There'd been momentum in that direction before they left home. Carson and his friends might one day return, but it would take a while, and they would be subordinate parts of a much larger operation.
Damn.
Truscott left, and they sat listlessly around the lounge, commiserating with one another, crashed from the emotional high of a half hour before. Hutch stood all she could for fifteen minutes, and got up to go somewhere else. As she did, the commlink chimed, and Sill's image appeared. 'Dr. Carson,' he said, 'would you come up to the bridge, please? Bring your colleagues with you.'
'We have an object in orbit.'
Melanie Truscott, with the captain in tow, steered her five passengers to the main navigation display. It was mostly starfield, with a muted planetary arm across the bottom. One of the stars was extremely bright. 'That one,' she said.
Hutch felt a ripple of exhilaration. 'What kind of object?'
The captain answered. 'We don't know. You're looking at mag five. But it isn't a natural satellite. Its RI is way too high for its range.'
'An RI is a reflectivity index,' said Truscott. 'It's big.
Bigger than our station at Quraqua.'
Hutch and Carson silently shook hands.
'John.' Truscott was addressing the captain. 'Are we prepared to make a quick exit if we have to?'
'Yes, Director.' He motioned to one of his crewmen, a quick jab with his index finger, and the crewman spoke into a mike. Hutch suspected they were warning all passengers to tie down.
'Is there any indication of onboard power?' asked Hutch.
'Negative.' Morris bent over one of the consoles. 'Nothing.' He looked sternly at Truscott. 'Melanie, we have a ship full of people. I think we should leave the area.'
The bridge was immense by Hutch's standards. There were four officers on duty, not counting the captain. One, a young woman seated at the navigation console, touched his shoulder and directed his attention to a display. 'We've got lights down on the surface,' she said. 'Low power. Very low. Probably not electrical.'
'Reflections?' asked Truscott.
'Possibly,' she said.
Truscott turned to Carson. 'Someone's made your point for you, Frank. What do you want to look at first?'
When had Hutch ever seen Carson look more pleased? 'The orbiter,' he said.
'Very good.' She folded her arms. 'I believe we are about to commit history.'
They pursued the white star down the curve of the world.
It took a hauntingly familiar form on the scopes: a double-ring rotating wheel, not unlike the home station, or Kosmik's orbiter at Quraqua. The architectural style was less utilitarian. This orbiter possessed a degree of elegance and panache, of blurred lines and eclectic curves. It looked fully capable of harboring winding staircases and secret rooms. It was a station with a gothic flavor, maybe the kind of station Poe would have designed.
Windows were everywhere. But they were dark.
Hutch loved it. She watched it drift closer, felt a cool stirring within her, a chill that was simultaneously pleasurable and disquieting.
'Negative EMR,' said one of the officers. 'It's tumbling.' And, moments later: 'Wheels not rotating.'
Pity, thought Hutch. We're too late again.
She knew Carson well enough to read his discouragement. There was no denying the signs: the Bowls in disrepair, no lights on the surface, a collapsed bridge, and a dead orbiter. The Monument-Makers were gone.
'We'll want to board,' said Truscott.
Carson nodded Yes, as if he had anticipated a struggle.
The captain's features hardened. 'I advise against it, Director.'
There was something wrong about it. More than its strangeness, because strangeness was at the heart of the thing, designed into it, underscored by all those unlighted windows. Something else was wrong.
'I understand, John. But we can't really sail away and just leave this.' Truscott's face glowed with excitement. 'And I wouldn't miss it for anything.' She looked at Carson. 'I assume you would like to come?'
Hutch saw a shade of disapproval cross Carson's features. In view of the long history of accidental damage caused to artifacts by untrained personnel, he would have preferred to limit the landing party to the Academy group. But he was prudent enough to hold his tongue. 'Of course,' he said.
'Any others from your team?'
'I expect,' said Carson, 'everybody.'
'Very good. We can manage it.' She turned to Sill. 'How about you, Harvey?'
'If you're going.'
She swung back to Morris. 'Seven for the shuttle, Captain.'
Hutch went to her compartment to change. She was still uneasy. There was something that shouldn't be there. Or something missing. It was at the edge of vision, a memory that one can't quite grasp.
She switched on her monitor. The orbiter was coming into sunlight. Its twin wheels would once have rotated counter to each other. Now the entire artifact simply rolled slowly over as she watched.
What might its design reveal about its builders? It was the sort of question Richard would have asked. What do the esthetics tell us? There were symbols on the hull, black, angled strokes and tapered loops. Two groups of characters, she thought. Two words. What had they been?
Details appeared: blisters and antennas and connecting coils and hatches and maintenance pods (at least she assumed that was what the teardrop bulges above and below the rim, distributed at equal intervals, had to be) and loading bays and equipment whose purpose would have to await closer inspection.
A long cable trailed behind the thing. And hatches were open.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared hard at the object, trying to imagine how it might have been when it was active, and exotic ships circled it. And the antennas received signals from the Great Array.
How long ago?
She got up, padded across the floor, and into the washroom. She started the flow of water in the shower, adjusted the temperature of the stream, and stepped in. It was cool and brought a sting of pleasure.
Gravity was generated on all starships the same way: by rotating the living spaces, whether they were located within a permanent hull, as was the case on Perth, or within the ring-shaped modules of the Winckelmann. Consequently, the shower stream bent slightly counter to the direction of spin. Not enough to be noticeable, but the same crosswise pressure sent the water swirling across her toes and down a drain located at the side of the stall. Hutch enjoyed the sensation; it was one of the many effects of shifting gravities that she relished, that lent her wings and granted a sense of freedom from terrestrial shackles.
And today, while she closed her eyes and let the cool spray wash over her, it occurred to her that the space station had also been designed to spin. To create the same effects.
And that was what was wrong.
She finished quickly, dried off, slipped into a Wink work uniform, and hurried up to the Academy observation lounge. Carson was still there, and Maggie. The others had gone, presumably to prepare for the boarding.
'Everything okay?' Carson asked as she burst into the room.
'Why was it built to rotate?' she demanded.
'Why was what built to rotate?'
'The space station, damn it.'
Maggie stared at her, astonished at the question.
'Why is it so much like our stations, Frank? The Monument-Makers are supposed to have had anti-gravity. So we always assumed they had artificial gravity as well. But then why build rotating wheels?'
'Maybe we were wrong,' said Maggie. 'Either we still haven't found the Monument-Makers, or—'
Frank finished her statement. ' — this was built before the Monument-Makers came to lapetus.'
'That,' said Maggie, 'would mean this thing's been up here more than twenty thousand years. I don't think that's possible.'
Carson did not want to talk about more complications. 'Maybe it's a Monument from their early days. So they kept it in place. Let's not worry about it now.'
