The black car pulled up alongside the lander. Hutch thought about standing in the airlock when it opened and letting herself be seen by Shalon and Zyra, both of whom were in the vehicle. But they already knew she was there, and she was disinclined to rattle Derek. So, she waited in her seat.

Meantime, Derek talked with his hosts: “Shalon,” he said, “Zyra, we’ll need to find out whether we can help the Volarians. Our world is very far from theirs. As it is from here. And we have political issues at home. But we’ll wait to hear from you. If your people can help, we’ll do everything we can on our end. And we’ll get back to you and let you know whether we’ll be moving ahead. There’s a chance we won’t be able to get off our world again, so if you don’t hear anything from us within the next year, I guess you can forget it. But I do not think that will happen.”

They all got out of the car, clasped one another’s shoulders, shook hands, and said good-bye.

Hutch opened the airlock and Derek came back on board. Then he surprised her: He brought Shalon and Zyra inside. They smiled as he introduced her. “Hutch is our pilot.”

They obviously enjoyed being in the lander and told her they’d like to fly with her someday.

“I’ll do what I can,” she said, “to make it happen.”

Priscilla’s Journal

So now we know who they were. I’d always thought of the Monument Makers as simply a group of prodigies with too much time on their hands, wandering through the Milky Way leaving evidence of their passage. Except for the Iapetus monument. That one had her eyes locked on Saturn, and you could not miss getting a sense of someone resentful of a universe that was completely neutral regarding the welfare of its creatures.

We saw that again, but in more pronounced terms, in the sword that was left in orbit around the black hole. Though I guess the sword reflected outrage. The iconic figure on Iapetus provides primarily sadness and loss.

—Sunday, August 17, 2256

35.

There is no good way to deliver bad news. In my experience, the best way to handle the issue is to stand aside and allow it to deliver itself.

—Gregory MacAllister, “The Flower Girl Always Steals the Show,” Editor-at-Large, 2223

Shalon’s response arrived minutes after they’d rendezvoused with the Eiferman “We are with you,” he said. “We are here because our mythology informs us that the gods once helped us. That is of course not actually what happened, but it demonstrates the compassion that our earliest thinkers believed in. We will help where we can. As you know, we will need your assistance to manage transportation. If in fact you go ahead with your intentions to move forward, advise us, and we can consult on details.”