“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.