Porliche’s presentation was long, almost an hour considering the questions. It was encyclopedic, carefully crafted, and stunning with visuals that spanned ten millennia of recorded history. It was more than academic in that she captured the emotions, hopes, challenges, and failures of the individuals involved. It ended in thunderous and prolonged applause, cheers, whistles, and shouts of praise and encore from an audience of professionals. Nin followed with a more focused presentation on the Reapers, which she abridged to get the conference back on schedule.
Aulaaona’s presentation began. “We have just heard from two remarkable women whose accomplishments in this discovery were initially falsely claimed by Dr. Poincare in his initial press conference. He took all the credit and failed to attribute any contribution, especially that of Ms. Pang. As you know, we view this type of behavior with disdain. We have recommended that he be excluded from our society and fellowship for a period of three years. I personally and publicly wish to express to these two scientists regret for his behavior, gratitude for their work, and a pledge to keep our profession honest.
“That said, let me begin.”
His presentation was followed by a brief message from Quan aboard Baul One orbiting the sun outside the orbit of Earth and the planetary plane.
“The problems encountered on the initial mission were due to a malfunction probably related to time distortion and has been addressed. Despite the absence of organized, intelligent radio data from our target, we carry the hope of all citizens of our planet that we will find a civilization similar to our own, an island of humanity no longer so far away in our galaxy. We shall return here in no more than two months to report on what we find. Speaking on behalf of the entire crew, we are honored to participate in this most historic event. Be well.”
The crew posed with Quan. He stepped back, and the image of all the crew froze on screen. The view changed to a telescopic image. The ship was but a small dot that resembled the panoply of stars surrounding it. Suddenly, there was a bright flash that saturated the screen to white. A few seconds later, when the image of stars returned, the dot was gone.
At around midnight, Porliche and Nin were dancing and drinking in another crammed, pheromone-saturated subterranean club, the music pulsating into hearts and primitive portions of the brain. They would be there for the next two nights until the meeting ended and the party was over. Porliche didn’t know that Bhat would be sleepless again that night, staring into the ceiling when he wasn’t tossing back and forth in the wretched hell of jealousy and fear of cuckoldry.
Quan and the rest of the crew were in a place where time was strange.