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you?” a handsome dark-haired man of about twenty-five asked as she stepped into the sumptuously furnished compartment. His glance quickly scanned Lisa’s form and stopped at the pink-and-white kit bag she carried.
    “I am not sure,” she said, suddenly very aware of the piercing eyes focused on her. “The directions I was given brought me here,” she stammered. “Perhaps I took a wrong turn--”
    “Not if you are Miss Arden from London.”
    “I am.”
    “Welcome to Equatorial Station.”
    “Thank you.”
    “It is a shame you won’t be with us long. We just finished completely remodeling the Ring-B shopping mall.”
    “How long do I have?”
    The steward consulted the work screen on the corner of his desk. “It will be an hour before your ship is ready for departure. They are topping off their reaction mass. You can leave your luggage in the locker if you wish.”
    “What is my ship’s destination?”
    He raised a questioning eyebrow at that. “I am sure I don’t know. Don’t you?”
    “No, they didn’t tell me.”
    “Interesting,” was his only comment. Somehow, he managed to cram that single word full of meaning far beyond what it actually said.
    Lisa stowed her gear on the indicated shelf next to an expensive leather bag. She pushed through the inner door into the lounge beyond. There was one other person in the lounge. A tall redheaded man lay in one of the recliners reading a micro book.
    “Hello,” he said, returning her appraising look.
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your reading,” she muttered.
    “You didn’t. I have been hoping someone would come in to talk to me. How long are you going to be here?”
    “An hour.”
    “Oh?” he asked in a tone that signified that his interest had been piqued. “Where are you headed?”
    “They didn’t tell me. All my chancellor said was that a study team is being formed in orbit.”
    He smiled. “Then you must be Professor Arden. He rose and crossed the curved floor of the compartment. “My name is Dieter Pavel. I am on the staff of the World Coordinator.”
    “Then you must know what is going on.”
    “Indeed I do.”
    “Mind telling me?”
    He glanced around, making a show of inspecting the walls. “Once we are aboard ship, I’ll answer that question. As for now, you will have to trust us.”
    “What’s the big mystery?” she asked, refusing to be put off.
    He laughed. “Look, I have my orders. I do not like them, but they are orders. I take it that you were rushed into ... ‘volunteering?’”
    Now it was her turn to laugh. “It all happened so fast, I barely had time to buy this outfit,” she said, gesturing toward her shipsuit.
    “It is very fetching. Now then, shall we relax and talk about something we can talk about. Why don’t you start by telling me the story of your life? After all, we are going to be together for quite some time.”

CHAPTER 4
    Lisa Arden floated in midair before the orbit-to-orbit ferry’s small viewport and searched the firmament in front of her. Save for the yellow-white billiard ball that was the sun, there was nothing to see. The stars were too faint to compete with the Great Hydrogen Bomb in the Sky, and the Earth was somewhere behind her. Of the vast orbiting mirror that was their destination, there was no sign. It was as though the artifact were hidden behind some great black veil.
    “Why can’t we see it?” she asked. Dieter Pavel floated beside her at the viewport in Mercanter’s Wind , the high-delta-V orbital ferry they had boarded at Equatorial Station.
    “See what?” Pavel asked, moving to float directly behind Lisa. She thought he hovered closer than was necessary, but decided not to make an issue of it. After all, they would be cooped up together for the next several weeks.
    “PoleStar! Where is it?”
    “Right in front of you,” Pavel replied. As he spoke, he pointed over her shoulder. “See the dimly glowing patch?”
    She strained her eyes, and sure enough, a patch