“That’s why we have simulations.”

“Not the same,” she said. “It’s not like being there.” She shook her head. “Even when you are, you’re pretty much locked out. Take the star, for example.” She meant 1107, the neutron star they were orbiting. “We’re out here, but we can’t get close enough to see it.”

Langley pointed to its image on the displays.

“I mean really see it,” she continued. “Cruise over its surface. Bounce some lights off it.”

“Go for a walk on it.”

“Yes!” Ava’s enthusiasm bubbled to the surface. She was wearing green shorts and a white pullover that read University of Ohio. “We’ve got antigravity. All we need’s a better generator.”

“A lot better.”

The Ahab image customarily used by the ship’s artificial intelligence appeared on-screen. Like all AI’s in Academy vessels, he answered to Bill.

The grim steely eyes and the muttonchop whiskers and the windblown black corduroy pullover were too familiar to elicit notice from Langley. But his passengers always went to alert when he appeared. Had Bill been a self-aware entity, which his creators claimed he was not, Langley would have thought he was enjoying himself at their expense.

“Captain,” he said. “We are encountering a curious phenomenon.”

That was an unusual comment. Usually Bill just dumped information without editorializing. “What is it, Bill?”

“It’s gone now. But there was an artificial radio transmission.”

“A transmission?”

“Yes. At 8.4 gigahertz.”

“What did it say? Who’s it from?”

The sea-swept eyes drew together. “I can’t answer either question, Captain. It’s not any language or system with which I am familiar.”

Langley and Ava exchanged glances. They were a long way from home. Nobody else was out here.

“The signal was directed,” Bill added.