I paused. “And these are just off the top of my head,” I told him. “I have dozens more.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said the colonel with a smile. “But now that I’ve given you some background, why don’t I let you get answers from the horse’s mouth. I can ask my alien liaison to join us. He’s the being in charge of the alien expedition here. What do you say?”
I exchanged a giddy glance with Tessa. Our desperation gambit to get to the truth seemed to be working beyond our wildest dreams. “I thought you’d never ask,” I replied.
16
The colonel rose from his chair and took a short trip to the refrigerator, returning with bottles of water for himself and Tessa, and a chilled bottle of apple juice for me.
“Thanks, Colonel,” I said as I took the offered bottle.
“From now on,” said Schoenfeld, “I’d ask you to call me Brad. Tessa and I often use each other’s first names already. And I’m hopeful that today will be the beginning of a strong working relationship between the three of us—even a friendship.”
There could be no doubt that my relationship with the head of Schoenfeld-Allen Protection Services had changed dramatically, but he was suggesting that it was likely to change even more. Who was I to disagree?
“Okay . . . Brad,” I said as the colonel took a long drink from his bottle of water. “Can you tell us this liaison’s name? And where he’s from? Also, you used a male pronoun. Can I assume his species makes use of sexual reproduction, with two principal sexes, or do they have a more exotic setup?”
“His language is unpronounceable,” said the colonel. “The closest approximation to his name that the human ear can make out is Nari, so that’s what we call him. And Nari is a male, in the same sense that you and I are. His species does consist of two principal sexes, which is the case with seventeen of the twenty-two species. Given how common this arrangement is for life on Earth, there must be a more powerful evolutionary advantage to it than we fully understand.”
“And the other five species?” said Tessa. “How many sexes do they have? And how do they reproduce?”
“A fascinating topic, but one for another time.”
The colonel was right. If we allowed ourselves to be distracted by every interesting question we could think of, we’d never get anywhere. But I had to admit, I was just as curious as Tessa.
“Nari and his people hail from a star we call Rho Cancri,” continued Brad Schoenfeld. “It’s a binary star system about forty-one light years away from us, in the zodiac constellation of Cancer. For this reason, we’ve taken to calling his species the Rho.”
“Good choice,” I said with the hint of a smile. “A hell of a lot better than the Cancri.”
I paused to consider this information further. They must have developed active measures to hide their presence from nosy neighbors. “Forty-one light years away seems awfully close,” I said.
“It is. The Rho are the closest to us, geographically, of any Federation race. By a large margin. They and three other species are also the dominant members of the Federation. Its unofficial leaders.”
“Why?” asked Tessa. “Are they the oldest?”
“No. The least docile. The most dynamic of the twenty-two. Still sheep compared to us, but everything is relative. Historically, these four species contributed the most when it came to reaching the current technological wall, despite not having managed to penetrate it any further. Due to the Rho’s geographic proximity to us, they have the most personnel orbiting Saturn and are in charge of Earth operations.”
“So when can we expect this Nari to join us?” I asked.
“I hope this isn’t too much of a letdown, but he won’t be joining us in person. Only a few species can breathe our air, and for some it’s actively poisonous, so they tend to stay in their designated levels within the asteroid. But Federation holographic technology is flawless. The only reason you’ll know that Nari isn’t in the room with us is because you’ll know that Nari isn’t in the room with us.”
I nodded. I was disappointed, but it made sense. And I had already figured that the Galactics had perfect holographic technology. Otherwise, living their lives on a spherical level inside an asteroid, no matter how spacious, would be too much of a challenge. I imagined their tech could easily make the members of each species feel as if they were living on the surface of their home worlds, including providing the proper air and gravity levels required for each.
I asked Brad about this, and he quickly confirmed that I was right.
“I should also tell you that Nari has been listening in,” he added, “so you and he won’t have to cover the same ground twice.”
“How thoughtful,” I said sarcastically. “Not creepy or an invasion of privacy at all.”
Brad ignored me. “Finally, the Galactic Federation is very much a democracy,” he said. “They have no Machiavellian alpha-males or alpha-females who are pathologically driven to seize power and rule others. So their decision-making is as collaborative as you might expect. Nari is more the figurehead than anything, so they can speak to us with a single voice. So he’ll often use the pronoun I. But it’s important to remember that most decisions he makes come about after consultation and voting by a large council.”