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I don’t want to know, Jace cut her off gently. But isn’t there some equivalent to the Kobayashi Maru? A no-win scenario?

You don’t believe in no-win scenarios, she told him.

Was I channeling Jim Kirk? He lifted an eyebrow.

That is part of your own character! She told him. But no, you just always think there is some solution with some percentage of winning. But there could be a great and terrible cost.

I definitely don’t want you to tell me what one of those situations is, he said, his heart falling into his feet.

No, I won’t. Hopefully, we will never encounter it, she said, but he wondered if she really believed that.

“So you were saying that we could watch people’s reactions to their receipt of the initial email?” General Intoshkin rubbed his hands together. He had finished his steak meal already. He didn’t linger over his food, likely because he was aware that some decision might need to be made that would take him away from it.

“Yes, yes, for sure!” Holographic screens appeared before Jace. He scrolled through them and picked one of the people he really hoped joined them and who was just now about to review her email. “Okay, so the first one we should look at is Dr. Daraja Isa. She’s a Nigerian physician, 57 years old, a recent widow. Two children. A boy and a girl. Both grown and living in Lagos while she is in Gombe.”

He “flicked” the screen with her picture and details to the center of the table where it expanded so everyone could see her. She had short hair cropped closed to a shapely skull. Her dark brown eyes had a hint of an almond shape. She had a broad nose and expressive lips. In the picture he had of her up reminded him of the Mona Lisa in that she had a smile on her face that was faint as if she knew something that others didn’t.

“She’s taken care of the poor and the rich. In desperate areas where doctors are nowhere to be found. Where danger lives and breathes and death is around every corner,” Jace said. “She performed surgery on the ground in the middle of a firefight where bullets whizzed over her head. She’s also set up successful clinics for the poverty stricken.”

“She sounds wonderful, but it also appears she’s doing great work here, son,” his father said with a frown.

“Yes, but she’s restless. She’s depressed. She needs something new. Something hopeful. And I think… I think she would see this as a way to bring what’s out there,” Jace pointed generally to the stars, “to the people of Earth.”

Jace noted that no one seemed either surprised or upset that he knew so much about her and her potential psychology. He knew that the US military had many such abilities and the Alliance definitely had them. But between him and the AIs, he had deeper insights. Or so he hoped.

C’mon, Dr. Isa, be part of my crew! Jace hoped.

“Let’s see what she does with that email. Hopefully doesn’t trash it before reading it,” General Intoshkin said as he leaned back in his chair.

“Depending on her reaction… well, we could speak to her,” Jace said, though he realized that watching her like this was a complete invasion of her privacy and speaking to her would cross another line. But he knew that if it had been him on the other end of that email he’d have thought: privacy be damned! I want to take a risk on this!

The screen in the center changed from her image and resume to a live feed of her sitting in her office. The windows were open and there was a lazy ceiling fan that turned. It was night after what Jace knew had been a long day for her, but her eyes were still bright with incisiveness. Their view of her came from her own camera so it was a frontal image. So they saw the moment she read the subject line of the email.

The subject line was not about some medical miracle she could learn about though that would have had her clicking. It was actually a little corny, but heartfelt, which Jace had sensed was right for her personality. Despite being as tough as nails and calm in a storm, Dr. Isa had to be a dreamer to not be crushed by all the reality she had seen over her nearly 30 year career in medicine.

It was written in Nigeria’s most common language Hausa and asked simply: Do you long for the stars?

That faint Mona Lisa smile was on her lips again as he hovered her cursor over the email. She undoubtedly thought it was some kind of sales email such as: use our product! It’s out of this world! But he knew how much she was longing to experience new things.

So she clicked.

Dr. Isa, he’d written, My name is Jace Parker and I am the Pilot of the spacecraft, Osiris.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head as if denying the email’s words. A look of annoyance was on her face as if she’d been tricked. But she kept reading.

I know what you are most likely thinking: is this a joke? Is this some sort of scam? There is no spacecraft called the Osiris that you’ve ever heard of and you’ve looked. You read articles about Elon Musk’s Spacex and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, thinking that these are the only possible ways civilians will ever be able to go into space.

Her expression became serious. Her eyes passed over the words again and again.

But, regardless, you believe that even if such flights take place in your lifetime, they will be reserved for the rich or the young. Space is dangerous. Other worldly travel even more so. Contact with other species? A pipe dream.

But what would you give for it all to be true?

She highlighted those words unconsciously with her cursor.

You have qualities that I know will be an asset to my crew. And I can give you what you’re looking for. Travel to the stars and other worlds. Interactions, perhaps even friendships, with alien species. And more knowledge of medicine that you have ever dreamed.

If you wish to join my crew, all you need do is reply to this email with a single word: yes.