Free Here Comes Earth: Emergence by William Lee Gordon

and I have been friends and
colleagues for years. He is brilliant but, and I say this as a friend; he can
sometimes be rather self-absorbed and misguided. It might be best for everyone
if you allowed me to ‘take him under my wing’ so to speak and keep him out of
trouble. Nothing formal of course, just your blessing and trust to work closely
with him. I have some projects that he could be extremely helpful on and would
keep him busy.”
     
    After
a moment I stood up and stuck my hand out. “Thank you for coming Dr. Helmer.
I’ll take your offer under advisement but for the moment I think we have the
situation under control.”
     
    ∆∆∆
     
    It
had been an incredibly busy day and it didn’t look like I was going to be
getting my dinner anytime soon. I’d asked Captain Hiromi to track down her
sister Captain Kamiko as well as Dr. Spencer and invite them to my office for a
talk.
     
    Dr.
Spencer arrived first and seemed in a good mood; he started in on some friendly
small talk and I apologized for calling him into my office earlier only to be
called away by Col Memphis. I was still reserving judgment about him but he
seemed a likable enough guy. I don’t usually cotton to people that talk a lot
but he was so unpretentious that it worked for him. In our team meetings over
the last two months I’d noticed that he would sometimes appear to not be paying
attention but I’d never seen anyone catch him out on it. He never missed a beat
and could jump in on the conversation at any point. According to his file he
was one of the brightest people on the entire team but you would never know it;
he wasn’t an egghead at all.
     
    Captains
Hiromi and Kamiko walked in together and I asked them to close the door and
take a seat.
     
    “Captain
Kamiko, Dr. Spencer is not in your squad but I think you need to be here. Dr.
Spencer I will also thank you for your time and since Captain Hiromi is your
Blue Squad Leader I wanted her here as well.
     
    “I’ve
asked for this powwow because of today’s events. I need to understand exactly
what happened and how it happened. A lot of people got embarrassed today and a
lot of people are looking to assign blame. Unless I know exactly how it all
came about I’m not going to be able to protect anyone and even if you have or
haven’t done anything wrong you’re very likely going to need that protection.
Hiromi, I could order you to give me a full report but I’d rather hear it from
all of you voluntarily. So, how about it? Will you brief me into your circle?”
     
    They
all sort of glanced at each other and then interestingly enough it was Dr.
Spencer that spoke first. He tried to take responsibility by telling me that
he’d heard about Dr. Bell’s meeting with Jaki and managed to talk himself into
an invitation (Kamiko pulled me aside later and set the record straight by telling
me that she suggested Mark to Dr. Bell).
     
    After
hearing the full version I surprised him when I asked about his friendship with
Dr. Helmer; his reaction told me everything I needed to know.
     
    When
I point blank asked Dr. Spencer about his motivation for pushing Jaki into her
revelations he admitted that showing-up Helmer was a plus but insisted
(truthfully, I think) that the main reason was because it was interesting and
we needed to know.
     
    The
only part of their story that didn’t fit was when I asked them how they’d
arranged for the blogcast. Captain Kamiko, Captain Hiromi, and Dr. Spencer all
denied point-blank that they even knew about it until it was already done.
     
    I
dismissed the Captains but asked Dr. Spencer to stay for a moment…
     
    “Dr.
Spencer that was a gutsy move you made today. Had you thought it through or
were you just being reckless?” I asked.
     
    “I’m
not totally sure how to answer that Major. I didn’t pre-plan the conversation
but I could sense the opening to push for answers as clearly as I can see the
pictures on your wall. It just seemed self-evident