"It's not really cold," Janet said. "But it isn't room temperature either."

"We better go down and take a look. The programming is probably scrambled. But I can't get at it from up here."

They collected George in the passenger lounge, and crossed over to C ring, Life Support and General Maintenance. They walked halfway round the long outer passageway, picked up a repair harness, and entered Engineering. The bulkheads were lined with housings, casings, cabinets. The metal was cold.

"We should have brought sweaters," said Janet. "Let's make this quick."

Moving about was difficult because of the tumble. There was a tendency to lurch anti-spinward. As they moved toward the spine of the ship, it translated into an affinity for strolling into left-hand walls, and falling down easily. They stumbled past the fusion power unit, a set of teardrop cylinders framed within a series of tori. A yellow status lamp and the pale light from the control panel provided the only illumination.

"You sure you don't want to try to fix this?" asked George.

"Yes," she said. Fusion units were strictly dockyard work. Not to be touched by operating personnel. Hutch's training was clear on the point: switch to auxiliary systems, cut back wherever possible on power usage, and go home. By the shortest route. Here, of course, with the Hazeltines exhausted, they weren't going anywhere. In that case, send for help.

They inspected the series of tanks and drums which housed the ventilation system. Nothing obvious suggested itself. Hutch brought the air flow schematic up on the control terminal.

Four recyclers, operating in series, maintained the appropriate carbon dioxide/nitrogen/oxygen mix. These were large cylinders from which air was pumped into three enormous pressurized tanks, where it was stored until needed. The recyclers and tanks were interconnected. Prior to re-entering the ventilation system, air passed through a series of four con-vectors, which heated (or cooled) it to the proper temperature. The four convectors all showed "Nonfunctional."

They removed one of the hatch covers and looked at a charred ruin. "So we replace them. Right?" asked George hopefully.

"We can replace one of them."

"You only have one spare?" Janet sounded skeptical.

"One spare," said Hutch. "These things don't give out. And this sort of damage is not supposed to happen."

"Right" said Janet.

"How much good does one spare do us?" asked George.

"I don't know. We'll have to figure it out. But it should mean that we'll freeze a little more slowly."

"I'll tell you what I think it is." Maggie, wrapped in a blanket, jabbed a finger at the ovoid. It was blown up, and spread across a wall-length screen in the lounge. It looked somewhat like a spider web, half-seen on a moonless night. They could make out a fine network of lines, a sense of fragile beauty. "It's the ultimate Monument, and if this is not the home system of the Monument-Makers, at least it suggests we're on their track."

Carson was wearing a sweater and had a spread draped over his legs. "Are we agreed we went through it?"

"Had to," said Maggie. "Say—" She brightened. "Maybe we've got some samples aboard."

Carson's eyes met hers. "On the hull."

"Could be."

He looked up at one of the air ducts, walked over to it, and held his hand in front of it. "It's colder," he said.

A door at the rear of the compartment opened. Janet came in, followed closely by Hutch and George. All had acquired jackets, and they looked discouraged.

"Not so good, huh?" said Carson.

Hutch described what they had done. The new convector was in. "We'll get a little heat," she said.

"How about diverting the air flow?" said Maggie. "Put the air from the working conductor in here."

George shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. The air passes over all four conductors and then exits into the individual ducts."

"Then cut off the other spaces altogether," suggested Carson. "I'd think a smaller volume of air will cool down more slowly because less of it is exposed to the outer bulkheads."

Hutch nodded. "We thought so too. But we're limited as to where we can cut down. Anything that freezes over, we lose. Data banks in B ring, for example; food and water and life support in C."

"How cold will it get?" asked Maggie.

Hutch took a deep breath. "Cold." She patted Carson's wool-clad shoulder. "You're going to need more than that. Let me see if I can get my systems back on-line, and maybe we can figure out some options." She passed through the cabin, headed for the forward door.

"Before you leave," said Carson. "I've got a question on a different matter. We keep getting further away from that thing. Is there any chance of turning around and going back? To get a closer look?"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," said Janet. "It would give us something to do while we're waiting for help to arrive. And we wouldn't look quite so silly when this is over."

Hutch shook her head. "We don't even have the power to stop our forward motion, Frank, let alone reverse it. No, Wink isn't going anywhere except straight ahead for a while. Sorry—" And she was gone.

The obloid floated on a wall-sized screen. George frowned, turned his head sidewise, used his hands to frame a picture, frowned again. "Anybody mind if I reduce this?" It was at five mag. Nobody objected, and he took it down, stage by stage. He played with it awhile, back and forth, and turned suddenly to Maggie. "You know what I think? It's a bowl. Look at it: it's a big, curved, planet-sized bowl." He cupped his hands, and tilted them so they could see. "You come in at the right angle, the football looks like a bowl. See?"

"You're right," said Carson. "So what is it?"

Maggie sank deeper into her blanket. "We know it puts out radio signals. It's apparently a big dish. A relay station, maybe. Certainly a beacon of some kind."

"Why would you want a beacon that big?" asked Janet.

"Maybe they never developed the TD band," said Carson. "Is that possible? That they could have FTL travel, but not FTL communications?"

"I guess it's possible" said Maggie. "But it makes no sense. Why would anyone with a stardrive want to send a message that would need decades, or centuries, to get to its destination?" Her nose was cold. She rubbed it. "You know," she said, "this place is starting to get downright drafty."

ARCHIVE ZZ 03/241611

XX EMERGENCY EMERGENCY EMERGENCY TO: GENERAL DISTRIBUTION FROM: NCA WINCKELMANN SUBJECT: GENERAL DISTRESS

GENERAL DISTRESS CALL ALL SHIPS/STATIONS. UPDATE 01. REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE—LIFE THREATENING SIT/BETA PAC. LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE. WILL MAINTAIN ALL–CHANNEL SIGNAL, STANDARD SET. THIS IS A FIVE ALPHA EMERGENCY, EXTREME DANGER, EXTREME NEED FOR HASTE. MESSAGE WILL REPEAT AT EIGHT-MINUTE INTERVALS.

On the bridge, Hutch faced the bad news. The lone convec-tor would prevent the temperature from falling below -36 °C. That in itself would not be comfortable, but it was survivable. The problem was that the system that supported the convector would start to freeze up at twenty below. It was then likely the convector would fail. If that happened, it was going to get very cold.

How long would it take?

She was unable to measure current heat loss. It appeared to be somewhat more than a degree per hour. At that rate, they could expect to hit zero sometime tomorrow. There would be other hazards as it got colder: air pumps would fail, food dispensers would cease to work, the power system might give way altogether, trapping them in a frigid, dark shell.

She had six Flickinger belts to fall back on, but there were only twenty-four hours of air for each. Once the power went, there would be no way to refill the breathers.