“How did you get involved with the Contact Society?” Hutch asked. “Somehow you don’t seem the type.”

“Oh?” Her lips held the sound for a long moment. “Are we a type?”

Hutch grinned, and while she tried to come up with an inoffensive answer, Alyx said, “Heads up, shrink loose on the bridge.” Her eyes drifted shut. “Well, I guess we are a fairly strange bunch, aren’t we?”

“Well, um—”

“Chasing little green men is a bit far out.”

“A little.”

“I know. But look what you’ve been doing for a living.”

“How do you mean?” said Hutch. “I just carry people and supplies back and forth from research stations.”

“Where they spend most of their time digging up ruins.”

“And…?”

“Why do they do that? So they can learn something about the cultures that once existed there, right?”

“Right. But that’s what archeologists do.”

“And that tends to be the way we think about aliens, isn’t it? They’re gone. Dead and buried.”

“Except for the Noks.”

“Right. Except for the idiots. The ones that are gone, we’d like to know what they thought about art, whether they had organized games, what their family life was like, whether they had families. We’d like to know how they governed themselves, whether they believed in the supernatural, what they made of creation. Whether they had music. Do the Noks have music?”

“No,” she said.

“Not even drums?”

“No. No music. No drums. No dancing.”

“No wonder they’re always at war.”

They shared a laugh. And Alyx crossed one leg over the other. “You think I’m a fanatic, don’t you?”

“No, I think you’re unusual, though.”

“You don’t have to hide it, Hutch. I have become something of a nut. I know that.”

“I’d never suggest,” said Hutch, “that trying to make contact with a bona fide intelligence wouldn’t be worthwhile. Probably it would be the all-time supreme event. But the odds are so long. All the places we’ve looked for so many years, and all we have are a few Noks and some ruins.”

“So the only way to exchange views with an alien intelligence is to dig up the pieces afterward.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’re implying it.”

“No,” said Hutch. “What I’m saying is that the chance of finding them alive is extremely remote. It’s close to betting on a lottery.” She took a deep breath. “Civilizations seem to be rare. At least part of the reason might be that they’re short-lived.”

She nodded. “I know. But we have found evidence of others like ourselves. The Monument-Makers. And the Hawks. They’re out there somewhere.”

“Maybe. The Monument-Makers are now nothing more than a few savages wandering around the forests of Beta Pac trying to hunt meals. And the Hawks, we just don’t know.” Evidence for their existence had been found on and around Deepsix. But they remained a mystery. “It just seems to me that you could spend the rest of your life looking and not find very much.”

“But the pleasure, Hutch, is in the hunt.”

“I suppose.”

“And if we don’t look, we’ll never find them.”

Hutch wasn’t so sure. When we encounter our first real aliens, she thought, it’s going to be pure accident. It’ll happen one day when we turn a corner and they’ll be there and we’ll shake hands or whatever, and a real first contact will be made. But she didn’t think that any concerted effort would succeed. What would happen is that people like George and Alyx would grow old and die chasing a dream. Although there were probably worse things to do with one’s life.

“You don’t agree,” said Alyx.

“It’s not my call. But you’ll want to belt down. We’re ready to go.”

Alyx sat back, punched the button, and the harness settled around her.

“I hope,” said Hutch, “you find what you’re looking for.”

TOR STILL LIKED her.

Hutch had realized from the first that Tor’s appearance on the mission she was piloting had been no coincidence. But he’d behaved, had waited for her to send him a signal that his attentions would be welcome, and had carefully refrained from doing anything to put her on the spot. For that she was grateful.

Yet maybe she wasn’t. Given different circumstances, given some privacy, and a chance to be apart as well as together, then she might have encouraged him.

She’d enjoyed their time together, and as she looked back on it, she wondered whether she hadn’t been a bit hasty walking away from him.

He had been an unsuccessful artist with a lot of ambition and, she had thought, limited talent when they’d known each other a few years back in Arlington. It hadn’t been much of a romance, really. A few dinners, a couple of trips to the theater, and not much else. He was quiet, unassuming, not nearly as aggressive as the people who had been wandering into and out of her life over the last few years.

At the time she was busy with her career, and involved with a couple of heartier males. One she’d lost interest in, one had died. And somehow there had been neither the time nor the passion for Tor. Now she wondered.

They’d had a heart-to-heart one evening in which she’d pleaded her usual story. Terribly busy. Hectic schedule. Out of town all the time. You know how it is. He sent flowers afterward, with a card that she had kept. Love ya, it said. The only time he had used the word. And with the colloquial form of the pronoun, more or less negating the sentiment. Taking no chances.

She hadn’t seen him again until he’d boarded the ship at Outpost.

Now, of course, he was making another pitch, and doing it at the worst possible time. He often lost his color in her presence, and his voice tended to change register. But there was something ineffably attractive in his shyness, and in the impossibility, under ship conditions, of attempting the usual ploy of suggesting they go for a walk together, or have dinner down at the bistro. There was no way he could get her off to one side, and he must have known that before he came. Moreover, she couldn’t help contrasting him with Preach.

But he obviously hoped to find a way to spend some time with her alone, preferably away from the bridge (where the atmosphere wasn’t right). His solution, when it came, surprised her.

“Is it possible,” he asked, “to go out onto the hull? I mean, does it violate any regulations?”

“On the hull?” They were lounging in the common room, with several others. “No,” she said, drawing the word out, “it doesn’t violate anything. But why would you want to go outside? There’s nothing there.” She’d heard the question before from adventurous passengers, but never during hyperflight.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.

He was looking directly into her eyes, and she wondered what he saw there. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “If you really want to. But I’ll have to go out with you.”

He nodded, as though he were willing to live with the encumbrance. “I hate to inconvenience you, Hutch.”

She had to give him credit. Nobody at the table seemed to recognize that anything out of the ordinary was happening. “When would you like to go?”

He delivered an oblique smile. “I’m not busy at the moment. If it’s convenient.”

“Okay,” she said.

Alyx asked whether there was any danger, and she reassured her. Then they strolled down to the cargo airlock.

He was wearing loafers and shorts and a soft blue pullover shirt that draped easily over shoulders and breast. And he took a minute to pick up his easel and a pad.

“There’s not much out there,” she said.

He was adjusting his e-suit. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

She handed him a pair of grip shoes, and he slipped out of the loafers. When he was ready she opened up and they went out through the airlock onto the hull. The mist rolled over them.

The ship’s artificial gravity field vanished, and she felt her organs begin to rise.

“Is this the first time you’ve been outside?” he asked, looking around at the fog. “In this?”