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Chapter 6

SURPRISINGLY, IT WAS the quietest, most unobtrusive group Hutch had ever transported anywhere. George spent most of his time in the common room, poring over securities and financial reports. “Tracking trends,” he explained to Hutch, warming quickly to his subject. “It’s where the money is.”

Alyx was laying out plans for a new production, which she said would be launched next fall. The tentative title was Take Off Your Clothes And Run. Hutch couldn’t decide whether she was serious. She and Hutch took turns providing a fourth with Herman, Pete, and Bill in an ongoing game of bridge.

Occasionally they partied. Bill provided music, and they did sing-alongs, although Hutch felt a bit inadequate matching her voice with Alyx’s lovely contralto. “You sound fine, Hutch,” Alyx said. “I believe you could go professional if you wanted.”

Hutch knew better.

“I’m serious. All you’d need is a little training. And, of course, you’d have to let go of your inhibitions.”

“What inhibitions?”

That brought a mild gasp. “Oh, my dear, you have a cartload of them.”

Alyx and Herman adhered to a strenuous workout program. Hutch was always careful to spend time in the gym during a flight, but she was far more casual about it.

They watched a lot of sims. Their tastes varied, but they set up each evening and everybody piled into the tank for the night’s thriller, or romance, or whatever. They took turns playing leads and bit parts. Herman enjoyed being Al Trent, Jason Cordman’s celebrated detective; George showed up one memorable evening as Julius Caesar; and Hutch accepted a challenge and allowed herself to portray the masked twenty-first-century superhero Vengada. Even Alyx entered the fray with good humor, plugging herself in as Cleopatra to George’s Caesar, and later as Delilah to Herman’s Samson. (They’d both been unlikely candidates for the roles, Herman because he just couldn’t mount the intensity—nobody believed he could be persuaded to pull a temple down on himself; and Alyx because she couldn’t submerge her good humor.)

Herman, of course, never lost his infatuation with Alyx. He tried to hide it, but his voice always rose an octave or two when she walked into the room. One of the problems with the compact communities formed by interstellar travel is that nothing can be hidden. People are too close, and their emotions too transparent.

Hutch got a lot of reading done. And she spent an increasing amount of time with George. He had all sorts of documentary evidence to support the notion that there had been a series of alien forays through terrestrial history. He produced pictures of carvings and ancient literary references and sightings that were hard to dispute. Yet lifelong opinions are hard to overcome. The notion that there’d been visitors, even though she knew of at least two races that had, in ancient times, achieved interstellar travel, still seemed absurd. But she listened, caught up in the warmth of his enthusiasm.

They were in fact all believers, even Pete, and she began to root for them, to hope the mission would produce success.

The Memphis was about six weeks out when it stopped at Outpost to collect the final two passengers.

NICK CARMENTINE HAD started his UFO career as a rabid fan of occult tales. He loved rampaging mummies, vampires, demons, spectral creatures that floated through not-quite-empty houses, and disembodied voices carried by the night wind. He started with Poe and Lovecraft and read through to Massengale and DiLillo. He was thoroughly chilled by the dark of the moon, the unquiet grave, the terrible secret in the attic. That was where he lived, and although in later years his interests moved well beyond the genre, he never really left it behind.

He tried to. It was a dangerous passion for a funeral director. Had his bloodthirsty tastes gotten generally about, his clients would have deserted him. And that’s why he switched over to UFOs, which also embodied a healthy sense of the mysterious, without all the trappings that could destroy his reputation.

In time, the hunt for night visitors from other worlds overtook the vampires, and eventually he joined the Contact Society.

His father had been a funeral director, had done well, and had retired early, leaving the business to Nick. Nick was an entrepreneur at heart, and quite soon the Sunrise Funeral Home in downtown Hartford had become Sunrise Enterprises, Inc. While his chain of establishments continued to conduct ordinary services, they specialized in the custom funeral. If someone wanted his ashes put in orbit, or distributed around second base at some lonely country ballpark, or deposited in a remote lagoon in Micronesia, Sunrise was the organization to do the job. They arranged transportation for mourners, provided refreshments, counselors, support. They could arrange for clergy or, when the nonreligious were passing (no one ever “died”), recommend appropriate closing remarks and ceremonies.

His only child Lyra shared his taste for the exotic, although she tended to discount the notion of ambassadors from other civilizations. Nevertheless, she had won her father’s heart by becoming an exoarcheologist.

Nick had never been off-world, which is to say, he’d never gotten beyond Earth orbit, until Lyra was posted to Pinnacle, where she was poking among the million-year-old ruins of that ancient world. On a whim, Nick had spent a small fortune to go out and visit her. They’d strolled together among the upended columns and collapsed roofs of the ancient sites, and she’d taken him to see some of the reconstructed public buildings. (“We had to do some guesswork here, Dad.”) They were beautifully rendered structures, every bit the artistic equal of the Temple of Athena.

They’d watched a virtual alien religious service, and he’d gotten a sense of what it must have been like on Pinnacle when the first humans were just showing up around their campfires.

He spent a month there. Lyra showed him pottery estimated at eight hundred thousand standard years old. “Glaze it,” she explained, “and it lasts forever.”

He looked at the progress they’d made with translation, which was extensive when one considered the few samples they had to work with. And there’d been ancient roadways and harbors, invisible now save to the instruments. “Right here,” she’d said, while they stood in the middle of a desert that ran absolutely flat in all directions clear to the horizon, “right here the crossroads met between the two most powerful empires of the Third Komainic.” There had been a wayfarer’s station, and a river, and possibly a landing pad.

“What were their names?” he’d asked. “The empires?”

She didn’t know. No one knew.

It was only a few hours later that the message came from Hockelmann. THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE THIS MAY BE IT, it concluded. MEET US AT THE OUTPOST.

Sure. Meet me at Larry’s.

OUTPOST WAS A service and supply center on the edge of human expansion. It was located just beyond the rings at Salivar’s Hatch, which was about a billion kilometers out from a class-B blue-white star. Hutch wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting in her funeral-director passenger, probably someone somber and methodical. Nick was about average size, loose-limbed, with black hair, amiable gray eyes, and a guileless smile. Not the sort of man she pictured wandering about the funeral home reassuring friends and relatives. George had hurried off the ship and hugged him when he appeared at the foot of the ramp. He brought him back like a long-lost cousin. “Hutch,” he said, “this is Nick. He will never let you down.” He chuckled at his joke, while Nick sighed.

They shook hands, made small talk, and then Hutch asked about Tor, the sixth passenger.

“He’s out on 21,” said Nick, looking surprised. “They didn’t tell you?”

“No,” she said. “What’s 21?”

“One of the moons. He was supposed to come in this week to be ready, but he’s in the middle of something and, well”—looking at George—“you know how he is.”

George apparently knew, and he glanced over at Hutch as if she should have foreseen something like this would happen. Everybody knows how Tor is.

Hutch sighed. She’d known a Tor once. “Bill?” she said.

“It’s coming in now,” said Bill. “Going out to 21, departure time looks like a little over seventeen hours.”

“Seventeen hours?” said Hutch. She turned toward George. “I’m going to strangle this guy.”

“He wouldn’t have known it would take so long,” said George. “If he’d known, he would have been here. He’s an artist.”

He said that as if it explained everything. It was funny though, her Tor had been an artist, too. Not a good one. At least not a successful one. But they weren’t the same guy. This was Tor Kirby. The one she’d known was Tor Vinderwahl. Not even close.

“Okay, folks,” she said. “We won’t be leaving until about 3:00 A.M. This is a good time to tour the station.”

TOR KIRBY’S BACKGROUND was unclear. Hutch’s data package stipulated only that he was an heir to the Happy Plumber fortune. What he might be doing at Outpost was left unstated. Did they really bring in a plumber from the NAU to keep the water flowing?

The gas giant that was home to Outpost was the sole world in the system moving within a relatively stable orbit. Everything else had been scattered, planets ejected, moons hurled across vast distances. The station had begun as a mission trying to learn what had happened, why everything else had gone south while the big planet had retained its rings and a large family of satellites. Theory held that there’d been a close encounter with another star some twenty thousand years earlier. But finding the candidate had proved more difficult than expected. Nick arranged a simulation of the event for George and his team. The experts thought they had it all down: what the alignment had looked like at the time of passage, how long the event had taken (three years), where the intruder had been. Four of the worlds had been ejected altogether, but they’d been found, drifting through the interstellar void, exactly where they were supposed to be. The others were rattling around the sun. The Hatch had survived intact because it was on the far side of the sun during the height of the action. Their inability to find the other body led to the suspicion that it had actually been a neutron star or possibly even a black hole.

Hutch had seen the demonstration before, and was about to duck out when her commlink vibrated. “Captain Hutchins?” A woman’s voice. “Dr. Mogambo wishes you to stop by his office if you’ve a moment.”

She was surprised to hear that Mogambo was at Outpost.

“He’s directing the geometric group,” the voice explained. Not that she understood what it meant.

Hutch went up to the main deck and turned into the admin area. “Second door on the right,” said the voice. Its owner was waiting for her when she entered. Olive-skinned, dark-haired, wide liquid eyes. Arab blood dominant, thought Hutch.

“This way please.” She rose from her desk and opened an inner door. Mogambo, seated in a padded armchair, signaled a welcome and switched off the wall lights, leaving the room lit only by a small desk lamp.

Maurice Mogambo was a two-time Nobel winner, both prizes stemming from his work on space-time architecture and vacuum energy. Hutch had been a virtual private pilot for him at one point in her career.

He was extraordinarily tall. Taller even than George. Hutch looked up at him, and said hello to his signature ribbon tie. He wore a close-cropped beard, unusual in a close-shaven age. His skin was bright ebony. He had an athlete’s body and a violinist’s long fingers. Hutch recalled the intense daily workouts and his passion for chess.

The smile lasted while he indicated the chair she should take. She eased herself into it, waiting for him to switch the congeniality off. Mogambo saw the world as his own personal playing field. He was brilliant, and generous, and could charm when he wanted to. But she had seen his ruthless side, had seen him ruin jobs and careers when people had failed to meet his expectations. Does not tolerate fools, one of his colleagues had once remarked to her, meaning it as a compliment. But she had eventually concluded that he defined fool as anyone lacking his own brilliance.

“It’s good to see you again, Hutch.” He filled two glasses, came around the front of the desk, and passed one to her. It was nonalcoholic, lemon and lime with a dash of ginger.

“And you, Professor. It’s been a long time.” Almost eight years. But she hadn’t missed his company. “I didn’t know you were here.”

They exchanged pleasantries. He’d been on Outpost for two months, he explained. They were sending missions into several areas dominated by ultradense objects, where measurements of time and space were being taken. “It appears,” he said, “that the physical characteristics of space are not uniform.” He made the remark with his eyes closed, speaking perhaps to himself. “It’s not at all what we’d expected.” The smile faded.

Hutch knew quite well that Mogambo hadn’t invited her up to discuss physics. But she played his game, asked a few questions about the research, pretended she understood the answers, and explained that yes, the Deepsix venture had been unnerving, that she’d been scared half out of her mind for the entire ten days, and that she’d never go near anything like that again.

Finally, he changed pace, refilled her glass, and remarked, a little too offhandedly, that he understood she was going out to 1107.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“To determine whether there’s anything to the Benjamin Martin transmissions.”

“Yes.”

He placed his elbows on the desk, pressed his fingertips together, and leaned forward, not unlike a large hawk. “Eleven-oh-seven,” he said.

She waited.

“What do you think, Hutch?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “If there was something out there when the Benny passed through, I doubt it’s there now.” She suspected he knew about the recent reception, but he wouldn’t know whether she’d been informed or not. And she had no intention of telling him anything she didn’t have to.

He studied her for a long moment. “My thought exactly.” His brow wrinkled. She thought he was going to say something else, but he apparently thought better of it and settled for toying with his glass.

Hutch looked around the office. There was some cheap electronic art on the walls, images of gardens and country roads. As the silence dragged out she leaned forward. “Are you thinking about going out there to take a look? We’d be happy to have you on board.” Actually, she wouldn’t. And she knew he’d not accept. So it was safe to make the offer.

“With the Contact Society?” He grinned at her. You may have to travel with them, but I have more important things to do. “No. Actually, I’m quite busy.” He showed her a row of strong white teeth. “It’s a fanatic’s enterprise, Hutch. But not one without possibility.”

She knew exactly where he was headed, but she was not going to help. “One never knows,” she said.

Something rumbled deep in his throat. “I would like you to do me a favor.”

“If I’m able.”

“Let me know if you actually find anything out there. I’ll be here for a couple of weeks.”

It was obvious how that would play out. Yes, we’ve got an alien transmitter! Mogambo would gallop onto the scene and grab all the credit. George would never know what hit him. “I’m not sure I can do that, Professor.”

He looked hurt. “Hutch, why not?”

“The contract stipulates that Mr. Hockelmann controls the reporting.” That wasn’t strictly true, but it might have been. “I can’t do what you ask, as much as I’d like to.”

“Hutch, this means a great deal to me. Listen, the truth is, I’d be there with you if I could. But it’s just not possible. I’m loaded up with work here. I can’t just go running off. You understand. What’s it take to get out there from here? A week?”

“More or less.”

He gave her a pained expression. “I just can’t manage it.” He touched a control, and the lamp brightened. Its light filled the room. “I need this, Hutch. I’d consider it a personal favor, and I’d appreciate it if you could find a way.” She started to reply, but he held up a hand. “Do this for me, and I’ll see that you’re rewarded. I have contacts. I’m sure you don’t want to spend the rest of your life running back and forth between Sol and the Outpost.”

She rose quietly and put her glass, half-empty, on the edge of his desk. “I’ll pass your request on, Professor. I’m sure George will want to comply with your wishes.”

TOR KNEW SHE was coming.

He’d spent a few evenings with Hutch four years ago. A couple of shows, a couple of dinners, drinks at Cassidy’s one night overlooking the Potomac and the Mall. A walk along the river. A Saturday afternoon horseback ride through Rock Creek Park. And then, on a Wednesday evening in late November, she’d told him she wouldn’t be seeing him anymore, she was sorry, hoped it wasn’t a problem for him, but she’d be on her way out again to someplace he couldn’t pronounce, that idiot world where the Noks were killing one another in large numbers, fighting a war that apparently went on forever. “I just don’t get back to Arlington very often, Tor,” she’d said, by way of explanation.

He had known it was coming. Didn’t know how, something in her manner all along had told him that it was all temporary, that the day would come when he’d revisit the same places alone. He didn’t tell her any of that, of course, didn’t know how, feared it would only push her farther away. So he’d called for the bill, paid up, told her he was sorry it had ended as it had, and walked off. Left her sitting there.

He was Tor Vinderwahl then, the name he’d been born with, the name he’d changed at the suggestion of the director of the Georgetown Art Exhibit. Vinderwahl sounds made up, he’d said. And it’s hard to remember. Not a good idea if you want to go commercial.

He hadn’t seen her since. But he hadn’t forgotten her.

He’d started any number of times to send her a message. Hutch, I’m still here. Or, Hutch, when you get back, why don’t we give it another try? Or Hutch, Priscilla, I love you.” He recorded message after message but never hit the transmit button. He’d gone up to the Wheel a few times when he knew she was due in. Twice he’d seen her, beautiful beyond reason, and his heart had begun pumping and his throat clogged so he knew he wouldn’t be able to speak to her but would just stand there looking silly, saying wasn’t it a big surprise running into each other like this.

It was a ridiculous way for a grown man to behave. The adult thing to do would have been to seek her out and talk to her, give her a chance to change her mind. Women did that all the time. Besides, he was successful, his work had begun to sell, and that had to count for something.

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.

“Message,” said Bill.

She nodded, and he put it through. Audio only. “I’m almost ready,” a male voice said. It was, she thought, familiar.

“Am I speaking to Tor Kirby?” she asked.

“Yes, you are.”

She was sure she knew him. “Bill,” she said, “open the passenger packet. Let’s see if we can find a picture of this guy.”

“Coming up.”

An image blinked on. It was Vinderwahl!

She stared at it, puzzled. Why the name change? “Tor, this is Hutch.”

“Who?”

“Hutch.”

Pause. “Priscilla Hutchins? Is that really you?”

Still no visual. “Who’s Tor Kirby?”

“I am.”

“What happened to your last name? What are you doing out here?” The last time she’d seen him, he’d been working part-time as a greeter in an electronics depot. And trying to paint.

“I changed it.”

“Your name? Why?”

“Let’s talk about it when I get into the ship, okay? I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“You need help?”

“I can manage.” She heard him moving around, heard the click of a notebook snapping shut, heard the creak of fabric, presumably his pack. And finally she heard the gentle hiss of a Flickinger field forming as he activated his e-suit. The lights went off in the dome, the door opened, and he came out onto the surface. He looked up at her and waved.

Well, who would’ve thought? She’d said good-bye to him several years before and he’d shocked her by nodding, saying he was sorry she felt that way. And he’d simply withdrawn from her life. Gives up too easily, that one.

It had hurt her pride at the time, but it was just as well. Now, of course, here he was again.

She waved back. He was wearing a gray shirt with a dragon on the front, khaki shorts, and tennis shoes. He hadn’t changed.

Tor had been cautious around her to the degree she hadn’t been sure about his feelings. When, one snowy night at the Carlyle Restaurant on the Potomac (odd how she remembered the detail), she’d concluded he was in love with her, realized it was so in spite of all his efforts to hide it, it had frightened her away. Gotta go. Starhopping. Catching the next freight off the Wheel.

Now here he was. Tor Vinderwahl. Her Tor.

“Take us closer, Bill,” she said. “Put the cargo airlock on the ground.”

He was moving his equipment and his air and water tanks out of the pocket dome when the lander touched down. She activated her own suit and went outside with mixed feelings.

He looked good. He smiled at her uncertainly, and it was like the years collapsed and the giant rings overhead were swept away and they were back along the Potomac again. “It’s good to see you, Hutch,” he said. “Been a long time.” His eyes were blue, and his black hair tumbled down over his forehead. He wore it longer than she remembered.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Tor,” she said. “It’s a pleasant surprise.” Actually, something had changed, in his demeanor, in his eyes, something. She saw it in the way he approached her, hauling gear in both hands, his gaze moving between her and the lander.

She expected to be embraced. Instead he gave her a quick squeeze and kissed her cheek. The Flickinger field flashed when his lips touched it. “I didn’t expect to see you out here,” he said.

“Why the name change, Tor?”

“Who’d buy artwork from somebody named Vinderwahl?”

“I would,” she said.

He grinned. “That makes one.” She saw an easel among the equipment.

He followed her eyes to it. “It’s why I’m here,” he said. He pulled out a long tube, opened it, and extracted a canvas. Then he unrolled it and held it up for her to see. He had caught the gas giant in its glory, suspended above the moonscape. The sky was filled with rings, and a couple of satellites, both at third quarter, floated in the night sky. Silhouetted against the banded planet, she saw a superluminal.

“Lovely,” she said. He’d come a long way from the sterile landscapes he’d shown her back in Arlington.

“You like it?”

“Oh, yes, Tor. But how’d you make it work?” She looked around at the airless rock. “Did you do this from inside?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I set up right over there.” He showed her. Near a boulder that might have served as an armrest, or even a place to sit.

“Doesn’t everything freeze up?”

“The canvas is high—rag content. The pastels are reformulated. They use less volatile binders.” He smiled at his work, obviously pleased with himself, and put it away. “It works quite well, really.”

“But why?”

“Are you serious?”

“Sure. It must cost a fortune to come all the way out here. And to paint a picture?”

“Money’s no object, Hutch. Not anymore. Do you have any idea how much this will be worth when we get back?”

“None.”

He nodded as if the amount were beyond calculation. “Hard to believe that we’d meet in a place like this.” He sat down, wrapped his arms around his knees, and looked up at her. “You’re lovely as ever, Hutch.”

“Thanks. And congratulations, Tor. I’m happy for you.”

Tor looked quite dashing in the glow of the rings. He pulled a remote from a vest pocket, aimed it at the dome, and keyed it. The dome sagged, collapsed, and dwindled to a pack. They picked it up, along with the air and water tanks, and carried everything to the lander.

George and the others were waiting. They all shook hands, poured drinks, laughed, exclaimed how surprised they were that he and Hutch knew each other, said how glad they were to see him again, and talked about how they were going after the biggest prize of all.

They asked to see what he’d been doing and he showed them and they ooohed and ahhhed. What was he going to call it, Alyx asked with excitement.

It was a question Hutch should have put to him.

“Night Passage,” he said.