“Sebastian?”

He did not respond. Jan went across to him and put her fingers to his forehead. Her own hands felt icy, but he was surely warmer than usual.

“Thirty-eight point two degrees,” said the disembodied voice of Valnia Bloom. “A little fever, but nothing to be concerned about. Don’t worry, I have his bedroom continuously monitored. Everything is going according to plan.”

“I’d like to stay for awhile.”

“There’s no problem with that. We can give you your own room, you can spend as much time in it as you like. I’ll make it so you can monitor the bedroom, too.”

“That would be perfect.” Jan moved to stand directly in front of Sebastian. “How do you feel?”

“Good.”

“Not too hot?”

“No.”

“Or hungry?”

“No.” The moon face was impassive. His eyes never left the display.

Jan recalled the way that he had been on Earth, with his talk of strato-cumulus and cumulo-nimbus cloud layers. Now it was hard work to wring a monosyllable out of him. She had to get him moving, make him think about something more than the damned clouds.

“Sebastian, do you know where I’ve been? I think you would love it.” She described her trip to the surface, the suited walk across icy rock beneath the unblinking stars, and the wild space-spin with Paul Marr. She gave lots of details and tried to make it sound as exciting as possible. Sebastian did not look at her, but he was certainly listening. Once or twice he nodded.

At the end Jan said, “Maybe you and I can take a ride together, as soon as the sluicing is finished? We could fly all the way in and swing by Io.”

That ought to grab him. Back on Earth, Sebastian had been a far better pilot than Jan — an absolute natural, according to the Global Minerals’ sky chief.

“Maybe.”

But his flat, neutral voice said, I don’t think so. In spite of anything that Valnia Bloom and Hal Launius might say, or even believe, Jan was profoundly worried.

A space ride together, to view Io or some other world of the Jovian system? Not unless he changed a lot from his present condition. As he was, Sebastian was not likely to be going anywhere. Ever.

30

Contrary to widespread opinion, Bat was not a misogynist. True, he did not enjoy the company of women, but neither did he care for that of men. He tolerated the presence of a select few humans; beyond that he saw no need to venture.

Nor was he unsympathetic to youth. His own adolescence had been a period of extreme trauma in which he felt at war with the rest of the universe, so he was sympathetic to anyone who had recently endured the same travail.

The glare with which he greeted the young woman who entered his cubicle therefore had nothing to do with gender or age. It was late at night, he was awaiting the arrival of Alex Ligon, and a closed door should be enough to guarantee privacy. In addition, he had been interrupted while pursuing a difficult and abstract line of thought on the SETI problem.

The intruder was saved from Bat’s righteous wrath not by anything she said, but by what she did. As she came in she stared at the brown crockpot. Her glance finally moved to the seated figure, but Bat had caught her expression long before that.

He recognized that look and sympathized with it. The new-comer was hungry, starved-wolf hungry. Such a need excused almost every form of improper behavior.

Moreover, its satisfaction must not be delayed by the conventional niceties of formal introduction. Bat waved a hand toward the food stand. “Bowls are on the lower rack. Help yourself. Eat, and enjoy.”

The woman nodded and grabbed the ladle, but she stared round-eyed at Bat as she filled a bowl with herb risotto. Thirty years of rude stares had accustomed him to such a reaction. He said, “When you have taken as much food as you want, I request that you leave. I am expecting a visitor, and you are greatly disturbing my work.”

The woman mumbled something unintelligible through a mouthful of hot rice, but rather than leaving she swallowed and said, “I’m sorry I came in without asking. Are you Megachirops — the Great Bat?”

“That is my name within the Puzzle Network. This section is dedicated to Puzzle Network activities. Others are not supposed to be here.”

Still she did not move, except to continue gobbling the result of Bat’s culinary labors so fast that he knew she could not possibly savor the delicate balance of flavors. Finally she paused between mouthfuls to say, “This tastes wonderful. It’s saving my life. My name is Milly Wu.”

“Of the Wu-Beston anomaly?” Her presence in the analysis center at last made sense.

“That’s right.”

“Then you have a message waiting for you. It came in a few minutes ago from the Argus Station at Jovian L-4. It contains a privacy tag, which means that it can only be read using a cubicle code.” Bat saw no reason to add that privacy tags were no challenge, he had read the message, and the sender had cagily offered no details except to request a return call. He went on, “But then is no cubicle set aside for Milly Wu, and no cubicle code.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I gave you my name but not my Puzzle Network name. I go by Atropos, and I’m in Cubicle Twelve.”

Few things in the System impressed Bat. When one did he took care not to let it show. This was Milly Wu, discoverer of the Wu-Beston anomaly. And she was Atropos, a journeyman triple champion in the Network. Such talent could be expelled from the room, but not precipitately.

He asked a polite question, expecting a negative answer. “You must have arrived only recently. Are you making progress in deciphering elements of the SETI signal?”

Her response made Bat feel that he had made an awful mistake. She crashed the bowl down half-empty on the stand and exclaimed, “Yes! Yes!”

Now she was going to stay and spout rubbish at him when he should be working. He became convinced of that as she babbled on. “I believe I’ve found something, an interpretation that I’ve not seen in any other analysis. I started work in Section Fourteen — you know the twenty-seven section mapping of the whole anomaly? Of course you do, you probably created it. Anyway, it’s the same place where I first noticed the existence of a signal, out at the Argus Station. But today I had the advantage of the interpretive suggestions that you and the others have made, so I was able to start with a knowledge of the integers and arithmetic operations. It took me forever — that’s why I blundered in here looking for something to eat — but finally I began to put a few pieces together.” She advanced to stand by his console. “Mind if I use your displays?”

Bat had not invited Milly Wu to talk about her work, nor did he now give approval for her to use the equipment in his cubicle. That did not stop her. She continued to speak, rapidly and intensely, and threw images on the screen at such a dizzying speed that for the first minute Bat was constantly about to interrupt and eject her. Then he found himself concentrating, just to keep up with the stream of information. After that, intellectual interest took over.

By the time that she delineated the signal sections that provided formulas for simple chemical compounds, Bat was persuaded. He nodded and said, “Yes, that result is new. And it is elegant.”

Bat employed his own vocabulary for describing the work of others. Interesting meant dull, fascinating indicated that the result possessed some minor interest, while remarkable was equivalent to Wolfgang Pauli’s, This theory is so bad it’s not even wrong. The word elegant, which he had just used, was reserved for cases where Bat was impressed.

There was visible proof of that fact, had Milly known how to read it. Just before she came into the room, Bat had filled a large bowl with peel-less, seedless oranges. He had intended to eat his way through them as he worked. When Milly concluded, the bowl sat cradled on his belly, ignored and still full.