There was a perceptible pause as the answer-bot considered its answer. Then: "I can't give you an accurate answer to your first question unless your engineers can establish a high-bandwidth I/O path. Very inaccurately and roughly, the transformation reaction makes use of a supersymmetric resonance to convert protons to antiprotons. An analogous lepton pathway produces positrons. Assembling those into neutrons and higher-order nuclei is a straightforward exploitation of a subset of localized D brane excitations to chain up isotopic ladders of least resistance-"

Hannegan said, "Okay, stop. I get it. We'll wait for the interface."

"As for your second question, this depot taps the rotational energy of Saturn for power. The reaction pathway is approximately twenty percent efficient. Consequently this depot can produce something in excess of one billion tonnes of antimatter before Saturn's rotational period will be significantly altered."

Hannegan glanced at Barnes, then asked, "Can you provide engineering designs and instructional manuals for the antimatter production and containment facilities?"

This time there was no hesitation in the response. "That information is exportable to all species."

Barnes said, "I think that's enough for this session. We should return to our ship now. Are we allowed to return at any time?"

"Yes, at any time."

"We will bring engineers to discuss a high-bandwidth I/O pathway. May they come at any time?"

"Yes, at any time."

Sandy cut in. "Speaking of which, can you establish a link so that I'll be able to transmit directly to our ship from here?"

"EM-blocking is an initial precaution. The security system will establish a communications link for you before your next visit."

Fiorella, who'd kept her mouth shut, jumped in: "George, please: give me one minute. Or two minutes. No more than two minutes. Three at the outside."

Barnes grinned and said, "Two minutes, Cassie."

Fiorella moved up to the jukebox with Sandy switching between cameras to provide a range of views. She asked the machine, "Do you have a name?"

"I have understood that you call me jukebox."

"That's because you look like an antique music machine from Earth, called a Wurlitzer. Could we name you Wurly?"

"Yes."

Barnes groaned, Clover laughed, and Fiorella asked, "Wurly, do you have any historical records? Of events in other systems?"

"Yes. My records contain a generalized history of this galactic arm."

"If you have no information about other species, how can you have a history?"

"Because the history has no specific information about other species. The species are designated by number and date of emergence and tradable items. Specific information on the species is not available through my memory banks."

"That information must exist somewhere."

"Yes, that is logical."

"Do you have tradable items stored here?"

"Yes."

"Do we have access to them?"

"Under the terms of tradable items, yes. However, you must have items to trade."

Now Clover got back in: "How can we provide items to trade if our technology is so much lower than star-traveling species?"

"Most tradable items are not technological. One questioner referred to an antique music machine. Music machines are often tradable. There is a trade AI that will determine if your music machines are tradable, and if so, what level of trade you may access. In general, these are not valued highly, as it is very likely that other civilizations already have music machines resembling yours, and manufacturing specifications can be simply transmitted, which is vastly less costly than carrying physical goods between stellar systems. But the actual alien machines may be valued by collectors in some cultures, as visual artworks are in yours. Some musical compositions might also be tradable, for similar reasons."

Sandy: "We gotta have a hundred and fifty instruments on board-I've got eight guitars down in the fab shop area, and we've gotta have a million songs on file, from Bach to Kid Little."

Barnes said, "Yeah, yeah, we'll discuss that later."

Clover raised a finger. "Uh . . . Wurly . . . are there any classes of trade goods that we 'primitives' might have that would garner us more trade credit?"

"You are not considered 'primitives,' merely less technologically advanced."

Clover muttered into a private comm channel, "It doesn't get sarcasm. Probably not a high-level AI, as it says . . . or it's a great faker."

The answer-bot continued. "Physical art artifacts are valued by species with similar sensory systems and possessed of an inclination toward acquisitiveness. These are worth something. Comestibles can also be rated highly, especially those that cannot be duplicated based on the transmission of data."

Stuyvesant jumped on that-her specialty, biology. "Oh, come on. You're telling me different species from entirely different ecosystems can eat each other's food?"

"Very rarely. On the infrequent occasions when the biologicals are compatible, though, those can be highly prized trade goods."

Clover said, "Makes sense to me. How much were rich folks in Europe willing to pay for spices a few hundred years ago? Stuff we take for granted, like peppercorns. A king's ransom. And that's not an exaggeration."

Stuyvesant pondered for a moment. "Hmmm, there's the commander's tea-you can't transmit 'specs' for that. And I've heard rumors there's some pretty good booze squirreled away somewhere."

Clover winced. "I'll work on a list."

Barnes got back to the jukebox: "Is there any limit on the number of trades?"

"Not exactly. Trade items are evaluated by a trade computer and assigned a total numerical value between 1 and 8. You may leave the items and choose trade items with a similar total value."

"Was that top number chosen because your makers use a mathematical system with a base eight?" Stuyvesant asked.

"I have no information about my makers."

"Is your native mathematical system in base 8?"

"Yes, except for our mathematical computer languages. However, when speaking with you, I convert all numbers to base 10."

Stuyvesant: "When you have new arrivals, does the station provide them with a relevant environment, as you did with us?"

"Yes, if it is within the station's means. Not all species can be accommodated. Those that cannot be accommodated always have means to maneuver in space, so they do that."

"Do all species require gaseous environments?"

"No. Some require hybrid gas-liquid environments."

Clover: "Does the size of your entry air lock and entry hall suggest that other species may be quite large?"

"Yes."

"This was supposed to be my two minutes, goddamnit," Fiorella said. To the jukebox: "Wurly, do you have a message for the people of Earth?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

Wurly said, "Hello, people of Earth."

Fiorella: "Anything more?"

"No."

Barnes muttered, "Well, shit, that was inspiring. I'm calling an end to this . . . again. Everybody ready? Let's go."

Leaving was as simple as the arrival. From the bus, Sandy fired the contents of his camera's memory back to the Nixon. It was gone in a few seconds; they were gone in another minute.

Back at the Nixon, the contact team stepped through the air lock and found themselves face-to-face with a room full of people, easily half the ship's complement, clapping, cheering. Fang-Castro was leading the cheer and even Crow was smiling.

The commander stepped forward. "Congratulations to you all. You just made history." She turned to Sandy. "Mr. Darlington, job well done. The recordings and data you beamed back are already on their way to Earth."

To the rest of them, she said, "I'll give you a half hour to decompress, and use the facilities, but then I need you all in the Commons to discuss what you learned. Captain Barnes, you're headed for isolation, but we've got vid and sound ready for you. We are indebted to you for your courage in making yourself a guinea pig: I will recommend to the commandant of the Marine Corps that you be awarded the Bronze Star. I believe you deserve better than that, but nobody has yet defined our aliens as an enemy force. In any case, I'm sure we are all inspired by your selfless act."

Another round of applause, and seven of them began peeling off EVA suits while Barnes clumped away to the isolation suite.

The Commons was jammed: the entire first contact team was there, with all the department heads, and all the individual scientists, no matter the discipline. Sandy set up his cameras, set to record and transmit, and Barnes, relaxing in the isolation suite, gave a brief summary, and then said, "I think you've all seen Sandy's movie by now, so you really know as much as we do. The question isn't what we got, the question is, what does it mean? That's more in your territory than mine."

Crow jumped in immediately, addressing himself to Fang-Castro: "Ma'am, one thing is already crystal-clear from the vid. If the jukebox, uh, Wurly, is not lying to us, then everything we hoped for and feared is about to happen. The aliens are about to deliver technology that could unbalance the world's power structure. In my opinion, that's the number one thing that our strategists on Earth have to think about. The other stuff is interesting, or, I should say, fascinating, but the tech . . . that's beyond important."

Barnes got back in: "I'm a little skeptical. Total strangers, 'benevolent' aliens give us incredibly valuable and very dangerous tech? They're handing the family jewels to someone who could potentially be their enemy. What's the catch?"

Fang-Castro nodded, looked at Clover: "John?"

Clover took the cue. "Y'know what I think? I think they're pump-priming. I think they're giving us technology that they expect will make us more valuable to them. I don't think this is charity or altruism. I think this is self-interest. Remember, they already have met us, in a very real sense. They know our languages. We don't know how they know-maybe their supercomputers just analyzed radio broadcasts. But however they got their hands on the information, they know a lot more about us than we know about them. Besides, it's not like this costs them anything."

Crow cleared his throat. "I'm in agreement with John on this one. There's nothing the aliens could give us that would make us a credible threat to them. We don't know who they are, or where they're from. One thing we do know is that they could be an existential danger to us, if we tried to mess with them. So there's no downside for them in giving us this stuff, and there might be a considerable upside."

Sandy interjected, "You don't think antimatter technology makes us a lot more dangerous?"

"To ourselves, maybe, but not to them," Crow said. "Try this thought on for size. Suppose the U.S. were to give Jamaica, with whom we're none too friendly these days, all our military designs and knowledge. What could they do with it? Attack us? Sure, they might get in one slap. Then we'd wipe their island off the face of the planet. At the first White House briefing on the starship's arrival, the military science guys told President Santeros that one of the reasons we had to come out here was because a starship was inherently very dangerous. Slam one into the earth at running speed and there's a good chance you make humanity extinct, or at least push it back to the Stone Age."

Martinez joined in. "That's just the technology we know about. All we've seen is a starship that is a century or so ahead of our engineering. From what we've seen here and been told by the answer-bot, we know it's not their first or only one. A ship like the one we detected may take a century or more to make a trip between star systems. The 'bot said it was installed seventeen centuries ago. How many millennia ago did the makers build their first starship? Three? Four? Ten? And what about the other species, the ones who aren't the makers? And who built that damn primary thing twenty millennia back?"

Crow nodded. "Exactly. They're not just a century ahead of us, they're thousands of years ahead. We don't really know how many. So why not give us tech that might make us more valuable to them? Or, maybe, just to make us like them a bit better? Trinkets for the natives."

Clover looked thoughtful. "Yeaahh," he drew out. "Maybe they've been doing this long enough that they're a real good judge of who'll make a good future trade partner. Or maybe it's just a shotgun approach: they try this on every potential partner. If it works out, great for both parties. If the indigenes screw themselves over, no skin off the aliens' butts. Assuming they have butts. If we get too big for our britches and turn hostile, they'd wipe us out and go on to the next species. There's lots of fish swimmin' in the Milky Way. Hell, maybe it's never worked, but they figure it doesn't hurt to try again."

"So that's the big picture? We get this stuff because they think it will make us more valuable, but if we don't play like good little boys and girls, we're history?" Fang-Castro asked.

Clover said, "It's probably not that simple. We might even be completely misjudging the situation. But it might be prudent to assume the worst in this case and behave accordingly. . . . I'm particularly concerned that we can't get any information on the aliens, of whom there seem to be several varieties. I'd like you all to think on questions that might circumvent that prohibition and ones that would illuminate why it exists in the first place."

Crow nodded in agreement. "Security always has a reason. We need to understand theirs."

Fang-Castro said, "Another conversation with Wurly-God, I can't believe you did that, Cassie, but I think we're stuck with it now-anyway, another conversation with Wurly is our top priority, along with that high-bandwidth link the answer-bot offered us. First priority on next contact is engineering and communication. We'll have a new team leader in Lieutenant Emwiller, in keeping with the idea of some basic military-style discipline while on the primary."

Sandy held up a hand, and Fang-Castro nodded at him. "If I'm not out of place, I think it might not be a bad idea to take a guitar and an amp with us. And maybe, if they want to go, Joe Martinez and Crow. We could talk to this trade-bot they've got, give them a musical demo, see if they want to trade, and for what. My concern is, we're doing fine right now-but what if they cut us off for some reason? What if we . . . or the Chinese . . . do something to piss them off? I think packing away as much stuff as possible, as quickly as possible, might be a good idea."

Fang-Castro said, "Yes. That's good. Get the equipment ready. Whether or not Mr. Crow would be a valuable musical addition to your team, I would like to have a security expert take a look at the inside of that place. If Mr. Crow agrees . . . ?"

"Absolutely," Crow said.

Martinez said, "You know I'm hot to go, under any conditions."

"We should start getting responses to first contact from the earth-based people in four hours or so. Let's plan to launch again in twelve hours, to meet here in eight to discuss Earth-expert concerns and suggestions. Between now and then, I want seven hours of sleep for all team members, with meds as necessary," Fang-Castro said. She thought for a moment. "Okay. That's it. Everybody: brainstorm ahead of time and see if you can figure out some questions that might get us more information on the prohibited topics."

- Second contact.

On the first trip out, Sandy had kept all of his cameras fixed on the primary at different focal lengths. On the second trip, he put one camera in tourist mode, recording sweeping views of Saturn along with the rings seen nearly edge-on, a thin white line bisecting the sky, most with the alien artifact somewhere in the picture. And he spent time recording in detail both the bees and the antimatter storage units.

On the second trip in, with Martinez at the wheel, they moved more quickly, and stayed longer. They were all more relaxed than they'd been yesterday, but this time, they all kept their helmets on.

Emwiller to Wurly: "We've brought along a communications technician to determine what data interface would be mutually compatible. How should we proceed?"

The jukebox glowed a pure yellow, then flickered through the spectrum. To its right, a section of what they had thought was a seamless wall slid aside. "Down that corridor, I have another avatar by the entrance to the storerooms. Your technician may converse with me there."

The tech, Hal Emery, walked over and looked down the hall.

Crow muttered: "He's going alone?"

Emwiller called, "Hey, Hal, you want company?"

He waved her off. "S'okay. Hall's only five meters long and it's mostly empty."

Clover said to Wurly, "If we understand correctly, once our technician has set up the data link, you'll be transmitting to us all the information on your antimatter technology?"

"That is not correct."

Clover: "You said yesterday that you needed the high-speed data link to convey the information."

"That is accurate, but the link itself will not be sufficient. My analysis suggests that your equipment does not have sufficient transmission bandwidth to accept all the relevant data in what would be a reasonable time here, given your life-support systems. I will provide all the requested data in a quantum storage unit. I will also provide a reader for the quantum storage unit, also called in English a QSU. The first portions of the I/O transfer will include specifications for construction of the reader, should you need backup readers. The quantum storage unit reader is capable of feeding seven hundred and forty of your high-bandwidth channels simultaneously, if equipped with appropriate outputs. The data reader, however, is itself a very sophisticated device. Its interfaces are not currently compatible with your computer technology. You will have to adapt."

"Will the information be in English?"

"Partly in English, but largely in mathematics. Some new words will be introduced and defined."

Emwiller: "Can you give us backup QSUs and readers, in case we run into technical problems?"