“Barry’s been doing that automatically, hasn’t he, Priscilla?”

“Yes. And if he’d seen anything, we would know about it. But our view of the local area is limited. If we really want to do a serious survey, we should make some position adjustments.”

“Okay,” said Derek. “Let’s do it. If we don’t find anything, and I suspect we won’t, we’ll leave tomorrow.”

•  •  •

It came in the middle of the night again. “Captain Hutchins, are you awake?”

“Barry.” She’d been dreaming that she was on a beach, just headed into the surf. And the voice had come out of the waves. “You found something else?”

“It appears to be a ship.”

“Onscreen, please.”

It looked more like a box, twice as long as it was wide. “I can detect no power. It is apparently adrift.”

“How big is it?”

“It’s too distant to determine.”

“Okay. Stay with it. We’ll track it down in the morning.” She pulled the sheet up around her shoulders and tried to go back to the beach. But it wasn’t going to happen.

•  •  •

“It is approximately nine kilometers front to rear.”

It was a ship. An enormous box with rounded edges. Several lines of hatches were located along a perfectly smooth black hull. The object was tumbling slowly end over end as they approached.

It was probably two kilometers wide. The rectangular shape didn’t seem right either. Not that you couldn’t design an interstellar that looked like a carton, but it just didn’t fit her preconceptions of what a space vehicle should look like. In addition, Hutch could not make out any sign of thrusters. “Are we getting any activity from it, Barry?”

“Negative, Captain. No indication of onboard power.” There was a series of hatches on each side. She counted forty-four altogether. What kind of space vehicle needs forty-four hatches?

“Derek, do you want to try to contact them?”

“If there’s no indication of power, why bother?”

“We don’t know what a sufficiently advanced technology might look like. They could be in there, just not putting out a signal.”

“Priscilla, how could that be possible? Look at that thing!” They watched it tumble past. “If there’s a crew, I suspect they’re pretty sick.”

“I guess.” She was mildly embarrassed, but she’d seen too much over the years to trust her assumptions. “Barry,” she said, “open a channel.”

Derek showed a tolerant smile.

“Ready, Captain,” said Barry.

Hutch activated her mike. “This is the Barry Eiferman,” she said. “Anybody over there?”

The receiver stayed quiet.

Derek leaned toward the microphone. “Barry, what are the radiation levels like?”

“Relatively low. The black hole is quite distant. But if you’re thinking of sending a team over to look at it, I would nevertheless recommend you not use the Flickinger field.”

“Okay.” He sat back in his chair. “Let’s get the pressure suits and go knock on the door.”

•  •  •