Bill locked on one and went to full mag. It looked like a pair of cylinders connected by a gridwork, an engine housing, and thrust tubes. There were sensors and antennas and black boxes. No viewports, nothing that looked like a passenger cabin. No place she could see that might have been home to a pilot.

Now, moving well ahead of the asteroid, the objects plunged into the Slurpy.

“I’m still tracking them,” said Bill.

“What are they doing?”

“Slowing down.”

Something was happening on the asteroid. Hutch watched as it sprouted wings. On both its upper and lower sides gray-black appendages were rising out of the rock. It was taking on the appearance of a malformed bat. Meanwhile it was closing on the Slurpy, running through the trail of whirling snow that was drifting out from the rear of the storm.

“What are those things?” asked Tor. “What’s going on?”

“It’s going to refuel,” said Hutch.

“Are you serious?”

“We have the same capability. To a degree.”

“How do you mean?”

“I think they’re scoops. We have them too. If we run a bit short of fuel, we can dip into the atmosphere of one of these things and fill the tanks.” She turned back to Bill. “Are we picking up anything?”

“There is some electronic leakage,” he said.

“They’re not saying hello?”

“No. They aren’t reacting to us at all.”

“They have to see us by now,” said George. “Bill, would you open a channel to them for me?”

“You want the multichannel, George?”

George looked at Hutch. “Do I?”

“Yes,” she said.

And Tor grinned. “What are you going to tell them?”

“I’m going to say hello.”

The asteroid was easing into the storm.

“You’re on,” said Bill.

“Hello,” said George. “We come in peace for all humankind.”

“That sounds familiar,” said Nick.

George reddened. “Well, what do you want on short notice? I wasn’t ready for this.”

“Too late,” said Nick. “They’ll be reading that line in every school in the world for centuries to come.”

George turned back to the AI’s screen image. “They answer back, Bill?”

“Negative. No response.”

The asteroid moved deeper into the Slurpy and gradually lost definition.

BILL STARTED A countdown and, on schedule, the object emerged from the storm, followed by the cloud of shuttles. The wings folded back, the shuttles caught up and merged with the main body, the object fired guide thrusters to adjust its orbit, and continued on its way.

“It is currently on course to pass through the storm again on its next orbit,” said Bill.

George got back on his channel and tried again. “Hello,” he said. “Hello over there.” He grinned up at Alyx. “This is us over here. Please blink a light or waggle your wings or something.”

Silence poured out of the speaker.

“I’m sure you guys run into folks out here all the time,” he added.

“What now?” asked Tor.

Alyx punched up a couple of pieces of toast. “It’s a chindi,” she said.

What in hell was a chindi?

“Navajo term. A spirit of the night.”

“Dangerous?” asked Nick.

“All spirits are dangerous,” said Tor. He gazed down at Alyx, who was getting out some strawberry jam for her toast. “What’s your Navajo connection?” he asked.

“My grandfather.” She smiled innocently. “He maintains it’s where I got my good looks.”

“But you’re blond.”

“My looks. Not my coloring.”

“So what’s it going to do now?” asked George, bored with hair color and Navajo grandfathers.

“I’d guess,” said Hutch, “it will come around and go through the Slurpy again.”

“Didn’t get enough the first time?”

“Right. As big as they are, I’d expect it’ll take a while.”

“How exactly does it work?” asked Alyx.

Hutch didn’t really know. “Somehow they’ve managed to get the troposphere to cough up a lot of ammonia ice. That’s the Slurpy.”

“Is ammonia fuel?” asked Alyx.

“More or less. They probably break it down into hydrogen and nitrogen. Throw the nitrogen overboard, liquefy and store the hydrogen. That’s the fuel. And maybe reaction mass, as well.”

“It doesn’t sound possible, though,” said Tor. “How do you get the atmosphere to throw off all that ammonia?”

“Don’t know,” she said. “Can’t see past the storm to figure out how they’re doing it.”

“At least it’s not just a hulk,” said George.

“Were you worried that it would be?”

“Frankly, yes.”

Hutch shook her head. “I’d have been surprised if that had turned out to be the case.”

“Why?”

“The grave at the Retreat. The fresh one. And the tracks. These are very likely the folks who left them.”

“And buried the occupants.”

“And buried one of the occupants.” She looked out at the Twins. “Yes. I mean, it’s not as if this is a crowded neighborhood. They may or may not be connected with whoever built the Retreat. That’s a long time ago. Probably, these guys were just cruising through the neighborhood and saw it. Same as we did.”

“It’s an odd coincidence,” said Alyx.

“What’s that?”

“This place has probably only had two visitors in three thousand years, and they come within a few days of each other.”

THE OBJECT GREW progressively larger in the screens. Bill opened the wall panels in mission control so they could look directly at it, could get a sense of the immensity of the thing. As the Memphis closed, their perspective changed, they could no longer see the ship as a whole. Instead they were looking down on a rockscape that stretched away in all directions. It was scarred and battered, covered with snow. Ridges and fractures scattered across the surface, and occasional craters, mixed with clusters of antennas and sensors and other electronic gear, much of which Hutch couldn’t identify.

They were moving more slowly than the object, watching it pass beneath them, watching the rocky surface gradually lose its irregularity, becoming smooth, becoming metal, and rising toward them. The rise became a hill and the hill became cylindrical, became one of two, twin cylinders, gray and cold and pockmarked. Then the cylinders moved ahead and they saw there were four of them, two abreast, and they became tubes, massive thrusters at the rear of the vessel.

“Big,” said Tor.

“What do you want to do?” Hutch asked George.

“What do you recommend?”

“Keep talking to them, and sit back and watch.”

“If they leave,” said Nick, “would we be able to follow them?”

“Depends on their technology. The Hazeltines are theoretically the only way a jump can be made. If that’s true, if that’s what they have, then yes. We just watch where they’re headed, and join them there.”

“We can tell which star?”

“It’s just a matter of following their line of sight. Connect the dots. Yes, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

They went into a parallel orbit, trailing slightly behind, and maintaining a discreet separation. There was no indication that the asteroid, the chindi, was aware of their presence.

But George was becoming restive. “I don’t understand why they don’t answer,” he said. And a thought occurred to him: “When do we expect Mogambo?”

“In about nine days. Why?”

“If somebody shakes hands with these critters, I’d like it to be us.” He had made a fist and was pushing it against his lips. “How about blinking the lights?”

“We could try it. What do you like? Three shorts, three longs?”

“That’s good.”

She did it manually, after they drew alongside the chindi, using the forward navigation lamps.

Blinkblinkblink.

Blaht. Blaht. Blaht.

And again.

The chindi glided through the night. They were on the dark side of Autumn now, away from the Slurpy. Far below, vast towers of cumulus filled the sky. Lightning flickered, massive bolts, some long enough to go round the Earth.

“Try again,” said George.

She turned the job over to Bill, who blinked front and rear, top and bottom.