“Sometimes,” Derek said, “I think technological advances are actually a step back.” She hadn’t been aware he had followed her in.

•  •  •

When they surfaced, nothing substantive had changed. They looked out at essentially the same scattered stars that had occupied the sky a few hours earlier. Hutch had hoped to see a sun, which would have been Calliope. It wasn’t there. There was nothing in front of them that stood out. A couple of the stars could have been perceived as first magnitude, but both were off to port. And a cloud of stars was visible on the starboard side.

“I do not see it,” said Barry.

“We might simply have gotten the estimates wrong,” Hutch said. “Check the spectrums of the bright ones.”

“Will do that shortly, Captain. I should inform you, however, that the locations of the marker stars that I’ve had time to examine are precisely correct. We should be within about three billion kilometers of the Calliope system. There is nothing within that range in any direction.”

A few minutes later he was back with readings on the two bright stars: Neither was a match. In fact, both were among the marker stars.

“So, where is it?” asked Derek.

“I have no explanation, sir.”

•  •  •

A few minutes later Barry was back. “Captain, I’ve checked out almost the entire list of markers. It should be here. In plain sight.”

Derek was seriously annoyed. “How about that cloud to our right?”

“It can’t be. The markers would not line up.”

“When will you be finished checking them?”

“In a couple of minutes. So far they’re exactly where they should be if Calliope were a short distance in front of us.”

Beth appeared in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s missing,” Derek said.

Beth frowned. “What’s missing? The star?”

“Yes,” said Barry. “Calliope is nowhere visible. And let me correct myself about the markers. One of them is out of position. That shouldn’t be, either.”

“Maybe,” said Derek, “if we maneuver into the area where everything lines up, we’ll be able to find it.” There was a note of annoyance in his voice.

“We can’t do better than this, Derek. There is nowhere we can move which will not cause disruption among the markers.”

“Which one is out of line?”

“Number nine on the list.” He put a section of the local stars on the display and circled one. Then he placed a golden star beside it. “The deviation is not extreme, but it’s considerably more than can be explained.”

“Well,” said Derek, “I have to admit I’ve always loved a good mystery. But I’m not sure about this one.”

“It sounds as if the original data was incorrect,” said Beth.

“Yeah.” Derek shook his head. “It’s possible. Hutch, how many markers did we have?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Barry?”

“Yes, sir?”