Hex by Allen Steele Page A

had fallen across the command center. Since they’d been together, Montero ’s crew had visited nearly a half dozen alien worlds. Yet none were as strange as what lay before them. Hex was an appropriate name; it appeared to have spooked everyone.
    â€œTell them the truth,” she said. “This isn’t what we were expecting... and they’d do well to remember that as they get ready to go down there.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    O VER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS, THE MONTERO made the journey to Hex. Andromeda would later reflect that the least of her surprises was how quickly her crew and passengers accepted the name that Tom D’Anguilo had given this place. Hex, a human word, was simple, easy to remember, and oddly appropriate. So when she sent her first report to Coyote via hyperlink, that was the name she used.
    The response she received from the merchant marine was terse:
    COEX PRIORITY ONE 7/46/23 12:09:03 CMT
TO: Carson, A., Capt. (CO, Montero )
FM: Harker, T., Com. (MM)
GRADE: TS
RE: Hex
    Â 
    Intrigued by your discovery. Standing by for further info. Please update when you learn more.
    Â 
    Ted
    Reading this in the privacy of her cabin, Andromeda rolled her eyes. Intrigued, indeed; that had to be the understatement of all time. If Harker had been aboard the Montero , she would have loved to see the look on his face when the ship came through the danui starbridge.
    Sure, Ted, I’ll send you more info, she thought. Soon as I figure out what the hell I’m dealing with.
    The closer the Montero came to Hex, the more mysterious the sphere appeared to be. Anne’s original transmission went unanswered; nothing came through the com network even though she frequently retransmitted the text message on multiple wavelengths. With D’Anguilo’s assistance, she rephrased the message in more diplomatic terms, using the translation program to reiterate it in the hjadd , nord , kua’tah , and soranta languages (the danui native tongue being still unknown). Still, there was no response. It was as if the danui —or, for that matter, anyone else who might be present—simply didn’t want to speak with their newly arrived visitors.
    And yet, near the end of the second day, the Montero discovered that they were far from alone in the danui system. Andromeda was having a late dinner in the wardroom when Jason’s voice came through her earpiece, asking her to come to the command center. When the captain returned to the bridge, she found her first officer peering at the nav table.
    Hex was so immense, it was impossible for the table’s holographic imaging system to construct a model that wouldn’t crowd out everything else, including Montero ’s present position. In the end, a significantly downscaled version of the Dyson sphere had been projected instead. Ever since the Montero had fired its main engines to begin the long trip, the only images above the table had been Hex, the danui starbridge, and the tiny white dot of the Montero itself, with red and blue dotted lines showing the distance the ship had already traveled and the course it was projected to take.
    But that had changed. About one-sixth of the way around Hex, at a distance of 1.5 AUs, was a second ring, identical to the starbridge the Montero had come through. And next to it was another white dot, leaving behind a broken red trail of its own as it inched toward Hex.
    â€œA second starbridge,” Jason murmured, pointing to the new ring. “We didn’t spot it before now because it wasn’t active. It opened just a few minutes ago, when that ship came through.”
    Andromeda stared at the ring and the adjacent dot. “What kind of ship? Do we know?”
    The first officer said nothing but instead glanced over his shoulder at Rolf Kurtz. In D’Anguilo’s absence, the chief engineer had assumed his position at the remote survey station. “Still trying to get a visual fix,