First Contact (16 page)

A
T APPROXIMATELY THE SAME
time the White House state dinner ended, the meeting of the Rigel Prep Parent-Teacher Association was set to begin. A controversy brewed, and not just over whether Professor Fendle-Frinkle should be allowed to teach his students about the impending demise of the universe: there was a problem with the refreshments.

“Where is the punch and pie?” Edith Dradel-Hanukean asked Helen Argo-Lipschutzian. Edith was a past president of the PTA and she had made it clear in many passive-aggressive ways that she did not approve of the manner in which Helen handled the office that had been bequeathed to her. Helen, in turn, quite disliked Edith.

“We’re having a problem with the vendor,” Helen said.

“I fail to see what is so difficult about setting out punch and pie.”

“We had a bit of a miscommunication,” Helen replied. “The
vendor thought the special meeting had been set for tomorrow instead of today, and now it’s too late to arrange something else.”

“Well,” Edith said, “I cannot see why a vendor needed to be involved in the first place. Back in my day all of the mothers used to bring things from home. It would be potluck.”

“The PTA is a lot bigger than it once was. Besides, people don’t bake like they used to.”

“That’s true,” Edith said. “But the PTA can’t get through the meeting without something to eat. And I’ll die of thirst if I don’t get a drink soon.”

“How about I send someone out to get you a cola?”

“Diet cola,” Edith said. “I can’t have sugar.”

“I’ll make sure it’s unsweetened,” Helen said.

This appeared to satisfy Edith.

“What are we meeting about anyway?”

“We’re here to debate whether a professor can teach his students that the universe is going to end in eighteen months.”

Edith nodded.

She said, “For this it would be nice to have some pie.”

A
S SOON AS THE
dinner at the White House ended, Ned Anat-Denarian telephoned his wife, who was on her way to the PTA meeting. Because her license was still under suspension, Maude had taken a car service. Maude insisted the driver stay in the right-hand lane and drive under the speed limit. She and Todd were thus running a bit late. When the phone rang and Maude saw it was Ned, she handed the phone to her son.

He answered, “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, son.”

“What are you doing?”

“I just finished dinner with the people of a planet called Earth.”

“What’s the time difference where you are?”

“About eight hundred twenty-seven years and three hours.”

“So where you are, I haven’t been born yet.”

“That’s true. For that matter, I haven’t been born yet either.”

“That’s pretty weird.”

“I don’t understand it myself,” Ned said.

They considered this for a moment.

“What are you doing tonight, son?”

“Mom and I are on our way to the PTA meeting.”

“How do you feel about this thing?”

“I like Professor Fendle-Frinkle. He’s a nice man. I just don’t like physics.”

“Your mother tells me you want to be an artist.”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“How come you never mentioned it to me?”

“I thought you wouldn’t approve. Anyway, you’re not around so much.”

“Well, that’s going to change. And as for whether I approve, I want you to do whatever makes you happy. Okay, son?”

This struck Todd as a substantial change in his father’s attitude, and he could not guess what sparked the transformation. Yet Todd did not say or ask anything about it. What he said was, “Thanks, Dad. Do you want to talk to Mom?”

Sometimes between fathers and sons it is best to leave the most important things unsaid.

Todd handed Maude the phone. Before her husband could speak, Maude said, “Ned, this is going to cost a fortune. These are peak intergalactic hours.”

“It’s okay, Maude. I needed to talk to you.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, but I’ve been doing some thinking. There’s a job posting for someone to do follow-up on first contacts. Instead of doing all the advance work and participating in the initial out-reach, I would continue observation and see how the contacted planets progress. I would still have to do a little bit of traveling, but it’s basically an office job. I could be home a lot more.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“What caused this change of heart?”

“I got a bit of clarity about what’s really important. It’s time I got things right. It’s like I tell people I meet: ‘It’s later than we think.’ I want to be home with you and Todd. Maybe we can even think about having another child.”

Maude was so overwhelmed she could not find words.

Ned continued, “I have substantial reservations about this PTA meeting tonight. I don’t think this physics teacher means any harm. It would be wrong for the board to fire him.”

“I have substantial reservations too,” Maude said. This was true. She had been having second thoughts from the very moment she called Helen Argo-Lipschutzian. But there wasn’t much that could be done at that point. “Unfortunately, it’s out of our hands now,” Maude told Ned. “This thing has gotten pretty big.”

B
IG WAS AN UNDERSTATEMENT
.
All of the major intergalactic news networks had sent reporters to cover the Rigel PTA meeting. Some of the top personalities in the universe were on hand, including Kent Cato-Brockerian, the dean of Space News Network, SNN. To prepare for what he had called the Trial of the Eon, Cato-Brockerian spent two hours in makeup. Most of the people on his team endeavored to avoid him. He was in a foul mood over the absence of refreshment.

T
HE
R
IGEL
P
REP
PTA
and the Intergalactic Civil Liberties Union agreed to structure the meeting as a debate, followed by a short period of public comment, followed finally by a vote. Under the agreed-upon rules, Helen Argo-Lipschutzian had the first word.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. “I want to apologize for the absence of refreshment.”

“It is very hot,” said one parent in the crowd.

“We could use something to drink,” said another.

“I am truly sorry,” Helen said. “We have been having problems with the vendor.”

“Perhaps we could have some pizza delivered,” said a third parent.

“And some soda,” said a fourth.

“Dr Pepper is the best,” said a fifth.

“I don’t think it would be practical to order out at this point,” Helen said.

“What is Dr Pepper?” asked a sixth parent.

“It is a drink from a planet called Earth,” replied the fifth.

“Is it good?”

“It is quite good. Better even than cream soda.”

“I quite like cream.”

“As do I. Yet this Dr Pepper is even better still.”

At this point, Arnold Nene-Zinkelreen, the young would-be Clarence Darrow, stepped forward and said, “Perhaps we should make do and press forward with the debate.”

The people grumbled, but matters proceeded all the same.

S
EVERAL QUESTIONS PRESENT THEMSELVES
at this point. One, how did the people of Rigel-Rigel know about Dr Pepper? Answer: The people of Rigel-Rigel were curious and absorbed the best of all cultures, whether contact had been established with the planet or not. In the case of Earth this included Dr Pepper and, as established, Woody Allen movies and the albums of the Police. Second, why is there no period in Dr Pepper? Answer: There was a period, originally, but it was dropped in the 1950s for reasons that are not clear. Third, was there Dr Pepper at the historic Scopes trial? Answer: Unclear. The historical record on this is sketchy. The timing certainly works. Dr Pepper (then Dr. Pepper) exploded (pardon) at the 1904 World Expo in St. Louis, which was attended by more than twenty million people. This was also the first time frankfurters and hamburgers were served on buns. The Scopes trial occurred more than twenty years later. So it is possible. What we do know is that it was hot at the trial, and William Jennings Bryan, who represented the state of Tennessee, had a prodigious appetite. So I like to think they drank cold Dr. Peppers during breaks in the trial, even though this is not depicted in
Inherit the Wind
. I expect this is because the movie predates product placements.

N
O PROMOTIONAL FEES OF
any kind have been paid in connection with this book.

T
HE MEETING WAS AGAIN
called to order. Helen Argo-Lipschutzian began with a simple argument. “I do not understand why there is such a big brouhaha over all of this,” she said. “This is, first of all, an untested theory. We can’t just allow our teachers to race into the classroom anytime they have some half-baked idea about how the universe works. We don’t teach diet fads in our health classes or journalism in our history courses. We need to wait until an idea passes into accepted wisdom before it is taught in our classrooms.

“More important, though, the idea the universe is going to end in eighteen months is something that will be very upsetting to the students. We have a responsibility to protect our children from hurtful or dangerous messages. Even if this nonsense about the universe ending were not merely speculation, which it is, it would not be necessary or appropriate to teach our students about it.”

General rumbles of approval.

M
AUDE AND
T
ODD ARRIVED
in the middle of Helen Argo-Lipschutzian’s opening remarks. As soon as they walked in the door, Edith Dradel-Hanukean buttonholed Maude. Maude could tell from Edith’s expression that something at the meeting had gone horribly wrong.

“What is it?” Maude asked. “What’s the matter?”

“The situation is dire,” Edith explained. “There has been a problem with the vendor and there is nothing to eat or drink.”

As it happened, Maude had a solution to offer. Maude always liked to have something to drink with her. She carried around a bottle of water and powdered drink mix, which she would prepare as the need arose. Her drink of choice was a preparation that tasted like a combination of tree bark and Worcestershire sauce, which may not sound appealing, but is regarded as a delicacy on Rigel-Rigel. Earlier that week, though, she ran out of her preferred drink mix and, because of the loss of her license, had been unable to shop for several days. Still, she wanted something to drink. That evening, before leaving for the meeting, she took from the basement several packages of a dehydrated fruit punch Ned sometimes used for work. Maude explained all this to Edith and suggested they prepare the fruit punch and offer it to the meeting. Edith agreed that this would be a wonderful idea.

Maude did not know the fruit punch contained a chemical substance that reactivated in humans the expression of genetic characteristics that could be suppressed by Bundt cake. Nor did she know that on Rigelians the substance acted in the opposite manner.

Ned tried very hard not to bring his work home with him.

A
RNOLD
N
ENE
-Z
INKELREEN, THE
ICLU
attorney, spoke next, and quite eloquently. “It is a noble idea to protect children,” he said, “but an even more noble principle is at stake here: the integrity of the truth. Notably, no one has questioned the reliability of the Professor’s methodology or the accuracy of his conclusion. It is surely important to make our children feel safe and secure, but it is just as surely more important to inform them about the realities of their universe.”

“But this is only a theory,” Helen Argo-Lipschutzian said.

“It was also once merely a theory that faster-than-light-speed travel was possible,” Nene-Zinkelreen replied. “It was also once merely a
theory that life evolved through natural selection instead of at the hand of an all-powerful creator. It was also once merely a theory that chewing gum could retain its flavor for more than six hours.”

Helen interjected, “It was also once a theory that the Rigelians were the only intelligent species in the universe.”

Murmurs of agreement—“touché, touché” and “well done.”

Arnold could not deny that a debating point had been scored against him. Thinking strategically, he pulled out his ace in the hole. He stepped out from behind his podium and faced the crowd with open hands, a gesture of supplication. “So now we get to the heart of the matter,” he said. “This is the dilemma for civil libertarians. We support freedom of thought. This means we support your right to criticize the governor and your right to worship a canine God and your right to marry a geranium. It also means we support your right to say mean and hateful things and to believe facts every scientist in the universe says are false. Civil libertarians believe—I believe—this is the lesser evil. Better to allow all ideas to be discussed than for the government to pick and choose among them, lest it chooses incorrectly. Falsehoods may have their day in the sun, but ultimately, inevitably, the truth emerges.

“While it’s true some invidious theories have been advanced throughout our history, the benefits of allowing scientific exploration and discourse to continue unfettered far outweigh the costs. For every despicable, unfounded theory, a hundred others have been advanced by honest, public-minded citizens. Many of these have immeasurably improved our way of life.

“To attempt to distinguish between ideas that are worthy of exploration and others that should be rejected out of hand is to embark on a path fraught with peril. It is the most slippery of slopes. It invests the government with the power to decide what we should think about and what we should not. Too often, the government will be wrong. We must reject this course without fear of consequence. History has demonstrated time and again that useful theories will be confirmed and hateful hypotheses disgraced. Ultimately, the truth will prevail.”

Rumbles of approval.

I
T WAS QUITE CLEAR
Attorney Nene-Zinkelreen had regained the upper hand. He accepted, with gratitude, a glass of fruit punch that was offered to him, as had been to everyone in the audience, and
returned to his place behind the podium. He took a sip of the punch, and thought it tasted a bit off.