27

Milly Wu paused at the closed door, took a deep breath, and stood up straighter. This is the big-time, lady. Better not blow it. Don’t gush, don’t stammer, don’t drool.

Within the room beyond, collected in one place for the first time ever, she would find the most cunning and devious minds in the solar system. Here was the cream of the cream, the pick of the Puzzle Network’s Master class.

Milly had been allowed into that elite group only because Pack Rat had made a special arrangement in return for unspecified future favors. But he had made it clear that she would be a decidedly junior figure, an observer more than a participant. Sit, observe, learn — and keep quiet.

She wished that Jack Beston were here with her to provide his own gruff form of reassurance. He had promised to come to Ganymede as soon as he had the Argus Station’s own interpretation effort up and running, but that was poor consolation. Milly needed him now, as she prepared to open the door and face the legends of her adolescence. Pack Rat had named some of the people assembled to work on the SETI signal interpretation: Claudius, The Joker, Torquemada, Attoboy, Sneak Attack, Ghost Boy, plus Megachirops, the Great Bat himself. Milly had struggled with — and failed to solve — problems set by every one of them. Her own best efforts, posted on the Network under her chosen name, Atropos, had never remained unsolved for longer than a day.

That doesn’t matter. This isn’t a level playing field. I found the signal and I’ve thought about nothing else since the day I discovered it. Get in there.

Milly slid open the door and stepped through into the room. She was not sure what to expect. A bunch of freaks, who hid in the Puzzle Network because they were poorly equipped to cope with the rest of life? She had heard that view often enough — mainly from her own family, when they realized that she was fascinated by abstract challenges. “Why bother with such nonsense? You don’t need to think. You’re an attractive girl, you’ll get boyfriends and a husband easy enough.”

The single exception was Uncle Edgar, gently persuading Milly of her talents and coaxing her to stretch herself to the limit.

Or beyond.

Like now.

Milly stood at one end of a narrow corridor, twenty or thirty paces long. The floor was a sound-deadening thick carpet, while sound-absorbing tiles covered the walls and ceiling. Painted blue doors, three meters apart, were set into the walls on both sides. Every door except one was closed. Before the first one, close to Milly’s right hand, sat an illuminated sign.

At the top, in flashing red, she read the words: silence, please.

Below in smaller letters came a list of names and matching room numbers. Milly saw ATROPOS: CUBICLE 12, two-thirds of the way down. She recognized about half of the names on the list. Next to each one was a small flashing icon that read present or absent. Almost everyone was here. At the bottom of the list, again as a bold flashing sign: RESPECT INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY. THE PRESENCE OF ANOTHER NETWORK MEMBER IS NOT AN INVITATION TO INTRUDE. DO NOT INVADE ANOTHER’S WORK SPACE. PROGRESS REVIEW MEETING IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM, 7.00-7.50.

With this for a greeting it did not surprise Milly to find no one in sight. She crept along the corridor toward Cubicle 12. On the way she had to pass one open door, that of Cubicle 7. The intimidating signs at the main entrance had made it clear that she ought to ignore whatever or whoever was inside, but her own curiosity was so great that she could not resist a sideways peek.

The layout of furniture in the little room was familiar. The table, console, terminal; and numerous display units were like those at the analysis stations on the Argus Project. The added feature, of a stand loaded with food and drink, made excellent sense. Milly was often so absorbed that she worked on long after she should have taken a break, to the benefit of neither her body nor her mental efficiency.

The room’s fixtures, however, were not its most important feature. Someone was in the room — a man, sitting with his chair swung to face away from the desk and console and staring out of the open door.

Despite the instructions at the entrance of the room, Milly could not just ignore the occupant. The man was looking right at her, and he was smiling.

“Keep going if you want to,” he said. “Or come on in.”

Milly, disconcerted, did neither. She stopped walking and turned to face him. The man was in his fifties, deep-chested and strongly-built. Although his eyes were pale and hard to read behind prominent brow ridges, his whole person seemed to exude warmth and empathy.

“Are you with the Puzzle Network?” Milly asked at last.

“I am.”

“The sign says that this cubicle is for Torquemada.” Milly stopped short of expressing her conviction that it couldn’t be true. In the past she had struggled for weeks with Torquemada’s brain-bending problems, and in her imagination the torturer was a gaunt, robed figure with spidery fingers, peering in the flame-lit dungeon at his racked victim.

The tone in her voice must have betrayed her doubts, but the man just grinned. “That’s right. I’m Torquemada. I shouldn’t really be here at all — I’m busy on a dozen other problems, and I don’t have time to pull my weight. But I couldn’t resist coming in for awhile to kibitz. There never was a challenge like this one. Now, how about you? Are you with the Puzzle Network?”

“I guess so.” It was a weak answer, delivered in a weak voice. In spite of the warning sign at the entrance, Milly spoke more loudly. “My Network name is Atropos. I’m very junior, though, and quite unknown.”

“Not to me. Atropos was a three-time Junior Champion. Aren’t you also Milly Wu?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Because I’m not blind and deaf. Your image has been all over the Ganymede blurts for weeks. You discovered the Wu-Beston anomaly. That’s the reason everybody is here today.”

Milly glanced up and down the corridor. “The most invisible everybodies I’ve ever seen.”

“What did you expect to find?”

“Well…”

What had she expected? She could say what she had hoped to find — exactly what she had written to Uncle Edgar.

“I assumed that this room would contain an enthusiastic group of people, combining the forces of their brilliant minds to evolve meaning from an enigmatic signal developed by alien intelligences and transmitted for reception by other sentient beings living many light-years away.”

That had come out far more pompous than she’d intended, but Torquemada took it in stride. He shrugged.

“Then you should be delighted. That’s exactly what you’ve got.” And, when she stared, “Come on, Milly Wu. You’re dealing with the Puzzle Network, not a political convention. How many years were you a Network nut?”

“Nine.”

“How many other Network members did you meet?”

“None.” Milly had sudden memories of a long-ago birthday party and a shy thirteen-year-old boy. “Or maybe one. I had suspicions and I think he did, but we never asked each other.”

“Absolutely appropriate. I’m the odd man out in this place. Most Puzzle Network members aren’t like sheep or bees. They don’t herd and they don’t swarm. It’s a minor miracle getting them within a kilometer of each other, even behind closed doors, and that’s only happening because this is the central point for data receipt and analysis distribution. Everyone is so afraid of missing something, they’ll put up with anything — even proximity. But not personal presence, except at the progress review meetings. I’ve been a member for thirty years. Until I came here I Had met only one other.”

“Which one?” Milly was curious to know who else was this friendly.

“Megachirops, alias the Great Bat. But I suspect he’s the most antisocial of the lot.” Torquemada waved a hand. “Bat’s here, down at the end. Try and visit him and you’ll wish you hadn’t. But if you wait you may see him later in the day, in the conference room at the end of the corridor. Then again, you may not.”