"Certainly not on Huston's."
"Nora—tell me—why did you make that false recording?"
Nora looked at Paul, and then pulled him to her and hugged his head against her cheek for a moment. "Paul, as a scientist you couldn't understand the man on the street. We wanted something to show Neoterra. You don't understand this. But Paul, what would have happened if you had gotten away with it?"
"But I did not."
"Just pretend. Set up a hypothesis for a minute. Suppose that you had been able to convince the Terran Physical Society that you had received Z-waves from Terra while you were on Proxima I."
"I'd have been the man of the hour. I'd have been handed a large appropriation and a project of my own to pursue this—But Nora, it will work. Why did you feel that you had to falsify?"
"Paul, you are the only man in the known universe that does not think Haedaecker's Theory is valid. Please go on—please?"
"So I'd have been able to pursue my work unhampered. And—"
"Now suppose that you were unable to make the Z-wave contact again?" suggested Nora. "Remember, the recording was the only contact but the Z-wave—regardless of your belief—does not really work."
Paul shrugged: "Lacking a repeat, I'd have begun to study the connection a bit more," he said.