Carlos smiled in a friendly way. “Very.”

Carlos began to see Nikka, but never in Nigel’s company. Nikka found Carlos attractive, and Nigel could find no reason why he should object to her using the privileges they had always accorded each other. Their relationship had never been completely binding, after all. But the theoretical perspective did nothing to alter his deeply smoldering feelings of anger and, yes, envy. Carlos was younger and more vibrant, that was part of his appeal. He easily slipped into the fast pace of preparations for exploring the Ross system. Nigel spent time on the analysis net, but if anything it made him more withdrawn.

He spoke with Nikka about it. To her the facts were plain and, in the light of medicosurgery, unexceptional. Freedom to alter one’s sex was as basic as any other right. Nigel could accept this theoretically, but he came to an abrupt halt at the specific case of Carlos. There was something to the entire issue that set his teeth on edge, something beyond simple rivalry, and yet he could not get a sure grip on it. When he spoke his throat seemed to get tight, his voice dry and scratchy.

It was confusing to him, particularly since no one else, even Nikka, appeared to take the emergence of Carlos as more than a passing, mildly interesting bit of gossip. It cropped up in conversation among their friends for a week or so, and then vanished in the general hubbub about Ross 128.

Two

It’s a pretty faint little bugger, we can hardly make out any of its planets in the optical

Well down in the infrared I’m picking up plenty from the two terrestrial-sized planets looks like a high albedo on both of ’em

Wish we had a decent-sized star to reconnoiter this damn one’s small as Ra an’ got a lotta flares on it give a look at ’at corona big splotches all over it

Bound to be variable, all the small stars are, so according to theory those terrestrials’ll have big swings in the weather

Doesn’t look good for a stable biosphere on those

Outer planets all ’bout Saturn-sized lotsa moons and two rings, some asteroids between those two, looks like it’s a pretty standard pattern

Why the Isis Watcher would beam a signal to this dead place I dunno maybe a mistake, huh Nigel?

Wait until the returns are in

Got an image here yeah give a look that first terrestrial’s got no atmosphere, high albedo, must be bare rock

You got those IRs on the second yet I know there’s a malf in that sensor but we been waitin’ damn long time

Comin’ in now looks like mebbe 178 degrees kelvin, pretty cold, but we expected that with a pip-squeak sun to warm it, I sure don’t pick up much else

Some carbon dioxide, little ammonia—maybe a lot of ice an’ snow

Bring the right scope down some, that reflectivity it’s jumpin’ all over when I put it on tight beam, must mean there’s plenty of reflectin’ surfaces, ice fields I bet

No sign of bioactivity in that atmosphere dull as dishwater

The grav-lens told us it looked jolly crappy, no surprise there

Goddamn all this way an’ nothin’ but junk

We knew all along with an M star like this it was rather like expecting roses in a jam jar to look for a biosphere

Cold as a hoor’s tit an’ we’re years from any-thin’ interestin’ even if we had the juice to get there

Ted we haven’t lost all our thrust we could boost back up, just swing through the Ross system and head on out

I like ’at we could pick up couple months on gettin’ back up to near-light speed ’stead of wallowin’ round in this icebox

Better hurry up on it if we’re gonna do it got a critical transition comin’ up in the reaction engines Ted

Bloody hell we’re not done with recon yet

Betcher butt there won’t be nothin’ to see

Nothing alive that’s for sure

Scrub it I say

We need a vote ’a the whole ship to do ’at

Na, rule is section leaders can decide in a pinch an’ this sure as hell is one

Janet send in a formal request from ExoBio if it’s your judgment that there’re no life sites here

Alex you’re in the net still—aren’t you?—Alex?—he isn’t repped in

So skip him there’s no time

No I can’t make a decision—with Section leaders’ consent of course—until I’ve heard from Alex

The big radio dishes aren’t fully deployed yet I don’t see

Ted this is Alex—sorry we had a resolution problem on aft antenna but I’ve got the outer part of the Ross system mapped now, the big gas giants and there’s something there with a lot of metal in it

Step up the gain I need more detail

Ted this is Nigel it’s just not on to cancel this early

Christ don’t listen to him this is ExoBio Ted look he’s just tryin’ to stretch out the encounter time to prove out this theory of his that nobody believes anyway an this’s the last hurrah anyway for him I say we boost soon’s Alex

Yeah we can pick up rest of the data on the flyout

We got a good fraction of the minimum already

I don’t give a sweet shit about minimum performance we’re facing years of voyage Christ what’s a few more months

Spend the time in Slots Nigel do you good

Give it a rest, eh? Ted, I appeal to you, don’t

Gentlemen we got maybe ten minutes to decide, tops, or I got to shut the drive down

Christ Alex can you see anymore?

I’m getting some kind of metal on one of the gas giant moons that’s all I can say right now looks like very bright in the radio reflectivity but that’s all I can say

Section leaders this is Ted I’m reviewing ExoBio’s request you people got any further input shoot it in now

Y’know it’s a good idea to keep the reaction goin’ just in case I mean the biggest malf probability is in the start-up phase

Yeah keep that in mind Ted we got risk every time we shut down

Look—damn!—we can’t make a balls-up of this because of some sodding engineering constraint

Quiet Nigel—look, any more input before I

Yeah shut up the old crock and get us out of this pisshole

Seems to me it’s pretty clear we seen plenty systems like this already from the probes

The grav-lens told us most of this already, point is to look closer—

Okay this is Ted after reviewing the systems board I can see the logic of picking up some time on our outbound

Alex is there any new

Throw in the towel Nigel for Chrissake

Hey I’ve lost the reflection

What’s ’at?

No radio reflection at all from that moon now, just gone out

Check for detuning of the antenna Alex that’s pro’bly it

No I’m still bringing in good radio images of the gas giant, no degrading of the system—I’d say the thing’s just plain gone

Musta been a ghost image jest forget it

No possibility of that, I had it dead for sure, big as your mouth ‘n’ twice as wide, even got a spectrum ’fore it vanished

How fast is that moon spinning Alex?

Lessee, nothin’ much—no, too slow, it’s tide-locked, that can’t explain it

Then it was something in orbit around the Moon, that’s the only way it could go out that fast. It simply fell below the horizon from our angle of view

Possible I guess but

Possible hell you think of something else

Well ah I

Ted you’ve got to let us have a look at whatever that was

Hell he does! We don’ have to do anything unless a majority

No time for that