The second-phase package contained a vocabulary list with pictures and pronunciations of 166 objects that the team hoped would be common to the experience of both species. They included words like “star.”

“planet.”

“cloud.”

“river.”

“ship.”

“rain.”

“forest.”

“lamp.” Eric, who claimed to have gone to acting school and in any case had exquisite diction, had provided the voice.

They’d also included linking verbs with examples of their usage, a few personal pronouns, and the interrogatives who, what, where, when, and why. Eric maintained that the explanations of the latter, which were elaborated by pictures of sample cases, probably would not be understood, but the terms would be so helpful that it seemed worth the effort.

The package was transmitted realtime rather than compacted, on the theory that celestial technology might not be compatible. It was fifty-six minutes long, and would be repeated every hour.

Ali called down early during the first broadcast with the news that the scan had stopped. Its total duration had been roughly seventeen and a half minutes.

Kim thought it would also be a good idea to accompany the transmission with an image of the Valiant. While the package was running, she looked again at the various views which she’d loaded into the transmitter: the microship seen head-on; the microship from above, bathed in the light of Alnitak; the microship in silhouette against a blue planet; a dozen others. Best, she sensed, would be to send a single image.

She chose finally the Valiant in full sunlight, seen from the port side and slightly below. It was majestic, a lovely vehicle traveling bright skies. It exuded optimism and power, and she hoped it would strike the celestials with the same kind of emotional force she felt when she looked at it.

“That should get a response,” said Matt, who’d come up unnoticed behind her. “It just demonstrates once again that you need to have PR people along when you do a first contact.”

Kim grinned at the thought. Flexner’s Theorem. But it was true.

She was trying to put herself into the heads of the celestials. They had to be motivated, at least in part, by a desire to know what had happened to their ship, which had disappeared so many years ago. Here then were those who knew about the missing vessel, prepared apparently to talk about it. How could they resist that?

When Ali told her she was clear to transmit, she invited Matt to punch the button.

“Yes,” he said. “By all means.” And he sent the sunlit Valiant into the void.

“We’ll hear from them within the next few hours,” she predicted.

They went back to the mission center where the entire team was gathered to await what most earnestly believed would be the historic response. “You don’t want to be in the washroom just now,” Tesla told Kim.

Shortly after the first transmission had been completed, Ali informed them they’d been scanned again. “Only for a few seconds,” he said.

They waited, not talking much, watching the screens for incoming visuals, keeping track of the broadcast status of their own package.

Not long after it had run a second time, Ali reported another scan.

And more than an hour later, still another. “Every sixty-three minutes, looks like,” he said.

The afternoon wore on. Eventually Tesla wandered off to the washroom.

They had dinner at six. It was quieter than usual and they exhorted one another on the need for patience. Ali, who usually ate in the pilot’s room, dined with them.

The scans continued through the evening, always separated by sixty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. “We’re probably going to have to wait while whatever’s out there communicates with its home base,” said Matt. “If they have nothing better than hypercomm, that could take a while.”

That possibility cheered no one. But Kim thought that the present situation was a distinct improvement over the response she and Solly had encountered.

She gave up at eleven-thirty and went to bed, read for an hour from a collection of political essays, and finally dropped off to sleep. She woke again around three, wandered out into the corridor and made for the washroom. Downstairs she could hear voices in the mission center, Sandra and Eric, and somebody else she couldn’t make out.

Sandra was laughing.

A few minutes later she was just returning to her compartment when Ali’s voice crackled over the comm. “Kim, I hate to wake you—”

“Go ahead, Ali. I’m here.”

“We haven’t had a response. But there’s something else you should see. Can you come over for a minute?”

She threw on a robe and crossed the hall to the pilot’s room.

Ali sat in front of one of the auxiliary screens. As she entered, he turned toward her. “The fleet’s arrived,” he said.

She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. But that brought a stab of disappointment. “Our fleet?”

“Yes, indeed. A banshee and a pair of escorts.”

“Coming this way?”

He nodded.

“How much time do we have?”

“Before they get here? About eight hours.”

“That’s not so good,” said Kim.

“They appeared on the scopes a few minutes ago.”

“But they couldn’t have been the source of the scans?”

“Negative. No way.”

Well, she thought, at least somebody’s coming to talk to us.

34

By morning nothing had changed. “To tell you the truth,” Ali said, “being watched by something I can’t see is uncomfortable. I’m glad the banshee’s here. Makes me feel a lot safer.”

Kim drank her coffee without replying. By now everyone on board knew that the fleet had arrived. Some admitted feeling the way Ali did. But they all knew it spelled the end of the mission.

The scan warning blinked on, burned steadily for three seconds, and went off. They were always three-second flashes now, still coming on their precise schedule. “You think the banshee’s getting the same treatment?” she asked.

“Probably.”

“I wonder what they make of it.”

“For sure they’re not happy. They’re probably keeping everybody close to battle stations.”

“Incoming from the fleet,” said the AI.

Ali glanced at Kim. “Maybe they’ll tell us. Okay, Mac, let’s hear it.”

“Audio only. Relaying.”

Kim sank back in her cushions.

“McCollum, this is the commanding officer of the RE Dauntless.” The voice rumbled with authority. “You’re directed to leave this area immediately.”

She looked at Ali. “They don’t have any authority out here, do they?”

Ali made a face. “Technically, no,” he said.

“So tell him to go harass somebody else. He’s interfering with a civilian enterprise. Here, I’ll tell him—”

She reached for a headset but All held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Kim. I have to cooperate. It would be my license.”

“But you said—”

“I said technically they have no authority. But we’re Greenway registry. They have lawyers.”

“Everybody’s worried about his job,” she grumbled.

“Well, what do you expect?” he demanded, frustrated. “We’ve had almost a week out here. What’s happening that’s worth making major sacrifices for?” He switched on the speaker. “Captain, we’ll start preparations for departure immediately.”

“Not just yet, Captain Kassem,” said the Dauntless. “Do you have a Dr. Kimberly Brandywine on board?”

Ali looked sidewise at her.

“Go to visual,” said Kim.

The warship’s commander was tall, blond, with wide-set blue eyes and a neatly trimmed mustache. There was no evidence of flexibility in his rock-hard features. This was not a man with whom she would want to negotiate. “Go ahead, Captain. This is Dr. Brandywine.”