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inward, revealing—
    It had been weeks since Sarah had seen one in the flesh—not that "in the flesh" was the right phrase.
    Standing before them, gleaming in the sunlight, was a robot, one of the very latest models, she guessed; it looked more sophisticated and sleeker than any she'd seen before.
    "Hello," the robot said to Don, in a perfectly normal male voice. It was about five-foot-six: tall enough to function well in the world, but not so tall as to be intimidating. "Is Dr. Sarah Halifax in?"
    "I'm Sarah Halifax," she said. The robot's head swiveled to look up at her. Sarah suspected it was analyzing both her face and her voice to make sure it was really her.
    "Hello, Dr. Halifax," the robot said. "You haven't been answering your household phone, so I've brought you a replacement. Someone would like to talk to you." The robot raised its right hand, and in it Sarah could just make out a clamshell datacom.
    "And who might that be?" she asked.
    The robot tilted its head slightly, giving the impression that it was listening to someone somewhere else. "Cody McGavin," it said. Sarah felt her heart skip a beat; she wished she'd actually been on the staircase, instead of just above it, so she could have grabbed the banister for support. "Will you take his call?"
    Don turned to look at Sarah, his eyes wide, jaw hanging slack.
    "Yes," she said.
    The word had come out very softly, but the robot apparently had no trouble hearing her. "May I?" it asked.
    Don nodded and stepped aside. The robot came into the entryway, and, to Sarah's astonishment, she saw it was wearing simple galoshes, which, in a fluid motion, it bent over and removed, exposing blue metal feet. The machine walked across the vestibule, its heels clicking against the old, much-scuffed hardwood there, and it easily went up the first two steps, which was as far as it had to go to be able to proffer the datacom to Sarah. She took it.
    "Flip it open," the robot said helpfully.
    She did so, then heard a ringing through the small speaker. She quickly brought the device to her ear.
    "Hello, Dr. Halifax," said a crisp female voice. It was a little hard for Sarah to make out; she wished she knew how to adjust the volume. "Please hold for Mr. McGavin."
    Sarah looked at her husband. She'd repeatedly told him how much she hated people who made her wait like this. It was almost always some self-important jackass who felt his time was more valuable than anyone else's. But in this case, Sarah supposed, that was actually true. Oh, there might be a few people on Earth who made more per hour than Cody McGavin, but, offhand, she couldn't name any of them.
    As Sarah often said, SETI is the Blanche Dubois of scientific undertakings: it has always depended on the kindness of strangers. Whether it was Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen donating 13.5 million dollars in 2004 to fund an array of radio telescopes, or the hundreds of thousands of private computer users who gave up their spare processing cycles to the SETI@home project, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence had managed to struggle on decade after decade through the largesse of those who believed, first, that we might not be alone, and, later, that it actually mattered that we were not alone.
    Cody McGavin had made billions by the time he was forty, developing robotic technology. His proprioceptive sensor webs were behind every sophisticated robot on the planet. Born in 1985, he'd been fascinated by astronomy, science fiction, and space travel all his life. His collection of artifacts from the Apollo program, an endeavor that had come and gone long before he was born, was the largest in the world. And, after the passing of Paul Allen, he'd become by far SETI's biggest single benefactor.
    As soon as Sarah had been put on hold, music started playing. She recognized it as Bach—and got the joke; she was probably one of the few people left alive who would. Years ago, long before the first Draconis signal had been received,