Chindi

The lights winked off, and a marker signifying the neutron star appeared at one end of the room. The transmitter, depicted as a tiny ante

The ante

“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 ante

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?”

Tor made a face that suggested it was a problem that had been bothering him too. “Maybe it’s standardized equipment,” he said. “Maybe it’s the basic model.”

Herman stood up and leaned against a bulkhead. “Why leave anything here at all?” he asked. “I mean, why would anybody even be interested in this thing?”

“Why were we interested?” asked Pete. “It’s a neutron star. It has some fascinating characteristics.”

“But there are a lot of neutron stars. Why this one?”

“You have to pick one,” said Pete. “Maybe this happens to be it.”

“Or…?” asked George, inviting him to continue.

“It does have a unique quality.” He turned toward Hutch. “Could we get a look off to the port side, please?”

Hutch arranged the picture until he had what he wanted.

“See the red star?” It was dim and quite ordinary. “I don’t recall its catalog number, but it’s a red giant, fourteen known planets. Eleven-oh-seven is headed in its direction. Eventually, it’s going to scramble the system.”

“When’s that going to happen?” asked Hutch.

“Seventeen thousand years.” Pete said it with a straight face. “Give or take.”

“Well,” said Herman, “that’s going to be a long wait for somebody, isn’t it?”

Bill a

Hutch had never seen anything like it before.

“We experimented with some of this stuff back in the twenty-first century,” Preach said. “The photodetectors are only a centimeter or so in diameter, and the light emitters are maybe ten times that size.”

Hutch asked about the energy source. They had snacks while they waited for the answer to come back.

“We haven’t been able to figure that out, Hutch,” Preacher replied. “It doesn’t seem to have one. But then, we don’t have experts on this kind of thing.”

THEY WATCHED WHILE Preach went out with a go-pack, removed the dishes, and brought them inside. That done, the satellite would fit through the cargo doors. The Condor’s AI fine-tuned the ship’s alignment, turned off the artificial gravity, then fired the thrusters. Hutch and the Memphis team watched the satellite drift slowly into the cargo bay.

Now they were getting close-up pictures. Preacher stayed out of the way as the contact team began removing the mirror coating, then started laying bare the black boxes and turning shafts and fittings of the unit. There were several lines of unfamiliar symbols along the stem.

Hutch could see that her passengers were still torn, delighted that a breakthrough had finally occurred, dejected that they had gotten on the wrong flight.

The team members took turns holding up parts for the imager. Harry Brubaker, using the comic deadpan that had made him famous, showed them a co

The bishop had a pair of sensors, and Janey Hoskin, the cosmetic queen, produced a basketball-sized sphere that housed three scopes. She was laughing and wearing a party hat. A tall, gri

There was an impatient rustling behind Hutch.

“Interrupted at the source,” said Bill.

“Would happen now,” said Alyx.

George laughed. “They’re drinking too much. Somebody probably walked into the—”

It came back on, momentarily. But it was a scene of panic, people stumbling about, lights flickering, someone screaming.

The Memphis people murmured, grew still. Grew frightened.

Then it was gone again.

“Hutch?” Pete’s voice, thick with emotion. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t know.”

The screen stayed dark.

“No signal,” said Bill.

“Plot a course,” she said.