Jack Crispee’s guest was Lauren Millani. Hutch had heard of her. She was a physicist, had won a couple of prizes, and Jack considered her an expert on the Hynds radiotelescope, or possibly on alien life forms. She’d tuned in late and Millani’s specialty never quite became clear. Millani did not share the idea that the transmission had originated from a human source. “It’s possible,” she said, “that we just intercepted an errant signal from a station or a ship somewhere. But I don’t think it’s likely. It almost had to originate from something orbiting that star—what did they call it? Calliope? I would have thought they’d be able to come up with a less flamboyant name. Just look at it, Jack.” It was playing onscreen, the water pouring into the canyon. “The waterfall’s not terrestrial, and nobody’s been able to identify the vegetation. You ever see anything like those long stalks before?” She was referring to a pair of oddly shaped trees on either side of the falls. “This is very big news, Jack. What we need to do is get a mission together and go out there and see what’s going on.”

“Do you think that’s likely to happen, Lauren?”

“No. If we’re dumb enough to reelect Proctor and she really does shut down the interstellars, twenty years from now we’ll still be wondering what it was about.”

•  •  •

“She’s good,” said Charlie. “She’s got it right. Some of these people who want to shut everything down need to get off their rear ends and go take a look around.”

“You’re right, kid. She’s on point.”

He still hadn’t calmed down from the Saturn trip. “I wish we had rings. Maybe we’d be a little more realistic about deep space travel.” He sounded as if he could no longer take seriously anybody who hadn’t gotten out past the atmosphere.

“It’s the way we are, son. You might as well get used to it.”

“It’s not the way you are. Or the way Dad was.” Charlie was about an inch taller than his mother. He had his father’s wide shoulders. “Why were you guys so different from everybody else, Mom?”

“We were not that different. I suspect we just got lucky. Your father used to claim he got started because he read a lot of science fiction. My dad worked for SETI, and I guess I caught the bug from him.” She glanced at the notebook. “Did you get the assignment done?”

“Yes.” It had been an essay for his history class. If given an opportunity to meet and talk with a historical character, who would he choose? And why?

“Who’d you pick?”

“George Washington.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding, Mom? He’s the most important person in the country’s history.”

“Okay.”

“You sound as if you think that’s a dull choice.”