“And on beaches and at parties,” said MacAllister. “You won’t find many of those out here.” As a rule, he didn’t approve of adolescents. They were rarely smart enough to understand the depths of their inexperience. To be aware they really didn’t know anything. The few he encountered invariably behaved as if their opinions were as valid as his. Amy was no exception. But there was a degree of shyness about the child and an intellectual openness that engaged his sympathy. She thought the world a friendly and well-lighted place, where people really cared about each other, and all the stories had happy endings.

“Mac,” she said, “I was surprised when I heard you were coming.”

“Why was that?”

“You don’t like the Academy.”

MacAllister tried to explain his position. It was hard to do with Eric sitting there casting disapproving glances his way and Valya rolling her eyes.

When he’d finished, she looked at him a long time. Finally, she said quietly, “It’s wrong, Mac. We went over the greenhouse thing in school. It’s not just a matter of money. Ms. Harkin says it’s people’s attitudes that have to change.”

“Ms. Harkin’s your teacher?”

“In Current Events, yes.”

“She’s right. But that doesn’t justify wasting money somewhere else.”

Amy’s eyes got very round. “It’s not a waste, Mac.”

Valya smiled. “As long as we have people like you, Amy, we’ll be okay.”

“They’ll never shut it down,” said Eric, his eyes locked on the receding moon. “They could no more do that than the Europeans could have turned their backs on America after Columbus.”

“Or we could have gone to the moon,” said MacAllister, “then forgotten how to do it.”

Eric was one of those people who would spend his life reaching for something better than he had because he wasn’t smart enough to realize what really mattered. MacAllister thought how much better the world would be if there were fewer people like Eric and more like himself. Pragmatists. People who kept open minds. Who were content to live their lives, enjoy the sunrise, make the moment count.

THEY HAD AN uneasy dinner. MacAllister understood he was the cause of that. Eric and Amy both wanted to talk about where they were going, how exciting it all was, but he loomed over the general enthusiasm like a dark cloud. He couldn’t help it. Couldn’t pretend to get excited because they were going somewhere to look at a star up close. You’ve seen one burning gasbag, you’ve seen them all. But he tried. While they dined on roast beef he made occasional comments about how he’d never been to 61 Cygni, or 63 Cygni, or whatever it was, and wasn’t that where the alien monument was? He knew damned well it was, but it sounded self-effacing. Even if he wasn’t a good enough actor to ask the question as if he really cared.

They finished dinner in a gloomy mood, while the other three united against him. No one said anything, and everybody was unfailingly polite, but there it was. He was odd man out. After years of playing the VIP everywhere he went, it was annoying to be excluded.

Twenty minutes after they’d cleared the dishes they belted down, the Hazeltines took over, and the Salvator adjusted course for 61 Cygni and slipped between the dimensions. MacAllister was aware of the brief change in lighting when the moment came. When the jump was complete, Amy and Eric congratulated each other.

Valya returned from the bridge, announced they were on their way, and proposed a toast. Poor Amy, who was underage, got grape juice. “Here’s to us,” Valya said.

WHEN HE’D BEEN on the Evening Star, the passengers had spent their time at parties scattered throughout six or seven decks. You could stand before the see-through bulkheads and look out at the void, or at the quiescent mists of hyperspace. But despite its proximity, the world outside had seemed far away. Distant. Something seen but not really experienced. You were inside a warm, comfortable cocoon composed of soft bunks, dining areas, game rooms, and dance floors.

It was different on the Salvator, where the vast outside could only be seen directly from the bridge, where it pressed against the hull. Where his heart beat slightly faster, and he could feel the empty light-years stretching away in all directions. It became even more unsettling after the jump, because hyperspace theoretically had no boundary, and no physical features of any kind except the mist.

It intrigued Amy. “What would we do,” she asked, “if lights appeared out there?”

Valya looked up at the screen. “If we see lights out there,” she said, “we’d clear out in a hurry.”

They laughed at the idea. Eric said the notion gave him a chill, and MacAllister, pretending to be buried in a manuscript, was inclined to agree.

Amy and Valya challenged each other to a role-playing game. Eric watched for a while, but finally declared it had been a long day and drifted off to his compartment. MacAllister tried to look interested. It had something to do with a quest in a medieval land. There were wizards and dragons and elves and magical artifacts that had gotten lost and other such nonsense. Had he been alone, MacAllister might have run the old Bogart vehicle Casablanca with himself as Rick. He’d done it at home any number of times and never grew tired. Play it, Sam.

Eventually, Valya also retired for the evening. Amy, left to herself, wandered over and asked what he was reading. It was Bleak Angel, by Wendy Moran. A classic from the previous century. Amy looked bored when she heard the title. Like most kids, she automatically ruled out anything older than she was. “It’s about things that get lost,” he said. “Things we care about.”

She nodded, smiled, excused herself, and headed for the bridge.

He wondered briefly if she could get into trouble up there, then dismissed the idea. Or tried to. She didn’t come back, and eventually he left Bleak Angel and brought up a proof copy of a first novel. The editor had sent it to him hoping he’d review it, or possibly find something kind to say about it. He paged through and quickly concluded the writer had talent but insufficient discipline. There were too many adjectives and adverbs. Plotting, characterization, conflict, everything worked, but you couldn’t get the guy to write a simple sentence.

When Amy came back, her eyes were shining. “I love being here,” she said.

IT FELT GOOD to climb into the bunk, turn out the lights, and slide down into the sheets. There was no sense whatever of movement. In the darkness, MacAllister could hear the murmur of power in the walls and the occasional whisper of a fan. Once, he heard bare feet in the corridor and, probably, the sound of a washroom door. He remembered nothing else before he awoke and looked at the time. It was almost seven o’clock.

He climbed into his robe and looked out into the corridor. The lights had come up, and the others were having breakfast.

Amy called out a hello, and he padded down to the common room. “Good morning,” he said.

Eric raised his orange juice, and Valya inquired whether he’d slept okay. “Sometimes the first night aboard can be difficult,” she said. Bill, the ship’s AI, asked what he’d like for breakfast.

He showered, dressed, and returned to a plate of pancakes and bacon.

AMY AND ERIC played a game that involved corporate empire building. Valya found things to do on the bridge. MacAllister went back to Bleak Angel for a while, but eventually put it down and joined her. She invited him to take the right-hand seat. “How’d you manage to get invited on Margie’s show?” he asked.

She smiled. “It was fun, wasn’t it?”

“You can be a tough cookie.”

“I’d been on a couple of their science programs before. I guess the arrangement whereby you showed up was more or less a last-minute thing — ”

“It was — ”

“So they called the first person they could think of. And I thought, holy cats, I get to go up against Gregory MacAllister himself.”

“That’s odd,” he said.

“What is?”

“I had the impression you had no idea who I was.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She looked amused. “I guess you caught me. I looked you up before I went down there.”

“Oh.”

“You have a major-league reputation. The Insider Report described you as ‘not the biggest curmudgeon of the age, but among the top five.’”

“I thought you held up your end of things pretty well.”

“You were actually far more polite than I’d expected you to be.”

“I’m sorry I was a disappointment.”

She laughed. “Mac,” she said, “I doubt you’re capable of disappointing anybody.”

He understood she was trying to reel him in, but that was okay. He couldn’t resist being pleased with the compliment. “We’ll be leaving monitors at each site,” she said. “Would you be interested in taking a look at them?”

He could hardly have cared less what the monitors looked like, but she seemed interested in showing them off. “Sure,” he said.

“Good.” She seemed almost surprised at his answer. Had she expected him to grumble and pass? She got up and led the way to the rear. “We have eight units altogether. Four of them are secured outside to the hull. The others are in cargo.” They went down the zero-gee tube to the lower deck.

He was disappointed to see they were simply black boxes. Big ones, big enough to pack an armchair inside. But there was no sign of an antenna or a telescope.

“Everything pops up once it’s been activated,” she said. “They have sensors and a scope. And a collector, so it’ll continue to draw power from the sun as long as it’s on-station. And it has a hypercomm system.” MacAllister understood that meant it was capable of sending and receiving FTL transmissions. “We’ll be leaving one close to the Origins Project. There’s no sun there, so they’ve added a dark-energy unit. That one cost three times what the others did.”

“Do we think the moonriders are likely to show up near Origins?”

“They’ve been seen in the area.”

The casings were covered with spindles, brackets, jacks, and coils. She pointed at a slot. “This is the reader, where it gets its instructions.” She produced a chip.

“Does it have a thruster? Can it move on its own?”

“You mean, if it sees a moonrider, can it take off and follow it?”

“Yes.”

“No. Once we put it in orbit, it’ll stay there. It’ll report to us and to Mission Operations. After that, I guess if there’s any chasing to be done, we’d do it.”

LATER HE FOUND himself with Eric while Valya read and Amy grabbed a nap. “I’ll admit to you,” Eric said, “I was a bit nervous about this flight.”