“He doesn’t think there’s any question about it, Hutch. It’s curiosity that made us who we are. Unfortunately, we’ve been living pretty much since the beginning of recorded history in a world that has become increasingly dangerous. The downside of improving technology. And he says it loads us down with an excessive degree of caution.”

“So we scare too easily?”

“Correct. It’s why a few scientists or politicians can show up on the Black Cat and terrify everybody. Five years ago, most of the world was demanding that we get the interstellars moving, that we get out and look around. Wednesday, they had demonstrators waiting for us at the spaceport.”

“Well, Ken, it’s certainly true people seem to be nervous.”

“If Unterkoefler and his crowd keep talking about the hazards of this flight, if guys like MacAllister keep going on about it, they’ll have everybody in a panic by the time we get home. Hell, they’ve already won over Wally.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“You too, Hutch?”

“No. All I’m saying—” She sighed. “You know, the living conditions on this kind of flight tend to encourage arguments.”

“I know. If Plato were around today, I think he’d look at this whole fiasco about whether we should or shouldn’t go to Calliope as a demonstration of our inability to think for ourselves, rather than to react to external forces, like nitwits on TV and the Internet. The ironic part of all this is that there are some serious advantages we could get from visiting an advanced alien species, and we haven’t even considered them.”

“You’re talking about technology?”

“Oh, come on, Hutch,” said Ken. “More technology’s the last thing we need. No. I’d be more interested in getting a handle on finding out how an advanced species looks at the universe. Do they believe it has a purpose? Are we just monkeys who got lucky? Do they have intelligence beyond our level? What would it be like to talk with someone who has a three hundred IQ? What is consciousness?”

“If you had a chance to sit down with a guy who has a three hundred IQ, what would be your first question?”

He pushed his notebook out of the way, put both elbows on the table, clasped his hands, and rested his jaw on them. “I guess I’d go for the old classic.”

“Which is?”

“Does life really have a meaning? Does it have significance beyond what we can see? Or is it just a ride through Darwinian sunlight and ultimately good-bye baby?”

“So the major practical advantage we might get from this kind of mission is purely making a social connection?”