"Roughly eighteen standard hours. The computation wasn't exact. Why?"
"That's close enough. We are at about eighty-five degrees north latitude here, which conforms to the angle of those rigid arms, while the motion of these scope—"
"Counteracts the planet's rotation, moving at the same speed in the opposite direction. Of course! I should have seen it."
"What are you two talking about?" Tjond asked.
"They all point to the same spot in the sky all the time," Gulyas said. "To a star."
"It could be another planet in this system," Hautamaki said, then shook his head. "No, there is no reason for that. It is something outside. We will tell after dark."
They were comfortable in their atmosphere suits and had enough food and water. The machine was photographed and studied from every angle and they theorized on its possible power source. In spite of this the hours dragged by until dusk. There were some clouds, but they cleared away before sunset. When the first star appeared in the darkening sky Hautamaki bent to the ocular of the telescope.
“Just sky. Too light yet. But there is some sort of glowing grid appearing in the field, five thin lines radiating in from the circumference. Instead of crossing they fade as they come to the center."
"But they'll point out whatever star is in the center of the field— without obscuring it?"
"Yes. The stars are appearing now."
It was a seventh-magnitude star, isolated near the galactic rim. It appeared commonplace in every way except for its location with no nearby neighbors even in stellar terms. They took turns looking at it, marking it so they could not possibly mistake it for any other.
"Are we going there?" Tjond asked, though it was more of a statement than a question that sought an answer.
"Of course," Hautamaki said.
III
As soon as their ship had cleared atmosphere, Hautamaki sent a message to the nearest relay station. While they waited for an answer they analyzed the material they had.
With each result their enthusiasm grew. The metal was no harder than some of the resistant alloys they used, but its composition was completely different and some unknown process of fabrication had been used that had compacted the surface molecules to a greater density. The characters bore no resemblance to any human alphabet. And the star towards which the instruments had been pointed was far beyond the limits of galactic exploration.
When the message arrived, signal recorded, they jumped the ship at once on the carefully computed and waiting course. Their standing instructions were to investigate anything, report everything, and this they were doing. With their planned movements recorded they were free. They, they, were going to make a first contact with an alien race — had already made contact with one of its artifacts. No matter what happened now, the honor was irrevocably theirs. The next meal turned naturally into a celebration, and Hautamaki unbent enough to allow other intoxicants as well as wine. The results were almost disastrous.
"A toast!" Tjond shouted, standing and wobbling just a bit.
"To Earth and mankind — no longer alone!"
"No longer alone!" they repeated, and Hautamaki's face lost some of the party gaiety that it had reluctantly gained.
"I ask you to join me in a toast," he said, "to someone you never knew, who should have been here to share this with us."
"To Kiiskinen.” Gulyas said. He had read the records and knew about the tragedy that was still fresh in Hautamaki's thoughts.
"Thank you. To Kiiskinen." They drank.
"I wish we could have met him.” Tjond said, a tendril of feminine curiosity tickling at her.
"A fine man.” Hautamaki said, seeming anxious to talk now that the subject had been broached for the first time since the accident. "One of the very finest. We were twelve years on this ship."
"Did you have. . children?" Tjond asked.
"Your curiosity is not fitting," Gulyas snapped at his wife. "I think it would be better if we dropped—"
Hautamaki held up his hand. "Please. I understand your natural interest. We Men have settled only a dozen or so planets, and I imagine our customs are curious to you, — we are only in a minority as yet. But if there is any embarrassment it is all your own. Are you embarrassed about being bisexual? Would you kiss your wife in public?"
"A pleasure," Gulyas said, and did.
"Then you understand what I mean. We feel the same way and at times act the same way, though our society is monosexual. It was a natural result of ectogenesis."
"Not natural," Tjond said, a touch of color in her cheeks. "Ectogenesis needs a fertile ovum. Ova come from females; an ectogenetic society should logically be a female society. An all-male one is unnatural."
"Everything we do is unnatural," Hautamaki told her without apparent anger. "Man is an environment-changing animal. Every person living away from Earth is living in an 'unnatural' environment. Ectogenesis on these terms is no more unnatural than living, as we are now, in a metal hull in an unreal manifestation of space-time. That this ectogenesis should combine the germ plasm from two male cells rather than from an egg and a sperm is of no more relevancy than your vestigial breasts."
"You are being insulting," she said, blushing.
"Not in the least. They have lost their function, therefore they are degenerative. You bisexuals are just as natural — or unnatural — as we Men. Neither is viable without the 'unnatural' environment that we have created."
The excitement of their recent discovery still possessed them, and perhaps the stimulants and the anger had lowered Tjond's control. "Why — how dare you call me unnatural — you—"
"You forget yourself, woman!" Hautamaki boomed, drowning out the word, leaping to his feet. "You expected to pry into the intimate details of my life and are insulted when I mention some of your own taboos. The Men are better off without your kind!" He drew a deep, shuddering breath, turned on his heel and left the room.
Tjond stayed in their quarters for almost a standard week after that evening. She worked on her analysis of the alien characters and Gulyas brought her meals. Hautamaki did not mention the events, and cut Gulyas off when he tried to apologize for his wife. But he made no protest when she appeared again in the control section, though he reverted to his earlier custom of speaking only to Gulyas, never addressing her directly.
"Did he actually want me to come too?" Tjond asked, closing her tweezers on a single tiny hair that marred the ivory sweep of her smooth forehead and skull. She pulled it out and touched her brow. "Have you noticed that he really has eyebrows? Right here, great shabby things like an atavism. Even hair around the base of his skull. Disgusting. I'll bet you that the Men sort their genes for hirsuteness, it couldn't be accident. You never answered — did he ask for me to be there?"
"You never gave me a chance to answer," Gulyas told her, a smile softening his words.
"He didn't ask for you by name. That would be expecting too much. But he did say that there would be a full crew meeting at nineteen hours."
She put a touch of pink makeup on the lobes of her ears and the bottoms of her nostrils, then snapped her cosmetic case shut. "I'm ready whenever you are. Shall we go see what the shipmaster wants?"
"In twenty hours we'll be breaking out of jump-space," Hautamaki told them when they had met in the control section. "There is a very good chance that we will encounter the people — the aliens — who constructed the beacon. Until we discover differently we will assume that they are peacefully inclined. Yes, Gulyas?"