“Yes. Exactly. Plus maybe a year to get up to light speed and a year to decelerate into the Vega system. But from the standpoint of the crew members, it would take a lot less. Maybe only a couple of years, depending on how close to light speed they travel.”
“For a biologist, der Heer, you’ve been learning a lot of astronomy.”
`Thank you, Ms. President. I’ve tried to immerse myself in the subject.”
She stared at him for just a moment and then went on. “So as long as the Machine goes very close to the speed of light, it might not matter much how old the crew members are. But if it takes ten or twenty years or more–and you say that’s possible–then we ought to have somebody young. Now, the Russians aren’t buying this argument. We understand it’s between Arkhangelsky and Lunacharsky, both in their sixties.”
She had read the names somewhat haltingly off a file card in front of her.
“The Chinese are almost certainly sending Xi. He’s also in his sixties. So if I thought they knew what they’re doing, I’d be tempted to say, `What the hell, let’s send a sixty year old man.'”
Drumlin, der Heer knew, was exactly sixty years old. “On the other hand…” he counterposed. “I know, I know. The Indian doctor; she’s in her forties….In a way, this is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. We’re picking somebody to enter the Olympics, and we don’t know what the events are. I don’t know why we’re talking about sending scientists. Mahatma Gandhi, that’s who we should send. Or, while we’re at it, Jesus Christ. Don’t tell me they’re not available, der Heer. I know that.”
“When you don’t know what the events are, you send a decathlon champion.”
“And then you discover the event is chess, or oratory, or sculpture, and your athlete finishes last. Okay, you say that it ought to be someone who’s thought about extraterrestrial life and who’s been intimately involved with the receipt and decrypting of the Message.”
“At least a person like that will be intimately involved with how the Vegans think. Or at least how they expect us to think.”
“And for really top rate people, you say that reduces the field to three.”
Again she consulted her notes. “Arroway, Drumlin, and…the one who thinks he’s a Roman general.”
“Dr. Valerian, Ms. President. I don’t know that he thinks he’s a Roman general; it’s just his name.”
“Valerian wouldn’t even answer the Selection Committee’s questionnaire. He wouldn’t consider it because he won’t leave his wife? Is that right? I’m not criticizing him. He’s no dope. He knows how to make a relationship work. It’s not that his wife is sick or anything?”
“No, as far as I know, she’s in excellent health.”
“Good. Good for them. Send her a personal note from me–something about how she must be some woman for an astronomer to give up the universe for her. But fancy up the language, der Heer. You know what I want. And throw in some quotation. Poetry, maybe. But not too gushy.” She waved her index finger at him. “Those Valerians can teach us all something. Why don’t we invite them to a state dinner? The King of Nepal’s here in two weeks. That’ll be about right.”
Der Heer was scribbling furiously. He would have to call the White House Appointments Secretary at home as soon as this meeting was over, and he had a still more urgent call. He had not been able to get to the telephone for hours. “So that leaves Arroway and Drumlin. She’s something like twenty years younger, but he’s in terrific physical shape. He hang glides, skydives, scuba dives…he’s a brilliant scientist, he helped in a big way to crack the Message, and he’ll have a fine time arguing with all the other old men. He didn’t work on nuclear weapons, did he? I don’t want to send anybody who worked on nuclear weapons.
“Now, Arroway’s also a brilliant scientist. She’s led this whole Argus Project, she knows all the ins and outs of the Message, and she has an inquiring mind. Everybody says that her interests are very broad. And she’d convey a younger American image.” She paused.
“And you like her, Ken. Nothing wrong with that. I like her too. But sometimes she’s a loose cannon. Did you listen carefully to her questionnaire?”
“I think I know the passage you’re talking about, Ms. President. But the Selection Committee had been asking her questions for almost eight hours and sometimes she gets annoyed at what she considers dumb questions. Drumlin’s the same way. Maybe she learned it from him. She was his student for a while, you know.”
“Yeah, he said some dumb things, too. Here, it’s supposed to be all cued up for us on this VCR. First Arroway’s questionnaire, then Drumlin’s. Just press the `play’ button, Ken.”
On the television screen, Ellie was being interviewed in her office at the Argus Project. He could even make out the yellowing piece of paper with the quote from Kafka. Perhaps, all things considered, Ellie would have been happier had she received only silence from the stars. There were lines around her mouth and bags under her eyes. There were also two unfamiliar vertical creases on her forehead just above her nose. Ellie on videotape looked terribly tired, and der Heer felt a pang of guilt.
“What do I think of `the world population crisis’?” Ellie was saying. “You mean am I for it or against it? You think this is a key question I’m going to be asked on Vega, and you want to make sure I give the right answer? Okay. Overpopulation is why I’m in favor of homosexuality and a celibate clergy. A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.”
Ellie waited, deadpan, indeed frozen, for the next question. The President had pushed the “pause” button.
“Now, I admit that some of the questions may not have been the best,” the President continued. “But we didn’t want anybody in such a prominent position, on a project with really positive international implications, who turns out to be some racist bozo. We want the developing world on our side in this one. We had a good reason to ask a question like that. Don’t you find her answer shows some…lack of tact? She’s a bit of a wiseass, your Dr. Arroway. Now take a look at Drumlin.”
Wearing a blue polka dot bow tie, Drumlin was looking tanned and very fit. “Yes, I know we all have emotions,” he was saying, “but let’s bear in mind exactly what emotions are. They’re motivations for adaptive behavior from a time when we were too stupid to figure things out. But I can figure out that if a pack of hyenas are headed toward me with their fangs bared there’s trouble ahead. I don’t need a few cc’s of adrenaline to help me understand the situation. I can even figure out that it might be important for me to make some genetic contribution to the next generation. I don’t really need testosterone in my bloodstream to help me along. Are you sure that an extraterrestrial being far in advance of us is going to be saddled with emotions? I know there are people who think I’m too cold, too reserved. But if you really want to understand the extraterrestrials, you’ll send me. I’m more like them than anyone else you’ll find.”
“Some choice!” the President said. `The one’s an atheist, and the other thinks he’s from Vega already. Why do we have to send scientists? Why can’t we send somebody…normal? Just a rhetorical question,” she quickly added. “I know why we have to send scientists. The Message is about science and it’s written in scientific language. Science is what we know we share with the beings on Vega. No, those are good reasons, Ken. I remember them.”
“She’s not an atheist. She’s an agnostic. Her mind is open. She’s not trapped by dogma. She’s intelligent, she’s tough, and she’s very professional. The range of her knowledge is broad. She’s just the person we need in this situation.”
“Ken, I’m pleased by your commitment to uphold the integrity of this project. But there’s a great deal of fear out there. Don’t think I don’t know how much the men out there have had to swallow already. More than half the people I talk to believe we’ve got no business building this thing. If there’s no turning back, they want to send somebody absolutely safe. Arroway may be all the things you say she is, but safe she isn’t. I’m catching a lot of heat from the Hill, from the Earth Firsters, from my own National Committee, from the churches. I guess she impressed Palmer Joss in that California meeting, but she managed to infuriate Billy Jo Rankin. He called me up yesterday and said `Ms. President’–he can’t disguise his distaste at saying `Ms.’– ‘Ms. President,’ he says, `that Machine’s gonna fly straight to God or the Devil. Whichever one it is, you better send an honest-to-God Christian.’ He tried to use his relationship with Palmer Joss to muscle me, for God’s sake. I don’t think there’s any doubt he was angling to go himself. Drumlin’s going to be much more acceptable to somebody like Rankin than Arroway is.