Aboard the Armed Picket Malthusa, five million tons, nine months out of Fleet HQ at Van Diemen's World on a routine Deep Space sweep, Signal Lieutenant Pryor, junior communications officer on message deck duty, listened to the playback of the brief transmission the duty NCOIC had called to his attention:
"JN 37 Ace Trey to Cincsec One . . . Fleet TX . . . clarification," the voice came through with much crackling.
"That's all I could get out of it, Lieutenant," the signal-man said. "I wouldn't have picked that up, if I hadn't been filtering the Y band looking for AK's on 104."
The officer punched keys, scanned a listing that flashed onto the small screen on his panel.
"There's no JN 37 Ace Trey listed, Charlie," he said. He keyed the playback, listened to the garbled message again.
"Maybe it's some outworld sheepherder amusing himself."
"With WFP equipment? On Y channel?" the NCO furrowed his forehead.
"Yeah." The lieutenant frowned. "See if you can get back to him with a station query, Charlie. See who this guy is."
"I'll try, sir; but he came in with six-millisec lag. That puts him halfway from here to Rim."
The lieutenant crossed the room with the NCO, stood by as the latter sent the standard Confirm ID code. There was no reply.
"I guess we lost him, sir. You want me to log him?"
"No, don't bother."
The big repeater panel chattered then and the officer hurried back to his console, settled down to the tedious business of transmitting follow-up orders to the fifty-seven-hundred Fleet Stations of the Inner Line.