“Yes.” Hutch felt the glow people always do when friends show up in remote places. “I’ll take it on the bridge.”

Kurt wore a black jumpsuit with the Wendy patch on his shoulder. Despite the fact that he’d spent most of his professional career sealed in containers with climate control, he looked as if he’d been under the open sun too much. He had weather-beaten features, a long scarred nose (“dueling incident,” he’d once told her), deep blue eyes that you could swim in, and a smile that was both whimsical and cynical depending on which side of the room you happened to be on.

“Hutch,” he said, “it looks as if we can manage dinner after all.”

“I’m looking forward to it. What did you bring?”

There was a delay of almost a minute. The Wendy was still pretty far off. “Everything we need. What on Earth are you doing out here?”

Hutch made a pained face. “Looking for gremlins.”

He sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. “They tell me you’re caught up in some sort of tracking exercise.”

“More or less. Somebody put up a network of communications relay stations. This is our fourth stop.”

“Somebody other than us.”

“Looks like.”

The smile went whimsical. “So the crazies pulled it off, didn’t they?”

“They’re not crazy, Kurt.”

“I understand completely. But are you going on? Beyond this place?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“How far?”

“I don’t know that either.” Bill was trying to get her attention. “Just a second, Kurt.”

“We have an outgoing signal,” he said.

“Is it a relay?”

“Do you mean, does it have the same characteristics as the other transmissions? Yes, it does. But it angles off at 133©.”

“This thing really wanders around.”

“Yes, it does.”

Another puzzle. Hutch thanked him, switched back to Kurt, and told him what Bill had reported. “Footprints of another civilization,” she said.

“I guess. So will you follow it?”

“It’s not my call.”

“Whose call is it?”

“George. George Hockelmann.”

“Oh.” And, after a moment: “Who’s he?”

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

“I understand you’ve lost some people.”

“A shipload. And two from our own passenger list.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Thanks.” She hesitated. “I’ll be asking you to take the remains back with you.”

“I can do that.” He looked at her as if he expected her to say more. Then: “Do you want to continue with this? The mission?”

“You want the truth, Kurt?”

“Don’t I always?”

“I wouldn’t want to admit it to George, but I’m getting kind of fascinated. Somebody planted these things more than a thousand years ago. Except maybe one of them which the Academy tells us is less than a century old.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Sounds as if they have some sort of ongoing maintenance.

I’d like to see where it all leads.” She was looking at the Wendy’s position on the navigation screen. “When do you expect to get here?”

“Midmorning tomorrow.”

“Want to come with us? On the next step?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You could send the Wendy back with the AI.”

“Hutch, I really wish I could.” He shook his head, signifying he wouldn’t do it under any circumstances he could imagine. “But I’ve got this bad ankle that’s been bothering me, and, anyway, you know how Bill gets when he’s left alone. By the way—”

“Yes?”

“I need your help.”

“Sure. What can I do?”

“The Academy wants a sample stealth. They got kind of miffed at Park when he reported he only had a few parts on board.”

“Had they asked him to bring one back?”

“No, but they thought he should have used some initiative. Anyway, they want me to pick one up. I’d be grateful for some assistance.”

THEY CHRISTENED THE new world Icepack and made as complete a record as they could. Bill measured or estimated density, equatorial diameter, mass, surface gravity, inclination, rotation period, and volume. He took the surface temperature at various locations. It was always a couple of hundred degrees below zero. He recorded the various proportions of methane and hydrogen, ammonia ice and water ice.

He also took extensive pictures of the moons, which were sent into mission control and studied relentlessly. Nowhere did they find any indication why the stealths were present.

Meantime Hutch set about selecting one of the units for disassembly.

“Are you sure you wish to do this?” Bill asked.

A red flag went up. “What’s your reservation, Bill?”

“Each change you make degrades the signal. We removed one unit from Point B. And parts of another. Now we propose to remove another one here. Whoever is on the receiving end of the transmission may resent what we’re doing.”

“Whoever’s on the receiving end isn’t going to know about it for a long time.”

“Then let me try it another way: Isn’t there an ethical issue involved?”

“No, there’s no ethical issue. We lost people. We’re perfectly justified in doing what’s necessary to find out what happened. Anyway, they’re a thousand years old. Or more.”

“But they’re working artifacts, Hutch. And I hope you won’t object if I point out that a thousand years is only relatively a long time.”

“I’ll tell you what, Bill. We’ll get one for Kurt, which I have to do because I promised it, and that’s it. We won’t touch any more after this one. Okay?”

The AI was silent.

SHE PICKED THE one they would take apart and sat up late that evening, talking about it with Tor and Nick. “I half suspect,” said Tor, “that when we find who’s on the receiving end of all this, we discover there’s nobody there.”

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“That the project that launched all this is long forgotten. That these signals are bouncing around, and somewhere they’re being funneled down to a receiver and stored for somebody who really doesn’t care anymore. Who may not even still be at the old storefront. I mean, how much time would you spend watching a neutron star?”

Nick agreed. “They’re probably dead and gone,” he said. But neither of them was an archeologist. Neither was she, for that matter, although she’d worked with archeologists all her life. She understood their reverence for artifacts, for the objects that used to be buried in the ground, but might also be found in orbit. The term had been expanded to include radio signals. Bill was right: These were operational artifacts, and she could not shake the sense that she was about to destroy something of value.

“On the same subject,” she told Tor, “I’ll be going outside tomorrow to do the deed. I’d like to have it disassembled and ready to go when Kurt gets here.”

“You need help?” he asked.

“Yes. If you’re available.”

“Am I available?” He flashed a broad grin. “Count on me.”

In the morning, Kurt was on the circuit before Hutch was fully awake. “I’ve loaded the shuttle with your stuff,” he said.

The Memphis was too small to support a dock, other than the space-saving arrangement in the cargo bay for its lander. The designer had assumed that any arriving vehicle would simply come alongside and transfer passengers directly through the main airlock. In this case, however, they were taking on supplies, and it seemed more rational to take the lander outside and make room for the Wendy’s shuttle.

“How big a job,” asked Kurt, “is it, taking apart a stealth?”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Okay. Are we on for dinner?”

“If you get here with the sauerbraten.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have sauerbraten, Hutch. How about roast pork?”

“That’ll do fine.” She signed off and went down to the common room, where breakfast was in progress. “We need to decide whether we’re going to move on,” said George. “Do we know yet where the stealths are aimed? Where the next relay point is?”

Hutch passed the question on to Bill, who appeared in a corner of the navigation display. “It passes directly through a pair of gas giants in this system and then goes all the way to GCY-7514.”