Free Wireless by Charles Stross Page B

is, after all, on an assignment from Brundle—but he’ll take what comfort he can from the deep stone canyons, the teeming millions scurrying purposefully about at ground level. The Big Apple is a hive of activity, as always, teeming purposeful trails of information leading the busy workers about their tasks. Gregor’s nostrils flare as he stands on the sidewalk on Lex ington and East 100th. There’s an Italian restaurant Brundle recommended when he gave Gregor his briefing papers. “Their spaghetti con polpette is to die for,” Brundle told him. That’s probably true, but what’s inarguable is that it’s only a couple of blocks away from the offices of the Exobiology Annex to Cornell’s New York Campus, where Sagan is head of department.
    Gregor opens the door and glances around. A waiter makes eye contact. “Table for one?”
    “Two. I’m meeting—ah.” Gregor sees Sagan sitting in a booth at the back of the restaurant and waves hesitantly. “He’s already here.”
    Gregor nods and smiles at the astronomer-exobiologist as he sits down opposite the professor. The waiter drifts over and hands him a menu. “Have you ordered?”
    “I just got here.” Sagan smiles guardedly. “I’m not sure why you wanted this meeting, Mr., uh, Samsa, isn’t it?” Clearly he thinks he gets the joke—a typical mistake for a brilliant man to make.
    Gregor allows his lower lip to twitch. “Believe me, I’d rather it wasn’t necessary,” he says, entirely truthfully. “But the climate in DC isn’t really conducive to clear thought or long-range planning—I mean, we operate under constraints established by the political process. We’re given questions to answer, we’re not encouraged to come up with new questions. So what I’d like to do is just have an open-ended informal chat about anything that you think is worth considering. About our situation, I mean. In case you can open up any avenues we ought to be investigating that aren’t on the map right now.”
    Sagan leans forward. “That’s all very well,” he says agreeably, “but I’m a bit puzzled by the policy process itself. We haven’t yet made contact with any nonhuman sapients. I thought your committee was supposed to be assessing our policy options for when contact finally occurs. It sounds to me as if you’re telling me that we already have a policy, and you’re looking to find out if it’s actually a viable one. Is that right?”
    Gregor stares at him. “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he says evenly. Which is the truth. “But if you want to take some guesses, I can either discuss things or clam up when you get too close,” he adds, the muscles around his eyes crinkling conspiratorially.
    “Aha.” Sagan grins back at him boyishly. “I get it.” His smile vanishes abruptly. “Let me guess. The policy is predicated on MAD, isn’t it?”
    Gregor shrugs then glances sideways, warningly: the waiter is approaching. “I’ll have a glass of the house red,” he says, sending the fellow away as fast as possible. “Deterrence presupposes communication, don’t you think?” Gregor asks.
    “True.” Sagan picks up his bread knife and absentmindedly twirls it between finger and thumb. “But it’s how the idiots—excuse me, our elected leaders—treat threats, and I can’t see them responding to tool-using nonhumans as anything else.” He stares at Gregor. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. Your committee pulled me in because there has, in fact, been a contact between humans and nonhuman intelligences—or at least some sign that there are NHIs out there. The existing policy for dealing with it was drafted sometime in the sixties under the influence of the hangover left by the Cuban war, and it basically makes the conservative assumption that any aliens are green-skinned Soviets and the only language they talk is nuclear annihilation. This policy is now seen to be every bit as bankrupt as it sounds, but nobody knows what to