First meetings in the Enderverse

advertising-interstellar travelers were automatically off-limits to advertisers, since the advertising money was wasted during their voyage, and the backlog of old ads would overwhelm them when they reached solid ground. Andrew was on solid ground, now, but he hadn’t spent anything, other than subletting a room and shopping for groceries, and neither activity was supposed to get him on anybody’s list. Yet here it was: Top Financial Software! The Answer You’re Looking For!
    It was like horoscopes-enough blind stabs and some of them are bound to strike a target. Andrew certainly needed financial help, he certainly hadn’t found an answer yet. So instead of deleting the ad, he opened it and let it create its little 3-D presentation on his computer. He had watched some of the ads that popped up on Valentine’s computer-her correspondence was so voluminous that there was no chance for her of avoiding it, at least not under her public Demosthenes identity. There were plenty of fireworks and theatrical pieces, dazzling special effects or heart-wrenching dramas used to sell whatever was being sold.
    This one, though, was simple. A woman’s head appeared in the display space, but facing away from him. She glanced around, finally looking far enough over her shoulder to “see” Andrew.
    “Oh, there you are,” she said.

    Andrew said nothing, waiting for her to go on.
    “Well, aren’t you going to answer me?” she asked.
    Good software, he thought. But pretty chancy, to assume that all the recipients would refrain from answering.
    “Oh, I see,” she said. “You think I’m just a program unspooling on your computer. But I’m not. I’m the friend and financial adviser you’ve been wishing for, but I don’t work for money, I work for you. You have to talk to me so I can understand what you want to do with your money, what you want it to accomplish. I have to hear your voice.”
    But Andrew didn’t like playing along with computer programs. He didn’t like participatory theater, either. Valentine had dragged him to a couple of shows where the actors tried to engage the audience. Once a magician had tried to use Andrew in his act, finding objects hidden in his ears and hair and jacket. But Andrew kept his face blank and made no movement, gave no sign that he even understood what was happening, till the magician finally got the idea and moved on. What Andrew wouldn’t do for a live human being he certainly wouldn’t do for a computer program. He pressed the Page key to get past this talking-head intro.
    “Ouch,” said the woman. “What are you trying to do, get rid of me?”
    “Yes,” said Andrew. Then he cursed himself for having succumbed to the trick. This simulation was so cleverly real that it had finally got him to answer by reflex.
    “Lucky for you that you didn’t have a Page button. Do you have any idea how painful that is? Not to mention humiliating.”
    Having once spoken, there was no reason not to go ahead and use the preferred interface for this program. “Come on, how do I get you off my display so I can get back to the salt mines?” Andrew asked. He deliberately spoke in a fluid, slurring manner, knowing that even the most elaborate speech-recognition software fell apart when it came to accented, slurred, and idiomatic speech.
    “You have holdings in two salt mines,” said the woman. “But they’re both loser investments. You need to get rid of them.”
    This irritated Andrew. “I didn’t assign you any files to read,” he said. “I didn’t even buy this software yet. I don’t want you reading my files. How do I shut you down?”
    “But if you liquidate the salt mines, you can use the proceeds to pay your taxes. It almost exactly covers the year’s fee.”
    “You’re telling me you already figured out my taxes?”
    “You just landed on the planet Sorelledolce, where the tax rates are unconscionably high. But using every exemption left to you, including veterans’ benefit laws that apply to only a handful of living participants in the War of Xenocide, I was able to keep the total fee under five million.”
    Andrew laughed. “Oh, brilliant, even my most pessimistic figure didn’t go over a million five.”
    It was the woman’s turn to laugh. “Your figure was a million and a half starcounts. My figure was under five million firenzette.”
    Andrew calculated the difference in local currency and his smile faded.
    “That’s seven thousand starcounts.”
    “Seven