CLEARY’S WAS A small, posh coffee shop overlooking the Retreat, the alien habitat that had been disassembled and transported from the Twins and reconstructed on the banks of the Potomac in Pentagon Park. It was midmorning, and Hutch was sitting at a corner table snacking on coffee and bagels when Valya walked in.

The Greek pilot scanned the interior, spotted her, and came over. “Hi,” Valya said. “Sorry I’m late. I lost track of the time.” She was wearing a flowery yellow blouse and gray plaid slacks. “What’s up?”

The moonrider flight was a mission to nowhere. Oddly, though, Hutch was beginning to regret she wouldn’t be on the bridge. “Not much. We’re losing missions left and right.”

“So I hear.” Valya had soloed with Hutch. It had been her qualifying flight. “The bagels look good.” She collected one from the counter and sat down. Fresh coffee came. She smeared grape jelly on the bagel and took a bite. “Well,” she said, “I hear we’re going out looking for gremlins.”

“Moonriders,” Hutch corrected gently. “The mission’s scheduled to leave April second.”

“Sounds intriguing.”

“I understand you’d like the assignment.”

“Yes, I’d be interested in doing it.” She tried the coffee. “Truth is, with what’s happening to the missions, I was afraid I’d be grounded for a while.”

“If there are any other flights that interest you — ”

“Yes?”

“Talk to me first. Don’t go over my head again.”

“Hutch,” she said, “that’s not the way it was — ”

“However it was, don’t do it again.”

“Okay.” She lowered the cup slowly onto the table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to create a problem.” For a long moment neither spoke. Then: “What’s going to happen? Are they going to shut down the Academy?”

“I don’t think they’re that dumb.”

“You don’t sound hopeful.”

Hutch shrugged. “I just don’t know.” Valya shared her passion for the Academy. She recalled their brief time together on the Catherine Perth with a sense of pride. It was a time when the Academy was sending missions in all directions, when people still talked about finding what they called a sister civilization. Someone we could talk to. Compare experiences with. The term had fallen into disuse in recent years. And the hunt for the sister civilization had by and large been replaced by teams that went out to inspect stars, to measure their characteristics, and to place them in categories. Necessary work, she supposed, from the point of view of astrophysicists, but boring to the general public. The imagination and the electricity had gone out of starflight, had drained away like a receding tide. And now the Academy wondered why Congress was talking about cutting its subsidy once again. Maybe Michael was right. Maybe the only real course they had was to take a chance, go with a shot in the dark, and hope the Salvator found something. Hope the ship turned out to be appropriately named.

It would be uniquely satisfying if, after all the probing hundreds of light-years away, we found that the sister civilization had come to visit us.

“I think the Academy will survive,” Hutch said, “but we’re in for some rough times in the short run.”

Valya sat back. Hutch had to concede that Michael had picked the right pilot for a PR flight. She had lovely features, luminous eyes, congenial personality. And she was quick on her feet. “I hope you’re right,” she said.

“Valya, have you ever seen any of these things?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

“I thought so, too. So you want me to place the monitors. Do you know precisely where, in each system?”

“Bill knows.” The AI.

“Okay. Now, let me ask the next question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Suppose we were actually to spot one of these things — ”

“That’s unlikely.”

“But if we do, do you want me to try to contact it? To give chase? What?”

“That’s simple enough. Try to find out what they are. Record everything you can. Get an explanation. Sure, if you get a chance to pull alongside and say hello, do so.”

“Absolutely. Maybe we’ll bring them home for dinner.”

“That would be nice.”

“Who’s going to be on the team?”

“There is no team. You’re it. Eric Samuels will be on board.”

“The public affairs guy?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He wants to go. Give him a chance, Valya. He’s a good man.”

“Okay. Anybody else? Don’t I get a specialist?”

“There are no moonrider specialists. At least none we want to be associated with. But there are two other passengers. One’s a friend of yours.”

“Really? Who’s that?”

“The guy you did the show with last week. Gregory MacAllister.”

She stiffened. “You’re kidding.”

“I thought you did a good job, by the way. Held your own against a pretty tough character.”

“What on earth is MacAllister doing on this flight? He’s a windbag.”

“Actually, he’s one of the more influential people in the country.”

“He’s still a windbag, Hutch. You’re not really going to lock me up with him, are you? He’s out to sink the Academy.”

“You’re right that he doesn’t think what we do is very important. That’s one of the reasons he’s going. He hasn’t traveled much off-world. In fact I think this is only his second flight, and the other time out he damn near got killed. He’s offered to go along and take a look around. You’ll be showing him some of the more spectacular local sights. It’s a chance to win him over. If you could manage that, you’d be doing us all a major good turn.”

“Hutch, I’ve seen this guy up close. I don’t think his mind is open.”

The sightings in recent years of strange vehicles in faraway systems, and in some cases over Arizona, are probably attributable to drifting gas, to overwrought imaginations, to people seeing what they want to see. Is anyone other than ourselves really out there flying starships? The answer to that however is most certainly yes. Just within a hundred light-years or so, we have several technological civilizations, or their artifacts. And an additional handful of places with recognizably intelligent creatures. The old notion that the universe was essentially ours to do with as we please was never tenable.

If the moonriders are illusory, just reflections in the vastness of space, then so be it. But we owe it to common sense to determine whether that is so. In the meantime, we would be prudent to consider what our position would be if we encounter others, and they turn out to be hostile. Most experts maintain that any civilization smart enough to cross the stars will have long since dispensed with warfare. But we’ve already seen that idea trashed by the omega clouds. Who knows what else awaits us?

It’s only common sense that we begin to construct a fleet of warships. It would be costly, but not nearly as costly as finding ourselves trying to head off extraterrestrial creatures who think we would look good on a menu.

— Crossover, Thursday, February 26