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bird, the head of which was tattooed on the top of the Ambassador’s head with its wings wrapping round the sides. The wings stopped just short of his small ears. It looked similar to an outlining of an eagle, but she recalled being told the bird on Nordo was larger than the men who wore their likeness in a familial marking. Each family grouping had an animal or symbol that their members had tattooed onto their scalps when they reached adulthood. Claire couldn’t imagine how painful that had to be.
    “I must be getting back to our ship. I will contact you next week for another visit and an update on this Ms. Cline.”
    “It was nice seeing you again, Ambassador Pacer. Until next week then.” She watched as the large Nordonian walked to the back of her office and exited to the private alley. She knew he had a cloaked four-seater space craft in the alley. They could not come to Earth often; there was no way they could be taken for humans. Nordonians were about six inches taller on average than most human males. They also weighed about a third more and all of that was muscle. Fortunately, in Claire’s opinion, that muscle did not make them look muscle-bound. With slightly feline features, the muscle weight was evenly distributed and carried well by the aliens.
    Claire personally found the ambassador to be quite attractive, but she would never say that to anyone. She felt he would be a wonderful candidate for the matchmaking program set up by the U.S. government and the Nordonians. She didn’t feel, however, that she was an appropriate candidate. At the age of 40, she had resigned herself to never having children. Having children this late in life would mean higher risks for complications and she did not think she was up to that responsibility. She was well aware that the Nordonians needed human women to continue their bloodlines.
    A chemical warfare attack by one of their enemies had wiped out all of the females of their race. It was a terrifying attack that will prove fatal for all Nordonians if they did not find other races to breed with. While they were a long-lived race, they were not immortal. The ambassador himself was about 100 Earth years in age, but was considered middle-aged for his race. One hope of the U.S. government was that the children produced from these pairings would have extended lives, too. It is unknown if living among the Nordonians would extend the lives of the women; there was not enough data to make that determination.
    This was where Claire, and others like her, came in. They operated Intergalactic Matchmaking Services in the hopes of finding likely candidates for the program. This business had been active for only about 18 months and so far there were only a handful of viable candidates who chose to stick with the program. Most of the women chose to return to Earth, with their memories wiped clean of the time they spent with the program, instead of giving up their Earth existence. For this reason, Claire looked for women who were without family that would tie them to this planet.
    The few women that had accepted Nordo males as mates had moved on when the ships rotated out of service above Earth. In return for the human participation in this service, the Nordonians vowed to protect Earth from any other alien race that would wish humans harm. Claire still found it surprising that all of this could happen without the public finding out about it. With all the conspiracy theorists in this country, surely someone would figure it out eventually. Their cloaking technology, and the fact their battleship was parked behind the moon, were the only reasons they had not been detected to date. Claire felt surely any day now an amateur star-gazer would catch sight of a Nordonian space ship popping in or out of its cloak.
    Until that time came, Claire would just continue as she was; searching for viable candidates for intergalactic travel and adventure.
     
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    The rest of the week passed