Between the Strokes of Night

Judith Niles was the last to arrive. Her face was haggard, and her eyes were wide and lacked focus. Her right pupil was twice the size of her left. To Charlene, however, the most disturbing change was also on the face of it the least significant. From their very first days in S-space, JN had always made a point to cover her bald scalp with a wig. Today, either through oversight or conscious decision, she had omitted to do so. Her scalp, smooth and white and with the faint lines of long-ago surgery tracing across the cranium, was more shocking to Charlene than the possibility of the coming alien contact. Coming, and coming soon. The intangible wisps of the Pipistrelles loomed large in the displays. No one on the Argo could do anything to slow their approach. On the other hand, the Pipistrelles were so insubstantial, so little different from the void itself, any danger from them seemed like a product of overexcited human imagination.

And yet, in the final minutes as those three dark shapes converged on the space-locked Argo, no one in the dim-lit control room could find anything to say. The three Pipistrelles swept on, closer and closer. At microwave wavelengths their winged shapes blocked out half the sky. On their final approach the wings curled around, as though to encompass the helpless ship. “Any second now.” Sy’s calm voice sounded clearly through the hushed chamber. “Closing — closing — contact.”

There was no sound — no movement — no evidence of impact; but the air within the room glowed with pale-blue luminescence. The walls of the chamber blurred, briefly, as though vibrating at a speed too high for the eye to follow. The Pipistrelles vanished from the displays. At the same moment all lights inside the Argo went out.

And then, just as suddenly, the Pipistrelles reappeared on the displays. They were receding from the Argo as silently and as mysteriously as they had approached. Nestled among the three bat shapes shone the bright silver web of the Gossamere.

“That’s it? That’s all we get?” Some crew member muttered the words to herself in the darkness, but she was voicing everyone’s thoughts. They had been tensed for confrontation, for high drama, maybe even for destruction. Now their possible contact retreated, while the ship was once again locked in a featureless void of open space, a few light-days from Urstar but more than two thousand light-years from home.

In the faint glow cast by the displays, Charlene peered around the chamber. She was examining faces. A few seemed openly relieved, most looked worried or disappointed. Sy was inscrutable — naturally. Emil, massive and imperturbable, caught her eye and winked. Maybe he was trying to reassure her. It didn’t work. Charlene turned her attention again to Judith Niles. The Director still sat hunched in her chair, but something had changed. The wide-eyed blankness was gone, replaced by an alertness that Charlene had not seen for months. Her eyes seemed to throw off a light of their own.

As Charlene watched, that bright gaze moved steadily from person to person, focusing intently on each for a few moments and then moving on. When the gimlet stare reached her, Charlene shivered. She felt as though the Director had seen into the secret depths of her mind.

JN was going to speak — Charlene was sure of it; but whatever the Director might have said was lost, because all the lights suddenly came on and as they did so the room filled with an outburst of excited comments.

“Inertial sensors say we’re moving!”

“We’re getting positive Doppler — but it shows a red shift, a big one. That means we’re heading away from Urstar — “

“We’ve had a power drain, a big one. Half our reserves have gone.” “There’s motion relative to the cosmic background radiation.”

“Data bank security has been violated. Extent of penetration unknown. It’s still being violated.”

“Hey, we have engine control!”

Every crew member was busy with a hand-held, checking the ship functions for which they were personally responsible. The noise level suggested that everyone had discovered something significant.

The old Judith Niles, the dynamo at the center of the Sleep Research Institute, would have snapped out a command at once to silence and organize everyone. The Judith Niles of the past few weeks would have looked on apathetically and done nothing.

This Judith Niles did neither one. She sat, quietly waiting, until the excited chatter died away to a murmur.

“Very good,” she said at last, and there a crispness and finality in her tone that made the voices fall silent.