I wrote this story for a writing challenge, which had the trigger: penny for your thoughts. However, I believe it is able to stand on its own as a story, and if I get any feedback on it I would like opinions on if that is true.


'So, Nellie concluded her story, 'Whenever he wanted my opinion, he'd give it to me.'�
Her audience laughed heartily. An older man with grey hair said: 'You mean, whenever he asked you 'a penny for your thoughts', he'd hold out his hand for one?'�
The comment sent the gathered men and women into laughter again. Nellie did not join in this time, but looked fondly around at all of them. They sat in a large warehouse on old dur-plastic crates, surrounded by the latest shipment of parts they'd requested to keep their facility going. All clothed in their white lab coats, complete with name tags and data padds, they looked like a group of perfectly normal scientists. Yet, how wrong impressions such as these could be, Nellie thought. They were the people that believed wholeheartedly in the phrase 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,'� for they had to make the best out of what little support the government gave to their project. After all, in the middle of a world-wide war between corrupt governments, the search for extraterrestrial life took second place. They had only managed to get one ship for the purpose of that search'the Argus, a prototype of an interstellar-capable ship of which no more had been built yet. The ship had been sent out about two years ago, when a trail of destroyed ships and warp-space jump trails led them to a faraway solar system. They had not received any news since the ship's arrival in the system, since it took nearly two months for messages to pass back and forth.
But, Nellie reflected as the conversation went on without her, their search should be considered more important. Nearly five years ago they had found great twisted, melted-looking chunks of metal floating in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Most people on Earth, including the scientists who were studying the asteroid field, dismissed these multi-ton pieces of extremely dense metal as merely another form of space junk.
Yet Nellie and her group of loyal scientists had continued to study the metal, even when the government withdrew all but the most basic support for their efforts. And as they studied, a new realization took place in their minds. These were not random bits of metal'far from it, they were the remains of spacecraft, probably ancient. A race with the power to explore the stars'what could that mean in the war, if one side or the other won their friendship? All the scientists held on to a slim hope that somehow the knowledge that they were not along in the universe would jolt the various governments out of their constant bickering and fighting, and get them to look beyond the reaches of their own solar system, perhaps even begin working together to establish contact.
Nellie's wrist communicator beeped, pulling her out of her thoughts, and she excused herself to take the call. Leaving the circle of her friends and walking out of earshot among the stacks of crates and boxes, she pressed the button that let her see the incoming message.
The tiny 3-D image fuzzed into place above the emitter on the communicator, showing the head and shoulders of one of the scientists, Evan.
'What's wrong?'� Nellie asked, concerned, as soon as she saw his face.
'You've got to get up to HQ immediately. Malcom's getting through.'�
Feeling a pang of fear, Nellie nodded. 'I'll be there in ten minutes. Don't let them do anything until I get there.'�

Nellie threw open the swinging door to the warehouse, which was really used as storage, but the government required they call it 'headquarters'�. In the center of the vast room stood a large screen, the only piece of expensive equipment they'd been allowed to keep. Evan in front of the screen, arguing with the thin blond-haired man on it.
Nellie came up beside him and squarely faced their top competitor, Nelson Malcom. 'What do you want this time? I thought we agreed that you'd taken enough money from our project, and we were going to leave each other alone.'�
Malcom smiled, a cold, arrogant smile. 'we agreed that, as long as you kept your little 'project' discreet, I'd leave you alone. Yet, you go to the government for more money, you send the Argus out of the solar system, you broadcast your findings in a pitiful cry for help,'� he paused eloquently. 'Need I go on?'�
Nellie felt like grabbing him by the neck and throttling him, but controlled her anger for the sake of the other scientists that were depending on her. She kept her face straight and her voice level only with great effort. 'How can we be anything but discreet, with you removing all the funding we need to run? We haven't gotten even one article written about us, despite all our work. We barely keep our comm. array running, our lights working, our food processors operating. Isn't that enough for you?'�
Malcom raised an eyebrow. 'My dear Nellie, it would have indeed been enough, but for a certain little tidbit of information I received only a few minutes ago,'� he turned and picked up a padd from a table behind him, and waved it in her face. 'about certain developments regarding the Argus.'�
Nellie refused to rise to his bait. 'There have been no developments.'�
Malcom laughed coldly. 'You don't really expect me to believe that you don't know? Why Nellie, I always thought you to be a better liar.'� Without saying anything more, he severed the connection and the screen went dark.
'Trace his call,'� Nellie called out to one of the technicians. She turned to Evan, a late-forties man with thick reddish hair that was the envy of many men his age. 'So?'� she let the question hang in the air.
Evan shrugged. 'He's heard a rumor that the Argus discovered something, but he doesn't know what it is. He was trying to get you to tell him.'�
'Do we know what it is?'�
Evan smiled and shrugged. 'The rumor was probably started by one of our men over on their side. If the Argus has found anything, it's not terribly important, considering we haven't heard from them about it.'�
Nellie sighed in a combination of relief and disappointment. 'Much as I'm glad Malcom didn't end up with any information we don't have, I almost wish he had known something. Then we'd at least know that the Argus is making progress.'�
Nellie turned, startled, when she felt a light touch on the back of her shoulder. It was one of her assistants, named John. 'We think you'd better come see this,'� he whispered in her ear.
Quickly excusing herself, Nellie followed John as he led her through the convoluted maze of crates, mostly half empty, that were stacked throughout the warehouse. He brought her to the flight of stairs at the back of the building.
'What is it you want me to see?'� Nellie asked, once they had gotten to where the others couldn't hear them if they talked normally.
John only shrugged, but an excited smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. 'They said not to tell you until you got there.'�

As Nellie arrived in the cluttered space they called the 'office, but was really more of a computer and smaller-scale communications room, several scientists grouped around one of the computer monitors looked up, and motioned her to join them. One of them, a tiny redhead named Kayla, motioned for Nellie to some see what was on the screen.
As the head scientist approached, Kayla explained quickly. 'This is our latest set of images from Argus. They had been in orbit of the second planet for nearly a month when they sent these images.'� She too, normally a very calm woman, had an air of barely contained excitement.
Nellie hurried forward and peered into the screen. Kayla touched a control off to the side. 'This is the beginning,'� she said, as a new image flashed onto the screen.
First the images were of the view of the planet from space, gradually growing closer and closer. Then they began to zoom in on a certain portion of the planet, which Kayla said was the most heavily populated region of that particular continent.
Then the still images changed to video, and Captain Elijah of the Argus began to speak. The camera came to rest on a view only a few dozen feet above the ground, and everyone gasped at the sight of the moving creatures on the ground below.
'This is a view of the inhabitants of the second planet, which we call 'Cryo', because of its very low average temperature. Here you will see some of the planet's inhabitants,'� and the camera zoomed in even farther to show several grey-skinned humanoid beings with large hands and feet, and only three digits on each one. 'They wear no clothes but their own elephant-like skin, though they often carry large bags and boxes around with them, the purpose of which we have not yet ascertained.'� Nellie and the others watched in indescribable joy and excitement as Captain Elijah told them more about the 'Cryonese'�, as the ship's crew called them.
As the camera moved around from place to place, they saw these strange people doing many different things. Farming, cutting down their broccoli-like version of trees, and even some smaller versions of the adults that romped around in what looked much like a child's game of 'tag'�.
But there was one place where the camera lingered. It showed a group adult Cryonese passing a little nugget of metal back and forth. Captain Elijah explained this process, much to the surprise and amusement of the gathered scientists. 'these nuggets seem to be the most common unit of money used on this continent of Cryo, so we have taken to calling them pennies. What we have found, from observation and a rudimentary translation of their language, is that if one wishes to initiate a conversation with another, they will hand the other one of these nuggets. Once the conversation is initiated, this no longer takes place, but if a question or opinion is ever asked, the process is repeated.'� Captain Elijah's voice became tinged with amusement. 'We are always reminded of a certain Earth phrase: A''�
Nellie, suddenly knowing what he was going to say, repeated the phrase along with him. 'Penny for your thoughts,'� they both finished at the same time. As the other scientists turned to stare at her, she began to laugh at the absurdity, the wonder, and the joy of it all. To not only find a race that lived on another planet, but one that did the very thing that Earth people said all the time! She laughed for a long time ignoring Captain Elijah's continued commentary, while everyone stared at her in amazement.

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