"You think it's a ship coming to meet us?"

"Yessir. A small one. Give us a few minutes and I'll tell you its acceleration. Meanwhile, we assume an acceleration of one gee...Renner's fingers had been tapping all the while "... and get a mass of thirty tons. Later we'll readjust that."

"Too big to be a missile," Blaine said thoughtfully. "Should we meet him halfway, Mr. Renner?"

Renner frowned. "There's a problem. He's aiming at where we are now. We don't know how much fuel he's got, or how bright he is."

"Let's ask, anyway. Eyes! Get me Admiral Kutuzov." The Admiral was on his bridge. Blurs out of focus behind him showed activity aboard Lenin. "I've seen it, Captain," Kutuzov said. "What do you want to do about it?"

"I want to go meet that ship. But in case it can't change course or we can't catch it, it will come here, sir. Lenin could wait for it."

"And do what, Captain? My instructions are clear, Lenin is to have nothing to do with aliens."

"But you could send out a boat, sir. A gig, which we'll pick up with your men. Sir."

"How many boats do you think I have, Blaine? Let me repeat my instructions. Lenin is here to protect secret of Alderson Drive and Langston Field. To accomplish task we will not only not communicate with aliens, we will not communicate with you when message might be intercepted."

"Yes, sir." Blaine stared at the burly man on the screen. Didn't he have a shred of curiosity? Nobody could be that much of a machine... or could he? "We'll go to the alien ship, sir. Dr. Horvath wants to anyway."

"Very good, Captain. Carry on."

"Yes, sir." Rod cut off the screen with relief, then tuned to Renner. "Let's go make first contact with an alien, Mr. Renner."

"I think you just did that," said Renner. He glanced nervously at the screens to be sure the Admiral was gone.

Horace Bury was just leaving his cabin-on the theory that he might be less bored somewhere else-when Buckman's head popped out of a companionway.

Bury changed his mind at once. "Dr. Buckman! May I offer you coffee?"

Protuberant eyes turned, blinked, focused. "What? Oh. Yes, thank you, Bury. It might wake me. There's been so much to do-I can only stay a moment-"

Buckman dropped into Bury's guest chair, limp as a physician's display skeleton. His eyes were red; his eyelids drooped at half-mast. His breathing was too loud. The stringy muscle tissue along his bare arm drooped. Bury wondered what an autopsy would show if Buckman were to die at this moment: exhaustion, malnutrition, or both?

Bury made a difficult decision. "Nabil, some coffee. With cream, sugar, and brandy for Dr. Buckman."

"Now, Bury, I'm afraid that during working hours-Oh, well. Thank you, Nabil." Buckman sipped, then gulped. "Ah! That's good. Thank you, Bury, that ought to wake me."

"You seemed to need it. Normally I would never adulterate good coffee with distilled spirits. Dr. Buckman, have you been eating?"

"I don't remember."

"You haven't. Nabil, food for our guest. Quickly."

"Bury, we're so busy, I really haven't time. There's a whole solar system to explore, not to mention the jobs for the Navy-tracing neutrino emissions, tracking that damned light-"

"Doctor, if you were to die at this moment, many of yours notes would never be written down, would they?"

Buckman smiled. "So theatrical, Bury. But I suppose I can spare a few minutes. All we're doing now is waiting for that signal light to go off."

"A signal from the Mote planet?"

"From Mote Prime, yes, at least it came from the right place. But we can't see the planet until they turn off the laser, and they won't. They talk and talk, and for what? What can they tell us if we don't speak a common language?"

"After all, Doctor, how can they tell us anything until they teach us their language? I presume that's what they're trying to do now. Isn't anyone working on that?"

Buckman gave a feral snarl. "Horvath has all the instruments feeding information to Hardy and the linguists. Can't get any decent observations of the Coal Sack-and no one's ever been this close to it before!" His look softened. "But we can study the Trojan asteroids."

Buckman's eye took on that look, the focus on infinity. "There are too many of them. And not enough dust. I was wrong, Bury; there's not enough dust to capture so many rocks, or to polish them either. The Modes probably did the polishing, they must be all through those rocks, the neutrino emissions are fantastic. But how did so many rocks get captured?"

"Neutrino emissions. That means a fusion technology."

Buckman smiled. "One of a high order. Thinking of trade possibilities?"

"Of course. Why else would I be here?" And I would be here even if the Navy had not made it clear that the alternative was a formal arrest...but Buckman wouldn't know that. Only Blaine did. "The higher their civilization, the more they'll have to trade," And the harder they'd be to cheat; but Buckmen wouldn't be interested in such things.

Buckman complained, "We could move so much faster if the Navy didn't use our telescopes. And Horvath lets them! Ah, good." Nabil entered, pushing a tray.

Buckman ate like a starved rat. Between mouthfuls he said, "Not that all the Navy's projects are totally without interest. The alien ship-"

"Ship?"

"There's a ship coming to meet us. Didn't you know?"

"No.."

"Well, its point of departure is a large, stony asteroid well outside the main cluster. The point is, it's very light. It must have a very odd shape, unless there are gas bubbles all through the rock, which would mean-"

Bury laughed outright. "Doctor, surely an alien space craft is more interesting than a stony meteorite!"

Buckman looked startled. "Why?"

The slivers turned red, then black. Clearly the things were cooling; but how had they become hot in the first place?

The Engineer had stopped wondering about that when one of the slivers came toward her. There were power sources inside the metal bulks.

And they were self-motivated. What were they? Engineers, or Masters, or senseless machinery? A Mediator on some incomprehensible task? She resented the Mediators, who could so easily and so unreasonably interfere with important work.

Perhaps the slivers were Watchmakers; but more likely they contained a Master. The Engineer considered running, but the approaching bulk was too powerful. It accelerated at 1.14 gravities, nearly the limit of her ship. There was nothing for an Engineer to do but meet it.

Besides... all that metal! In useful form, as far as she could tell. The Clusters were full of metal artifacts, but in alloys too tough to convert.

All that metal.

But it must meet her, not the other way around. She had not the fuel or the acceleration. She worked out turnover points in her head. The other would do the same, of course. Luckily the solution was unique, assuming constant acceleration. There would be no need for communication.

Engineers were not good at communication.

14 The Engineer

The alien ship was a compact bulk, irregular of shape and dull gray in color, like modeling clay molded in cupped hands. Extrusions sprouted at seeming random: a ring of hooks around what Whitbread took for the aft end; a thread of bright silver girdling its waist; transparent bulges fore and aft; antennae in highly imaginative curves; and dead aft, a kind of stinger: a spine many times the length of the hull, very long and straight and narrow.

Whitbread coasted slowly inward. He rode a space-to-space taxi, the cabin a polarized plastic bubble, the short hull studded with "thruster clusters"-arrays of attitude jets. Whitbread had trained for space in such a vehicle. Its field of view was enormous; it was childishly easy to steer; it was cheap, weaponless, and expendable.

And the alien could see him inside. We come in peace, with nothing hidden-assuming its alien eyes could see through clear battle plastic.