He heard muffled voices in one of the compartments. Then the ship was quiet again, save for the vents and the electronics.

This would be his last flight before retirement. The kids were grown and gone now, so he and Mara had thought about taking off somewhere alone, an extended vacation to Hawaii, but in the end they’d decided it would be nice to stay home. Jerry had lost whatever passion he’d had for travel. He’d settle for going down to the bridge club, and maybe eating dinner at the Gallop —

The AI’s voice broke in: “Jerry, we have activity at one eight zero.”

Jerry looked up at the screen carrying the feed from the after scope. The sky was brilliant, the Milky Way trailing into infinity.

“Sensor reading,” said the AI. “Objects approaching.”

“On-screen.”

“They are on-screen. If you look closely, you can see them.”

Dark objects moving against the stars.

“What are they, Rob?”

“Unknown.”

“Asteroids?”

“They are artificial.”

“Are you saying they’re not ours?”

“I am merely saying I am not familiar with vehicles of this type.”

“Moonriders.”

“Are there such things?”

“Right now I’d say yes. They aren’t on a collision vector, are they?”

“No. But they’ll come close. Within twenty kilometers.”

That was enough to scrape the paint. What the hell were those things?

“Range is twenty-two hundred kilometers and closing.”

He counted eight of them. No, nine. Flying in formation like a flock of birds. Coming up his tailpipe.

Flying in formation. What natural objects fly in formation?

“They’ll pass on the port side,” said the AI.

“Anybody else supposed to be out here, Rob?”

“Negative. No other traffic scheduled.”

“How fast are they coming?”

“Fifteen kilometers per second. They will reach us in two and a half minutes.”