory.

There were times when it was necessary to face hazard, to throw the dice in the face of events and await the outcome. This had been one of those times, and if people were dead, then that was the occasional cost of enterprise. One could not always put safety up front as the prime goal. Do that, and who would ever achieve anything of note?

But still, the loss of Pete, and of his old friend Herman, cut him to the soul. And during those first days after the event, even the tranks could not help him.

George sent messages of condolence to the two families. His voice caught and he struggled to maintain his composure. When he’d finished he lay back on his couch and stared at the overhead.

Before leaving Paradise, they held their second memorial service.

Hutch posted virtual images of Herman and Pete, and everyone paid tribute. As the ship’s captain, she was expected to make the final remarks.

She observed that she had known both men for a relatively short time, but that they had been amiable companions, that they seemed to be honest men, faithful to their responsibilities, and that she’d been proud to venture with them into dark places. Pete, she pointed out, had put himself without hesitation into danger. He had led the way and made himself a prime target.

Herman had gone unhesitatingly to the assistance of his friends, and had consequently lost his life. What more need be said?

THE FLIGHT TO the class-G was subdued. They ran some sims, but they did not participate. Nick no longer rode across the desert in his purple turban, in a desperate race to rescue Alyx and Hutch from the licentious grasp of a warlord who, in the earlier days of the mission, had resembled George, but now looked like a standard heavy from central casting. Alyx no longer appeared as the half-naked jungle queen Shambiya, chasing down poachers and gunrunners. Tor had stopped running Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.

They played bridge, and they talked more, and read more. The party atmosphere had been left at Paradise. Meantime, Hutch and George recovered from their injuries, and she began to watch with some concern as their food dwindled. They would be down to less than a two-week supply when they arrived at their destination. But Outpost reported that their request had been duly relayed to the Academy, and that a relief vessel, the Wendy Jay, was en route.

Four days out, a panicky message came in from Virgil, who, still wrestling with the loss of the Condor, now found herself looking at two more fatalities. “Put together complete reports,” she told Hutch, specifying the areas she wanted detailed. “Take no further chances. I don’t care what else happens, we don’t want any more deaths.”

But the director stopped short of turning the mission around. Presumably she didn’t feel she had the authority to do that, Hutch decided.

Alyx sat down with her on the bridge one evening to tell her she was having trouble getting past the attack.

“Me, too,” Hutch confessed. It had been the most terrible thing she’d ever seen. Worse even than the army crabs on Beta Pac. It was frozen in her consciousness, something she replayed again and again, feeling the stark revulsion and terror that she was no longer sure had even been present during the original event, when she’d been too busy trying to stay alive to pay attention to her reaction. And there was something else she’d noticed about the experience. “I enjoyed killing the sons of bitches,” she said. “I ripped a few of them open, and I enjoyed every minute of it.”

“I can understand,” said Alyx.

She shook her head. “It’s the first time I’ve ever looked anything in the eye and killed it,” she said.

“I felt the same way. I wished I’d had a gun.”

“It’s just a part of myself that I never saw before.”

Alyx had been having problems, too. She talked about bad dreams. Fangs and retractable claws. “That’s what I remember, the way they just appeared.” And then she said the thing that Hutch would always remember: “It’s like discovering the universe doesn’t run on the rules you thought it did. It’s like standing at a bus stop at night and seeing the guy beside you turn into a werewolf. The angels were terrible. But what really disturbs me is just knowing such a thing could exist.”

During the next few days Alyx came back, and they talked about it again, and Hutch didn’t say much but mostly just listened. Sometimes the conversation went in other directions. They talked about ambitions, men, clothes, what lay ahead. But inevitably they returned to the terrible moments on the ground.

Gradually, Hutch’s own tendency to relive the experience began to fade. And the emotions associated with it fused into a kind of numbness. Something she could package and put away in a locked room that she simply did not visit anymore.

Meantime, she and Alyx forged a strong bond of empathy with each other.

THEY WERE STILL a couple of days away from the class-G when Tor appeared on the bridge. He didn’t seem to have much to say, but simply asked how she was holding up.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You seemed down.”

“I thought everybody seemed a bit down.”

“Touché.” He sighed. “The flight hasn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs, has it?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

“I know this has been especially hard on you.”

She shrugged. “It’s been hard on us all.”

“If there’s anything I can do…”

She smiled her appreciation. “Thanks, Tor. I know.”

“Don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I won’t.”

“What do you think we’ll find up ahead?”

“Anybody’s guess,” she said. She had the sense of drifting down an endless track, littered with invisible satellites.

He gazed at her a long moment. “Hutch, I wish we’d had more time together. In the Arlington days.”

So did she. But that was a fresh realization, and she couldn’t entirely submerge a trace of resentment that he hadn’t tried a bit harder to hold on to her. “Me too,” she said in a neutral voice. “My schedule just never seemed to allow much time for socializing.”

“I know,” he said. “I understand.” He smiled, and she thought he was going to do it again, nod politely, excuse himself, leave the room, and not bring it up anymore. Or at least not for several more years, after which he’d show up again unexpectedly, implying that yes, he’d loved her all along, and he wished things had gone differently. Damn you, Tor.

“I just wanted you to know,” he was saying, “that I’ve always thought you were pretty special.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “Thanks. I think you’re pretty special, too.”

“Well.” He looked lost. “I should be going.” He kissed her chastely on the cheek. “If you ever need me, Hutch…” He paused in the doorway and looked at her for a long moment. Then he was gone.

Hutch opened a drawer in her console, fished out a pen, and flung it across the room.

THEY JUMPED BACK to sublight on schedule, at about 48 A.U.s from the central luminary, out where the signal would be passing through the system. Hutch deployed the dishes, and they began the now-familiar routine of searching for the incoming transmission.

George wished they had better communications technology, but seemed mollified when Hutch explained that he had gotten his money’s worth, that the Memphis systems were state-of-the-art, and that there were simply limits imposed by physics no matter how good the equipment was.

The males automatically tended to flirt with Alyx. By now, their affections for one another had deepened, had become something else. But Alyx never lost consciousness of what Hutch was feeling, and consequently tried to maintain an amiable distance.

“Do we know anything at all about this system?” she asked. “Have we even looked at it through a telescope?”

“Maybe through a telescope,” Hutch said. “But that doesn’t tell us much. There’s been no formal survey here.”

Her eyes grew luminous. “You know,” she said, “it’s kind of exciting to be first person into a solar system.”

“It is,” said Hutch. “This mission’s been a new experience for me, too.”

Bill broke in. “Message from the director.”

Hutch nodded, and Sylvia Virgil appeared on-screen. “Hutch,” she said, “I want to congratulate you on your accomplishments. You’ll understand I’m sorry about the losses. We all regret that there have been casualties. But I want to remind you that you are on a historic flight. Which means it is essential to document everything. Remember that the safety of the vessel and its passengers is our paramount concern. I know you’re getting far away from home. But this is a big prize we’re after. You’ll be interested in knowing that the network—that’s what they’re calling it in the media—is huge news back here. We’ll be sending out a few more ships to provide support. Keep us informed every step of the way, and we’ll try to have some of them rendezvous with you farther down the line.

“We’ve already dispatched the Henry Hunt and the Melinda Freestone to the supergiant, based on the possibility that BY68681551”—she read the catalog number of the star system they were in from notes—“is not the actual target. If it turns out that it is, let me know right away, and we’ll change their destination. Hutch, so you’re aware, everything we have in the Outpost area is being turned your way.”

She was worried about lawsuits.

“WE HAVE ACQUIRED the signal,” said Bill.

“Can you see the target?”

“Working on it.”

WITHIN HOURS, BILL found a planet in the path of the transmission. It was an ice world, maybe half again as big as Earth, the sun no more than a bright star in its black sky. Its atmosphere lay frozen on the bleak surface. Huge fractures, several of which would easily have swallowed the Swiss Alps, ran north and south. “Nothing ever lived there,” said Alyx, gazing at the images on the screens.

George was frowning. “It breaks the pattern.”

“What pattern?” asked Tor.

“Living worlds. Worlds with civilizations.”

“The neutron star doesn’t have a civilization,” said Nick.

Alyx, who was becoming an astronomy enthusiast, looked up from an image of a pair of colliding galaxies. “I wonder,” she said, “where the beginning of the chain is.”

Bill appeared on-screen. “I’ve located a stealth satellite. Looking for more.”

“Same type?”

“Keep in mind I can’t see it directly, Hutch. Only the spatial distortion. But nothing so far suggests anything different from the others.”

“Why?” asked George. “What can be here that could possibly interest anybody?” The frustration in his voice was evident. “Nick,” he demanded, “would you put an observation satellite here?”

Nick shrugged. “Not unless I wanted to watch the glaciers move.”

“That’s why they’re called aliens,” said Alyx. “They do stuff that nobody can understand.”

Bill used the sensors to look underground, but he detected no unusual geologic formations, no hint of any artificial structure, absolutely nothing of interest to the mission. There was no evidence that anything had ever happened on this world.

It had two moons, both frozen rocks, captured asteroids, neither more than a few kilometers in diameter. Both were misshapen. One moved in a retrograde orbit. Other than that, they, too, offered nothing of note.

“Maybe,” said George, “it’s just a relay station. Maybe we’re at the limit of the signal’s range from Paradise.”

“May I offer an observation?” asked the AI.

“Go ahead, Bill.”

“The power level in the transmission from Paradise suggests the signal could have gone well beyond this area. If I were to construct a relay station for this signal, it would not be here.”

“My head’s beginning to hurt,” said George. “Bill, do we have a second set of stealths?”

“I’ve been looking. We have no sunlight here to speak of, so they’re difficult to pick up. But I will continue to search.”

“How about if we pull out a short distance,” said Hutch, “and see whether we can hear an outgoing signal?”

WHILE THEY LOOKED, Bill announced that a second ship had arrived insystem.

“Our supplies,” said Nick.

It was the Wendy Jay.

Hutch instructed Bill to open a channel. “Captain Eichner is already on the circuit,” he said. “Shall I patch him through?”

“Yes.” Hutch felt the glow people always do when friends show up in remote places. “I’ll take it on the bridge.”

Kurt wore a black jumpsuit with the Wendy patch on his shoulder. Despite the fact that he’d spent most of his professional career sealed in containers with climate control, he looked as if he’d been under the open sun too much. He had weather-beaten features, a long scarred nose (“dueling incident,” he’d once told her), deep blue eyes that you could swim in, and a smile that was both whimsical and cynical depending on which side of the room you happened to be on.

“Hutch,” he said, “it looks as if we can manage dinner after all.”

“I’m looking forward to it. What did you bring?”

There was a delay of almost a minute. The Wendy was still pretty far off. “Everything we need. What on Earth are you doing out here?”

Hutch made a pained face. “Looking for gremlins.”

He sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. “They tell me you’re caught up in some sort of tracking exercise.”

“More or less. Somebody put up a network of communications relay stations. This is our fourth stop.”

“Somebody other than us.”

“Looks like.”

The smile went whimsical. “So the crazies pulled it off, didn’t they?”

“They’re not crazy, Kurt.”

“I understand completely. But are you going on? Beyond this place?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“How far?”

“I don’t know that either.” Bill was trying to get her attention. “Just a second, Kurt.”

“We have an outgoing signal,” he said.

“Is it a relay?”

“Do you mean, does it have the same characteristics as the other transmissions? Yes, it does. But it angles off at 133©.”

“This thing really wanders around.”

“Yes, it does.”

Another puzzle. Hutch thanked him, switched back to Kurt, and told him what Bill had reported. “Footprints of another civilization,” she said.

“I guess. So will you follow it?”

“It’s not my call.”

“Whose call is it?”

“George. George Hockelmann.”

“Oh.” And, after a moment: “Who’s he?”

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

“I understand you’ve lost some people.”

“A shipload. And two from our own passenger list.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Thanks.” She hesitated. “I’ll be asking you to take the remains back with you.”

“I can do that.” He looked at her as if he expected her to say more. Then: “Do you want to continue with this? The mission?”

“You want the truth, Kurt?”

“Don’t I always?”

“I wouldn’t want to admit it to George, but I’m getting kind of fascinated. Somebody planted these things more than a thousand years ago. Except maybe one of them which the Academy tells us is less than a century old.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Sounds as if they have some sort of ongoing maintenance.

I’d like to see where it all leads.” She was looking at the Wendy’s position on the navigation screen. “When do you expect to get here?”

“Midmorning tomorrow.”

“Want to come with us? On the next step?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You could send the Wendy back with the AI.”

“Hutch, I really wish I could.” He shook his head, signifying he wouldn’t do it under any circumstances he could imagine. “But I’ve got this bad ankle that’s been bothering me, and, anyway, you know how Bill gets when he’s left alone. By the way—”

“Yes?”

“I need your help.”

“Sure. What can I do?”

“The Academy wants a sample stealth. They got kind of miffed at Park when he reported he only had a few parts on board.”

“Had they asked him to bring one back?”

“No, but they thought he should have used some initiative. Anyway, they want me to pick one up. I’d be grateful for some assistance.”

THEY CHRISTENED THE new world Icepack and made as complete a record as they could. Bill measured or estimated density, equatorial diameter, mass, surface gravity, inclination, rotation period, and volume. He took the surface temperature at various locations. It was always a couple of hundred degrees below zero. He recorded the various proportions of methane and hydrogen, ammonia ice and water ice.

He also took extensive pictures of the moons, which were sent into mission control and studied relentlessly. Nowhere did they find any indication why the stealths were present.

Meantime Hutch set about selecting one of the units for disassembly.

“Are you sure you wish to do this?” Bill asked.

A red flag went up. “What’s your reservation, Bill?”

“Each change you make degrades the signal. We removed one unit from Point B. And parts of another. Now we propose to remove another one here. Whoever is on the receiving end of the transmission may resent what we’re doing.”

“Whoever’s on the receiving end isn’t going to know about it for a long time.”

“Then let me try it another way: Isn’t there an ethical issue involved?”

“No, there’s no ethical issue. We lost people. We’re perfectly justified in doing what’s necessary to find out what happened. Anyway, they’re a thousand years old. Or more.”

“But they’re working artifacts, Hutch. And I hope you won’t object if I point out that a thousand years is only relatively a long time.”

“I’ll tell you what, Bill. We’ll get one for Kurt, which I have to do because I promised it, and that’s it. We won’t touch any more after this one. Okay?”

The AI was silent.

SHE PICKED THE one they would take apart and sat up late that evening, talking about it with Tor and Nick. “I half suspect,” said Tor, “that when we find who’s on the receiving end of all this, we discover there’s nobody there.”

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“That the project that launched all this is long forgotten. That these signals are bouncing around, and somewhere they’re being funneled down to a receiver and stored for somebody who really doesn’t care anymore. Who may not even still be at the old storefront. I mean, how much time would you spend watching a neutron star?”

Nick agreed. “They’re probably dead and gone,” he said. But neither of them was an archeologist. Neither was she, for that matter, although she’d worked with archeologists all her life. She understood their reverence for artifacts, for the objects that used to be buried in the ground, but might also be found in orbit. The term had been expanded to include radio signals. Bill was right: These were operational artifacts, and she could not shake the sense that she was about to destroy something of value.

“On the same subject,” she told Tor, “I’ll be going outside tomorrow to do the deed. I’d like to have it disassembled and ready to go when Kurt gets here.”

“You need help?” he asked.

“Yes. If you’re available.”

“Am I available?” He flashed a broad grin. “Count on me.”

In the morning, Kurt was on the circuit before Hutch was fully awake. “I’ve loaded the shuttle with your stuff,” he said.

The Memphis was too small to support a dock, other than the space-saving arrangement in the cargo bay for its lander. The designer had assumed that any arriving vehicle would simply come alongside and transfer passengers directly through the main airlock. In this case, however, they were taking on supplies, and it seemed more rational to take the lander outside and make room for the Wendy’s shuttle.

“How big a job,” asked Kurt, “is it, taking apart a stealth?”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Okay. Are we on for dinner?”

“If you get here with the sauerbraten.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have sauerbraten, Hutch. How about roast pork?”

“That’ll do fine.” She signed off and went down to the common room, where breakfast was in progress. “We need to decide whether we’re going to move on,” said George. “Do we know yet where the stealths are aimed? Where the next relay point is?”

Hutch passed the question on to Bill, who appeared in a corner of the navigation display. “It passes directly through a pair of gas giants in this system and then goes all the way to GCY-7514.”

“Where’s that?” asked Nick.

“It’s a galaxy,” said Hutch.

George looked distraught. “That can’t be right.”

“Bill’s pretty accurate with stuff like this. He doesn’t make mistakes.” She sat down and looked at Bill. “You said a pair of gas giants. What do you mean?”

“There are two of them locked in a fairly tight gravitational embrace. Unusual configuration. The signal goes right through the system.”

Everyone fell silent.

“They’re quite beautiful, I would think,” he added.

“End of the track,” said Nick. He looked unhappy, too. They all did.

Hutch wasn’t sure how she felt. It would be an unsatisfying conclusion. But maybe it was just as well that they’d be forced to call it off and go home. It seemed like a good time to change the subject. “The Wendy’ll be here with our stores in a few hours,” she said.

Tor nodded. “Doesn’t seem to me that we’ll need them.”

“You’d get pretty hungry going home.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I know this is a disappointment for everybody. But try to keep in mind what you’ve accomplished. You’ve discovered the aftermath of a nuclear war. And you’ve got a living world that may or may not have intelligent life. That’s not bad for a single mission.” She clumped George on the shoulder.

“What are you hearing from Sylvia?” asked George.

Hutch collected a breakfast and sat down beside him. “It sounds as if we’d’ve become the spearhead of a fleet,” she said. “If there’d been a continuation of the net. She hasn’t said anything, but I’ll bet they’re looking at the other end, at the incoming signal at 1107. Who knows what’s on the other side of the network?”

HUTCH HAD SELECTED the stealth that was easiest to reach and the Memphis had been navigating toward it throughout the night. It was one of the three receptors.

Hutch and Tor slipped into e-suits, added go-packs, and went outside. It was a far different experience from Safe Harbor, which was sunlit, Earth-like, familiar. This world was dark, cold, remote, its sun lost among the stars. They saw the surface only as a vast blackness.

Bill had used night-vision equipment to find the stealth, and they wore goggles that allowed them to distinguish its outlines. “It’s identical to the other ones,” said Tor. “Looks as if they only have one kind of satellite. I mean, it doesn’t need stealth capabilities to be invisible out here.”

The Memphis lit up the unit as they came out through the airlock, using go-packs to cross the forty or so meters separating them from the target.

“Can anyone hear us on this circuit?” Tor asked.

“Yes,” she said, “although I doubt anyone’s listening. Except Bill.”

“Oh.”

She explained how to switch to a private channel, heard the click in her phones, and then he said, “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“I wanted you to know, when we get home, I’m going to ask you to have dinner with me.”

“We have dinner every night, Tor.”

“You know what I mean. Just you and me. With candles and wine.” He paused. “Just one dinner. No commitment. And afterward I’ll disappear out of your life unless you ask me not to.”

He was wearing a green pullover shirt with a stenciled image of Benjamin Franklin. And his famous comment, If at first you don’t succeed. She smiled, thinking, You of all people. If at first you don’t succeed, quit before you get in trouble.

“Look out you don’t hit your head,” she said.

“Where?”

“Here.” She wrapped on an invisible panel, and then directed her lamp toward it. “Things stick out all along here, and they’re hard to see.”

“Thanks,” he said. “And the dinner?”

She was hanging on to one of the dishes. “Are you asking me now? I thought you were going to wait until we get home?”

“You’re playing games with me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “that I was playing games. I didn’t mean to. I’d love to have dinner with you, Tor.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad we got that settled.”

THEY CLIMBED ABOARD and flashed their lamps around. The reflections were wrong, jumbled, confused, but she could make out the general shape of the object, a dish here, another opposite, the central section directly ahead. There, in the forward part of the diamond, would be the panel that gave access into the stealth controls.

The Memphis floated alongside them, its lights periodically playing across them, silhouetting them, casting shadows. The cargo hatch was open and brightly lit. Hutch had found a bar along the central axis of the diamond, and she was using it as a handhold. Beneath her, everything was dark.

They drifted through the night, and it seemed suddenly as if they were utterly alone. His eyes were hidden, but she could sense the tension in his body. “Would you feel more comfortable,” he asked, “if I went back with the Wendy?”

“Why no. Of course not, Tor. Why would you do that?”

He hesitated a long time. “I thought it might be a little easier on you.”

“I’m fine. I’m glad to have you here.” What kind of guy is this?

He hoisted himself around the central axis, bringing them face-to-face. “You know why I came,” he said.

“Because of me.”

“You knew from the start.”

“No,” she said. She was no longer sure what she’d known. “But I’m glad you came.”

He nodded and squeezed her shoulder. Then she turned her attention to the stealth effects. The panel was precisely where she knew it would be. She lifted it and shut down the circuitry. The satellite blinked into visibility.

The Wendy was considerably larger than the Memphis, and her cargo doors were twice as big. Even so, the dishes would be a tight fit. They were mounted on shafts that would have to be cut as close as possible to the antenna.

She didn’t really need Tor’s help. He was with her as a safety factor, because the regs prohibited one person from going outside alone. But since he was available, she had him use light line to secure the three units that comprised the vehicle to each other, so nothing would drift off.

“Hutch.” Bill’s voice. “The Wendy is on final approach.”

“How long?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Patch me through.” She waited through a series of electronic connections, then heard the carrier wave. “Kurt?”

“Good morning, Priscilla. Bill tells me you’re out slicing up my artifact.”

“Yep. It’ll be wrapped and ready for delivery when you get here.”

“Okay. I have two loads of supplies for you. If you’ve no objection, I’m going to move one of those over first. Then we can stow the satellite.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’ve got enough stuff to keep you going another eight months. I hope they’re paying you overtime.”

Hutch selected the point of separation, fired up her laser, and cut the dish free. “Oh, yes,” she said. “The pay is generous. As always.”