“What if I were the person to make extraterrestrial contact?” she asked of her computer screen.

It was her favorite part of the day, the time directly after she’d started code compiling, or simulations simulating. The blessed interval when, if anyone accused her of not working, she’d simply point to the screen’s progress bar, or direct an ear to the hum of the machine’s cooling fan. A brief respite from mathematics.

She stood and answered, again to no one in particular, “I’d be a very good choice. How many individuals among the human race can prove, at will, the Pythagorean theorem using simple pictographs? Ah, and how many more have practiced doing so for just such an occasion?” This made her content.

“Hmm,” she mused, raising a hand to her chin, stroking the imaginary goatee of deep thought, “but how to convince our new visitors that we are a friendly race?”

“If, indeed, I can be convinced that humanity is, at its heart, truly friendly!”

“Hmph! Fat chance.” And thus, the argument was ended.