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was in charge of the team, he had not selected its members. All of the civilians had patrons in high places who believed their expert might be the one to make the difference should the time come. In this case, Web was inclined to believe them; if the program was actually a program and if it was designed to let us communicate with them. Two very big ‘ifs.’
    “I just found out about it myself, Chang. We were discussing it while Rui was recalculating the trajectories of the anomalies, but let me be clear. We do not know that we have a way to communicate with them. We suspect,” Web looked at Sam while saying this, emphasizing the word ‘suspect,’ “that we have found a computer program within the data stream coming from ‘our’ anomaly. We do not know that it is a functional program and we do not know what it will do if we run it.”
    “Then why don’t we run it and find out?” Chang asked
    Web sensed he was losing control of the meeting and tried to get it back on track, “This meeting is about understanding the reasoning behind the anomalies selected impact sites.”
    Chang wasn’t about to let it go. “This team is about handling first contact. If Sam believes he’s found a program within the data, I’m inclined to believe him. It is the reason we brought him in. As for what the program will do, there are a finite number of practical possibilities. Starting with the most obvious, there are three branches. It may attempt to do us harm, it may attempt to aid us, or it may perform a function that does not attempt to do either. The last is highly improbable because it ignores the active nature of both the anomalies' arrival and the nature of its delivery. It is also irrelevant to our discussion because it introduces neither risk nor reward into the prospect of executing the program.
    “So, we are left with the first two branches. Let’s examine the scenario in which the program attempts to do harm. Assuming there are not multiple factions within the anomalies with conflicting goals, an assumption we can revisit, the nature of the program should reflect the nature of the visitors. If it is their intent to do us harm, the program is likely to be harmful. There would be no reason for it to be otherwise. If it is their intent to do us harm, they certainly possess the technical prowess to do so. Choosing not to run the program avoids the harm that decision may introduce, and may delay whatever part of the plan it was intended to aid. Is the nature of that delay likely to materially reduce the threat they could pose? No. Why? Because we did not know they existed only hours ago and they will be here mere hours from now. There simply isn’t time for it to matter.
    “Now let’s examine the second branch, that the program may attempt to aid us. Working with the same assumption that there are not multiple competing factions, we are left only to ponder the nature of such aid. Unlike explicitly intended harm, intended aid can lead to unfortunate unintended harm to the recipients of such aid, but again, that is the same threat we will face in a few hours. Unless we run the program before then, we will know nothing about that risk, should it exist. Which means we will not be able to inform the NCA about the risk. Which means we would have failed one of our prime directives. It will be even worse if the reward is apportioned among the players according to how quickly they solve the problem. We could forfeit reward by overvaluing risk, again potentially denying the NCA any advantage we could have otherwise earned. This is first contact. We must accept appropriate risks to do our job.” Chang finished speaking.
    The room was silent for a moment before Web spoke, “Does anyone have a counter argument?”
    No one did.
    “Fine. Dan, you and Sam explore that avenue. We’ll continue this discussion. Inform me immediately of your results.”

C HAPTER F IVE

    Sam paused, his finger over the button that would execute the alien