  We discuss the thermodynamics of gluons in the background of static quark
sources. In order to do so we formulate the quenched limit of QCD at non-zero
baryon number. A first numerical analysis of this system shows that it
undergoes a smooth deconfining transition. We find evidence for a region of
coexisting phases that becomes broader with increasing baryon number density.
Although the action is in our formulation explicitly Z(3) symmetric the
Polyakov loop expectation value becomes non-zero already in the low temperature
phase. It indicates that the heavy quark potential stays finite at large
distances, ie. the string between static quarks breaks at non-zero baryon
number density already in the hadronic phase.
