"We'll have five. Counting me."

"And Ed has approved it?"

"Yes."

"Good. He needs something spectacular, or he's going to be out here, in the adjoining lecture hall." The broad, friendly-mutt features lit up. "Good luck, Frank. Give 'em hell."

Arlington. Monday, February 7; 1000 hours.

"I was hoping you'd ask."

"How could you think we might not, Hutch?"

"I wasn't really sure you'd want me." She managed her game smile. "Thanks."

Beta Pacifica was two hundred twenty-five light-years from Earth. Again, on the edge of the Void. Fifty-five light-years from Quraqua. "What's the radio signal like?" she asked. They had been very secretive. Had in fact sworn her to say nothing of the pending mission.

"Continuous repetitive patterns. Every few seconds, sometimes. No long segment ever completely repeats, but there are patterns that seem to be variations of each other. Coming from a single transmitter."

"A single transmitter?"

"Yes. As far as we can tell, the sender never gets a response."

"That seems odd. Maybe we just can't hear it."

"Probably. Ed thinks it's a beacon. Incidentally, the source of the transmission is probably not on a planetary surface."

"What makes you think that?"

"It's several AUs from the star, and it's in a polar orbit. A polar orbit, Hutch."

They hugged. "It was put there," she said, squeezing hard.

Langley Park, Maryland. Monday, February 7; 1930 hours.

The entry bell sounded, the display blinked on, and Maggie looked at Frank Carson. He knew, of course, that he was on camera, but he still could not entirely conceal his impatience. Carson never changed: he liked things to happen according to schedule, disliked even the slightest delay. He wore a yellow wool pullover and cuffed dark-blue skims. She thought of him as a good detail man, somebody who ensured that equipment was maintained and supplies arrived on time. But the price of that kind of talent seemed to be a kind of overwhelming grayness. Carson was impossibly dull. He was well-meaning, even indispensable. But he was dreary company. She keyed the downstairs lock.

"Door's open, Frank," she said. She pushed back from her notepads and sketches, blanked the monitor, which resumed its wall-panel appearance. She'd lost track of time. It was too late to do a cleanup now, but the room was cluttered rather than dusty. She could live with that. Maggie had no idea why Carson had asked to see her. It couldn't be social, and it wouldn't be connected with the Oz inscription; she had already solved that for them. What was left?

Possibly, they were planning some sort of formal expression of appreciation for her. If that were so, she'd be happy to accept. And they might have sent Carson to arrange it, try to get her to show up at the appropriate place without giving away the game.

Maggie was still luxuriating in the afterglow of having deciphered the horgon lines. (That she had found the final elements of the solution among texts already present in the data banks, that the last-minute material sent up by Henry and Richard had helped, but might not have been necessary, she had told no one. The fact tarnished her achievement slightly, and left her vaguely resentful, but against whom or what she was not entirely certain.) She had been working on her notebooks since their return, and was now in the process of deciding what she would do next. Academy policy was to rotate field and home assignments, and she had offers from Oxford, Harvard, CIT, and the Institute for Advanced Studies.

The door opened to reveal Carson. "Hello, Maggie," he said.

She extended her hand. "Hi, Frank. Good to see you."

Conversation had always been difficult between them, and she felt the thickness in the air already. Carson was a master of the inconsequential; she had no use for small talk.

"I'm sorry to bother you at home."

"It's okay." There was an odd sense of worlds coming together. Carson belonged light-years away. She indicated a chair, and sat beside him. "Frank, what can I get you?"

"Nothing, thanks."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," he said. "Nice apartment."

"Thank you." She was proud of it. Tasteful furniture, walls lined with technical texts and novels, framed ideographs and poetry from the Knothic Hours, in the original.

"D.C. changed while we were away." He went on for some minutes in a superficial vein, commenting on the unseasonal warmth; the likelihood of rain; the local outbreak of CORE, the African virus that induced a kind of super rickets.

Maggie sighed and waited. When she saw her chance, she asked what was happening. Translation: Why are you here?

His gaze intensified. "Maggie," he said, "we're going out again."

That surprised her. "Who is?" she asked. "Out where?"

"The inscription points to Beta Pacifica. It's in the same area, along the edge of the Arm."

Maggie had not really believed they would pin down a candidate. At least not so quickly. She'd expected the effort would take years. "Why not let a survey ship take a look at it?"

"Because we think they're still there." He paused for effect. "Maggie, we've picked up radio transmissions." His eyes were big and round and very full. Maggie Tufu had never been given to emotional demonstrations. Particularly not with Frank Carson. But now she jabbed a fist in the air. "Magnificent," she said. "Am I invited?"

The Academy. Wednesday, February 16; 1345 hours.

Ed Horner looked up as Carson entered. "Good to see you, Frank," he said. "Is everything ready?"

Carson nodded. "Yes. We're all set."

"Very good." He rose, came around the edge of the desk. He looked hard at Carson, as if he were trying to see past him, to calculate odds. "Since there is a signal, we are going to find something. But I want to impress on you that your task is limited to establishing whether there is anything there that warrants a full mission. If they actually exist, I do not want details. Do you understand? I want you to make the determination and come back with a recommendation. If they're there, keep in mind we know nothing about them. Don't stop to chitchat. Don't let them see you. Get in and get out—"

"We will," said Carson.

"Incidentally, your departure time has been moved up. You've got forty-eight hours."

Carson opened his mouth to protest.

"You'll need to let your people know," the commissioner continued. "I know this puts you on a short schedule, but we're under pressure. Hard questions are being asked in high places. I'm not sure how long we can hold the lid on this operation."

Carson's mouth clamped firmly on whatever it was he was going to say. "Thank you," he said, finally.

"Don't bother." Horner held out his hand. "Just come back to us."

Hutch and Carson left Atlanta Launch at sunset. The shuttle was filled with passengers, mostly wealthy sightseers who would be outward bound tomorrow on the Estrata. Interstellar tourism was developing into a growth industry. Those wealthy enough to pay for the privilege could sail past neutron stars; watch from short range the deadly dance between Delta Aquilae and its massive companion; cruise past the Great Maelstrom on Beta Carinis IV; navigate the smoking marble flatlands of Lesser Culhagne, the Cold Star. And end the voyage with dinner in the shadow of Holtzmyer's Rock on Pinnacle.

They were mostly couples, middle-aged and older, well-dressed, excited by the views of Earth and Moon. There were a few children, some station personnel, and two men who turned out to be theoretical physicists working on artificial gravity.

One was a tall, garrulous black with a gray beard and knife-sharp features. His colleague was a taciturn Japanese who watched Hutch with eyes that were full of suggestion.

The black man's name was Laconda, and he reminded Hutch of her old high-school algebra teacher.