A Ship That Should Not Exist

The contact came in on a Tuesday, on the deep channel, and it was not a message. It was a ship, asking, in plain clear standard, for permission to dock. Now, ships do not come to Cold Harbor. The lanes do not run here. And this ship's transponder gave a registry number, and I have spent forty years reading registry numbers, and I knew this one. It belonged to the survey vessel Anchorite, which had departed inward space sixty-one years ago on a deep mapping run and had been logged as lost with all hands fifty-eight years ago. I had been a boy when the Anchorite was declared lost. My father had spoken of it. And now its transponder was outside my window, polite and patient, asking to dock, and the request did not feel like a ghost. It felt like a man at a door who has walked a very long way and would like, if it is not too much trouble, to come in.