“We haven’t seen any indication of land animals other than a few long-necked creatures—look like giraffes—and birds. Lots of birds. But that’s it. We’ll keep looking, although no one here expects to find anything. It looks as if they did a pretty thorough job of it.
“Tom wants to send down a landing party, but we have no way to scrub the lander afterward so I’m not going to allow it. It’s causing a little friction. The mission director has insisted on firing off a request to the Academy, demanding they override me. They won’t, of course. If someone got killed, that would make the brass at home directly responsible.
“The moonbase looks dead, too. I guess it would have to be. At the moment we have no idea what they looked like.”
There were more pictures, and then the Preacher was back. “We were glad to hear of your success,” he said. “Whatever their transmitters are saying, though, it doesn’t look as if anybody’s listening anymore.”
They all sat quietly, stunned. Hutch felt the thrusters fire once, briefly, adjusting their alignment. Then she opened her channel to the Condor: “Preach, do you have any sense how long ago it happened?”
THE RESPONSE CAME in a bit more than an hour later.
“Not in the immediate past,” Preach said. “Some of the wreckage is overgrown, but it’s hard to tell without going down and taking samples. You ask me to guess, I’d say five, maybe six, hundred years. But it’s only a guess.
“There’s no indication that anybody survived. We’ve been looking for signs, but nothing’s moving down there, no boats, no vehicles, nothing.
“Did I mention there are roads? Highways, actually. They might have been paved at one time. There are four continents, and some of the roads cross coast to coast. Looks like an old-fashioned interstate system. And most of the harbors were improved. They’re complete with sunken ships.”
Images began to flash across the screen. The ships were eerily similar to the kinds of vessels that had roamed Earth’s seas until recently. Of course, she thought, that only makes sense. How many ways are there to build a ship?
And there, unmistakably, were the remains of an airport. The tower had been blown away, the runways were overgrown with shrubs, the hangars and terminals had collapsed. But it was impossible to miss. Off to one side they could even make out the wreckage of several aircraft. Propeller-driven.
“Here’s the moonbase,” said Preach. A half dozen dome-shaped structures stood on a plain. Near a depression that might once have been a riverbed. “We’ll be going down later today, to the moon, to take a look.” His expression changed. He glanced up, and Hutch knew his attention had been drawn by something on his overhead screen. He blinked off momentarily, then came back. “Wait one. We’ve got an artificial satellite.”
He left his seat again and disappeared. Someone, Herman, she thought, commented that they were getting more questions than answers.
Tom Isako, the mission director on the Condor, stepped into the picture. “We’re going to sign off for a few minutes,” he said. “George, it looks as if there are several satellites out there. They’re there, but we can’t see them. They are apparently invisible.”
George was standing with his jaw slack. It was too much for him. Alyx tapped his shoulder to remind him he should respond. “Okay,” he said. “Keep us informed.”
The screen broke away to the Condor’s logo.
Bill broke in: “Captain, that explains why we haven’t seen our target transmitter.”
“Lightbenders?” asked Nick. “But what would be the point? I mean, out here, who’s going to see them anyway? Why would anyone care?”
Chapter 8
There is nothing that overwhelms the senses quite like an unwelcome silence.
— ALANA KASPI, REMINISCENCES, 2201
“HUTCH, I’VE LOCATED the transmitter.”
They were all in mission control. “Where?” she asked.
Bill put 1107 on-screen, drew an orbit, and marked the position. “It appears that Dr. Isako was correct.”
“Lightbender?”
“Yes. Or something similar. And it masks heat generation as well.”
“It’s still transmitting to the same target? To Point B?”
“That seems to be the case.”
There were more embraces and calls for more champagne. The sedate group that had quietly watched sims and played bridge during the first few weeks became almost rowdy. Hutch complied, wondering when she’d last seen people change moods so quickly. “To the Hockelmann Seven,” Nick said. And George drank “to our neighbors, and let’s hope we can find them.” Herman, especially charming because he meant it, suggested a toast “to our gorgeous captain.”
Hutch bowed appreciatively. Then she directed Bill to trace the orbit and the signal direction to Point B.
The lights winked off, and a marker signifying the neutron star appeared at one end of the room. The transmitter, depicted as a tiny antenna, began moving around it in a tight orbit. Across the room, a yellow star blinked on. “Point B,” said Bill.
The antenna brightened. It sprouted a line that moved deliberately through the chamber and connected with the star. “The plane of the orbit,” said Bill, “is directly perpendicular to the transmission line.”
“Is that significant?” asked George.
“Sure. The satellites always have a clear view of the target. Bill, how many transmitters do we expect to find?”
“Three,” he said. “Placed equidistantly in the same orbit.”
George wanted an explanation of that too.
“The transmission has to go a long way,” she said. “Sixteen light-years. There’d be a lot of degradation over that kind of distance. A single satellite’s not enough. We already know the incoming signal at Point B is considerably stronger than they’d get from a single unit.
“All three transmit. If you phase the signals properly, you get incredible resolution with fairly low power. You’d have a dish antenna with an effective diameter equal to that of the orbit. What we’ve picked up, what the Academy’s satellites picked up, is only a side lobe. A piece of the signal.”
THEY USED TWO days getting into position to intercept a second transmission, which was found precisely where Bill had predicted. They’d been expecting it, so everyone was up and dressed. But they still couldn’t get a visual on the transmitter itself. “Send the results to the Condor, Bill,” Hutch said. “The question for us,” she told George and his team, “is whether we want to go pick up one of the transmitters. It takes us in a bit close to the monster, actually closer than I’d prefer. But we can do it.”
She had everyone’s attention. Alyx put their concern into words. “Why closer than you’d prefer? Is there a danger?”
“No,” she said. “It’s just that, in close, it becomes a pretty steep gravity well. We’ll use up a lot of fuel climbing back out.”
“How long would it take?” asked Herman.
Hutch passed the question to Bill. “The entire operation,” he replied, “would require several weeks.”
“Do you think we can take one on board?” asked George.
“Depends how big it is.”
“I say we do it,” said Nick. “And if we have to, we take the thing apart. I mean, it would be nice to go home with a transmitter built somewhere else. You guys have any idea the kind of value that would have?”
They did, and the decision was taken.
Minutes later the engines changed tone, and the Memphis slipped onto a new heading.
“Why the lightbender technology?” asked Nick. “In a lonely place, why go to the trouble?”