Lena Nowicka was the youngest radio scientist on the Orpheus research vessel orbiting the brown dwarf. Around them flowed a darkness full of cold dust, ion sparks and quiet, even pulses. The receiver screen was snowing, but Lena could hear more than silence in the snow. Their mission sounded modest: to catalogue the old gravity beacons, long since deactivated after the first migration. Captain Ilias liked order, and Lena liked the moment when the dead devices started to tell something. On this day they were telling all too clearly, as a rhythm like a heartbeat emerged from the crackling. A sequence of images appeared on the analyser: a sine, a pause, three short ones, and silence again. - 'This is no coincidence,' Lena said, muffling the speakers as if listening to someone whisper. The computer had assigned the signal to lighthouse number Z-17, which, according to the maps, had been silent for a hundred years. The metadata showed a time stamp, absurd and cool: twenty-two hours into the future. - Is this a joke? - Asked Maja, the navigator on the bridge, clutching the strap of her seat like a railing. Ilias raised an eyebrow, but nodded: the beacon was indeed answering, and the answer had another oddity. The introductory package contained a recording of a voice that bent Lena's neck and coldly went under the suit. It was her, from a few moments ago, speaking clearly: "Don't go in through the main hatch, we're not alone". The voice sounded identical, yet had a rustling sound, like a recording bouncing through the void and dust. The decision was made quickly, though no one said it out loud; Orpheus approached Z-17 for the mooring manoeuvre. Lena, Maja and the scout robot Clement slid into the airlock, checking for leaks, lines and valves. Behind the porthole, ice flakes from the ring circled like silver fish, muscled by the breath of the manoeuvring engines. The lighthouse was smaller than on the schematics, as if something had bitten it, leaving scars from micrometeorite impacts. The main hatch glowed red, so Maja led them to the service panel, half-hidden by the antennae. Clement cut a silent rectangle of the hull, and the air hissed with nothing inside. Nothing but darkness and a metal skeleton over which tiny charges flowed, as if the lantern was breathing electricity. Lena slipped in first, feeling her guide rope keep up with her breathing and her heart rate change. Her own voice sounded again in the helmet, this time quieter, almost warm: "If you hear that, turn right." Along the walls hung service tags dated a century ago, but the paint looked like it had been laid today, still slightly damp. At the end of the narrow corridor, something flashed like a wet eye, and the time indicator started counting backwards.