Behind her came an older man with receding white hair and a well-controlled paunch. He carried his flight bag, and with his other hand slapped his hat against his thigh as he walked. Neither of them was the adversary Titus expected.
Titus called, “There’s nothing wrong that I know of.”
Mirelle came right into his personal space as the French were wont to do, negligently dropping her flight bag next to his. Titus stepped back. She retreated, sketching a French shrug, then she changed nationalities right before his eyes by simply shifting her body language. “Nothing wrong? But you were scowling so. The reporters offend you, no?”
Occasionally, a reporter’s voice was heard shouting a question or asking someone to turn for the camera. Titus shook his head. “My thoughts were elsewhere.”
She readjusted her manner and edged closer. “There are many better things to think about than reporters.” She hardly seemed to be the same person who had lectured the group with such austere competency on the use of translators.
And as she advanced this time, Titus found, to his amazement, that he didn’t need to step back. Formality melted away, and he felt a warm intimacy toward this woman.
Abruptly on guard, he focused his attention on her. The adversary could be a woman-but no-Mirelle was human. Yet she was controlling his responses as surely as if she were using Influence-the power of his people.
A rich smile of pure admiration crept over his face. Obviously, Communications Anthropology wasn’t just psychology or linguistics. It included applied kinesics developed into a social power to which even his kind were not immune.
She returned his smile, one hand on her hat as she looked up at him. He fought the warmth she roused in him, unsure which of the women she showed the world was the real Mirelle de Lisle. But he wanted to find out.
The man with her touched her elbow with a proprietary gesture. “Dr. Shiddehara,” he said. “Didn’t I hear you tell the press earlier that you’re confident you can identify the alien space ship’s home star?”
Now Titus placed the man: Abner Gold, a metallurgist from the Toronto Institute of Orbital Engineering who had trained at Sandia on weapons research, before World Sovereignties banned such companies. Definitely not my adversary.
“Dr. Gold,” greeted Titus. “Yes, given sufficient data on the ship, its occupants, and its approach trajectory, I can narrow the field to a handful of stars-assuming the ship came from its home star.” But it couldn’t have.
“So your best calculations could turn out to be wrong?”
“Oh, yes, there’s always-”
“You see, Mirelle? I told you-the Project is a waste of money Earth can ill afford. There’s a good chance we’ll pick the wrong star to aim our message at. But even if Dr. Shiddehara guesses right, we’ve no business wasting money sending a probe out to beam those aliens a message. The ship’s most likely from a long dead civilization, and now there’s no one out there for us to ”Hail.“”
Titus yanked at his hat brim, turning away to hide the mixed relief and grief that idea aroused. His eye fell on the red hat of the reporter who now stood in the press box, an area inside the gate defined by a rope barricade. He was sighting through his telephoto lens-directly at Titus.
Adjusting the sunglasses he needed in addition to his darkening contacts, Titus turned his back on the reporter and agreed, “Mathematics supports your argument, Dr. Gold. We’ve all seen the calculations based on the galaxy’s size, and the distribution of stars likely to have habitable planets. The odds are against two similar civilizations meeting.” But we have met! Only I’m glad you don’t know it. Humans would slaughter those of my blood.
Gold crowed triumphantly, “What did I tell you, Doctor! Even the Project’s chief astronomer agrees with me.”
Mirelle slanted an open smile at Titus. “Call me Mirelle, both of you. Everyone here answers to Doctor!”
Gold grinned, offering his hand. “Call me Abner.”
She shook with Gold, then gave Titus her hand. Her touch warmed him in a way that only a human woman could, and he had to remind himself he’d just taken a good meal. “Titus,” he offered. Her handshake was firm, brief, and seemed honestly her own. Is this the real Mirelle?
Then she turned to Gold, all brisk, polite professional. “Abner. Titus isn’t an astronomer. He’s an astrophysicist. And-I don’t think you let him finish. Did he?”
“No, I hadn’t finished,” Titus said. “If there are people out there, then there’s no reason to assume we won’t encounter each other-because we are looking for each other. And we’ll be in a much stronger position if we go to them than if we wait for them to come to us.” Maybe.
“You see, Abner, he does too believe in the Project! You’re the only one who thinks it’s a waste.”
“The majority is rarely right.” Eyeing Titus, Gold made it a challenge. “I wouldn’t expect an astrophysicist to believe the Project’s hand-waving argument.”
“Your problem, Abner Gold,” Mirelle declared, “is that you have no faith in people. And if you have no faith in human people, how could you ever make friends with nonhuman people?” Suddenly, as if shocked by her own words, she glanced into Titus’s sunglasses, weighing, measuring.
“Friends with an alien?” scoffed Gold, but Mirelle kept staring at Titus.
Titus entertained the paranoid notion that she knew he was exactly such an alien as Project Hail sought to contact. With her skills, she might have seen something unhuman in him. Was that what all her flirting was about? Testing me?
He recalled another of Connie’s admonitions: The only live elderly agents are thoroughly paranoid agents. On the other hand, certain human women were attracted to his kind.
“Why would anyone want to make friends with an alien?” asked Gold. “Trade, maybe, but friends?”
Mirelle stared at Gold, and shrugged, “Why not?”
Titus focused on Mirelle as he prepared to break the promise he had made to himself when he’d discovered his power-never to use it against a defenseless human. He’d known, when he took this mission, that he’d have to set aside his scruples-but now that the moment was on him, he shuddered.
He hadn’t realized his shudder was visible until Gold grinned. “So you finally see it! If they’re aliens they can’t be friends. The best we can hope for, even if our message is received, is some very expensive trading and a nonaggression pact. But friends are best made at home.”
“Au contraire. I have found some of my best friends-and more than friends-very far from home. Titus only just realized how reluctant he is to break a promise.”
She’s reading my mind! Titus swallowed his panic. Stage magicians used muscle reading to simulate telepathy and muscle reading was a primitive version of Mirelle’s science. He focused his Influence on her, suggesting that he was just an unremarkable human, not worth such close scrutiny.
He expected a facile rationalization as her interest was shunted aside. Instead, she continued speculatively, “I am most curious-break what promise, Titus?”
“Oh, nothing much.” He redoubled his effort to Influence her, assuming she was a Resistive, a human difficult to Influence. A puzzled look flitted across her face. For no apparent reason she glanced over her shoulder.
“Titus, look over there. That reporter-the one in the red hat-is photographing us!” She waved sunnily, posing beside Titus, then she dragged him toward the press box, and in that instant, he knew.