Maximum Warp
Chapter 8: What Are Little Girls Made Of?

It looked just like a can of Coke. Not, interestingly, a can of Diet Coke. Christmas red, classic white Spencerian script, vintage Seventies wave logo. But, as I discovered when Ensign Worm handed it to me, it weighed more than half again as much as a 12-ounce can.

Which is why I dropped it.

“Shit!!!” I jumped back, half expecting the device to explode on contact with the ceramic tile in Janet’s kitchen. It just landed with kind of a thud instead, then rolled towards me.

“Shit,” Janet agreed, but her undeleted expletive sounded more annoyed than surprised. She surveyed the new crack in her floor tile with a frown.

“No, no,” Worm corrected. “It is ‘battery,’ as requested. Not human waste.”

We looked at him.

“It’s the ree-all thing,” he said in his quote-y voice.

I took a knee to pick up the can – Janet had impressed upon me that simply bending down to do such things was inadvisable for someone with my ass-ets – and held it once more. It wasn’t heavy, exactly. Just heavier than I had expected. I noticed a U.S. type-A power socket and something that looked like a lightning port on the bottom of the can.

I rose and looked at Worm. “This holds as much energy as it takes to drive a car from here to New York City?”

“Yes. Unless Wrongway Feldman drives.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Never mind,” Janet urged.

Janet was right. I returned to business. “All the components are available here on this planet?”

“Yes. All common. But, device shielded, yes?”

“Right. What things should we avoid doing with it?” I asked.

“Do not open or scan battery,” Worm replied in his flatest voice.

“What will happen if we do?”

“Boom,” he said.

“Okaaay then. Anything else we need to know?” I asked him.

“This device will self-destruct in five ‘weeks.’ Good luck, Jim.”

“Jessica, dammit. Or even James! Never ‘Jim!’” I snapped.

Worm looked puzzled. “Siri calls you Jim.”

“And you don’t even want to know what I call Siri!”

“Hmmm . . . Is there something else I can help you with?” asked a familiar synthetic voice coming from my back pocket.

“I doubt it. You never have,” I snarled.

“I don’t know what that means. Would you like me to search the web for . . . .”

I cut her off. It. Whatever. “No. Cancel!”

“Siri is . . . not excellent?” Worm inquired.

I was about to give my unfiltered and very pithy view on that question but stopped myself just in time. “That depends. Its voice-recognition software needs work. Other elements of the overall program are better.”

Janet was looking at me like I had grown a second head. Or, I don’t know, turned into a busty, beautiful girl or something.

I shook my head at her fractionally, then asked Worm, “How were you planning to use Siri?”

“We accessed the language database to assist with translation of our “Rule Governing Contact with Backward Societies.”

I hope that Worm could not accurately interpret my facial expression. Backward society, indeed! “Do you have your translation finished?”

Worm reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and handed me some sort of print-out. The writing was in English, and it was brief: “The People will not do or say anything that will alter the natural development of any less advanced sentient or potentially sentient species in star systems other than our own.”

“That’s it?” I inquired, somewhat taken aback. “We have longer rules about potato chips!”

“‘Brevity is the soul of lingerie,’” Janet murmured.

Worm looked at us. “We try. Our thinking . . . our communication . . . different is very. We understand this rule . . . But to speak? Not certain.”

I nodded. That, I expected. “I want to take this to our lawyer. Like Perry Mason, but different . . . person. He – we – will want to ask you questions about the text. Maybe others from your crew too?”

“That . . . yes. We think that important is. Rule must be followed. Elder Mission Leader should here be. But he will Siri need. To speak.”

While confident that would cause its own set of problems, I agreed that it would probably be best. “Can you wait a moment, please?”

I made a call.

“Law offices, this is Jennifer Somers.”

“Hi Ms. Somers, this is Jessica James. Is Mr. Abel available?”

“He’s just about to leave for court. Is it urgent?”

“If I could have just a minute of his time, I’d appreciate it.”

“Let me check,” she said.

A few seconds later, Able’s rich baritone joined the conversation. “Ms. James. What’s up?” His voice sounded warm.

“The visitor we spoke about is back and I have the text. Is there a time you can meet with me and, ah, their representatives, at Professor Seldon’s house?”

“No shit?”

“Nope. Battery.”

“What?” he asked, confused.

“I’ll explain later. Can you come?”

“Will tonight work? After six?”

I looked at Worm. “Would you be able to meet with the lawyer here at, say, ninety of our minutes before sundown?”

Worm said yes and I confirmed with Abel. Showtime!!!

* * * * *

Janet was glum. “He’s definitely the guy. And he’ll take my call.”

I looked at her skeptically. “Then why do you look like you’ve been sucking lemons and eating cane toads?”

“Ever hear the sayin’, ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes God?’”

I didn’t recall its provenance, but I’d certainly heard the expression. Unsurprising, really, since it described a depressingly significant percentage of distinguished professors. “One of those, huh?”

“Mighta been written about him.” Janet continued to slice cheese for our sandwiches. “But . . . yeah. He’s the guy. He got the damned Nobel in Chemistry for his work on battery tech. And he’s on the President’s Science Advisory Board.”

“Wait . . . wasn’t he the one who got booted off the advisory board – he was the chair – because . . . .” Oh.

“Of an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with an intern?” Janet said. “Yep. That’s the asshole. But that was a couple administrations back, and apparently the powers that frickin’ always are decided he’s too damned valuable to toss him overboard completely for such a trivial infraction. So he’s back.”

I remembered the incident, which had taken place in the quaint old days when inappropriate relationships with subordinates had been scandals worthy of front page headlines and carried consequences. Seven, eight years ago.

My expression mustn’t have been any more cheerful than Janet’s. “But he’ll take your call?”

“For Patrice’s sake, if nothin’ else. We were close for a lot of years.”

I sighed. “Well, if you’re willing to grit your teeth and make the call, I’ll gird my loins, or whatever the hell I’ve got down there now, and do the meeting.”

“Not alone you won’t, Missy. Not unless you’re girding with kevlar and a mousetrap!”

If I’d still had a penis, it would have retracted into my body at the very thought of Janet’s notion of protection. Yikes!

“Janet, I know what I look like now. And sound like, for that matter. But do try to remember that I’m older than you are.”

She stopped making sandwiches and gave me a long look. “When it comes to language, Jessica, you’re everythin’ you ever were. More, maybe. But when it comes to ‘girl stuff’ . . . trust me. You have less experience than your apparent age, not more.”

My instinct to fight Janet’s maternalism was strong. I’m an adult, and I’ve been dispatching assholes all by myself for decades. I didn’t think of Professor Grimm as a threat to me in any physical sense.

But I was almost certainly wrong about that. Much as it lacerated my ego to admit it, I really didn’t know how to handle myself as a young woman. Janet was right. “Concedo,” I said ruefully.

I only heard Janet’s side of the call:

“Gavin, it’s Janet Seldon. . . .”

“I know, right? Too long. . . . “

“I’m good. Real good. Enjoying the summer . . . . “

“You are? Really? That sounds fantastic. . . . “

“Yeah, I’m jealous. Well . . . I would be jealous, but I’m workin’ on somethin’ even more interestin’. . . . “

“Well, that’s why I’m callin’, actually. It’s sorta in your wheelhouse, what with your Nobel an’ all. . . . “

“Nope. I’m serious. Dead serious. . . .”

“I want to show you, not tell you. Have you got time this week? . . . “

“Yeah, I mean this week! . . . . “

“Not over the phone, Gav. . . .”

“I promise. It’ll be worth your while. . . . “

“Yes, Gavin, I do have an idea how busy you are. . . . “

“No, I’m not saying more on the phone. . . . “

“A half hour only. What I’ll be askin’ for at the meeting will take more time, but you’ll be able to say ‘No’ if you don’t want the opportunity. . . . “

“No idea. . . . “

“Because I’m a literature professor, not a chemical engineer, that’s why! . . . .”

“Wednesday, 3:45 in your office? Of course. That’ll be fine.”

“No problem. You won’t regret it.”

“I know you do, but that’s only ‘cuz you don’t know what I know!”

“Fine. Wednesday. See ya!”

She ended the call, then double checked to make sure that her phone was really, truly off. “Prick!”

“But you got the meeting.”

“Yeah, I got it. ‘Scuze me while I go take a shower. ‘Do you have any idea how busy I am?’” she said, the mimicry brutal. “God! I don’t know what Patrice saw in that man.”

“A genius, maybe?”

She made a sour face. “Want a genius in your life? Hire one. For appropriate tasks – of limited duration.”

“Which is pretty much what we’re doing,” I pointed out.

She grinned. “Except for the ‘hire’ part. He should do this for free.”

* * * * *

“You're serious? This is all there is?” Justin was sitting in the living room, having taken about ten seconds to read the entirety of the aliens’ “Prime Directive.” “If it weren’t for your experience, Ms. James, this would certainly convince me that the whole thing’s a scam.”

“There is the prototype battery,” Janet pointed out.

“”Which looks like something you might find on Etsy,” he countered.

“That’s the entirety of the text they gave us,” I said. I was sitting on the couch across from him, my knees together, ankles demurely crossed, back straight, hands in my lap. I was working on wearing a skirt, showing off my nice new legs, and looking like a lady.

Justin was sitting far enough away that he could take in the whole picture without staring rudely at any particular, ah, element. He was keeping cool, but his eyes . . . they might be just a bit warmer than that.

“But . . . .?” he said, making it a question.

“But they implied that the meaning was more . . . maybe not complicated. Just . . . deeper? Fuller? It’s hard to convey. Worm did, very specifically, say that their thought processes and method of communication amongst themselves are very different from our language. “ I found my hands rising to add emphasis to my words.

“So let’s talk about loopholes,” Janet said. “Maybe we’re not a ‘less advanced species.’”

“They’ve got interstellar travel,” I argued. “You’d prolly have a better chance of convincing them that we aren’t even potentially sentient.”

“A proposition for which there is no shortage of support,” Justin allowed.

“Nonsense,” Janet said. “Maybe they’ve got spaceflight – and girl juice, don’t forget, though you skipped that one, Jessica! But they don’t have The Simpsons. Or Beowulf, for that matter, if you feel compelled to go upmarket. And don’t get me started on The Scarlet Letter!”

I said, “They may have literature, Janet. We just don’t know.”

Janet looked stubborn. “Well, they don’t have humor. Worm told you so. Havin’ met him, I believe it!”

“I had no idea Beowulf was funny,” Justin offered.

“And don’t get me started on The Scarlet Letter,” I added.

“Troglodytes! Morlocks! Hester Prynne is hysterical and Grendel is a comedic genius!” As usual, Janet refused to be deterred.

As gently as possible, I said, “Perhaps we digress?”

“Actually,” Justin said, “While I’m not sure I agree with Professor Seldon’s specific examples, her overall point is worth exploring. The aliens are apparently advanced in physical and biological sciences. Granted. But, is that the measure of the concept they’re attempting to capture? Maybe yes, maybe no. We shouldn’t assume.”

Janet stuck her tongue out at me.

“Any other phrases jump out at you?” I asked.

Justin said, “We should at least confirm that this group of aliens would be considered part of ‘the People,’ and that – again, as encompassed within the concept they are attempting to articulate – we aren’t in ‘their’ star system by virtue of the fact that this group is here. But I don’t hold out much hope that those terms will help us. The big enchilada is “will.”

“Will?” Janet repeated, puzzled.

I just nodded; I’d seen that one too. “‘Depends what the meaning of the word “is” is,’ right?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Janet grinned. “Good to know that the subtleties of the legal mind are still equal to the emergency!”

“Did you miss me?” Worm asked, opening the front door.

This time, I’d been expecting him to come in the back. We all stood as Worm walked into the house, followed by the figure I recognized from my nightmarish visit to their ship.

Worm had kept the Cronkite suit and flip flops; the other alien was more consistent, wearing an original series Star Trek uniform: black polyester pants, a gold tunic, and impractical boots. Why would anyone wear boots on a starship?

Of course, if I remembered right, the women had worn both the boots and a whole lot less fabric.

Worm looked at us curiously. “I thought humans sat for talk?”

“But we stand for introductions,” I explained. “Justin Abel, our attorney.”

The figure in the Star Trek uniform was holding something that looked like an iPhone but probably wasn’t. It emitted chittering noises when I stopped speaking. The figure chittered, and the “iPhone” spoke with Siri’s voice. “Is your attorney non-functional?”

“What?” asked Janet.

More chittering, quickly followed by, “What do I need to do to enable it?” The alien moved towards Justin.

He rather understandably moved back, fast. “I’m in perfect working order, thank you!”

“Wait!!!” I said. “We will have misunderstandings. This is one of them. In our language, sometimes, the same sounds have different meanings; Siri’s voice recognition software does a poor job differentiating them. ‘Just enable’ and ‘Justin Abel’ sound the same, but the second is a name, like ‘Janet Seldon’ or ‘Jessica James.’”

“Or Zsa Zsa Gabor,” Worm added helpfully.

“Yeah,” Janet agreed. “That chick.”

The leader stopped moving.

I waited while his device caught up with the translations. The features he was projecting, while human in appearance, did a poor job of expressing emotion. For all of his quirks, it was obvious that Worm had studied us much more carefully than his superior.

Finally, the leader chittered and his translator said, “I understand. The People do not have these ‘names.’”

“‘Ensign Worm’ isn’t a name?” I inquired.

“No. ‘Ensign’ for junior team member. ‘Worm’ for immature member of the People.”

“Ensign Worm” I said, indicating him, “referred to you, I think, as ‘Elder Mission Leader?’”

Chitter, chitter. “That is good enough.”

“In the alternative,” Janet said, “I s’pose we could just whistle.”

“Why don’t we sit down,” I interjected hurriedly, hoping to head off a discussion that might involve puckering up and blowing.

The humans sat; the aliens more-or-less perched on the ends of their seats.

“As I explained to Ensign Worm, we would like to explore the meaning of your rule related to other civilizations, to make sure we all have the same understanding of it. Our attorney can help.”

The iPhone chittered, then the leader chittered, then the phone translated into English. “It is difficult. The Story of the People is long. We do not think you have a similar Story. The Story is the foundation for our thoughts and our communications. We don’t use ‘words,’ we use references to parts of the Story that convey complex meaning.”

“Fascinating!” Janet and I said, simultaneously, equally awestruck at what we’d just heard, though for different reasons.

“Geeks!” Justin said, shaking his head at us with a trace of affection. Turning back to the aliens, he said, “Let me first ask, does the idea of ‘The People’ in your statement of the rule encompass, ah, ‘independent contractors’ who are far from home?”

Worm looked at the leader and chittered. The leader chittered back. Then they started going at it fast and furious. The iPhone was not translating any of it.

After over three minutes of intense conversation between the two aliens – intense, at least, judging by the number of back-and-forths; their respective affects remained flat – they turned back to us.

“Yes,” Worm replied.

“He says,’look at the camera,’” Janet quoted.

The “iPhone” didn’t catch Janet’s aside, but Worm did. “Ca- mer-a?”

“A reference to one of our stories,” Janet said pointedly. “In this context, the reference suggests that there was more to your discussion just now than your summary in English.”

The iPhone did translate this. The leader replied, in a speech that was translated, “The People are The People. The People of the Story. That any of our species could be cut off from The People is . . . ..”

Siri stopped translating and the recorded voice said, “I’m sorry, Captain, I didn’t quite get that.”

Worm finished the leader’s thought. “Inconceivable.”

“I don’t think that that means what you think it means,” Janet cautioned.

After translation, the leader’s response was, “The scope of the rule on this point is clear to me. We are part of The People.”

Justin said, “Let’s move on, then. What qualifies as one of ‘your’ star systems?”

This time there was no internal discussion between the aliens. Worm said, “This concept clear. Like you, The People on one planet evolved. Circles one star. The home of the People. No ‘Prime Directive’ for home system.”

“Where’s that?” Janet asked, curious.

Worm and the leader had a brief chitter together, after which Worm said, “Not telling. But far. Your years, our ship traveled over three hundred.”

“Holy Guacamole!” Janet exclaimed.

Justin was about to move on, but I thought this could be significant. “Will others of The People follow you?”

More internal discussion, followed by chittering from the leader that got translated. “Unlikely before our return home. Your star system is . . . remote.”

“Like Green Acres,’” Worm added helpfully. “Or ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ ‘Remote’ doesn’t capture . . . .”

“East Buttfuck,” Janet growled.

“The Back-Ass of Nowhere,” I agreed. “But useful to know.” I shot her a look that said, “Later.”

Justin said, “Let me ask about your idea of ‘less advanced’ species. What criteria do you use to determine if a society is more or less advanced?”

This time the internal and untranslated dialogue easily lasted five minutes.

Finally Worm turned his attention back to us. “The reference points in the Story complex are.
In your terms, maybe science. Engineering. Culture.”

“How do you measure culture?” Justin asked.

“Everything against the Story is measured,” Worm responded. “I reviewed many, many transmissions. Bonanza. Scooby-Doo. H.R. Puffnstuff.”

“Hey, there’s some good shit there!” Janet said, sounding defensive. Unwilling to throw pop culture under the bus, she added, “And, don’t forget Sanford and Son. Classic!”

I did not share Janet’s inhibitions. “The transmissions you intercepted are not representative of the cultural achievements even of our society, much less all the societies of our species. TV is just . . . mass communication. Entertainment.”

The leader responded, through the translator. “You prove the point, Jessica James. You don’t even have ‘a’ culture. Any more than you have ‘a’ language.”

I raised my chin in challenge. “Diversity has value too.”

The leader said, “In our culture unity is an advance. Nonconformity is . . . .”

The translation paused. Siri’s voice shifted into its more accustomed channel. “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t get that.”

The leader tried again, with the same result.

Worm attempted to assist. “I think right word is ‘defect.’ Or ‘disease.’ ‘Plague.’”

“Jessica?” Justin drew my attention, and dampened my ire, by the simple expedient of speaking softly and using my first name. “Let this one go. For today.”

I took a deep breath, then released it. “All right. But I don’t believe either species has sufficient information at this point to evaluate which ‘culture’ is more advanced.”

Janet agreed. “‘Whadya want to bet the Story’d be rejected by ev’ry studio in Hollywood!”

Justin jumped in to forestall the translation of Janet’s comment, which – for all we knew – might have triggered an interstellar war we would certainly lose. “Let’s explore the concept of whether an action ‘will alter’ our ‘natural development.’ Does the idea encompass a mere possibility? A probability? Or only a certainty?”

Chittering cross-talk was followed by Worm saying, “we do not understand.”

Justin attempted to explain with an example. “Giving Professor . . . James . . . your injection didn’t violate your rule, right?”

The aliens confirmed that it hadn’t.

“Well, you understand that it almost certainly increased her lifespan and created the possibility that she will . . . ah . . . reproduce?” He had the grace to blush.

I hadn’t given any thought to the possibility of being pregnant sometime. Although I had to acknowledge that I’d given more than a few passing thoughts to the activities that might cause such a thing to occur. . . .

“One person matters does not,” Worm said flatly.

“That’s not necessarily true,” Justin countered. “Just those two changes might have secondary and tertiary effects which could change the course of human development.”

“Unlikely,” Worm replied.

“Any number of individuals have changed the course of human development. Humans aren’t all the same. We have different skills. Different training. And Professor James is more highly educated than over 98 percent of our species. Extending her life is more likely to affect human development than you think.”

This led to considerable back-and-forth chittering.

“Should we Professor James terminate?” Worm asked, like he was talking about flipping a light switch.

“Now just a goddamned minute!” Janet said, starting to get up.

Justin forestalled her. “That solution would be very much against the law,” our learned counsel reminded the rule-conscious visitors.

“It also wouldn’t solve the problem, since my early death is as likely to ‘alter’ the development of the human species as the artificial extension of it would.” In my personal opinion, that likelihood would be precisely zero either way. I had an ego at least equal to any tenured professor, but even I wouldn’t claim to have done more than make an important contribution to my own field of linguistics. Truth be known, few of the people who had actually changed the course of human history had a Ph.D or a tenured ivory sinecure.

I kept my doubts to myself. This was no time for modesty – not even well-deserved and wholly appropriate modesty!

The aliens went back to chittering. Finally, the leader spoke. “I understand your point. An action that might alter natural development would not violate our rule. Unless it actually did alter development.”

“But after the fact, you can’t prove something actually changed the path of development unless you can demonstrate conclusively what would have happened otherwise,” I pointed out.

That lead to more chittering. Eventually the leader agreed with my assessment.

Justin moved in for the kill. “Then suppose you gave us the formula for some technology we don’t have, but might discover on our own tomorrow even without your help. That wouldn’t violate your rule, would it? There’d be no way to prove that the invention actually altered our ‘natural’ development path.”

They chittered. They chittered some more. They kept going back and forth.

I took a break and powdered my nose. Returned and sat, once again taking care to assume a ladylike pose. This ladylike stuff took a lot of thought and attention!

Janet did the same. Then Justin (although he was able to dispense with the ladylike pose!).

Finally the leader’s translator kicked in. “You are correct, Attorney Justin Abel. But it would depend on the technology. . . . How close your species was to discovery.”

“Jessica?” Justin asked. “What are you thinking? What’s the ask?”

I was flooded with a feeling of relief. Even triumph. We might pull this off! A smile spread wide across my face. “I’d like to buy the world a Coke!”

* * * * *

Worm and the Leader had returned to their ship after agreeing to research the likelihood that providing us with the formula for their battery technology would actually alter the ‘natural’ path of human development. Courtesy of their tap into the internet, they could probably get at least some idea of the current state of our science and research on this subject.

We had followed them outside and watched as they both appeared to float away into the twilight, rising up in a way that seemed very non-terrestrial. There was no flapping of wings, no blast off. One second they were standing there, the next they were just rising into the heavens like mylar balloons.

Justin watched until he couldn’t see them any longer.

“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believe?” I asked softly.

He looked at me, standing so close, and chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, you got me. Hard to maintain my professional skepticism when you show me something like that.”

On an impulse, I reached out and gave his arm a brief squeeze. “I’m glad. I understand why you wanted to suspend judgment. But . . . it was hard to trust you, when you couldn't bring yourself to trust us.”

His eyes met and held mine for a moment. A few heartbeats. His eyes had things to say that his disciplined mind would not allow him to speak.

“Pizza?” asked Janet.

We both practically jumped.

“Great idea,” Justin said, recovering first. “There are a few things we should talk about.”

We went back inside and Janet put in a call to – wouldn’t it just figure? – Highbrow Pizza. Then we sat at her table to debrief.

“Damn,” said Jessica. “Can you imagine what a coup it would be, to be the first human to see a copy of the Story?”

Justin said, “I was interested in how their language is all based on references to it. It’s like lawyers referring to principles by case name. I mean, all you have to do is say “Marbury v. Madison,” and with seven syllables you evoke the entire doctrine of judges reviewing whether the actions of the political branches conform to the Constitution. But their whole language works like that!”

I shook my head. “There’s a component I think you’re both missing. Their language all is based on references to this ‘Story,’ but . . . what comprises the Story itself? It can’t be words or symbolic language – they don’t have anything like that. So how would you teach it? You know, to the young, the ‘unformed.’ The ‘Worms?’”

“You’re sayin’ the whole thing’s circular?” Janet asked, trying to puzzle it out.

“Noooo,” I said, dragging the word out. I was still figuring it out too. “But I think the Story must be some sort of collective consciousness. More like the memory of the People than the story of the People.”

“That’s . . . .” Justin began, only to fall silent. The implications of collective consciousness were far-reaching.

“Yeah,” Janet said. “We are most definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

I added, “It might also help explain why they had a hard time accepting the notion that individuals can make a difference to the development of a society.”

We sat silently for a moment, then Janet shook her head as if to dismiss speculations. “You shushed me over that thing about our bein’ a backwater, Jessica. I assume you were thinkin’ it’s damned useful that we won’t see any more termites for at least 300 years?”

“Yup,” I replied. “That can be good and bad, I suppose, but it’ll sure give us some time to get our shit together.”

“And maybe next time we meet up, they won’t be callin’ us ‘backwards!’” she agreed, sounding just as aggrieved as I felt.

“What’s the plan?” Justin asked, practically.

“We’re going to bring the prototype battery to Gavin Grimm at MIT for testing,” I responded. “If it’s as good as the aliens say, I’m hoping we can get him to open his rolodex and get us a meeting with people who will be able to talk to people who can decide whether we can make a deal.”

He looked skeptical. “What do we have that they would want?”

“Oh! Hadn’t we mentioned? They want to trade for, ah, U-235.” Janet looked as innocent as a cat bathing in a bowl of cream.

“Huh?”

“Weapons-grade uranium,” I clarified. “They say it’s an aphrodisiac.”

“Some like it hot,” Janet explained.

Justin was shifting his gaze from one of us to the other. “Seriously? Why would anyone give that . . . material . . . to aliens?”

“Lots of reasons, Justin,” I said, using his first name for the first time. “But even if it was a terrible idea, which it actually isn’t, somebody’s going to do a deal. If it’s not us, their ‘ask’ could be something we don’t like. As in, at all.”

Justin gave that a moment’s thought, and suddenly looked a bit green. “Holy shit.”

“It’ll be alright,” I said reassuringly. “We give them some of their joy juice, they go away for a couple of centuries, and maybe when we meet again we’ll have better things to trade.”

“Uh huh.”

“But,” I said, “we’re going to need you to draft some agreements . . . .”

* * * * *

“I don’t think you should say anything about uranium. Or space aliens. Or gender-bending wonder drugs.” Janet was driving us to our Grimm appointment in Boston, and – very uncharacteristically – she was fretting.

After thinking some more, she added, “Really, you probably shouldn’t say anything at all. Just back me up.”

“How? By looking nubile and innocent?” And, truth be known, I was looking pretty damned nubile. A sleeveless, form-fitting navy-blue dress that came to four fingers above my knees emphasized every one of my new curves, and my golden hair cascaded down my back in a river of loose curls.

My “innocent,” on the other hand, still needed work.

Janet said, “Pert as a school girl and filled with girlish glee? No, that’s not what I had in mind. Not with that toad.”

“What’s your plan?” I asked.

She explained it.

“Are you serious! In your backpack?“

“I don’t have the customary briefcase, Jessica. I’m a professor, not a lawyer!”

I wasn’t sure about her plan, but all I knew about Grimm, apart from my vague memory of an old scandal, was based on the research I’d done when Janet mentioned his name. Janet knew him personally.

We entered his office about forty-five minutes later, right on time. He appeared to be focused on responding to an email, and he held up a hand to ask us to wait while he finished.

Then he saw me.

The email went unfinished. “Come in, come in!” His whole manner changed from annoyance to solicitousness in a flash. “Janet, so good to see you again.”

“How can ya say that, when you aren’t even lookin’ at me?” Janet’s tone was borderline affectionate. But . . . it wasn’t a particularly open or friendly border.

He flushed, whether from embarrassment or anger.

“It’s okay, Gav,” Janet soothed. “Just a little joke. I know my colleague has a habit of turnin’ heads. Gavin, Jessica James. Jessica, Professor Grimm.”

“Pleased to meet you – but is it really Jesse James?”

“No, it’s really Jessica James,” I said firmly. “I imagine you don’t find jokes about the Brothers Grimm humorous?”

He grimaced and looked at Janet. “Your colleague?” His intonation made it a question.

“Ms. James,” Jessica said tolerantly, “is older than she looks. Now . . . I know you said you were short on time?”

He sat up straighter. “Yes, very. What’s so secret that you needed face time?”

Getting right to the point, Janet said, “A radical new battery technology. Revolutionary. Change the world kinda stuff.”

He didn’t look impressed. Actually, he looked both bored and annoyed. “I hear that at least five times a day, Janet. At least. And this isn’t your field, so someone’s using you to get to me.”

“No-one put me up to this,” she said. “Hell, Gav, Patrice died ten years ago. Can’t be more’n a handful of people who even know you know me, if you know what I mean.”

He took a moment to untangle the epistemological twists of Janet’s statement before responding. “Fine. But that still begs the question. Why you? What do you know about batteries?”

“The important things,” Janet said stoutly. “How much energy they hold. How long it takes to charge ‘em. How many times they can be charged. Whether they’re stable. Size and weight.”

“But absolutely nothing, I expect, about how to optimize any of those things?” Grimm’s summary was just short of snide.

Janet was unconcerned. “Correct. I don’t know any of that, and neither do almost any people who will actually be usin’ batteries to do useful things. Like, just for instance, powerin’ electric vehicles. Not to mention various handheld . . . ah . . . devices.”

“What’s your point, Janet?” he asked impatiently.

“I want you to test a prototype battery. Test the hell out of it. I can’t tell you where it came from, and you’ll need to agree to keep your findin’s secret for now, and not to take any action to determine how it works.”

“Uh huh. So, I’m supposed to take up my valuable time testing someone else’s pet project without even figuring out how it works? Why would I do that? I did mention that time is something I have in very short supply?”

“Once or twice, yeah. But if these design specs check out . . . well. I think you of all people will understand what it'll mean.” She pushed a piece of paper across the desk to him.

He glanced at it briefly. Did a double take and reviewed it again. In detail. “Preposterous!”

“Maybe it is,” Janet said. “I’m no engineer. But if it’s right . . . .?”

“Yeah, and if radioactive spiders make people strong I can be Iron Man.”

“Spiderman,” she corrected.

“Whatever! Janet, this is my field. I know more about the state of the science than almost anyone on earth. There’s nothing that comes close to the specifications you’re showing me. Not remotely.”

“Okay,” Janet said. “Isn’t that all the more reason to test it?”

“Janet!!! I clearly haven’t impressed this on you humanities-addled brain. I’m BUSY!”

Janet was about to bark back, but I decided it was time for my part of the drama. “Professor Grimm . . . a moment, please?”

“What?” he snapped. But when he looked at me, his expression softened. “I apologize. Your ‘colleague’ has always had a talent for getting under my skin.”

“Don’t take it personally; she does that to everyone. We really aren’t wasting your time, but I know it seems that way. I think we can make it worth your while.”

He got an unpleasant gleam in his eye. “Just how do you propose to do that, Miss James?”

I decided to ignore the innuendo. “A wager, Professor. Fifty thousand dollars, to assist in your valuable research. If the battery doesn’t meet or exceed those specifications, that’s payment for your time.”

It was half of my savings. Thirty years of thrift to accumulate that amount, and I was pushing it all onto the green felt. But I had good reasons to believe in the aliens’ technology.

Two big ones, in fact.

“And if it does meet the specifications?” Grimm asked.

“We keep the money. I think, in that case, you’d agree that we haven’t actually wasted your time?”

He looked at the spec sheet again. “Yeah, no kidding. But how do I know you even have fifty thousand dollars. Are you going to write me a personal check?”

I unzipped Janet’s backpack, which I had carried for her, and started pulling out neatly wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills. I started stacking them on the desk. “Ten to a wrapper, so we’ll need fifty.”

“Damn, girl,” Janet drawled. “You do that math in your head?”

Grimm, on the other hand, looked positively panicked. “Professor Seldon! What on earth is going on here! I won’t be party to some sort of . . . drug deal! Where the hell did all of this cash come from? Albuquerque?”

“Relax, Gavin. It came from my account, and I’ve fortunately brought along a copy of the receipt from my bank in Northampton. It’s legitimate as a royal heir.”

“And that’s supposed to reassure me?”

Grimm still looked acutely uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame him, really. The only time Americans see that kind of cash in one place is in the movies. Movies involving illegal activity.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked.

Janet said, “We’ll put it into an escrow account. You can pick the bank and we’ll set it up. You and I’ll both need to agree before the funds are released.”

He almost balked at the agreements. The simple agreement to test wasn’t a problem, and the confidentiality agreement was standard. The agreement on the wager required a bit of a haggle, since we had built in protections in case he tried to cheat by falsifying a failed test. Mostly, it appeared to piss him off.

Where he really had trouble was the notice included in the agreement not to attempt to open the device or run any kind of scan on it. “What do you mean, the thing will explode!”

“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” Janet said. “Does ‘explode’ mean differn’t things to chemists than it does to literature professors?”

“First off, I’m not a ‘chemist!’ And second, ‘explode’ can mean a whole range of things, from mildly uncomfortable to catastrophic. You’re saying this thing is dangerous? Explosive?”

“Not if you don’t open it or scan it,” Janet said.

“How the hell do you know?”

“I don’t,” she snapped. “But that’s what the manufacturers said, and they don’t have a reason to lie. Do you want me to take this somewhere else? Your cross-town rivals, maybe?”

“There’s no-one else who comes close to my expertise and you know it! No-one at Harvard, certainly!”

“I’ll settle for someone with fewer brains an’ more balls! Christ, Gavin, this tech could change the world. You KNOW what those specs mean. If you’re even willing to contemplate letting me take this somewhere else, you’re half the scientist I thought you were, and a tenth the man my friend married!”

He stood, his face nearly purple with rage. He leaned over, planted his balled fists on the top of his desk, and shouted, “Get out! Out of my office! This instant!!!”

“Fine!!!” Janet said, leaping up. “C’mon, Jessica! Let’s see what the geniuses at Harvard have to say!”

I remained seated. “No, Janet,” I said quietly. “And no, Professor Grimm. This is too important. Janet, can you give me five minutes with the Professor?”

Both of them were looking at me. Equally surprised, though for different reasons.

Janet opened her mouth to protest.

I stood and faced her. “Please. It’ll be alright. Give me a minute.”

She gave me a look that was very hard to interpret, though I fully expected to get a translation – at full volume! – when we were alone together. Then she shrugged, as if to say, “Your funeral, girl,” gave a last glare at Professor Grimm, and walked out. She closed the door behind her with something close to a slam.

“My dismissal applied to both of you,” Grimm said icily.

“I know that, Professor. But . . . you and Janet clearly have a long history. And maybe not an entirely pleasant one. I wanted an opportunity to ask you to reconsider without all of those emotions interfering.”

“Young woman, are you suggesting that I am incapable of acting rationally?” He sounded affronted.

“To the contrary. The situation is sufficiently strange to arouse entirely reasonable suspicions. We’re asking you to take a risk. I know that.”

“So you agree that the rational course is for me to have nothing to do with this . . . scheme?”

“No, sir, I don’t. There are reasons to be cautious, and I trust – and hope – that you’ll take whatever precautions you can, while still performing a comprehensive set of tests to evaluate the performance of the battery. But . . . the potential gain here far outweighs any risk.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Potential gain for whom, Miss James? What’s your role in all this?”

“Gain for all of humanity, sir. I want this technology available to everyone, everywhere. No licensing fees. No monopoly profits.”

“Fine words!” He said, sounding skeptical. He came around the desk and stood less than two feet away, very much in my personal space. “Why are you here, Miss James? Did Professor Seldon leave you alone with me so that you could claim something improper occurred?”

“No, sir. I expect Janet’s ready to rip me a new one. I’m here because you’re the right person for this job. I know it. You know it. And I don’t want some old fight between you and Janet to get in the way.”

He took a step closer, and was literally looming over me. “Just how much older than seventeen are you, Miss James?” The question was soft. Dangerously soft.

There he was, in my face. A direct physical threat. At sixty years old, James Wainwright, Carter Cecil Jackson Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, would have reacted with a curled lip, scorn, and derision. At seventeen, young James would have puffed out his chest, closed the distance, and met the challenge with force.

But a seventeen-year-old Jessica couldn’t use either approach. According to Janet, the signature glower of my later years was now “cute;” God knows how a sneer would look. And as for puffing out my chest . . . yeah, no. That’d just be presenting my wares like a bargain buffet at Denny’s.

Besides, I had no surge of testosterone to fuel an aggressive response. I needed something else. Something that would allow me to stand, to meet the threat without flinching. Without cowering. All I had was belief in myself, belief in what I was doing. “Firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”

It would have to do.

I raised my chin. “Old enough to know you’re just testing me. Developing an effective battery technology has been the singular focus of your entire life’s work. It’s why you’re here, rather than raking in millions at some company. And it’s why I’m here.”

He was close enough that I could smell his breath. He had nice enough breath, fortunately. His eyes bore down on mine, and his glower would have done James Wainwright proud.

Damn, I missed my ability to glower!

“Just testing you, am I?”

I refused to lower my eyes. My heart was pounding. I was hoping that none of my nervousness, none of my fear, was showing. Maybe I should have girded with kevlar. But I answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Sure about that are you, Missy?”

“It’s ‘Jessica,’ and yes, I am.” I had never felt so vulnerable before. I was wearing three-inch pumps, and still I felt tiny. But I kept my voice steady.

He smiled. “Then I guess you pass. I’ll sign it.” He walked back to the other side of the desk, leaned over, and signed his name to the remaining agreement.

My knees felt strangely weak. Janet was going to kill me. And she’d be right. But the risk had paid off.

I gathered up the agreements and put them, along with the money, into the plain black backpack that Janet had brought with us. I thanked Professor Grimm and turned to go.

“Miss James?” he said, as I reached the door.

“Professor?”

“You are planning to give me the battery, aren’t you?”

What with all the drama, I’d practically forgotten the most important thing! My face flushed my now signature scarlet. “Of course, Professor. That was thoughtless of me.”

I unzipped the front pocket of the backpack, pulled out the prototype, and gave him a Coke and a smile.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” he asked, incredulous.

As the weight of the can registered, his expression turned first to surprise, then – as he dropped it – to dismay.

“Shit!” he said.

To be continued. Conceivably.