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“Even the shadow of a saint.”
     
    Around the observatory buildings Osbertus Kloster’s kaffirs performed a never-ending labor, building larger and ever larger parabolic radio dishes of steel and wire. The discovery of new high-grade chrome deposits on the penal lands of the Sabercut Peninsula had turned ordinary iron into good quality steel, making the larger dishes possible.
    The beds had also been a source of an academic triumph for Osbertus personally. Several years before the discovery, he had presented a rather daring paper at Pretoria stating his belief that in ages past epochal changes were caused by Luyten 726 being a triple star system. The brown dwarf theory again, but with a difference. Perturbations of the system caused by the millennial approaches of one or more of the dwarfs caused, he contended, periodic bombardments of Voerster by large meteors, some of which were the source of the chrome and other rare (on Voerster) elements to be found on the Sabercut.
    His fellow academics had first sneered at him and then censured him for presenting a “frivolous” paper. They had refused to reverse their motion of censure until commanded to do so by Ian Voerster, who had decided to give Cousin Osbertus the sinecure of Sternhoem.
    The Voertrekker-Praesident had sourly asked him if his theory that bombardment from space was caused by the brown dwarfs was really anything more than a guess. It was a guess, but an inspired one.
    Radio astronomy became Osbertus Kloster’s true love and obsession. The work with the radio dishes continued to open before him a vast panorama of the universe in terms no Voertrekker had imagined since the destruction of the books and computers in the Rebellion.
    The dishes outdid the old refracting telescope and were first to discover the approach of the new Goldenwing, though it was now visible as a streak on a photographic plate. In a week’s time the Gloria would be clearly seen in the Sternhoem refractor, and in two weeks, seen with the naked eye in Voerster’s wind-scoured sky.
    Having completed his nightly observations, Osbertus Kloster now developed his latest set of g!ass-and-silver-nitrate plates. The Goldenwing was still beyond the orbit of Drache, but the spectrograph of the light reflected from the starship (How the hectares of golden sails must gleam, he thought.) was still blue-shifted. This meant that the vessel was closing Voerster at a goodly percentage of the speed of light.
    The signals coming from the Goldenwing were steadily growing stronger and more distinct. It sent a thrill through him to realize that in the far reaches of the solar system there was a young person capable of understanding his clumsy attempts at Anglic--the lingua franca of space. Hunched over his desk in the cavernous dark of the observatory dome, listening to the whir and click of the telescope’s ancient equatorial drive, he told himself that he was the most favored of men upon Planet Voerster.
    Cousin Ian would be pleased with the new ephemeris. It meant that the beasts ordered so long ago for the farms of Voerster were at last at hand, and who knew what other trade treasures the Goldenwing might have in her cavernous holds? But Ian would give no sign of pleasure or anticipation because he was a dour, dark-minded man who feared another disappointment.
    Mynheer Osbertus Kloster wondered what Black Clavius would say when he learned that Wired Men and Women, people like himself from the near stars, would soon walk the soil of Voerster. Perhaps he already knew, Osbertus thought, leaning back in his chair and gnawing absently the pencil he held. He had always suspected that the Nepenthe syndicate had marooned Clavius because he had extrasensory powers. But that was only conjecture. The Nepenthe had arrived unheralded and departed without a Search. She would not be seen again over Voerster for centuries, perhaps millennia. Osbertus wondered why Clavius had remained on Voerster among the kaffirs. It