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On the flight from Barbados back to Houston Matt had plenty of time to reflect. His seatmate Cheryl seemed lost in her headphones, watching Catwoman on the seatback video. Cheryl and Catwoman shared quite a few characteristics, Matt realized. It would be a bad idea to run afoul of either one.
He would never forget the morning he helped Darcy try to contact her station manager. He knew she was a scary smart researcher and now her technical ability became evident. She had been quite matter of fact about her intricate technical plan she had in mind, seemingly no more troubled than if she were planning a vacation. Evidently, though, she had sorted out a large number of variables and come up with a procedure that actually hadn't been too hard to carry out. The more he thought about it, the more impressed he was.
Darcy explained that Hleo kept up a regular broad-band scan of electronic signals from earth, including from the internet. But he had no need for email, since they both were forbidden to communicate with anyone on the planet. Still, if he could be given an email address and log on to some server then there was no reason, other than that prohibition, that he could not email himself silly. Hleo just needed to know what email address to use, which meant that Darcy had to tell him. And in order to tell him, she had to send a signal to him that the station would detect.
It so happened that Senator Hedley's house had a transmitter that should be able to send such a signal: the satellite internet dish mounted on his second-floor gallery. It was presently pointed at some particular geostationary satellite, but if the antenna could be re-aimed at the moon, and if Darcy could send a message when it was pointed correctly, the moon station's antennas should receive it with no trouble.
The Senator was in town on weekdays, but he had invited Darcy to use his computer, on the first floor, whenever she wanted. She always kept track of the moon, she told him, and therefore knew it happened to be passing through the morning sky on the days Matt and Cheryl were visiting.
The procedure would require two people, one to aim the antenna and one to operate the computer. Because Cheryl still thought Darcy was a Canadian, Matt was elected by default to be her assistant. That was more than fine with him.
Darcy sent him to the garage where the senator’s car was parked when he was home to borrow a crescent wrench and some pliers. Out on the gallery, she used a pencil to mark the mounting bracket for the antenna so they could point it exactly back at the satellite when they finished.
At the computer in the Senator's study, Darcy typed in the address of one of the free email providers, opened the account she’d initiated the previous evening, and quickly typed a message.
Then Matt loosened the bolts on the mounting bracket and slid the dish as best he could until it pointed more or less at the moon. Then Darcy sent the message.
The computer gave her an "address not found" screen.
Cancelling it, she had Matt point the antenna again, and sent the message a second time. Then, just to be sure, she had Matt send the message while she aimed the antenna.
Darcy had no idea what the beam width of the signal would be at the distance of the moon, but it had to be plenty wide enough. It didn't help that the moon kept moving steadily across the sky, so she repeated the procedure three times.
When they were finished, Matt carefully slid the antenna mounting back to the original pencil marks and tightened it down. Darcy then sent an email message to herself and checked to make sure she received it. Once she did, then everything was back like it was. If Hleo got the signal, he would have Darcy's new email address. If he would email that address, she should hear from him. The whole process took a little over an hour.
Afterwards, they had sat at the table in the house's large, and largely unused, kitchen. Matt had the obvious question.
"Will that work, you think?" Matt asked.
She shrugged.
"I hope so."
"What about that 'address not found' message?"
"That's probably because there was no server on the receiving end to return a receipt. But this antenna should still have sent the message."
"What was the message, anyway? It looked like numbers and letters to me."
"It's a simple code in Luvit, our language. I used that just to reassure Hleo that the message came from me. No one else would know that."
"Yeah, but what did you ask Hleo? If I'm not asking too much, that is."
"No, that's fine. I told him three things. First, I told him I knew he didn't want to watch an entire planet be destroyed before his eyes. Second, I told him if he refused to help, I would probably die along with everyone else. Part of his orders were to protect me."
Darcy rolled the pencil between her fingers for a moment.
"Finally, I told him that since we were sure that we had found our original planet, if he allowed it to be destroyed without doing anything to prevent it, the Tribal Council would never forgive him. His inaction would cut our people off from our descendants forever. The Council would revoke his license and that would be the end of Hleo. His name would become a synonym for disgrace. Disgrace would be—how do you say it? the clincher? to Hleo. He was always a loyal servant."
Matt had had little to say to that except to utter the fervent wish that it would all work.
The next day, before their departure, he had got his second kiss and another hug from Darcy when he said goodbye. It didn’t embarrass him to realize he was keeping track: two kisses and three hugs...and counting.
He and Cheryl were driven back to Grantley Adams International Airport where they boarded their plane and took to the skies. As Cheryl watched the movie, Matt lost himself in thought.
When Darcy had flown out of the Bar-S ranch, he had been sure he would never see her again. But now, miraculously, he had. Even better, she seemed to be glad to see him.
It was totally crazy to think that he, Matt Méndez, might possibly have a relationship with the first extraterrestrial to land on earth. But for now, the glow that they were at least friends was enough to fly him to Miami without the help of the airplane.
He wouldn't see her again until after the Olympics—if then, if things worked out, if he was very, very lucky. He remembered vividly how warm and frail her shoulders felt in his arms. He felt a strong desire to protect her, to never let her go. But there was nothing he could do. He felt helpless.
The opening ceremony was in three weeks.
