“Mac, you’re a cynical cuss.”

“You can’t really deny that it’s true.” MacAllister sighed. “So where’s the monument?” he asked.

Bill responded: “The second planet. It’s just a large piece of ice and rock. There’s a moon, about a third the size of Luna. The monument’s in orbit around the moon.”

“The monuments were usually put in orbit,” said Amy.

Bill had the last word: “There are only four on the ground.”

TWO OF THE seventeen known monuments were images of their makers. Five others were depictions of creatures that might have been either biological or mythical. (One was known definitely to be mythical.) The rest were geometric designs.

The one at 61 Cygni fell into the latter category.

Valya was feeding images from the ship’s telescopes to the two displays mounted in the common room. One was centered on the sun; the other gave them a picture of the target world, Alpha II, and its moon. Alpha II constituted as sorry-looking a piece of real estate as MacAllister had ever seen. He knew there’d be no green areas. There were also no seas, no deserts, nothing but a gray-black mantle of what appeared to be solid rock. In some areas there’d been eruptions and lava flows. But the surface was, for the most part, smooth and featureless. No craters, no ridges, no mountains, no river valleys. It was as if the planet were simply one oversized boulder.

Its moon was a pale crescent, and lay at a considerable distance, half again as far as Luna was from Earth. It, too, seemed composed of the same featureless rock.

“They’ve seen moonriders out here?” asked Eric.

Valya nodded. “Three tour flights have reported them in the last month.”

“Where were they?” asked Amy. “Were they here? Near the monument?”

Valya needed a moment to consult her screen. “Yes,” she said. “This is the area.”

“Maybe,” Amy continued, “they were just sightseeing. I mean, they’ve been at all the places along the tour route, right?”

“It could also mean,” said MacAllister, “that they’re only seen close to the tour sights because that’s where the ships are. They could have an entire invasion fleet sitting over at the other star. What’s its name again?”

“Cygni B,” said Amy.

“Beta. Okay. There could be a fleet there, and we’d never know it because nobody ever goes there.”

Amy looked at him, not sure whether to laugh. “An invasion fleet? I’ve seen that in sims.”

MacAllister chuckled and did his best private eye impersonation. “Just kidding, Sweetheart. No, I don’t think we need to worry about invaders.”

“Why not, Mac?” she persisted. “Just for the sake of argument, how would we know? It’s possible.” He got the impression she would welcome an invasion.

“Sure it’s possible, Amy. Anything’s possible. But ask yourself why anybody would bother.”

“How do you mean?”

“We don’t have anything that anybody would want.”

“How about real estate?” asked Eric.

MacAllister shrugged. “Plenty of places out here if anybody wants one. Truth is, I think the one thing we can be sure of is that the moonriders, whatever they are, do not pose a threat.” He looked over at Valya. “By the way, are we watching out for them? Just in case?”

“Bill’s doing a complete sweep in all directions. He’ll give us a yell if he sees something.”

THE CYGNI MONUMENT was the largest known. It reminded MacAllister, from a distance, of a temple, complete with Doric columns. It stood (if that was the correct term for an object in orbit) atop a platform, and was accessible on all sides by stone steps. It was polished and graceful, unmarked by fluting, or sculpture, or triglyphs. It did not look like a structure that had been assembled so much as one that had been poured. It possessed a power and majesty that was stunning.

It was believed to be about eleven thousand years old, making it slightly older than the self-portrait on Iapetus. It had picked up a couple of dents where it had been hit by pieces of debris.

Temples all seemed to be alike, regardless of the culture from which they sprang, regardless of the sweep of the roof, or the general design of molding rings and parapets. Whether a temple was from one of the various terrestrial eras, or whether it had been built by Noks, or by the long-gone inhabitants of Quraqua, or by the Monument-Makers themselves: They were always large and spacious with high overheads, everything oversized to ensure that the visitor understood at the deepest levels how insignificant and utterly inconsequential he was, except that the powers that ran the universe gave him meaning by allowing him into their sanctuary.

Everybody’s psychology is going to turn out to be the same.

The monument was thirty-one and a half meters wide at the entrance, 126 meters front to rear. A factor of four. The same proportion could be found throughout. The columns were four times as high as they were wide. The roof was four times as thick as the base. (Ratios of one kind or another were found in almost all the monuments.)

There was a contradistinction of good order in the presence of those steps, out where there was no gravitational pull. He looked beyond them into the great gulf, toward the stars, and it seemed as if they were awaiting a visitor. That they’d been placed for a specific purpose. He wondered if anyone had ever walked on them.

Some people read the general design of the monument as a statement of defiance against a hostile and chaotic universe. Others saw it as a symbol of harmony, forever absorbed in the dance of worlds around 61 Cygni, and permanently afloat in the moonlight.

MacAllister had sat in his Baltimore apartment and taken the virtual tour, had ridden his armchair onto the platform. But this was different.

The Salvator was making its approach. Valya got on the link. “Everybody belt down.”

MacAllister punched a button and the harness slid over his shoulders. He checked to make sure Amy was secure. Found her doing the same for him.

Braking rockets fired. He was pushed forward against the harness.

The monument was on both displays. He watched it grow larger. Watched it move into the sunlight.

“Beautiful,” said Amy.

MacAllister agreed. If the race that put it there had never done anything else, it was sufficient.

“Okay,” said Valya. “We’re in business.” She shut the engines down.

“Valya,” he asked, “any chance of getting out onto it? Of going inside?”

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s illegal.”

Nobody would ever know. But it was just as well. He hadn’t really meant it. But it seemed like the thing he was supposed to say. He’d have liked very much to climb those steps, to go into the temple. But the prospect of exiting the ship out here was a little scary. Still, it was nice to have everybody — especially Valya — think he would do it if he could.

“If you folks would like to come forward and look out the viewport, you might find it worthwhile.”

Amy led the way. “Oh, yes,” she said, squeezing Valya’s shoulder. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Her voice was up a few decibels.

The temple floated in the night sky, bright with reflected light. MacAllister had been impressed by the architecture at Rheims and Chartres and Notre Dame, but here was a true seat for a deity.

“It was carved from an asteroid,” said Amy.

The moon, desolate and airless, lay below. The nearby planet, Alpha II, was a narrow gleaming crescent near the horizon. Valya saw him looking in its direction. “From here,” he said, “it looks magnificient.”

“Where do we put the monitor?” asked Amy.

“Our instructions are to leave it right where we are now. In orbit around the moon.”

“That’s sacrilege,” said MacAllister.

She allowed herself to look shocked. “That has an odd sound coming from you, Mac.”

“Kidding aside,” he said, “this place should be left exactly as it is. Why don’t we just nail it to the monument?”

“This is where the sightings have been concentrated,” said Eric. “I think we should follow the plan.”

MacAllister ran his hand through his hair. “The sightings have been concentrated here because this is where the tours come.” Idiot.

“If we have aliens,” said Valya, “this is likely to be one of the places they’d want to visit. It’s the logical place to put the thing.”

“Put it somewhere else,” said MacAllister.

Eric was unhappy. “You’re asking her,” he said, “to put her job at risk. She can’t just disobey the director’s instructions.”

MacAllister waved all concerns away. “I’ll take responsibility for it.”

Valya turned an amused glance in his direction. “Okay,” she said. “But first I need to know where you fit in the chain of command, Mac.”

“Hutchins is a close friend.”

“Well, I’m sure that’ll cover things.”

Eric laughed. “I suggest we just follow the instructions.” He produced a cup of coffee and took a long sip. “I wonder if anyone’s ever thought about bringing this one home? Think how nice it would look in Jersey.”

MacAllister needed a moment to realize he was joking.

“Okay,” said Valya. “If everybody’s seen enough, let’s go do what we came for.”

VALYA CHANGED COURSE. Amy stayed up front so she could watch through the viewport, or maybe simply to be close to the pilot. It was hard to know which. MacAllister liked the child, but her enthusiasm was wearing on him. It was a pity, really. She believed that people were intrinsically good, and that most knew what they were doing. He wondered what she’d be like after another twenty years. It had been his experience that the worst cynics all started out as idealists.

After a few minutes, the sense of acceleration went away.

MacAllister couldn’t remember a time of innocence in his own life. He’d always known civilization for what it was: an illusion. There was never a day he didn’t understand that institutions were out primarily to take care of themselves, and that only individuals were ever worthy of trust. And damned few of those.

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. Bill’s voice woke him. “Launch in two minutes,” he said.

He checked the time, was surprised to discover he’d been out more than an hour.

Eric made a crack about his sleeping through the day and added that he wished time machines were possible. “I’d love to have been able to come here when the Monument-Makers were putting that thing in place.”

“You’d probably have found,” MacAllister said, “they were a lot like us.”