The Sparrow

Upon meeting Mr. Qui

She followed him to his work space, Qui

For his part, Jimmy was half in love with Sofia Mendes before they sat down. For one thing, she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, in real life. And she'd made the first cut in his mind already by not saying anything about his height. If she managed to go one more minute without asking any stupid basketball questions or the odious "How's the weather up there?" he swore he'd marry her, but before he could propose, Sofia opened her notebook and asked him for an overview of his job.

Emilio had warned him that she was not much for small talk, so Jimmy began by walking her through the process of collecting data from a bright region called 12–75. "There's a stable configuration near the central engine of the system, with two very powerful jets at right angles to it, throwing off material at half the speed of light." He sketched on the screen as he spoke, using an open display so she could take notes while he talked. "Elizabeth Kingery is a light astronomer who thinks she's got a new way of finding out if there are two galaxies surrounding two black holes locked in orbit around each other, like this, see? And she wants to compare the data to quasars, which people think used to be twi

Mendes looked up from her notes and impaled him with a stare. Very bright, Emilio had told him. Don't underestimate her. Jimmy cleared his throat. "So, the idea is to map this region of the sky using both radio and light astronomy in synchronized observations. The astronomer who originates the request gives the observatories at least two or three times when we can do the work. We have to work around the celestial conditions and the weather on Earth."

"Why not use orbiting observatories?"

"Liz doesn't have enough funding or clout for access. But you can do a lot with land-based data. So. Anyway, you get a consensus on the schedule and then you hope it doesn't rain or something, because that messes things up. Sometimes if there's a narrow window, we gut it out and do the work even if conditions are bad. Do you want to know about that now?"

"Later, please. Just an overview for now."

"Sure. Let's see. Once we decide to go ahead, I have to check the noise floor." She looked up. "That means I see if the target region is emitting a signal strong enough to be detected above the background noise. All electrical equipment generates electrical noise—electrons banging around in the metal of the equipment itself. We chill the receivers down in liquid helium to keep them really cold, because cold slows down the movement of the electrons and that reduces the noi—" The stare again. "Right. You know that. Okay. If the target signal is really faint, we go around turning stuff off. Computers we aren't using for the shoot, lights, air conditioners, whatever. Then I choose a calibration signal—a known radio source. I shoot that to tune the system up."

"How do you choose the calibration target? Briefly, please."

"There's a huge catalog on-line and we pick one near the target signal. Usually I just look at the signal using a virtual oscilloscope. We know what a signal from a calibration source is supposed to look like."

"And if the signal differs from expected?"

All business, Emilio said. Well, she has to eat…

"Mr. Qui

"That's where the art comes in. Each one of these dishes is essentially handmade. They all have quirks—cabling problems, grounding problems. The weather affects them, the time of day, the ambient noise. You have to get to know a piece of equipment like this. And then when you've eliminated everything, you have to use your intuition about what could be causing distortions or interference or stray signals. One time," he said, warming up again, "we thought we had an ET signal, extraterrestrial. We got it every few months but nobody else could confirm. Turned out it was the ignition of this one old school bus and we heard it every time the kids from that school came up here on a field trip."

The Stare. It already had a capital letter in his mind. "Listen," he said seriously, "I'm not just wasting your time telling fu

She smiled, in spite of herself. "Ah," said Jimmy shrewdly. "I see you've worked with Australians."

For a moment, she struggled to return to sobriety but finally laughed. "There's no such thing as beer too warm to drink," she said with a very good Australian accent. Jimmy laughed then as well but, wisely, did not press his luck.

"How's it going?" George Edwards asked her, a month or so after she started. They met for lunch frequently, Sofia saving up questions to ask him on the days when he came to the dish.

"Slowly. Mr. Qui

"By you," George ventured, to see how she'd react, knowing that Jimmy was miserably besotted with a woman whose only interest seemed to be a relentless deconstruction of his brain, cell by cell. Sofia simply nodded. No blush, George noted, no compassion. She's not a romantic, that's for sure.

"It makes things difficult. Animosity is easier to deal with," she said, glancing across the cafeteria at Peggy Soong. George grimaced: Peggy could be a pain in the ass. "On the other hand, infatuation is preferable to condescension. I appreciate that you treat me as a competent professional, Mr. Edwards. It's nice to work without being patronized. Or chatted up."

"Well, I hope this doesn't count as chatting you up," George said dryly, "but that di

She had decided, upon reflection, to accept his invitation if he repeated it. People were often hostile to her work and, by extension, to her; she had not been invited to anyone's home since childhood. "I'd be happy to come, Mr. Edwards."

"Good. A

"That will be fine. Thank you. I have some questions about weather effects on radio reception, if you wouldn't mind," she said, setting her plate aside and pulling out her notebook. And they went on to business.

On Sunday, she drove to San Juan, allowing time for the dreadful traffic. She parked with difficulty, found a flower stall with ease, and bought a bouquet for Dr. Edwards. She liked Puerto Rico, actually, and had been pleasantly surprised to find how close Spanish and Ladino were. There were spelling differences, divergences in vocabulary, but the basic words and grammar were often identical. She asked the flower vendor the way to the Edwardses' address and climbed the stair-street to the shell-pink stucco house she was directed to. The doors to an ironwork balcony overlooking the street were open, as were the windows, and she clearly heard a woman's voice call, "George? Did you get that pump fixed down in the clinic?"