"They seem to thrive here. Francis says it's because Earth has more carbon dioxide. Plant food."
"Thirty years ago they were panicking about it."
"Well, life wouldn't be normal if they weren't panicking us about something… Oh, and you have a visitor." Mitzi indicated the direction of the inner office with a nod. Caldwell took a pace, then stopped.
"It isn't that FBI guy, is it?"
"No, nothing like that. It's Chris's cousin Mildred, on a quick trip back. I took her to lunch. She's got some fascinating stories. I can't wait to see the book."
Caldwell went on through. Mildred was sitting at the meeting table that formed a T with his desk, clad in a long, rust-colored dress and reading some papers in a folder. Her hat, a bag crammed with more folders and what looked like items of shopping, and an equally laden purse were parked on chairs on either side. "Well!" Caldwell exclaimed as he came in. "The surprise of the day. Sorry you had to wait. But I gather Mitzi has been taking good care of you."
"She's wonderful. I hope it's all right… my just dropping by like this, unannounced. I've been dashing all over the place and really had no idea what time I'd be this way. I know that someone like you must be always incredibly busy."
"Don't even think about it. You're family around here." Caldwell moved behind his desk and sat down. As luck would have it, she had chosen a good day. "I didn't even know you were in this part of the Galaxy. You, ah, sure get around. Mitzi says it's just a quick visit."
"For a few days. There was a ship leaving to bring some Thuriens for some kind of cultural mission or something, that they want to set up here, and I hitched a ride. They really are so obliging. It's not that much different than hopping on a plane from Europe."
"Yes, I know. In South America. The mission. I just had lunch with some people who are connected with it." Caldwell inclined his gaze toward the bag on the chair next to her. "So is it someone's birthday?"
"Oh, no. Just some things I'd made a list of, that I thought I'd pick up while I had the chance. I could probably have arranged for them to be sent somehow, but sometimes the way that you're used to ends up being quicker. These computer procedures can be so confusing-especially when they're automatic, and they think they know what you want better than you do. It seems that every time they assume anything, that's when it all goes wrong. I'm particularly wary of anything that calls itself 'smart.' They're always the first things I deactivate if I can. You know that the first thing they do will be absolutely stupid. And there's never any way to tell them to just shut up, don't assume anything, and do exactly what I tell you. Although, having said all that, I suppose we're on our way to getting something of our own like VISAR; or maybe having VISAR extended to manage things here too. It could only be an improvement on a lot of the things we've got."
Caldwell was already hearing again some of Danchekker's lamentations. Maybe it was just as well that she was back for only a few days. Otherwise this could go until the dawn of the next ice age.
"Oh dear," Mildred said, either reading something from his face or body language, or else there was some kind of telepathy at work. "I know. Christian tells me. I do tend to prattle on at times."
"Not at all. It's probably part of a feeling that comes with being back home. Although you seem to be making the best of things there. I'm told you're getting along just fine with Frenua Showm."
"Yes…" Mildred's manner became more serious. "In fact, it's in that connection that I was hoping to talk to you, Mr. Caldwell. Kind of in that connection, anyway…"
"'Gregg' is fine. I said you're family here."
"Oh, thank you…" She seemed to hesitate. Caldwell waited. "As a matter of fact, it was the main reason I came back. Yes, I know you have some of those Thurien neurocoupler things at Goddard that can make you as-good-as be there in an instant. But everything that goes through them is handled by VISAR, you see. And even calling on the phone involves VISAR to connect it through… oh, I don't know, h-, M-physical, virtual… whichever of all those spaces it is. It is an alien intelligence, after all, built to serve alien purposes. How do you know where something you say might end up? And what I wanted to talk about is very confidential."
Caldwell raised his eyebrows and did his best to look appropriately solemn. It was a slow afternoon, anyway. In fact, the Thuriens had always given assurances that all communications traffic handled by VISAR enjoyed scrupulous privacy, and from his experience of them he was inclined to believe it. But he wasn't about to get into a pointless debate about it now. "I'm listening," he said, spreading his palms.
Mildred took a deep breath and frowned, as if not sure which of several threads to pursue. "I know it's only been a matter of months, but I've found out a lot about the Thuriens. It's the reason I went there, after all…" She looked up. "But I don't want to go off on another tangent, telling you things you already know. You were involved with them from the beginning. Just to be sure we're talking the same language, what would be the most salient adjectives that come to mind to describe them?"
Caldwell scratched his brow and had to consider. This wasn't an approach he was used to dealing with. Mildred had her own way of cutting through the chaff when it suited her, he had to grant. "Oh, I guess… 'advanced'; 'benevolent'; 'nonviolent'; 'honest,'" he offered. "And, I suppose you could say, 'resolute,' when the need arises; 'rational'; 'realistic.'"
"Yes, it's the last ones that are significant. One of the things I've been learning a lot more about has been their history, all the way back since the time of the early Ganymeans. As you say, they're totally nonaggressive in their dealings with each other and with every other kind of race that they've encountered since their migration. Their very nature makes them incapable of anything else. But they've also shown on more than one occasion that when their existence or their way of life is threatened, they can be ruthlessly efficient in protecting themselves. And I use the word 'ruthless' quite deliberately."
She was no doubt referring to such episodes as the program to cleanse Earth of predators in preparation for colonization, which had been aborted and still gave the Thuriens feelings of guilt, and more recently their mind-blowing plan to seal off the Solar System. "I'm familiar with the cases in point," Caldwell said, nodding to head her off from any feeling of needing to explain.
He drummed his fingers on the desk. Mildred stared at them for a second or two, and then said, "When you put those two qualities together, I find it drives one to a rather sobering but inescapable conclusion. Earth's history of warfare and every other kind of violence is totally abhorrent to them. Yet they've seen how rapidly this aggressiveness enables us to advance what we think are our interests. They can have no doubt that with the situation that exists at the present juncture-Earth spreading across the Solar System despite all the attempts of the Jevlenese to prevent it, and now absorbing Thurien technology-a possibility exists that we might carry everything they abhor out among their own system of worlds, but equipped with a destructiveness unlike anything imaginable before." Now she had gotten Caldwell's interest. This wasn't new. He had gone over the same ground many times in his own mind and discussed it with Hunt, Danchekker, and others. It was a regular topic of debate among UNSA executives.
"Go on," he said.
She sighed. "The Thuriens might be benevolent, patient, compassionate, and all those other saintly things, but they are also political realists. They would never expose themselves to such a risk. If it ever started looking like developing into a real threat, there's no way they'd just sit there and let it happen."
Caldwell was beginning to revise his impressions of Mildred rapidly. He had been trying to get this point across to some career diplomats and so-called professionals in international affairs ever since the Pseudowar with the Jevlenese and the events that had led up to it-and that had been with the insights of people like Hunt and Danchekker, who had been involved with the Ganymeans from the beginning. Mildred had worked it out for herself in something like four months. "Do you have any idea what they'd do?" he asked. Naturally enough, that was the first hope that came to mind. But she shook her head.