Face of a Stranger

A story by Keith Croes

Rhinestone established an audacious hold on Antarctica and waited for insanity and death. There were 17 men and 15 women whose challenge was to perform menial tasks and fester in a pressure cooker that would blow the lids off those who couldn't take the isolation. Miles Duckworth, head of the Omnicron Project, was delighted and surprised that, after eight months, they seemed to be having a passably pleasant time.

"Another four months, Peg." His voice crackled on the short wave.

"We're not going anywhere."

Peg Carpenter, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, had accepted the unwelcome task of running Rhinestone only after extracting the promise of a promotion. Within three months after returning, she'd be standing in the base commander's office at Eglin, with the Florida sun dappling the Oriental rug, wearing nylon stockings and saluting the old fart. She'd probably get a Meritorious Service Medal as well. She'd sure as hell request one. She left the radio room and returned to her quarters, where she wrote for a while in her log. There was much she couldn't tell Duckworth on the short wave. He had some stars down here, but he also had some also-rans. But then, that was the whole point of the exercise.

The camp was just beginning to exit the Antarctic night, the slight lightening at midday visible through the few windows of the connected Quonset huts. By the time Rhinestone broke up in December, with the chaff of the Omnicron Project separated from the wheat, the sun again would roam daylong above the horizon.

A helicopter was scheduled to fly in supplies from a carrier the next day, and it would also be delivering and picking up mail. As officer of the day, Jim Magrann was ensconced in the OD's office off the rec room, OD being a quaint custom foisted by the colonel on the motley group, some of whom had no more exposure to the military than passing a recruiter's desk during course registration in college. He was writing a letter to his parents in Philadelphia when the fight broke out.

"Hey! hey! hey!" he yelled, running out the door and standing between the two men. One held a pool cue and Magrann pointed toward the table. "Put it down." The man hesitated. "Look, if it goes no further than this, there's no report and you two are still part of Omnicron. Otherwise..." He let the threat die and looked from one to the other, watching the anger dissipate.

The man with the pool cue, a microbiologist named Dick Roash, rolled the stick across the table and walked out of the room. The other man's name was Eric Baloff, an engineer. Roash was a short, edgy man whom early on Magrann had almost subconsciously decided to avoid.

"You better go, too," Magrann said to Baloff. Baloff left, and Magrann addressed the two women and two men who remained. "Look, uh, this is serious. I think we better close the rec room for the night."

He stopped one of the women, Claire Strawbridge, on her way out. Strawbridge, like Magrann, was an officer in the military--an Army lieutenant and computer specialist--and Magrann had spoken to her often.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Baloff was flirting with Becky and Roash took offense. Roash was playing the white knight and there just wasn't any call for it. I think both of them were kind of out of bounds."

Magrann switched out the lights in the rec room and returned to the OD cubicle, which wasn't much smaller than his room. It was 10:35 Eastern Standard Time. Lights out at Rhinestone was 11:00. He picked up his letter and reread what he'd written.

Dear Folks,

I just realized that you'll probably get all my letters in one big batch. They'll make a lot more sense if you read them in order. Or maybe not.

I've been wanting to explain something to you, but I don't think I've ever found the right words. I know sometimes I get bogged down in describing people and the routine down here, as if you cared about things that even I sometimes find mundane. Certain things are classified. But I don't know how much I'll be able to communicate with you even after I leave Rhinestone, and it's important to me that you understand the way I feel, so I'm going to try to give you an idea.

You raised me to be independent, and the time might come when you feel that you did that job too well. I know that some men need to be close to their families--I mean geographically close--and I have never felt that way. I guess some men need that support system in their day-to-day lives.

I think that, if I had a day-to-day life, I'd come to need it just as much as others seem to need it. But I live another type of life. Can you really imagine me as a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker? I hope I'm not fooling myself by believing that you were proud of me when I was first accepted by the Air Force Planetary Explorations Team. That kind of support I do need. I hope you're proud of me.

It's not that I don't feel any responsibility for family. If one of you fell ill and the other came to me and said, Jim, I need you to stay with me and help me with this, I'd be there for you. I decided this long ago. But soon that might not be true any more. It might not be possible. And I don't even know if they'll let me tell you. This whole passage may be clipped out of the letter by the time you get it.

You know that I love you. As a man, I feel that love even more deeply than I did as a child. You know it goes with me wherever I go.

The independent spirit you instilled in me is vital to the job I want to do. And I think it's a very special job, a job of surpassing importance. But it will exact a toll. It will cost me and it will cost you. You may have to take my word for it that it will be worth the price.

I remember when you brought home Buddy...

The letter ended. Magrann hunched over the page and wrote.

I was 7 years old, and I was 20 when he died. Buddy lived his whole life between my 7th and 20th year. I don't know exactly why I bring it up. But these things are relative, you know? He lived his entire natural life in just a small corner of our own. And we all loved him as much as you can love a dog, which is pretty much.

Enough of this rambling. I'll write again soon. I love you both.

Jim

Magrann leaned back in the chair and looked up at the digital clock mounted flat in a white plastic wall. After 14 experimental unmanned probes, the Omnicron Project would at last send people to the stars. Traveling faster than light in a way Magrann couldn't begin to understand, the round trip would take eight years. Fifty years would have passed on earth.

He gazed over at the OD log sheets snapped in their clipboard and ruminated for a moment as to whether he should report the flare-up between Roash and Baloff, then decided against it. In the heat of pacification, he had given his word that he wouldn't make any report if they both let it drop. Grasping the clipboard in his left hand, he rose to make his rounds. Every three hours all night long, checking off the items on the list--radio room, kitchen, storage areas, power station, personnel quarters. In the dim lights that signified Rhinestone's night within a night, the place seemed even more tenuous and the glacial blackness even more unrelentingly deadly. Whenever he pulled OD duty, he inevitably recalled an old movie he once saw in college, called The Thing. But it wasn't the threats outside they were worried about at Rhinestone. It was the threats inside.

Breakfast was two sizable lumps of reconstituted something and freeze-dried something else, and Magrann found himself sitting next to the colonel, who always ate with the first shift at 7 a.m. sharp. Afterward, he would be allowed to return to his quarters to sleep. He was hoping she wouldn't question him too closely about the previous night and was relieved when she mentioned the Planetary Explorations Team.

"You've been to Mars twice?" she asked.

Magrann nodded and glanced quickly at her nose and mouth. Carpenter must have been about 45 but easily could pass for ten years younger. She wore her blonde hair pulled back loosely into a knot behind her head, as so many female officers did, but she somehow appeared less severe than most, perhaps due to wide eyes and high, generous cheek bones. Magrann was often surprised by how he felt toward her, but never stupid enough to be open about it.

"I once had a commanding officer who served a stint in PET," she said, "but I really don't know that much about it. They're pretty much a separate entity, aren't they?"

"Hmm, entirely separate." Magrann wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. "The Air Force basically provides only administrative support, although I think it began as an Air Force Special Forces unit. It's...what's the word...eclectic, truly joint service. I'd guess about a fourth of PET personnel are civilians."

"This must be a cake-walk for you. Why are they making you go through this?"

Magrann shrugged. "I'm not the only one. Mike Harris, Lori Coles, Tony D'Amato are PETs." Magrann gestured around the table. "These are the folks we'll be with, I mean, we hope. Ten of us, anyway. We may have more experience with long-term isolation, but each group has its own dynamics. I'm sure that's what they're trying to find out. At least, that's my guess." He caught her eye and smiled. "Otherwise, they've wasted a year of my life."

She held a cup of coffee in front of her. "You're still a young man for having done so much. You're still a young man, period. I have a feeling you'll do just fine, if not with Omnicron then somewhere else."

Wearing full subzero gear, Roash suddenly appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, and the table grew silent. His parka hood was unzipped and laid open and back, giving the small man the appearance of having impossibly wide shoulders.

"Good morning, Dick." The colonel's voice was quiet, conversational. "Going for a walk?" A few people laughed.

"I...I'd like to help unload the helicopter."

Keeping her hand wrapped around the cup, the colonel lowered her coffee to the table. "I've already selected six people. Their names were posted yesterday in the rec room."

"I know, I know." He hugged himself as if he were cold. "But I'd really like to just get out for awhile, you know. Do something useful."

The colonel shrugged. "Sure. I'll arrange for it. But, ah, we're not expecting it until about 10 o'clock. Have some breakfast. It's wonderful, isn't it kids?" As laughter and conversation resumed, Magrann picked up his plate and pushed himself away from the table. Nodding at the colonel, he knew his eyes were as expressionless as hers.

Three months later the colonel came into the rec room and asked Magrann to come with her. Rhinestone spun at the bottom of the world in perpetual sunshine. As was her custom during off-duty hours, she wore civilian clothes, a bulky, cream-colored knit sweater and snug black pants. Magrann followed her down the cluttered hallway to the radio room, where she handed him the microphone.

"Magrann? Magrann?" The short wave sputtered it out.

"Yes, this is Jim Magrann."

"Magrann, this is Duckworth. Congratulations. You're one of the fifteen."

"Thank you, sir. That's terrific. But I thought there were going to be ten." His voice shook a little, as did the hand that held the microphone.

"Fifteen of you have been chosen. We'll have to narrow it down to ten later. There'll be some more screening. Maybe we'll just have to draw ten names at random. Based on Colonel Carpenter's reports and our own analysis, 15 of you would be just about perfect for the project. Congratulations."

''Thank you."

"Look, Magrann. None of the others are being told. I wanted to tell you because you're the only PET. So keep it under your hat. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Gotta go. See you in Houston."

Magrann held the microphone out to Carpenter. "The only PET?"

"Dynamics," she smiled.

Magrann couldn't have known he'd get a one-month leave on his return, but he should have guessed. He arrived on his parents' doorstep Christmas Eve with his huge military-issue duffel bag stuffed to the point of hardness. Just like old times.

His two brothers and his sister, all of them younger and all of them with families, showed up the next day and by nightfall his sides ached from laughing. Those family trips down memory lane, which occasionally peeved him in other circumstances, happened naturally, and he let them happen naturally. He let himself be completely himself.

In the coming days he looked up a few old friends. Most evenings he'd sit and talk or play Scrabble with his parents in front of the fire, telling them as much as he could. The Omnicron Project was public knowledge, but the list of prospective crew members was perhaps the best-kept secret of modern history. No one was talking, and Magrann would be no exception.

On the evening in late January before his flight back to Houston, he was sitting in his father's favorite chair, knowing that the older Magrann would soon be making his way up from the basement workshop to shoo him out in time for the network news. From the kitchen came rattling pans, his mother's footsteps, the rushing white noise of water in the sink, the clinking of something in the refrigerator, the springy slam of the oven door, and the sweet, meaty smell of his all-time favorite, Irish stew and dumplings.

"Okay, squatter, move it."

Magrann feigned irritation and switched to the couch, where he half-laid. The news intro was just ending, and the announcer appeared with the Project Omnicron logo behind his left shoulder.

"Still no word on the identities of the crew members who next month will take humankind's first step to the stars in the hyperlight ship, the Aurora," the announcer said. "The director of Project Omnicron, which oversees the mission, today responded to reports that the crew had not yet been chosen."

Miles Duckworth's placid, good-natured expression filled the screen, addressing a hand-held microphone. "We've narrowed it down to 15 people--eight men and seven women." His name flashed in yellow letters over his crooked tie. "I know we're running a little close to the wire on this, but there's a lot involved. These people, after all, are going to be gone 50 years, and they deserve their privacy. The names of the final ten who will take the Aurora out of earth orbit will be announced shortly." And then, responding to an unintelligible question: "Yes, within two weeks."

The announcer reappeared. "To the men and women who will participate in this historic journey, the trip to the star UBll5 and back will seem to take only eight years."

With a long sigh, his father pushed himself back in the overstuffed recliner, then turned to look at him. "That's you, isn't it?"

Magrann shrugged.

"Well, good luck. And you're damn right we're proud of you."

The 15 gathered in a classroom at the Omnicron headquarters outside of Houston two days later at 9 a.m. Duckworth and several other Omnicron brass were there, and Duckworth seemed agitated, rifling through thick files in several opened briefcases.

"Okay," he announced finally, coming around and leaning against the front of the desk. "I trust you're all in your quarters and settled in. Everything's okay, no problems?" He examined the group. "Claire, you got to the beauty salon okay?"

Strawbridge blushed at the laughter and patted her hair lightly with one hand. "Can't you tell?"

"We've got one month," Duckworth continued. "Today will be a long day. You'll each take a number of physical tests and get a compete exam--nothing new. You'll also be having a chat with a psychiatrist, Bernard Berue, whom you've never met. He's an expert in interpersonal psychiatry, and he's got a great interpersonality. Tomorrow we'll announce the ten who'll go with the Aurora."

The silence seemed to upset him. "You 15 could probably live in the same room forever and never make an enemy among you. But we can only take ten. And there's more to this mission than just being able to get along with each other. Mark, pass out the schedules." Duckworth's assistant began circulating, studying to match up the individualized forms with their owners.

"We're under a lot of public pressure to establish this crew," Duckworth went on. "But more importantly, we've only got a month. And that will be a precious month together for the ten who are selected. Lunch will be from 1 to 2. We'll try to get out of here by 8 for a late dinner at a local restaurant. I'm buying. Any questions?"

The tests were indeed routine: cardiovascular, EKG, EEG, blood workup, magnetic resonance and CT scans, visual fields, hearing thresholds, reflexes, reaction times, etc., the same basic battery they had received a month before when they returned from Rhinestone. Magrann sat beside Strawbridge at lunch, grateful that she was there but saying next to nothing. He was scheduled to see Bernard Berue at 2 o'clock.

One of the Omnicron proctors, a paunchy middle-age man whom Magrann realized was probably not much older than himself, led him into an office and motioned toward a high-backed chair positioned in the middle of the room about ten feet in front of a desk and another chair.

"He'd like everybody to just relax here for a moment. He'll be right with you."

Behind the desk was a broad, tall window covered by white sheers. The rest of the office was dim. The doctor entered from a door at the rear left corner of the office. "Hello." He was looking at something in his hand. "Captain Magrann, I'm Bernard Berue. Please remain seated." His soft, deep voice carried an unidentifiable accent. He moved behind the desk and sat, a dark outline before the window.

"Congratulations on your successful completion of the Rhinestone experience. I'd like to talk to you about that."

"Uh, before we get started, Dr. Berue, would it be okay to pull up my chair? I'm having a hard time seeing you."

The man laughed. "I appreciate and understand your request. The couch is still very much a part of the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic processes. Its purpose in keeping the doctor from the patient's view is to enable the patient to concentrate on his or her thoughts without distraction. I would like you to do just that and, being somewhat hesitant to ask you all to lay on a couch, I came up with this arrangement, though I don't know how effective it can be in the limited time we have to spend together. To be frank, it is probably as much for my benefit as yours. If you find that this in itself is distracting, I'm sure we can find an alternative."

"No, that's okay. I understand."

The doctor leaned back in his chair. "For your information, no possible distinctions can be made between those who would make such a request and those who would not. At least, I don't think so. I'll have to consider it. Perhaps you are just a friendly man. Perhaps you assumed that it was part of a test and your request was a calculated move. What was your motive?"

Magrann hesitated. "I don't know. I like to see who I'm talking to. I figured it may have been part of a test. And I know you specialize in interpersonal interaction. If I see you, I think I can interact better with you."

"It is not part of a test. And the relationship that matters is not yours with me, but yours with the other 14 remaining from Rhinestone. Please, relax. Think back to your experience as a whole." He paused. "Were there any people at Rhinestone you instinctively disliked?"

"I think so, yes."

"What do you mean, you think so?"

"Sometimes I get the urge to...avoid certain people, or at least limit my openness with them. It's as if I don't want to get to know them that well and I don't want them to know me. With certain people, I get the feeling that if they open up to me, I won't like what I see."

"Are any of these people among the 14 others who remain with Omnicron?"

"No."

"Were you attracted to Colonel Carpenter?"

Magrann snorted in mild surprise, and clasped his hands over his stomach. "She's an attractive woman. I admired her intelligence and her...confidence in her command. She was a good officer...is a good officer. I respected her...more than I was attracted to her."

"Did you make any what you might call lifelong friends at Rhinestone?"

"Yes, I think so."

"How many?"

"Well, they may not be lifelong in the sense that we'll stay in touch for the rest of our lives. Of course, it depends on how things work out, who goes and who stays. I'd certainly like to stay in touch with three of the people involved in the project. But even if we don't stay in touch, I'll always consider them friends. I'll consider them good friends for the rest of my life."

"Are these three among the 14 others?"

"Yes."

"Men or women?"

"Two men, one woman."

"Hmm." The doctor appeared to put on a pair of glasses. "And you have two brothers and a sister. Is there a connection?"

"I don't think so." Magrann laughed. "I really don't think so."

"I'm sure you're right." He removed the glasses. "We shrinks tend to read too much into things. Occupational hazard. Do you have any lifelong friends outside of the project?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Outside of my family, two. Both men."

"And your family, your friends, most will be dead as soon as you step into the Aurora. Have you thought about this?"

"Of course. And yes, it bothers me. How do I deal with it? Well, I deal with it. We must go to the stars. I guess I see it as a sacrifice for that cause. I won't lie to you--it really hurts. But I think it will hurt less with time. I think everyone I know will understand. I think none of us, including me, will regret it in the long run."

"Tell me about the woman. Would you mind telling me her name?

"Ah, sure. Claire Strawbridge."

"Have you wondered whether she would make a good spouse?"

"Yeah, it's entered my mind. But...most of us long ago put marriage on a back burner. She is exactly like me about this. If we were both to be chosen, well, the mission comes first."

"Have the two of you discussed marriage?"

"No."

"Then how do you know how she feels about it?"

"I...I just know."

"There are several Russians, Japanese, black men and women among the 15 of you..."

"Yeah?"

"How do you feel about that?"

"About what?"

"How do you feel about these people?"

"I don't understand."

The glasses went back on. "Tell me about Buddy."

"Buddy? My dog?" Magrann felt a rising anger that turned easily into calm acceptance. Of course they know about Buddy. "He was a beagle we had when I was growing up. But then, you must know all about it."

"Did you love it?"

"Yes, I loved him. He was a great dog."

"In the letter to your parents in which you mentioned him, why did you mention him?"

Magrann looked into the bright window. "Because something you love can live and die while you go on."

"So it was a reference to the difference in elapsed time between what you would experience here and during the Aurora mission?"

"In a way, I guess."

"And in this case, the dog represented your parents, living and dying while you went on?"

"I guess. And everyone else I'd leave behind. Or maybe it was the other way around--that they got to live 50 years while I only lived eight."

The doctor rose and thanked Magrann, then exited through the door at the rear of the office.

At 7:30 that evening the crew boarded three military vans that took them to a restaurant several miles away called The Captain's Table. A clear, cool night was descending from the broad Texas sky, poking out its early stars with a kind of brash determination. A sense that the dinner was something rare and special quickly made its rounds through the group. The surprisingly elegant atmosphere of the restaurant was a stark contrast to the sparse, official feel of Omnicron headquarters, a refurbished NASA campus.

As he stood at the head of the long table, Duckworth exhibited no trace of his earlier irritability. "Get anything you want. Nothing on the menu is more than 12 dollars."

Seated near the opposite end from Duckworth, Magrann laughed with the others and watched the project director take his seat. A busboy had pulled a cart up behind Magrann's left shoulder and was filling his glass from a pitcher of ice water, while two waitresses on both sides of the table scratched out drink orders.

Magrann turned toward the busboy and his breath locked in a quick knot in his chest. The man's face was grossly deformed.

''Thank you."

The man nodded and went on to the person next to Magrann, Pete Orenstein, one of the two men at Rhinestone whom Magrann had grown to like tremendously. The other, Bill Taylor, sat across from them next to Claire Strawbridge. Like Magrann, Orenstein didn't see the busboy's face until his glass had been filled. The shock in his own face was apparent. "Thank you," he managed.

Magrann watched Strawbridge and Taylor, who had seen the busboy and Orenstein's reaction to him. The two exchanged a glance and then looked across the table at Magrann and Orenstein, both wearing the same blank expression. Magrann leaned back in his chair and raised his water glass. "Here's to eight years of drinking our own urine."

The other three laughed and responded happily to the toast. "On the rocks," said Orenstein.

The four talked, but Magrann remained aware of the busboy working his way down the table. He had seen the condition before, and the events surfaced in a vivid flood. Driving from Philadelphia back to the Penn State campus to begin the spring term of his junior year, he had exited the turnpike in Lancaster County to pick up a friend in Elizabethtown. On a sun-drenched stretch of rural road, his left rear tire had blown out. Not having a jack or a spare and not knowing what else to do, he had set out across a choppy field toward the black-clad figure of an Amish farmer, who seemed to be fiddling with the harness that attached his two horses to a plow. The walking had been difficult, and as Magrann neared, the man had moved to where he was almost entirely hidden by the horses. When Magrann finally reached the animals and circled around them, the man had crouched in terror. His face had been the same caricature.

At the time Magrann thought that it may have been from inbreeding. Whatever the cause, the result was a tragic funhouse distortion of the human form, a nightmarish variation on the theme.

Magrann had recovered enough to ask the farmer for help, but he knew even as he spoke the words that it would be of no use. The man had held his hands in front of his face, looking away and pleading, "No, no!" Magrann had returned to his car to wait for help.

Spirits were high at the end of the meal when Duckworth's clinking brought them to silence. He stood.

"I'm sure you understand the magnitude of the accomplishment that has brought all 15 of you to this table tonight. Talk about the best of the best." There were appreciative cries and laughter, and some self-congratulatory applause. "As I've already told some of you, we may be forced to draw names from a hat. But that's our problem. The fact is, any of you could go, and any of you could succeed. For that, you should be justly proud."

Magrann sat and watched the busboy clear dishes as the people stood one and two at a time, some wandering into the lobby and a few drifting out onto the sidewalk. Suddenly, the man's face seemed normal, not deformed at all, and even more than that, warm and tender and familiar. Magrann smiled to himself and rose, placing his napkin on the table.

The crew had been told to meet in the classroom at 11 a.m., so Magrann was surprised when Duckworth's assistant, Mark, came to his quarters at 9:30. "Miles would like to see you in his office."

Magrann tried to stifle the obvious thought as he followed Mark down the hallway. It made sense that the five who didn't make it would be informed first so they could leave quietly. And it would be quicker and neater and more like Duckworth first to inform the unlucky five than the lucky ten.

"Jim, have a seat." Magrann knew at a glance that Duckworth had been up all night. He wore the same tie as he had at dinner, loosened now at least four inches from his throat, and his crumpled white shirt bore a small pink teardrop-shaped stain above the pocket. His desk was heavy with thick file folders and he was scanning a paper in his hand. Mark pulled the door shut on his way out, leaving the two of them alone, and Duckworth began, not waiting for Magrann to get settled. "Jim, you're now a major in the Air Force and you're going to lead a mission to the star UB115 in the ship Aurora."

"Lead?"

Duckworth glanced up. "The mission has to have a leader. It's basic to an endeavor of this kind, wouldn't you agree?"

"I guess."

"Have you ever gone on an expedition without a leader?"

Magrann shook his head.

"Actually, it's a good question and one we've wrestled with for more than a year. Were you aware of that?"

"No."

"We thought about bringing someone with PET experience in, but not one of the PET mission leaders tested as high in the areas we thought were important as the 15 of you. So we decided to go with a clean slate. Pick the best and worry about the leader later. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"And you never thought about being the leader of this crew?"

"No."

"Good. That figures."

"Why me?"

"Lots of reasons." Duckworth put the paper aside and sat back in his chair. "A major factor--but not the only factor--is what we think is your great aptitude and likelihood for success in initiating a peaceful contact and exchange with other life forms."

"Other life forms." Magrann said it flatly, uncomprehendingly.

"The Aurora will assume an orbit around UB115, a matching orbit with one of its planets, a planet that contains intelligent inhabitants. The Aurora will overtake that planet, assume an orbit around it and initiate contact with those inhabitants. Is there anything I've said that you don't understand."

"God. How do we know that this planet has inhabitants?"

"We've been monitoring their signals for a decade. When hyperlight travel became possible five years ago, development of the Aurora began almost immediately with the purpose of traveling to UB115. We began sending our own transmissions in that direction nine years ago, so when you reach the planet in four years, they will have been listening to us for about a year. Your arrival should not come as a complete surprise."

"I see." Magrann shook his head in wonderment. "How many people know all this?"

"Just the right people, Jim. Just the right people. Do you want the job?"

"Are you kidding?" Magrann took in Duckworth's grin. "You mentioned my aptitude for initiating contact with these beings. How do you know that?"

"Well, that's the interesting part. All of you are flexible in your approach to your environment. But that question was settled only last night. There were sensors in the chairs at the restaurant that recorded about everything that could be recorded. Each of you was under constant scrutiny by a camera, and your body positions and facial expressions--including eye movements--were analyzed last night and this morning by Dr. Berue and his computers.

"It's not a new area of study," Duckworth continued, "but Berue has pretty much written the book in the past dozen years. How will people react to and interact with other life forms? What type of person will be most successful? That's his specialty--psychosociology, sociopsychology, or probably most accurately, extraterrestrial interactive sociopsychology. They're going to have to come up with a better name."

"The busboy," Magrann said suddenly.

"A strange, perhaps repugnant presence in new surroundings--it's as close as we could come to introducing you to an alien without tipping you off. And it was important that we didn't tip you off. You're all excellent test-takers."

"And I apparently passed this one."

"Jim, you're a born explorer who also happens to be a fine human being. Berue has various measures--indices--of acceptance, empathy, compassion, all that good stuff. You topped the charts. Yet you're strong enough to make the tough decisions. Life-and-death decisions. You know they happen. You've already had to make a few. Berue wants to meet with you face-to-face again sometime in the next month. I think you really captured his...I don't know, attention. Imagination."

"Sure, but I've yet to see his face. He kept himself silhouetted against the windows yesterday."

Duckworth shook his head. "You saw him last night. Berue was the busboy. And that wasn't a costume."

Magrann stared ahead at the foot of the desk. "He's had a whole lifetime to study that kind of reaction. Christ."

"Yeah. Look, none of the crew is to know about the contact at UB115 until the Aurora is underway. Berue thinks they should hear it from you in your own good time. You'll have four years to figure out how you're going to break it to them. If anything should happen to you, since radio communication will be impossible, a recording will automatically be played through the ship's public address system two weeks before arrival at UB115. Two weeks. Understand?"

Magrann nodded.

"We'll go over all these details and much, much more, as they say, during the next month. Now get out of here. See you at 11 in class." Duckworth rose and extended his hand. "And congratulations. Again. You know, you're more than just about perfect for this job. We're lucky to have you."

"Just one thing, Miles." Magrann maintained his grip on Duckworth's hand. "Can you tell me if Claire made it?"

Duckworth gave a snort of mock exasperation. "She's your second in command. Anything happens to you, she takes over."

"And when can I tell my parents about this?"

"You can go call them right now, as far as I'm concerned. We make the public announcement this afternoon. If I can last that long."

Magrann stopped at a row of phone booths set into a wall of the hallway that adjoined the wide, tiled lobby and called his parents collect. Just like old times. Afterward, he made two more calls, one to a friend in Baltimore and the second to a friend in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, both of whom gladly accepted the charges.

THE END

MORE STORIES BY KEITH CROES

keith@croes.com