The domes were mostly occupied by laboratories, study areas, and living quarters. But it was a bleak, functional environment. In the labs and living areas there was a total lack of personalization: no Virtuals, no artwork, no entertainment consoles, not so much as a graffito. There were tight regulations about that sort of thing on Arches Base—across the Druzite Galaxy, personality was officially frowned on as a distraction from duty—but despite their superficial sameness every bunk in every corridor on every level of a Barracks Ball was subtly different, modified to reflect the personality of its owner. Not here, though; the people who manned this place must have extraordinary discipline.

Not that there were many people here at all, as far as the ensigns could see. Once they glimpsed somebody working in a lab, a place of shining metallic equipment and anonymous white boxes. Overshadowed by immense Virtual schematics of what looked like a DNA molecule, Pirius couldn’t even see if it was a man or woman.

“Not many of us are needed,” Faya Parz said. “There are only twenty-three of us, including Luru Parz. But Luru Parz travels a good deal nowadays.”

Torec shivered. Pirius knew what she was thinking. To a Navy brat, used to the crowds of Barracks Balls, that was a terribly small number, this an awfully remote and isolated place: to think there were no more than twenty-two other humans within billions of kilometers. . . .

“The machines do all the work—even most of the analytical work. Humans are here to direct, to set objectives, to provide the final layer of interpretation.”

Torec said, “Don’t you get lonely? How do you live?”

Faya smiled. You don’t understand. It was a look Pirius had grown used to among the sophisticated population of Earth, but he suspected uneasily that here it might be true.

Faya said, “We have always been an odd lot, I suppose. An ice moon is a small place, short of resources. There were only ever a few of us, even in the great days. We would travel to other moons for trade, cultural exchange, to find partners—we still do. But there was no room to spare; population numbers always had to be controlled tightly. So marriage and children were matters for the community to decide, not for lovers.” Her voice was wistful, and Pirius wondered what ancient tragedies lay hidden beneath these bland words. “You know, in the olden days there were floating cities. There was dancing.”

Oddly, she sounded as if she remembered such times herself—as if she had once danced among these fallen palaces. Faya seemed heavy, static, dark, worn out by time, like a lump of rock from the Moon. It was hard to imagine her ever having been young, ever dancing.

Torec asked, “What do you do here?”

Faya said, “We study dark matter.”

“Why?”

“Because Luru Parz seeks to understand alien tampering with the evolution of Sol system.”

Torec and Pirius dared to share a glance. They’re all mad.