Once, he’d seen her in a restaurant in Georgetown, had actually sat across the room from her, while his date kept asking whether he was okay. Hutch had never noticed him, or if she had she’d pretended not to. When it was over, when she and the man she’d been with—frumpy and dumb-looking, he’d thought—had gotten up and left, he’d sat churning, glued to his seat, barely able to breathe.

In the end, he never called, never sent a message, never let her hear from him again. He didn’t want to become a nuisance, thought the only chance he had to win her over demanded that he keep his pride. Otherwise—

His career had turned around when he started doing off-world art. In the beginning, he simply holed up in a holotank and switched on the view from Charon, or of a yacht passing an ocean world bathed in moonlight.

Some of those had sold. Not for big money, but for something. Enough to persuade him that he could do art at a sufficiently high level that people would pay to put it on their walls.

“Kirby’s work reflects talent,” one reviewer had commented, “but it lacks depth. It lacks feeling. Great art overwhelms us, absorbs us into the painting, makes us experience the dance of the worlds. As good as Kirby is, one never quite feels the illuminated sky rotating.”

Whatever that meant. But it revealed a truth: Kirby had to get out into the planetary systems he painted. To capture the rings of a gas giant on canvas, he needed to get close to them, to see them overhead, to allow himself to be caught up in their majesty. So he began finding ways to visit his subjects. It was intolerably expensive. But it had paid off.

He did not ascend to the top rank, of course. He’d have to be dead thirty years before he could accomplish that. But his work showed up in the elite galleries, and it commanded substantial prices. For the first time in his life, he had experienced serious professional success. And the money that came with it.

He had by then given up on any chance of recovering Priscilla Hutchins. It was in fact a bitter side effect of his situation that, because he had changed his name, she had no way of knowing that he and Tor Kirby were the same.

He saw no easy way to correct the situation. Until he read an article about George Hockelmann, the Contact Society, and its substantial contributions to the Academy. Hutch’s employer.

Tor had never maintained a steady interest in the world around him. Of the Contact Society’s questionable reputation among the professionals who did the field work, he was utterly innocent. He knew only that the names of their major players showed up periodically on the Academy data streams available to anyone who wanted to look.

It was his chance. He contributed a painting of the Temple of the Winds at Quraqua, an underwater archeological site. It was his best work to date, the temple illuminated by sunlight filtering down through the sea, a submersible descending gradually toward it—it was quite apparent the vehicle was going down—escorted by a pair of Quraquat kimbos, long, flat, wedge-shaped fish, and something like a squid. The painting was auctioned off and brought so much money that Tor regretted having made the donation. His picture and name—both names—made the Academy news links. But even as he looked at the stories, and thought how generous and talented they made him appear, he understood they would not be enough to convince her to call. She probably wouldn’t even see them.

A few days later he caught commercial transportation out to Koestler’s Rock, a dazzling world of cliffs and angry seas orbiting a gas giant. Tor was painting the rings, depicting them rising out of a rough sea, when the message came from George. MAJOR DISCOVERY PENDING. He wasn’t interested at first, until he heard the comment, Academy pilot.

He replied, hardly daring to hope, asking questions about the duration of the mission and the nature of the signals and several other issues in which he had no interest, using them to disguise the one question he cared about. “By the way, do you know the pilot’s name?”

It was an agonizing five-day wait for the reply. “Hutchings.”

George didn’t quite have the name right, but he knew he had hit the jackpot.

HE CAUGHT TRANSPORTATION to Outpost, got there early, and decided to work while he waited. Decided, in fact, that his best bet with Hutch was to let her find him at work. Let her see what he was doing.

The gas giant at Outpost was big, maybe six times Jupiter’s mass. It was called Salivar’s Hatch, after a pilot who had disappeared into its clouds twenty years before. There were more than thirty moons, not counting the shepherds located in its elegant ring system. Some had atmospheres, several had geologic activity, two had oceans frozen beneath their icy surfaces, none had life. Twenty-one was a small chunk of ice and rock, not quite half the size of Luna.

Most of its surface was covered with needle peaks, craters, and broken ridges. But an enormous plain dominated almost a quarter of the landscape, where lava had erupted eons ago, spilled out across the area, and frozen.

AS HUTCH MADE her approach, Bill broke in. “You have a transmission from the Wendy Jay, Hutch.”

That would be Kurt Eichner, the Academy’s senior captain, a model of Teutonic efficiency. A place for everything and everything in its place. Kurt was the only Academy skipper she knew who could have torn down his ship and put it back together.

He had a softer side, which passengers were not allowed to see. Even when he was in the act of performing a signal service for them, he did it with polite yet brusque dispatch. The baby’s been delivered. Ma’am, you may sit up now.

He liked Hutch, but then he liked all the women pilots, although, as far as she knew, he scrupulously kept hands off. She wasn’t sure why that was. In his younger years, he’d had a reputation as something of a rake. But she had never seen any indication of it, even though she’d occasionally encouraged him.

Her favorite recollection of Kurt Eichner was from Quraqua, where he’d once cooked for her, in a portable shelter, an unforgettable dinner of sauerbraten, red cabbage, and potato dumpling. Perhaps because of the desolate location, perhaps simply because of Kurt’s culinary abilities, it was the most memorable meal of her life. With the possible exception of some fruit and toast she’d once had after three days with no food.

“Pipe it through, Bill,” she said.

Hutch switched it to her main screen and settled back. Kurt blinked on. He was in his seventies. With most people it was possible to tell when they started putting on serious mileage, because even though their bodies didn’t age, their eyes tended to harden, and the animation went out of their personalities. Some argued this was because humans were intended to live the biblical threescore and ten, and nothing could really change that. Others thought the condition could be avoided by refusing to allow the iron grip of habit to take hold. However that might be, Kurt had managed to stay youthful. His smile made her feel girlish, and she delighted in his approval.

“Hello, Hutch,” he said. “I just heard you were at Outpost. How long are you planning to be there?”

“I’m already gone,” she said. “Leaving as soon as I make my pickup.”

There was a delay of several minutes, indicating he was at a substantial range. “Sorry to hear it. I’d have liked to get together.”

“When will you be in, Kurt?”

“Tomorrow morning. I understand you’re on a private flight this time.”

“More or less. It’s an Academy assignment, but the ship’s not one of ours.”

“The Contact Society?” He couldn’t entirely smother a smile.

“You know about it?”

“Sure. It’s not exactly a secret.”

They prattled on until Bill interrupted. “On close approach,” he said.

THE MEMPHIS WENT into orbit, and Hutch took the lander down. A small gray pocket dome stood on the edge of the plain, its lights brave and cheerful in the vast emptiness. They were on the inner side of the moon, with a spectacular view of rings and satellites. The giant world itself was marked with green and golden bands. It was one of the lovelier places the starships went.