Again, the circumspect nod.

“And what about moons? It looks like some kind of gas giant. What is it? A jovian mass?”

“Nearly,” said Pamir.

“Wouldn’t it have retained at least its closer moons? But I don’t see anything like that. Or rings. Just the one pretty sun and her faraway husband.”

Quee Lee laughed softly, squeezing at the hand.

“There’s other ways to accelerate an entire sun,” Perri continued. “This could be ancient momentum stolen from its nursery. Seven or eight billion years ago, judging by the metal loads and the core profiles.”

“Eight-point-two billion years old,” Washen offered.

“Or it’s from outside our galaxy. From one of those dwarf galaxies that splashed into the Milky Way, and over the last few billion years have shattered and fallen back into us again.” He shrugged, and after a moment said, “Huh.”

Quee Lee tugged on his arm. “What is it?”

“There’s still another place where this planet looks wrong.”

The observation wasn’t his alone. Several other voices had already started to whisper about some of the more recent, more thorough observations.

“Too much helium,” he declared. “By a long ways, I’d say.”

Estimates were muttered; guesses were generated. The audience had enough experts present to come up with all kinds of explanations, a few of which might actually kiss what was true.

“An old gas giant should have pulled most of its helium into its core,” he continued. “And those temperature profiles … well, they look awfully high. Which means something could have stirred up its interior, maybe. Brought the old helium rising to the surface again. Although that’s a pretty cumbersome way to get this effect.”

The Master had taken a mild interest in Perri. With a rumble, she said, “Name another, more elegant method.”

“Nobody lifted the helium,” he replied. “Instead, I’m guessing that they just stole away a fair fraction of the resident hydrogen.” When he looked at the Master’s golden face, Perri almost giggled. “But you know that already, madam. Sure you do. You just want to see what we can accomplish, stumbling over this little puzzle for ourselves.”

Again, voices made guesses. Most of them approached the best, most recent estimates. The jovian mass had originally been half again larger, but some compelling force or bullying hand had peeled away the outermost layers of the atmosphere.

Quee Lee finally asked the obvious question:

“What is this 305th message? Does someone live on this gas giant? Or somewhere nearby?”

“As far as we can observe,” said Pamir, “the system is utterly sterile.”

Then after a deep breath, he added, “What we have found is something else entirely. Something we’ve been carrying with us for thousands of years now. An old transmission buried inside a million bottled transmissions—in an historical archive given to us to help pay for a few hundred passengers. The transmission was a distant radio squawk originating on a superterran world. The species had just developed high technologies. The transmission was typical of these sorts of things: a picture of themselves and their home, the sun and neighboring planets, and their relative position in the galaxy.” The dusty data emerged beside the most recent images of the dead jupiter. “Nobody noticed. Until a few years ago, nobody even thought to look for this kind of clue. And you’ll see why nobody imagined drawing a link between this sun and that old whisper. There were six planets, including the living one. And the gas giant had a big family of moons. And even the sun itself was more massive than what we see today. Which implies that the same force that carried off the missing hydrogen also dismantled every other world. Every asteroid, and the entire cometary belt. And whatever that force was, it even managed to take a big spade to the red sun, digging out enough gas and plasma to make another world or two.”

The room was silent, and respectful.

“A few hundred years before their sun entered the Inkwell, the vanished species broadcast their first message. They aimed at a likely sun, which was uninhabited, but the signal continued on for another few hundred light-years, and it was noticed at least once, and recorded, and we captains were shrewd enough or lucky enough to accept that kind of useless knowledge as a partial payment for some of our new passengers.”

Perri asked, “What do the aliens say about the Inkwell?”

“Nothing,” Pamir replied.

Then with a cold face and a wisp of anger, he added, “No, I may be misleading you. When I say that we have a 305th message, I mean that we don’t have anything. Just silence. Just five worlds missing, plus a sentient species that’s gone extinct, with no trace of any of these precious things after they passed through that damned cloud.”

PAMIR SAT ON his chair, one long leg thrown over the other.

After a moment, Washen rose, and with a relaxed smile, she said, “I’m sure you know enough to guess our general plan. Each of you has at least one skill that makes you valuable. Many of you have served the ship as ambassadors or xenobiologists. Others have different talents, and hopefully, new perspectives.” She nodded in Perri’s direction before adding, “There is a mission first planned long ago. From a much larger pool of potential candidates, we’ve chosen you. Just in the last few days, as it happens. Your participation is asked for but not demanded. But I will tell you: If you decide to stay on-board the ship, you must move to secure quarters until this mission is finished or until we’ve lost all interest in this undertaking.”

Several dozen faces nodded in weak agreement.

The squidscreen brightened with a flash. Suddenly everyone was staring at the interior of a sealed and heavily guarded berth inside Port Alpha. Filling the berth was a set of enormous engines, fusion rockets spiked with antimatter and the power yields increased by every possible trick of hyperfiber containment and quantum manipulations. The engines were attached to cavernous fuel tanks ready to hold millions of tons of metallic hydrogen, and above the giant tanks was what passed for the streakship’s prow—a blunt but elegant arch of high-grade hyperfiber, designed to be reconfigured at will, then braced in twenty different ways to protect the ship from every impact. If there were living quarters, they were invisible, tucked between the fat tanks in a slot that looked too tiny to give anyone more than the barest legroom.

Washen summarized the ship’s history. She listed five past missions and every one of its important successes, and because there has never been a crew without a feel for luck or its absence, she failed to mention the little tragedies that had kept two other missions from being total successes.

“Over the last nine decades,” she continued, “this particular streakship has been refitted and repaired. What isn’t new is nearly new, or better than new. There probably aren’t three vessels of this mass that can move any faster. Not in this galaxy, at least. At better than two-thirds the speed of light, you will be able to beat us to the Inkwell by more than ten years. Critical years, I should add.”

After a moment, Washen said, “Questions.”

Hands rose high.

One woman asked, “Who’s our captain?”

“I am.” Pamir gave a half nod. “I’ve got experience in small starships, and I can represent the ship with full authority.”

It was momentous news. The idea that the Second Chair would leave on any mission underscored its importance. Unless this was a demotion, of course. Pamir was a stubborn soul, and in the universe of gossip, he was always butting heads with the Master Captain.

Washen pointed at a fresh hand. “Yes, Quee Lee?”

The woman smiled politely, then with an honest distaste, she mentioned, “We seem to be a rather narrow group.”