“Oh?” She frowned, snorted. “So I blundered in—”

“You did. To your credit.”

“And failed.” She bowed her head, mind buzzing.

“And learned. My own diagnosis is that the Osiris is mentally deranged.”

“A mad Message Mind?”

“There can be such. Code can be damaged in the long electromagnetic voyage from distant stars. Plus, it can fester, once rendered live.”

She had sniffed out such rumors. “Crazy alien minds…”

“Some such we had to erase. Of course, madness is a human diagnosis. This may be simply how an alien intelligence operates.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Few do. We do not advertise failure. Or”—a shrug that said much—“success, either. Yours, of course, has changed the entire human prospect. The wall, the Symphony…”

“I, uh…”

“We have sheltered you from the prizes and such that Earthside wishes to burden you with. I protected, saying your ability would be cramped by such attentions.”

“Uh…” She stopped, realizing that making dumb noise was unseemly and stupid. “I—”

“You miss my point. It is simple. Do. Not. Quit.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

“Report tomorrow. For another hard task.”

“I get another?”

A thin, sly smile. She was getting irked by them. “Because of who you are. You are unschooled, at times, yet have vast vigor. You. Do. Not. Quit.”

“Ah. Not quit… what?”

“We need a fresh mind to consider our many flyby missions, sent to exoplanets over the last several centuries.”

“I’d have to bone up on it. Play catch-up.”

He said slowly, “If you have enough talent, as you do, you can get by after a fashion without guts. If you have enough guts, you can also get by, after a fashion again, without talent. But you certainly can’t get by without either. You, Rachel, have both.”

“Well, thanks, but—”

“That is why I have sheltered you from the mere”—he sniffed in disdain—“Earthside ‘entertainment engineers’ who wish to distract you with their praise. We need your intuitions, more than ever.”

“Than ever? Exoplanet studies, telescopes, even flybys—that’s been done to death, plenty of—”

“In the light of new data. New facts now on the ground. Soon, literally.”

“How can there be—”

“Witness.” He swept a hand with a twist, and a 3-D image shimmered in the air. A bright spark in darkness. “This is a fusion burn our Astros have been tracking from five astronomical units away—out around Jupiter’s distance, but not near the planet. So this is, they tell me, a deceleration at enormous energies. Our astronomers spotted this over a year ago.”

“A starship.”

“In a way. If it is from a star, it has decelerated vastly and now nears Earth orbit.”

She could think of nothing more than wow. So said nothing. Still—wow.

“It has sent messages in nicely proper Anglish.”

“Really?” Her astonishment kept her quiet.

“Our Astros can make no good guess about what star it may have come from. Interstellar voyaging takes centuries at reasonable speeds, so the possible origin takes in a large sector of the sky.”

“What does this craft say? I mean, it’s a robot, right? Sending living beings so far seems incredible. Unless it’s a generation ship. What’s the size?”