The crowd at the arrivals section craned their necks as they scanned the weary passengers, just stepped off the Qantas flight from Sydney, walking towards them.

"She's a redhead," recounted Clement, "about five foot five."

Around them, people shrieked as families and friends reunified. "We'll have a lot of stories to tell," dreamed Clement.

As the passengers dispersed they saw a man and a woman with their hands on each other's shoulders and their other hands on their luggage, whispering secrets to each other animatedly. "There they are," said Clement, "if you didn't know you'd think they were married to each other." Their red hair and gray eyes caught their eyes almost immediately.

"Here, here!" Clement began to wave. They began to run as fast as they could with their luggage. As the woman reached the yellow strip painted on the ground, she jumped to Clement and they hugged as the man quietly took up her bag. "I love you, Helen," said Clement as he kissed her. "Welcome to America! Let's go," said Clement as the man gave him her bag.

"So you're Tom Robertson, I presume?" Homer looked at the man.

"In the flesh, mate!"

"You know each other?" Claire was puzzled.

"Well, he's basically my Australian counterpart," explained Homer, "we both work in protocols."

"Protocols?" Claire still did not understand.

"Ways to send a message so that both sides understand it," attempted Tom, "for example, you could say we have different protocols for dates. You would say today was 'May 1, 1975' but we would say it was '1 May 1975'. This may not seem like a big deal but if you abbreviate it you get '5/1/75' and '1/5/75'. This is a problem caused by an incompatible protocol. Imagine that but with computers, and also the problems will be much bigger."

"Said it better than I could've," conceded Homer.

They walked to the parking garage where the minivan they had rented for the day was waiting for them. "Where's your hotel?" asked Homer.

"The Biltmore," said Tom.

"You guys must have a lot of money to throw around," said Homer.

"Thanks to you," said Tom.

The minivan began to drive down the Santa Monica Freeway to the city. "Wanna see our new house first?" offered Homer.

"No, I need to sleep off the jet lag," declined Tom, "it was a long flight and the INS man grilled us hard."

"Lot of rubbish questions!" complained Helen.

"It's over now," remarked Clement, "it was all for nothing. Communism has won all over Vietnam."

"It wasn't your fault," said Claire, "it was Johnson's and Nixon's."

"At least I met you and James and Tom," Clement slipped his arm around her.

"Let's play 'Say One Embarrassing Thing About Yourself'," proposed Tom. "I'll start. I knew Ada and Homer long before, actually. The first time I met Homer, Ada was the one calling. She said, 'I've got a boyfriend', I said 'I don't care for that, Yank,' and hung up."

"How did you know each other?" asked Claire.

The question hung in the air, unanswered.

"Well," began Helen, "the night James left home, I cried all night."

"That's just being a good sister," forgave Tom, "we all heard it. You didn't want anybody to come in."

"You can hate the war but the men who fought it had no choice," said Helen.

Everyone murmured their approval.

"Do you remember when James wrote that composition about me being 'the world's biggest pest' in 4th Class?"

"Oh yes, he got such a talking-to," recalled Tom, "but now, the world's biggest pest is yours to keep, Clem!"

"She's not a pest, she's a little fiery love-bug," said Clement. Helen giggled.

"When I was in seventh grade I pissed my pants when I was giving a speech for school," volunteered Homer. "They never let me live it down 'til I finished junior high."

"How old is that?" asked Tom.

"14 years old," said Homer.

"So around Form II," Tom said to himself.

"Every time I watch '2001: A Space Odyssey', I cry," said Ada.

"We're not even going to the moon anymore," said Helen, "and I don't want any of you to ever forget what we did to help you lot get there!"

"Of course, of course," said Homer.

"I once mistook my brother for my boyfriend when I was drunk," admitted Claire.

"Did you bring him?" wondered Clement.

"He had work," said Claire, "or is cheating on me. I don't care."

"Don't let a deadbeat boyfriend have power over you," approved Clement.

"Well, I'm last, I guess. Once I walked into the girls' bathroom in school by mistake--and I saw Claire, walking out!" admitted Clement.

"We ribbed him for months," said Homer.

They began to settle into smaller conversations.

"Well, there's a submarine cable between our two countries. The problem is how to make that carry data as well as speech...and carry it in a form both sides can understand," began Homer. "We have a network...you have a network...how do we link them together?"

"It took us twenty-five years to get from computers to networks of computers. I'll be surprised if it took less than twenty-five more to go from networks to a network of them."

"Do Aussies use ASCII..."