“We’ve got another one.”

“Another light?”

“Another eye.”

“Where?”

“Same area.”

“I see it,” said Phyl.

It was of similar dimensions, several kilometers farther along the wall. It, too, watched the Preston.

“There are two of them,” said Jon.

He meant entities. The positioning of the eyes wasn’t symmetrical. However big the thing might be, they were not part of the same head.

The luminous patch went dark.

Navigation lamps were normally handled routinely by the AI. But Hutch had a set of manual controls. She shut the lamps off. Left them a few seconds. And turned them back on.

The patch reappeared.

And went off.

“Hello,” said Hutch.

The navigation lamps on interstellars consisted of a base set: a red strobe on the highest part of the after section, a steady red light to port, a green light to starboard, and a white light aft.

She turned them on again. Counted to four. Switched them off. Counted to four. Turned them back on.

Waited.

“Hutch.” Matt sounded almost frantic in that low-key professional manner that pilots cultivate. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to talk to it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Matt, back off. I’m busy.”

“Have you forgotten what that thing is?”

The patch flashed back. On and off.

She replied. On for four seconds. And off. And again, on four seconds, then off.

“Matt, I’m doing the best I can.”

“Crazy woman.”

The patch reappeared, brightened.

Died.

Reappeared.

“Matt.” She was unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

“I see it.” He sounded skeptical, relieved, scared, wish-you-were-out-of-there. All at once. “I wonder what it’s saying.”

Antonio took a deep breath and shook his head. “Welcome to galactic center, I think.”

“Phyl,” said Hutch, “you’re monitoring the radio frequencies, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. There is no radio signal of any kind, other than the normal background noise.”

She blinked twice.

The patch brightened and faded.

“So what do we do now?” asked Antonio.

The two eyes stared back at her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think we’ve exhausted our vocabulary.”

“PHYL, WHAT ELSE can you tell us about the Mordecai area?”

“Nothing you don’t already know, Hutch. No one, until now, has been able to establish anything unique about it. Other than that the omegas all track back to this general area. It is, of course, in orbit around the galactic center.”

“That’s it?”

“I can give you estimated dust particles per cubic meter if you like. And a few other technical details.”

“Is the orbit stable?”

“Oh, yes.”

Antonio was watching her. “What’s your point, Hutch? What are you looking for?”

Filaments had begun moving laterally across the eyes. In sync. It was blinking.

“Let’s pull back a bit,” she said.

“Yeah. I’d feel better, too, if we put some distance between us.”

She began to ease away.

The patch went luminous again. Five bursts in quick succession.

She stopped forward progress and blinked her lights. Five times.

More bursts. Five.

She started back. And returned the ship to its initial position. “It wants us to stay, Antonio.”

“Maybe it wants to have us for dinner.”

“Would Dr. Science say that?”

“Absolutely. Listen, Hutch, I think we should get out of here.”

“Maybe it just wants company.”

“Hutch, you’re not thinking clearly. This thing manufactures omegas that go out and kill everything in sight.”

Matt came on the circuit: “What’s going on?”

“Hutch thinks it’s lonely.”

He laughed. His voice had a strained quality.

“It doesn’t seem to be hostile, Matt.”

“Right. Not this son of a bitch.”

“Matt, do you see any other eyes along the wall?”

“Negative. Just those two.”

She turned to Antonio. “Let’s try another tack. Can we agree this part of the galaxy wouldn’t get many visitors?”

He chuckled. It was the old Dr. Science laugh that inevitably came while he demonstrated how an experiment might turn out differently from what one might expect. “I wouldn’t think so.”

“Okay. If this is the thing that’s responsible for the omegas, it, or its ancestors, have been here more than a million years.”

“Of course they have, Hutch. They live here.”

“Maybe.” Hutch turned off her lights. The cloud went dark.

ANTONIO’S NOTES

Sitting out there so close to the thing that we could almost touch it was the scariest moment of my life. Even more than the snake in the hotel.

The snake in the hotel was pretty bad. Terrifying. The wall wasn’t like that. The snake was a mindless product of natural forces. Like the black hole. Nothing personal. Just stay out of its way. But the eyes in the wall looked directly into me. I had the feeling it knew who I was, knew what I cared about, knew about Cristiana and the kids. Despite all of that, there was no sense of hostility. It was neutral. We didn’t matter.

—Wednesday, March 12

chapter 36

MIDNIGHT.

Antonio was watching the eye blinks. They were lateral, they happened once about every six minutes, and they took seventeen seconds to complete. Close and open. And they always occurred simultaneously.

“It’s one creature,” Hutch said.

Antonio nodded. “Yes.”

“With a head several kilometers across?”

“I doubt it. This thing doesn’t have a head. Not in the way we understand the term. But it’s connected somehow.”

She blinked the navigation lights. The luminous patch reappeared. Went off. Came on again.

Hutch repeated the pattern, and got a quick series of flashes in return. “I think you’re right,” Antonio said. “It wants to talk.” She seemed unusually subdued. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What do you do after you’ve said hello?”

“With this thing? I have no idea.”

SHE TURNED ON the starboard green light. Blinked it three times. Then she ran the strobe, a series of red flashes, for a total of five seconds. Blinked starboard green three more times. Flashed the steady red light to port, and blinked the green nine times.

The patch appeared and faded.

She did it again. Same series.

“What are you doing?” asked Antonio.

“Hold on.”

The patch reappeared. Blinked three. Then, higher in the cloud, they saw a burst of white light. The patch blinked three more times. Then a steady red glow. And finally the patch again, blinking to nine.

“So,” said Antonio, “it more or less copies what you did. It didn’t quite get the colors right, but what’s the point?”

“I’m not sure yet.” She tried another series: Blink green twice, run the strobe, two more blinks, port side red, then four blinks.

She leaned forward, and Antonio got the sense her fingers were crossed.

The cloud was quiet. Then the luminous patch came back and went off, the white burst reappeared momentarily, the patch appeared again and faded.

Antonio sighed. “I still don’t see what it’s supposed to mean.”

The red glow showed up again. Lasted a few seconds.

Hutch leaned forward.

The patch came on again and went off. Once.

Yes! She raised a fist over her head.

“What happened?” asked Antonio.

“Two times two equal four,” she said. “It replied one times one equals one.”

Antonio asked her to run the series again, and he saw. The white burst became a multiplier. The steady red light was an equals sign. “I’m impressed,” he said.