Dave thinks for a second, clicks on the mike. "This is Major Norman Davis commanding Unhed States spacecraft Sunbird One. We have you on scope. Request you identify yourself. Repeat, who are you? Over."
"Judy, stop joking," the voice complains. "We'll lose you in a minute, don't you realize we worried about you?"
"Sunbird to unidentified craft. This is not Judy. I say again, this is not Judy. Who are you? Over."
"What--' the girl says, and is cut off by someone else saying, "Wait a minute, Ann." The speaker squeals. Then a different woman says, "This is Loma Bethune in Escondita. What is going on here?"
"This is Major Davis commanding United States Mission Sunbird on course for Earth. We do not recognize any spacecraft Escondita. Will you identify yourself? Over."
"I just did." She sounds older, with the same nasal drawl. "There is no spaceship Sunbird and you're not on course for Earth. If this is an andy joke it isn't any good."
"This is no joke, madam!" Dave explodes. "This is the American circumsolar mission and we are American astronauts. We do not appreciate your interference. Out."
The woman starts to speak and is drowned in a jibber of, static. Two voices come through briefly. Lorimer tinks he hears the words "Sunbird program" and something else. Bud works the squelcher; the interference subsides to a drone.
"Ali, Major Davis?" the voice is fainter. "Did I hear you say you are on course for Earth?"
Dave frowns at the speaker and then says curtly, "Affirmative."
"Well, we don't understand your orbit. You must have very unusual flight characteristics, our readings show you won't node with anything on your present course. We'll lose the signal in a minute or two. Ali, would you tell us where you see Earth now? Never mind the coordinates, just tell us the constellation."
Dave hesitates and then holds up the mike. "Doc."
"Earth's apparent position is in Pisces," Lorimer says to the voice. "Approximately three degrees from P. Gamma."
"It is not," the woman says. "Can't you see it's in Virgo? Can't you see out at all?"
Lorimer's eyes go to the bright smear in the port window. "We sustained some damage-"
"Hold it," snaps Dave.
"- to one window during a disturbance we ran into at perihelion. Naturally we know the relative direction of Earth on this date, October nineteen."
"October? It's March, March fifteen. You must-!' Her voice is lost in a shriek.
"E-M front," Bud says, tuning. They are all leaning at the speaker from different angles, Lorimer is headdown. Space-noise wails and crashes like surf, the strange ship is too close to the coronal horizon. "-Behind you," they hear. More howls. "Band, try ship… if you can, you signal-" Nothing more comes through.
Lorimer pushes back, staring at the spark in the window. It has to be Spica. But is it elongated, as if a second point-source is beside it? Impossible. An excitement is trying to flare out inside him, the women's voices resonate in his head.
"Playback," Dave says. "Houston will really like to hear this."
They listen again to the girl calling Judy, the woman saying she is Loma Bethune. Bud holds up a finger. "Man's voice in there." Lorimer listens hard for the words he thought he heard. The tape ends.
"Wait till Packard gets this one." Dave rubs his arms. "Remember what they pulled on Howie? Claiming they rescued him."
"Seems like they want us on their frequency." Bud grins. "They must think we're fa-a-ar gone. Hey, looks like this other capsule's going to show up, getting crowded out here."
"If it shows up," Dave says. "Leave it on voice alert, Bud. The batteries will do that."
Lorimer watches the spark of Spica, or Spica-plussomething, wondering if he will ever understand. The casual acceptance of some trick or ploy out here in this incredible loneliness. Well, if these strangers are from the same mold, maybe that is it. Aloud he says, "Escondita is an odd name for a Soviet mission. I believe it means `hidden' in Spanish."
"Yeah," says Bud. "Hey, I know what that accent is, it's Australian. We had some Aussie bunnies at Hickan. Or-stryle-ya, woo-ee! You s'pose Woomara, is sending up some kind of com-bined do?"
Dave shakes his head. "They have no capability,: whatsoever."
"We ran into some fairly strange phenomena back there, Dave," Lorimer says thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to wish we could take a visual check."
"Did you goof, Doc?"
"No. Earth is where I said, if it's October. Virgo is where it would appear in March."
"Then that's it," Dave grins, pushing out of the couch. "You been asleep five months, Rip van Winkle? Time for a hand before we do the roadwork."
"What I'd like to know is what that chick looks like," says Bud, closing down the transceiver. "Can I help you into your space-suit, Miss? Hey, Miss, pull that in, Asst-psst-psst! You going to listen, Doc?"
"Right." Lorimer is getting out his charts. The others go aft through the tunnel to the small day room, making no further comment on the presence of the strange ship or ships out here. Lorimer himself is more shaken than he likes; it was that damn phrase.
The tedious exercise period comes and goes. Lunchtime: They give the containers a minimum warm to conserve the batteries. Chicken AL la king again; Bud puts ketchup on his and breaks their usual silence with a funny anecdote about an Australian girl, laboriously censoring himself to conform to Sunbird's unwritten code on talk. After lunch Dave goes forward to the command module. Bud and Lorimer continue their current task checking out the suits and packs for a damage-assessment EVA to take place as soon as the radiation count drops.
They are just clearing away when Dave calls them. Lorimer comes through the tunnel to hear a girl's voice blare, "-dinko trip. What did Loma say? Gloria over!"
He starts up the Lurp and begins scanning. No results this time. "They're either in line behind us or in the sunward quadrant," he reports finally. "I can't isolate them."
Presently the speaker holds another thin thread of sound.
"That could be their ground control," says Dave. "How's the horizon, Doc?"
"Five hours; Northwest Siberia, Japan, Australia."
"I told you the high gain is fucked up." Bud gingerly feeds power to his antenna motor. "Easy, eas-ee. The frame is twisted, that's what it is:"
"Don't snap it," Dave says, knowing Bud will not.
The squeaking fades, pulses back. "Hey, we can really use this," Bud says. "We can calibrate on them."
A hard soprano says suddenly "-should be outside your orbit. Try around Beta Aries."
"Another chick. We have a fix," Bud says happily. "We have a fix now. I do believe our troubles are over. That monkey was torqued one hundred forty-nine degrees. Woo-ee!"
The first girl comes back. "We seen them, Margo! But they're so small, how can they live in there? Maybe they're tiny aliens! Over."
"That's Judy." Bud chuckles. "Dave, this is screwy; it's all in English. It has to be some U.N. thingie."
Dave massages his elbows, flexes his fists; thinking.:; They wait. Lorimer considers a hundred and forty-nine degrees from Gamma Piscium.
In thirteen minutes the voice from Earth says, "Judy; call the others, will you? We're going to play you the conversation, we think you should all hear. Two min-utes. Oh, while we're waiting, Zebra wants to tell Connie the baby is fine. And we have a new cow."