“You’ll have to live with it for now. Yours is only the first line in, and we’ve had to hurry just to get this far, so you’ll find these cables a little crude. There’s only so much information we can cram through them, you know. If you insist, I can improve your system, but I’d rather spend the time getting everyone else on-line. Do I have your approval?”

Isak had no objections. He just waved Bishop on and said, “Good-bye,” which signaled the computer to “hang up” the phone.

Sargenti was leaning forward in her seat, obviously impatient. “So,” she said, “what was the final verdict?”

“On what?”

“Which sex has it better?”

“Oh, that.” Isak let out a loud laugh. “You may not like the implication. I’m sure I don’t. Means she became a neuter, eventually, and stayed, that way.”

Sargenti looked at him in frank astonishment. A slow smile spread across her face.

“Back to more important business,” Isak said, and Sargenti’s smile was suddenly gone. “We must have an ultrasensitive gamma ray telescope—as good as the one they built on Miranda.” His mind struck the word “they,” which included Steven. “We need that telescope,” he said after a moment, “if that’s possible—so we can watch our Intruders’ movements anywhere in the solar system. Can we make one, and how soon?”

“I’ve already had Bishop work that out. He says that if we use every available robot, it should take about two weeks to build a sensitive detector array.”

“Get it started,” Isak said, noticing something awkward in the way she looked at him.

“I did—early today. The workforce is already proliferating toward the needed numbers.”

“With better eyes, we might even hope to intercept some of the Intruders’ communications. Not that we’ll be able to understand what they’re saying.”

“I can’t believe,” Sargenti said, looking even more uneasy in his gaze, “that they managed to overlook us before we cut down our neutrino glow.” She grimaced. “If they record their scans, then they can go back and find us at any moment!”

“If they go back and look.”

“We all know,” she said, “that these creatures are far from stupid. We must expect them to review their scan records at autointervals. That may be the only time we have left! Once they find us in the recorded data, and see our blackout, what can we do?”

“Nothing. Let’s hope they just missed us somehow. That would tell us something nice about them—that they’re not infallible.”

“It’s plain that they hit all the obvious targets first,” she said. “I think they’ll get around to the lesser ones later. Even if we don’t broadcast our presence, our unnatural rotation may give them a clue.”

Isak pushed his chair back from the table and swung around to look out over the railing. Sargenti seemed to linger behind him, then left, and he was alone in the night with his fears for what little remained of humanity. The fact was dead weight in everyone he talked to, and growing heavier day by day.