'So, where do you want it?'

The planet Galene was just another sparsely populated agricultural planet on a quiet part of the Sagittarius Arm. It was some distance even from the nearest commerce planets, with their cities and stress; Earth was impossibly far, a decade of travel on the fastest ships, three times that on the slower ones.

It wasn't particularly interesting, except for its tin moon.

'Honestly, I don't care. It just needs to be far enough away not to interfere with shipping.'

'Can I chuck it into one of your Lagrange points?'

'No, it needs to be properly out of the way. We're using all of them.'

The tin moon was a relic of some extinct alien civilisation. It was roughly spherical, about sixty klicks in diameter, and was once perfectly smooth, although it was now pitted and streaked from micro-meteor impacts. Fifty years ago, when Galene was being colonised, it had made the science news; but the galaxy was littered with the ancient remnants of fallen civilisations, the Great Filter doing its grim job, and humanity had long since stopped caring. Especially out here, four years from the nearest university with a xenoarchaeology department.

Except when it was a hazard to freighters.

'In that case you have two options. The best solar orbit is here. It's not cheap, mind, because we need a lot of delta-v to get it there, and we'll need to leave the boosters on for orbital corrections for at least two years, so you have to pay for them too. But it should be out of your hair. This is the closest, safe orbit I could find.'

'Show me the price?'

Captain Cortez nodded.

'Sure. Here.'

The person on the screen pursed their lips.

'That's a lot of money.'

'Yep. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.'

They called it the tin moon because it shone in Galene's sky with a dull gleam. Galene's natural satellite, Hippothoe, was big, nearly the size of Luna; and the frozen oxygen on its surface filled Galene's night with a wonderful pale blue glow. But the tin moon was small and ugly and no one loved it, and when there was a near collision with a grain ship last year, everyone agreed that something must be done.

'You said there were two options.'

Cortez licked her lips, nervously.

'This alternative orbit, here, will send it into your sun within about five years. It needs less delta-v, and I get most of my boosters back within the month so I don't have to charge for them. The trajectory is safe, so long as you make sure traffic knows about it. But there is the question of,' she paused, trying and failing to be delicate, 'um, legality.'

In theory, Galene's government should have registered the moon as a place of interest, and some bureaucracy thousands of parsecs away that ran even slower than light would have given it some sort of status with protections and whatever else... But Cortez knew the reality. Out here, on the fringes of civilisation, they were just too far away. They could do what they wanted.

The government flunky didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

'Yes,' they said. 'We'll have to get the appropriate paperwork done for this one. Send us the quotes and we'll get back to you.'

# # #

As she had expected, they had gone for the cheaper option.

So, a week later, Cortez was on her ship, the Stonemason, in a matching orbit with the construct. She was watching as her four boosters landed on the surface of the thing, accompanied by a repair drone.

Her first mate, Kojo Gebre, was laughing at something on his screen, flirting with engineer Jim Stokes who was somewhere below decks. She liked those two, but she could see that soon they would find a planet, settle down, and she'd need to hire a new crew.

Windle, the AI, opened a channel.

'Captain, the alien artefact just scanned us. Four frequencies all at once.'

'Those morons on this stupid hick planet said it was dormant. I can do without raising the ghost of a dead alien.'

'Well, it's stopped again. Perhaps some subsystem was still working. However, booster three is no longer nominal.'

'Can the repair drone fix it?'

'No. The repair drone is also impaired.'

'Seriously? What did they scan us with?'

'One of the frequencies was a gamma ray burst which caused some damage to nearby electronics.'

Cortez cursed. This was already more than she bargained for.

'OK. Jim, suit up. We're going for a stroll. Kojo, you have the helm. Windle, take us in but then back off; I don't want the Mason, or you for that matter, getting damaged.'

'The Mason is shielded against such bursts, but I appreciate your concern, Captain,' replied Windle, while Stokes grumbled.

'Oh, and Kojo: Mr Jinx has just torn its food bag open again, and the galley is full of floating kitty food. Stow it better next time.'

She unstrapped and pulled herself through the ship to the airlock. Stokes was already there.

'Heavy suits, Jim. I don't want to get fried if that thing decides to zap us again.'

The big mechanic grunted and did what he was told.

'I have the parts to fix the booster,' he said. 'I'm not sure what was wrong with the drone, its diagnostics were scrambled. We might just have to tow it back.'

She put her helmet on, sealed it.

'Copy that,' she said.

'Burn coming in ten,' said Windle; then, ten seconds later, they felt a gentle series of jolts as the Stonemason manoeuvred closer to the artefact.

'OK, engineer, let's go fix some stuff.'

# # #

The sun was on the other side of Galene, and wouldn't rise for another few hours. As a result, the artefact gleamed dully in their floodlights, looking like a grey billiard ball floating above the dark planet.

She glanced down, briefly; there were hardly any lights to break up the huge black circle that was the world below, the one major city being on the other hemisphere. Well, whatever, she wasn't being paid to see the sights.

She landed with a gentle clang... and bounced right back off, her magnetic boots failing to hold. Shit. She used her suit's thrusters to bring herself to a stop just above the surface.

'Not magnetic, huh?', said Stokes, having just done the same thing. 'Maybe it really is tin.'

'No, because that would be a stupid thing to make a massive satellite out of. Come on, you take a look at the booster, I'll see if I can figure out the drone. The sooner we get this done, the better.'

'Yes, boss.'

The drone was floating a few metres above the surface of the artefact, all spindly tool arms and flashing red diagnostic lights. It was designed to be controlled remotely by Windle, but something in its comms had fried. She rebooted it.

The heavy suits were shielded, and were significantly bulkier than the regular ones, so it was hard work, and she didn't notice Stokes until he was almost on top of her.

'All done?', she asked.

'Yep, let's go back.'

'Um, boss? Who's that?', said Stokes.

She swung around. Coming from booster three was a second Jim Stokes. Their suits were identical; they both looked the same height, although that was hard to judge; they both moved with the same nonchalant grace. She couldn't see either of their faces through the darkened helmets.

'What the hell? Windle, Kojo, are you seeing this?'

'Yes, Captain,' replied Windle.

'Holy shit,' said Gebre.

She fired her thrusters, spun herself and the drone around so it was between her and the two men.

'So which is the real one?', she asked, trying not to panic.

Both Jim Stokes raised their hands.

'I don't know. There was a burst of energy that took our sensors out,' said Windle.

'And I was tidying up after the cat,' said Gebre, guiltily.

'You,' she said pointing the Stokes on her right, 'what is Kojo Gebre's favourite food?'

'Panckakes,' said Stokes number one.

'You,' she said to the other one. 'How do you make them? The most basic recipe, I don't have all night.'

'One egg, one cup of milk, one and a bit cup of self raising flour...'

The drone had finished rebooting. She touched some buttons.

'You: what next?'

This was to the Stokes that was closer to her. He shrugged, the way he did.

'You put the flour in a bowl, and then you beat in the eggs and milk...'

And then he was reeling back, a hole punched into his suit from the drone's rivet gun. She followed that by firing the welding laser at his helmet, and it left a clean hole. No air came out, no explosion of flesh and ice. Whatever was in that suit wasn't biological.

'Oh shit, Jesus, you don't add the liquid to the solid, instead you slowly beat the flour into the liquid to prevent lumps and then you ladle the batter into a heated frying pan and then you fry until solid and then you flip and fry the other side...' babbled the real Stokes behind her. 'Don't kill me Captain, please, I know how to make pancakes...'

The fake Stokes was floating away, impelled by the force of the rivet gun. She fired twice more just to be sure, and it jerked in a sickeningly human-like way as the metal hit it.

'Windle,' she said, ignoring the real Stokes, 'something got into our systems. That's the recipe on the galley computer. Find out how and what it knows. Gebre, get the Mason closer, but watch that... thing. Jim: shut up.'

'Shutting up, Captain.'

The Stonemason started gliding silently towards them.

'Captain, the other Stokes hasn't moved. I think he's... it's dead. What should we do with it?' asked Gebre.

'I want to pick it up and take a look at it,' replied Cortez.

'Are you sure that's a good idea?'

'I have actually watched a horror movie or two, Kojo. We'll do it in suits in the airlock. If there's any problems, you can just blast us out again.'

'Well OK, you're the boss.'

'You're damn right I am. Jim, get to the Mason and prep. I want enough tools that we can see what's in this thing. I'll go and get the dead version of you that doesn't know how to make pancakes.'

# # #

'It's not that good a copy of the suit,' said Stokes, as the two of them crouched over the inert body in the airlock. 'Look, the patch here is blurry. This section isn't even airtight. I don't know what it's made of, but it's not as tough as ours.'

'That's because it's copied from the promotional pictures it found in our supply database,' said Windle. 'Look.'

The AI popped the image onto the HUD in their helmets. It wasn't a particularly good photo, and the patch was not completely visible.

'How did it get in, Windle?', asked Cortez.

'Something pretending to be a local government computer asked us for a huge batch of non-sensitive data. That included the recipes and suit schematics. I thought it was odd at the time, but not so odd it was worth flagging.' If it had been human it would have shrugged at this point. 'These little planets have all sorts of rules around protecting local economies and ecosystems.'

'When was that?'

'When we got here, eleven days ago.'

Cortez frowned.

'So it asked that even before we were anywhere near it?'

'Correct, Captain.'

'It's not dormant at all, is it? It's just been very good at hiding itself amongst all the other shipping traffic. I bet every ship that comes and goes talks to it and doesn't even know.'

'That was my thought also, and I spoke to some of the local freighters, who confirmed that they have received the same requests and thought nothing of it. It took some digging to find out that the government department was a fake. This is not some stupid lump of metal, and I suggest we act extremely cautiously.'

'Thanks Windle. Monitor it closely, and verify any further communication requests, please.'

'Of course, Captain.'

'Boss, look at this,' said Stokes.

He had opened the suit, cut it from groin to neck, and had unfurled it like a flower in the zero gravity. Little fragments floated in his torch beam.

Inside was a black skeletal structure, only approximately the shape of a human. It had boxes on its joints, actuators probably; and its chest was covered in a control panel, a gaping hole in it from where it had been blasted by the rivet gun. When Stokes popped the helmet off, he revealed a mass of sensors, and a computer unit that looked both familiar and utterly alien.

She gasped in realisation.

'This is...'

'Yeah, modelled on our repair drone,' said Stokes. 'It's what you'd get if you made a human shaped one, and then stuffed it into one of our suits. This thing in the head is mounted on a standard interface, but I've no idea what it is. The brain, probably. And look,' he pointed at an arm. 'It's composite, like the drone's arms. It can separate into lots of little arms, although that would trash the suit. They didn't think that through... whoever they are.'

'It's a pity,' said Gebre, over the radio. 'The things I could have done with two Jim Stokes...'

'Kojo, this isn't a boyfriend factory. Keep your fantasies to yourself,' she said, knowing that Stokes would be blushing bright red in his spacesuit.

'Captain, Mr Gebre may be in luck. There are are now a further two replica Mr Stokes on the alien artefact surface,' said Windle. 'They are both hailing us. What should I do?'

'Open a channel. Jim, stay off it, it will just confuse everyone. Windle, can you show us what you see?'

'Certainly.'

There, on the tin moon, floating like they were waiting for a transport, were two more of the alien machines. No; a third slowly floated into view, coming from a door in the surface.

'Hi Jim,' she said.

'Hi boss,' they all said, in unison.

'Jim, what do you want?', she asked, trying to sound more nonchalant than she felt.

'To fix stuff, I guess,' they said.

'Because...?'

'Because I'm the engineer.'

'Jim, can you do something for me?'

'Sure boss.'

'Raise your left hand, please.'

They did, all together, in perfect unison.

'We'll make some cool dance videos from this,' said Gebre.

'Shush, Kojo. OK Jim, raise your other hand.'

They did.

'Kojo, you try. Ask them to do something,' she said.

'Hey, Jim! Can you please wiggle your legs?,' asked Gebre.

They remained perfectly still, arms in above their heads, looking like they were in some weird, zero G diving competition.

'Why won't you do what Kojo is asking?', she asked, knowing the answer already.

'Because you're the boss.'

Cortez laughed. 'You're damn right I am. Jim, I need to do something, then I'll get back to you. In the mean time, can you please do a diagnostic check on those boosters?'

The three – no, four now – alien robot replicant things immediately turned and flew towards the boosters. They moved with incredible grace in the heavy suits, as they popped the control panel shields off and started running the diagnostic checks on the onboard computers.

'Wow,' said Gebre.

Cortez grinned triumphantly.

'This thing was an orbital repair dock. And when its original owners disappeared, it must have gone into some kind of safety mode. It's been looking for a new owner. And it found me. Windle, I'm going to get out of this suit, can you let us back into the ship?'

'So it imprinted on you? Like in Jurassic Park? That ended well,' observed Gebre.

'Thank you, Kojo. Note that it imprinted on me specifically, not humanity in general. And you know what that means?'

She smiled to herself as she unsuited.

'It means we are going to be very, very rich. Do we have any cigars?'

'No,' said Windle. 'But we have a lot of floating cat food. I'm afraid that Mr Jinx got into the food store again.'

'Oh for pity's sake...'