“He’ll think we’re crazy.”

“I suppose we could tell him we want to talk over a new quantum development.”

“Okay,” said Phyl, “I’ve punched in his code. The signal on the other end is sounding.”

Hutch and Antonio got back into the lander. She switched on the speaker and they could hear a singsong tone. “Waiting for him to answer.”

“Phyl, block off his comments. All we’ll want to hear are the translations.”

“Okay. You understand I’m not fluent.”

“Of course.”

“I will have to improvise.”

“Just do the best you can, Phyl.”

The singsong tone continued. Hutch sat in the dark, thinking once again how history was about to be made. First contact via landline. Who would have thought?

“Hello?” That was the translation. It was still Phyllis’s voice, but she modulated it, gave it a deeper sound, so they’d have no trouble distinguishing who was talking.

“Mr. Smith?” The creature’s name was, of course, a jaw breaker. So she simply substituted.

“Yes?” said the alien. “Who is this, please?”

“Mr. Smith, I’m calling you from a starship, which is currently in orbit around your world.”

Hutch listened to the distant hum of electronics. They weren’t from the ship.

“Margie,” the creature said, “is that you?”

“Tell him it’s not a joke, Phyl.”

“Mr. Smith,” said Phyl, “it’s not Margie, and not a joke.”

“All right, look: Whoever you are, I’ve got better things to do. Please stop tying up the line and go away.” He disconnected.

“That went well,” said Antonio.

“Hutch,” said Phyl, “should we try again?”

“Yes. But let’s use a different tack.” Hutch gave her instructions, and Phyl called.

“Hello,” said Smith. Hutch wondered what his tone sounded like.

“Mr. Smith, this is the same caller. I understand your skepticism. But please give me a moment and I’ll get out of your way. Please.”

Long pause. Another car went by. “Say your piece and go away.”

“Can you see the moon?”

“What?”

“Can you see the moon? From where you are now?”

“What does it matter?”

“We’ll use it to prove who we are.”

Phyl said, “I think he just used an expletive. Not sure. But the tone—”

“Okay, Phyl. Try to stay with him.”

Mr. Smith was back: “One moment.” Hutch could picture him,—it—striding irritably around his windows, looking out. Then: “Yes, I can see it.”

“Can you get access tomorrow to a telescope?”

“A what?”

“A device for making faraway objects seem close?”

“I may be able to do that.”

“Tomorrow night, at exactly this time, use it to watch the moon. Will you do that?”

Another long pause. “Yes. I can arrange to do that.”

“Will you do it?”

“I’ll do it. Now please go away.”

Hutch passed another quick instruction to Phyl. “One more thing,” said the AI. “After the demonstration, you are to tell nobody. Is that understood?”

“What demonstration?”

“Watch the moon, Mr. Smith.”

“YOU’RE GOING TO take the ship across the face of the moon tomorrow night,” said Antonio. They were in the lander.

Hutch sat back and enjoyed the moment. “You got it.”

“He’s going to need a pretty big telescope to see us.”

“Antonio, we’re not going near the moon.”

“We aren’t?”

“No. Look, we know he can see the moon now, so that narrows down the area he lives in. We’ll just get well outside the atmosphere, line ourselves up, and make the passage there. We’ll have to cover some ground to make sure he can see us from anywhere in this area, and we can’t put the ship right in the middle of his picture, which I’d have preferred to do, but we should be able to make it work.”

“And if he does see us—”

“Yes?”

“You really think he’ll keep it to himself?”

“I’d prefer he say nothing. But even if he doesn’t, who’s going to believe him? Say, did you see that moonrider last night?”

“Who’s going to believe him is everybody else that sees us.”

“You might have a point, Antonio.”

“Why do we care?”

“Because if we’re able to set this thing up, we don’t want to have to deal with a mob. Or the local army.”

“He’ll forget,” said Jon. “He won’t even think of it tomorrow night.”

There was a spirited discussion as the lander rose back into orbit. Rudy was glad they’d gotten through, taken the first step, but he thought the event was lacking in dignity. It just didn’t feel right.

Matt thought that history would remember the images of Hutch getting dragged up the pole. “I think you’ve become immortal,” he said.

“We’ll want to call him again tomorrow,” said Jon. “Remind him to watch, or it’ll be a nonevent.”

“It’s already a nonevent,” insisted Rudy. “You’re not supposed to, finally, after all these years, run into aliens more or less at our level, and call them on the VR.”

“It’s not a VR,” said Phyl. “They used to call it a telephone.”

“The thing that struck me,” Antonio told her as they approached the Preston, “was how human he sounded. And I understand we were listening to Phyl translate everything into the vernacular, and maybe even make a few things up. But his overall reaction was exactly how I would have responded. Get off the circuit, you creep.”

“Antonio,” said Jon, “he was more patient than you would have been.”

ANTONIO’S NOTES

We’ve just conducted the first conversation between humans and a representative from a technological civilization. It wasn’t at all what I would have expected. And Rudy has made his disappointment clear enough. When it was over, he shook his head, drank his coffee, and asked nobody in particular, “Where’s the majesty?”

—Friday, December 21

chapter 25

THE WORLD ROTATED once on its axis in twenty-one hours, seventeen minutes, and change. Tomorrow they’d put on a show, and, with luck, go down and say hello to Mr. Smith.

Good old Smitty.

Aboard the starships, there was again talk of celebration, but it didn’t happen. Too soon, Jon said. Matt thought they shouldn’t push their luck. See how it goes first. Don’t jinx things.

Hutch and her passengers went over to the McAdams. (They thought of it as a night out, a chance to get away.) They decided both ships would make the lunar passage. She and Matt planned the maneuver, then they all settled in to relax. “I wish Henry could have been here,” Jon said.

Hutch could think of a number of people with whom she’d have liked to share the moment, especially those who’d given their lives. George Hackett. Maggie Tufu, lost in the hunt for the Monument-Makers. Preacher Brawley, killed in the chindi search. Herman Culp and Pete Damon, murdered by creatures who’d resembled angels. There were others. It had been a long and bloody track, leading ultimately to a moon crossing in a place incomparably far from home.

She drank to them, silently, thinking, they were all there. They had all contributed. All those who had gone out over the years on the Academy flights, and for the Europeans, and on various independent missions. Here’s to everybody.

They’d all come home disappointed. Occasionally someone had found a living world, and that had been a victory of sorts. And there’d even been a handful with sentient creatures. But until now, other than the lunatic Noks, there’d been no one with anything resembling modern technology. Nobody who understood why there was rain or what stoked the fire in the sky.