imagery.”
Deirdre murmured, “You know that I’ve been working with Dr. Corvus and the dolphins. He wants to use DBS equipment to make contact with the leviathans.”
“I didn’t realize you were working with him,” Archer admitted. With a slight shrug, he added, “Well, that’s another avenue of approach to the problem.”
Deirdre saw the burning eagerness on his bearded face. He wants to understand those gigantic creatures, she recognized. He’s dying to know, she thought. And he’s willing to risk lives to find out. He’s willing to send people down into that alien ocean to find out, no matter how dangerous it is.
DINNER
Deirdre hesitated, then plunged, “I don’t know if I can do that for you, Dr. Archer.”
With a visible effort, the station director blanked the wall screens and turned to Deirdre. Smiling gently, he said, “Well, you think about it, Ms. Ambrose. It’s very important to us, to our understanding of these alien creatures. To our ability to make meaningful contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species.”
“You think they’re intelligent?”
“I’m certain of it.”
Deirdre’s mind was spinning. Intelligent. Communicate through visual images. He wants me to go down into the ocean.
“And don’t forget about little
“I’ll try,” she said, pulling herself to her feet.
Archer stood up, too. As he walked to the door with her he said, “I’m giving a little dinner this evening for the new arrivals. Nineteen hundred hours, in conference room C. I hope you haven’t already made other arrangements.”
Knowing that an invitation from the station director, even a casual one, was more like a command, Deirdre replied, “I’d be happy to come.”
“Good,” he said as he slid open the door to the passageway. “Nineteen hundred. Mrs. Westfall will be joining us, too.”
When Deirdre got back to her own compartment there was a message from Andy Corvus waiting.
“Hi there, Dee,” he said, his slightly mismatched face grinning boyishly from the wall screen. “We’re all invited to dinner with the station director tonight. Can I pick you up around eighteen forty-five?”
She returned his call immediately. Andy wasn’t in his quarters, so she left a message.
Precisely at eighteen forty-five she heard a rap on her door. Still wearing the flowered dress, she slid the door back and saw that Andy was accompanied by Yeager and Dorn. Yeager had obviously shaved; he smelled of cologne.
“The three musketeers,” she said, smiling brightly at them.
Yeager elbowed Corvus aside and offered his arm to her. “Then you must be the Queen of France,” he said grandly.
She politely stepped past Yeager and slipped her arm around Corvus’s. “Andy asked me first,” she said sweetly to Yeager.
“Yeah,” he grumbled, “but I’m better-looking.”
Dorn said, “And more modest, too.”
They all laughed, linked arms, and strode along the passageway toward conference room C.
It was a small room, almost intimate, its oblong central table set for eight. Grant Archer was already standing at the side table set up on the far end of the room with an array of bottles and glasses and a large silvery bucket of ice.
“The newbies!” Archer called out to them. “Welcome.”
He introduced the buxom dark-haired woman beside him as his wife, Marjorie. Deirdre quickly learned that she was a biochemist.
“Are you working on the leviathans?” Deirdre asked as she poured herself a glass of fruit juice.
Marjorie smiled tolerantly. “We’re all working on the leviathans, whether we want to or not.”
Deirdre felt her brows go up. But before she could think of anything to say, the double doors slid open and Katherine Westfall swept in, accompanied by a beefy-looking young man in a sky blue blazer and tight slacks. A boy toy! Deirdre said to herself. He was good-looking, in a muscular bodyguard way. At least he’s not that zombie I met earlier, Deirdre thought.
Archer went the length of the room to welcome Mrs. Westfall and her escort, then introduced them to each of the others. The boy toy claimed to be an accountant; he looked more like a security guard to Deirdre. Westfall gave no hint that she’d already met Deirdre.
“We don’t normally serve alcoholic drinks here,” Archer said, once he had led Mrs. Westfall to the makeshift bar, “but in honor of your presence, we’ve figured out how to make a dry martini.” He poured a clear liquid into a stemmed, wide-brimmed glass and handed it to her. “I hope it meets with your approval.”
“I’m sure it will,” Westfall said, the corners of her lips curving ever so slightly. She sipped, then pronounced, “Perfect! How did you ever do it?”
Archer looked almost sheepish. “Well, the head of our food service group claims that he once tended bar in Sydney, Australia. I’m not certain that I believe him, but Red is a very resourceful person.”
“He certainly knows how to mix a martini,” Westfall said. But Deirdre noticed she didn’t take another sip.
“Speak of the devil,” said Marjorie, as the double doors opened and a short, wiry red-haired man with a bushy red mustache and a bristling skull-hugging crew cut entered, leading a quartet of serving robots, their flat tops laden with covered dishes.
“Rodney Devlin,” Archer announced. “Our chief cook and bartender.”
Devlin was wearing a sparkling white chef’s jacket and a big grin on his lantern-jawed face. He made a little bow as the robots rolled along the side wall like a quartet of well-trained waiters, then stopped in unison.
“Greetings and salutations, folks,” said Devlin. “Who’s for steak and who’s for fish? It’s all soy-based, o’course, but I think I got the flavors right.”
Devlin disappeared once everyone sat at the table and began eating. By the time the diners were picking desserts off the robots that maneuvered slowly around the table, Archer said, “I’m looking forward to working with all of you and learning more about the leviathans.”
Andy Corvus, halfway down the table, replied, “I’m looking forward to making contact with the beasts.”
“Contact?” Marjorie Archer asked.
With his usual vigorous nod, Andy explained, “If they’re intelligent, we should be able to communicate with them.”
“
“I’m sure that they are,” said Grant Archer.
“How so?” Westfall asked. Her voice was soft, but everyone turned toward her.
“Because they communicate with each other,” Archer replied. “They flash signals back and forth. They have language—”
“Flashing lights don’t necessarily mean language,” Westfall objected. “Fish in Earth’s oceans make luminescent glows and they’re certainly not intelligent.”
“The leviathans are,” Archer insisted. “I’m sure of it.”
