There’d been ruins in a few other places. But that was it. Langley had personally seen upward of a thousand terrestrial worlds, and there weren’t thirty that supported any kind of life whatever. And two-thirds of those were single-celled.

No. Whatever Bill had intercepted, or thought he’d intercepted, the explanation would not include a vessel crewed by something from another world. But it was easy enough to understand the excitement of his passengers.

“What do you suggest, Captain?” asked Pete after a long hesitation. “Can you run a diagnostic to determine whether the intercept is valid?”

“We’ve done that. Bill doesn’t see a problem anywhere.” But of course if Bill himself were the problem—

“All right. What else can we try?”

“We could reconfigure the satellites and launch them to look for it. Then we go back to our routine mission. And when it’s over we go home.”

Pete didn’t look very happy with the strategy. “What about the satellites?”

“If they find something, they’ll forward the results.”

“You still think it’ll take that long?”

“I’m sorry, Pete. But there’s really no easy way to do it.”

“How many satellites?” There were only seven left. He was going to have to sacrifice parts of the program.

“The more we put out there, the better the chance.”

“Do it,” said Pete. “Put them all out. Well, maybe save one or two.”

Chapter 1

June 2224

People tend to believe that good fortune consists of equal parts talent, hard work, and sheer luck. It’s hard to deny the roles of the latter two. As to talent, I would only say it consists primarily in finding the right moment to step in.