Free New Title 1 by Steven Lyle Jordan Page B

right, and a single door on the opposite side of the room, with a simple plaque that read: “Science Director.”
    An artificial voice emanated from the air above the room as Calvin entered: “Good morning, sir. May we help you?”
    “Dr. Calvin Rios,” Calvin stated, “to see Dr. Silver.”
    “Of course, Dr. Silver is expecting you. Please go in.”
    The door clicked and slid open a few centimeters. Calvin stepped forward, took the handle and slid the door open the rest of the way. It opened into a comfortable office, lightly decorated in up-to-date carbons and glass, and with a group of large potted plants on the side of the room to Calvin’s left. The wall opposite the door was dominated by a 3-D display column that was empty at the moment. The right side of the room held an executive workstation, and seated behind it, Dr. Jacqueline Silver, who was already standing up at Calvin’s approach.
    Dr. Silver was just a few years older than Calvin, with strong but attractive Native American features, a good figure and dark but lovely eyes. Her dark hair was mostly straight and pulled back into a bun, but she allowed some of it to spill over her forehead in attractive bangs. The two of them had been introduced soon after he’d arrived on Verdant, and not long thereafter, Ceo Lenz had asked him to be the satellite’s Science Advisor, a position that would occasionally bring them together professionally. Maria had instantly become suspicious, and possibly threatened by this powerful and attractive woman whom she suspected had orchestrated the position. But as it turned out, the two of them hardly interacted, other than through intermediaries, or at brief meetings, public lunches and dinners (which, considering Maria, was probably just as well). Dr. Silver largely administrated and did practical work, and Calvin acted in a more advisory, “theoretic” capacity with the CnC.
    But despite their professional similarities, the fact was that she was far and above Calvin’s superior in science—she had dual PhDs in practical and theoretical physics, while his specialty was actually mathematics—and they both knew it. That unevenness had made some of their past meetings awkward, and Calvin never felt truly at-ease around her.
    “Hello, Dr. Rios,” she said casually, offering a hand that was noticeably darker in skin tone than his own. “Aaron told me to expect you. How are you?”
    “Okay,” Calvin replied, shaking her hand. “And you? Keeping busy, I understand.”
    “Of course,” she replied, then did a double-take. “Oh: You mean
today
.” She smiled wryly, and indicated a chair by the desk. As Calvin sat down, she leaned against the front of her desk, close to the chair. “Yes, there’s nothing like being stuck in a sealed room and having to tell your boss you can’t come when the President comes calling. I’m sure I won’t hear the end of that for awhile.”
    “What were you in the middle of?”
    Dr. Silver inclined her eyes skyward and arched her eyebrows sadly. “I was standing in a probe clean-room during a tear-down and reprogramming process that couldn’t be rushed or halted, when they called me. It’s my own fault, really… I hadn’t realized before I went in that the reprogramming would take as long as it had… and the initial job was to be
three hours long
. Thank God I’d been to the bathroom first!” Calvin chuckled appropriately, though it seemed to him her story was deliberately skewed to put him at ease. Dr. Silver shrugged and winced. “Fortunately, they had scheduled a convenient interim point for a break, and sealed the probe up in time for me to get out in somewhat less than three hours. But by then the meeting was already over.”
    “Ah. Well, obviously, you know what the meeting was about… I’m sure they sent you details?”
    “Of course,” Dr. Silver replied, turning her head and arching backwards over her desk to tap something on her workstation. Calvin casually noted