In the focus point facing the arc of chairs, a deep blackness formed. Opaque. Space. A blue-green-white bloated curve of Earth appeared at the lower left of the image, giving the viewers an idea of their relative position. An orbiter floated in the center of the image. Metal reflected direct solar radiation. Surfaces looked solid and edges hard and sharp. Todd was proud of the holographic quality. He had taken this one himself while closing in with his shuttle. Like many high-vacuum constructs, this satellite was a fragile-looking thing.
“This is Project Search Orbiter Four,” Todd said. An insert holographic image formed on the lower right of the main projection. A monitor screen. It appeared to rest on the floor, contrasting strangely with the orbiter hanging in space. The orbiter image was revealed in harsh, unfiltered sunlight. The monitor had been photographed in an ordinary office by artificial light. Dian zoomed on the insert until nothing but the little screen showed. The readout was available at that extremely close angle.
Data jittered and froze on the screen, sketching out the orbiter’s dimensions and raw specs, then hurrying on to other details. Mari forgot her anger. She perched on the edge of her chair, reading rapidly Jael, as well as Pat, absorbed the material just as fast. Carissa could read a moderate rate feed, but this was designed for the use of techs and trained scientists—or for the wife and children of Ward Saunder.
Carissa whispered, “It’s too . . .”
“Shh,” Pat soothed her, concentrating on the holomode. “I’ll spell it out later.” Carissa smiled trustingly, her face and hair ghostly in the dim light.
“No immediate profit.” Jael had pounced on a significant datum. She interpreted the facts as she saw them. Todd sighed. It would take her a while to absorb the rest of what he was going to tell her. Her mind was different from Ward’s, but just as spectacular. Her gifts had brought the family through all the crises. She weighed value in terms of what sort of security it could buy for her family. That security had given Todd the wealth and freedom to bring Project Search out of storage. It would be hypocrisy for him to sneer at Jael’s absorption with profits.
Security first. Dreams second.
Yet dreams could come true. This one had.
In the holo-mode theater, the little orbiter went through a dizzying series of changes, displaying earlier models of Search vehicles, progressing forward to its own design. The monitor distilled time and expense. Jael muttered something Todd couldn’t quite hear, probably another acid comment about needless waste.
“We started with these orbiters about three years ago, but it took two tries before we got a really satisfactory model. It was bootleg research, and there was a lot of turnover and a very small working staff at any given period. Eventually we culled the staff down to a few dedicated people. About two years ago Dian hired on with ComLink, and I approached her about Project Search. She was working with the translator department, not space scans, but she was very interested. We both thought that if we actually found something, her background and training would be invaluable. We were right.” Todd turned to Dian, wishing he could find a stronger compliment to thank her for her unflagging loyalty. “Beth Isaacs and Techs Anatole Duchamp and Wu Min stayed with it all the way.”
Fabric rustled as his audience stirred. There was whispering. Their reactions were unformed as yet, just as the earliest data from Project Search were erratic and uncertain. The image-orbiter delivered information then, on command, sent out fresh signals, turning, hunting, fine-tuning, always seeking a target that might not exist.
The insert vied with the orbiter for attention. In the holo-mode image, a second Todd and a second Dian appeared. They were leaning over the monitor but carefully not blocking its screen, giving the camera lens a clear shot. The scenes flickered in rapid sequence, showing them and the Project Search team, poring over the readouts, discussing them, their elation growing. They reset, reprogrammed, calling for repeat scans, repeat signals, backups, and reconfirms. They tried to eliminate all element of chance, They compared their data and pictures with those from Global Astro Science’s files, and from those of the orbiter telescopes and those on the Moon. They analyzed the data again and again, afraid to get their hopes up.
Jael swiveled, and Todd sensed her scrutiny in the semi-darkness. “Before you ask, every bit of funding came out of my own pocket. I didn’t take a thing from any of my stockholders.”
The orbiter’s image disappeared. A distant star field took over its part of the projection. It wasn’t as realistic as the orbiter had been. The range was long and the image looked like what it was—a grainy blowup of an astronomical photograph. The monitor scene enlarged, the human figures becoming life-size, twins of the real Todd and Dian. Sound now accompanied the busy whirl of numerals and graphs on the screen in the holograph. The techs’ conversations had been edited down to bare essentials, incisive comments to point up events and discoveries.
“We decided to broaden the base Ward and the earlier seekers had been using. We could, with our improvements on Ward’s scan patents. The first researchers would have sold themselves for life to get such equipment.”
Men and women who had donated years, searching, hoping. They were right. There was intelligent life beyond the Solar System. It had just needed more time for the collective human brain to produce the necessary equipment and find the exact path. Thanks to their groundwork, Todd’s people had pinpointed the dream and made it real.
Dian took up the explanation. “You’re now looking at a scanning sector designated nine cee jay, mid-screen, to your left. If you wish, we’ll supply you with complete catalog data. We had to develop some of our own as we went along.”
“What did you find?” Mari asked excitedly. “Come on! Have pity!”
The deep-space photo jumped, the image refocusing instantly. The new apparent angle was a great deal closer, zeroing in on a particular area of space. A machine-sketched bracket formed around an empty patch in the enlarged shot.
In the monitor insert, Todd and Dian cued comps and got a response. Earth’s technology reached beyond Earth and lunar orbit, far beyond, spanning an empty gulf. The answer was slow. It took a while for the signal to reach its destination, be considered, and be returned. Finally, the screens put up the data. In cold, comp-abbreviated English, the letters stated: Cnfrm. Ptrn rpt. RQ Dcrypt. An odd series of tones and staticky bursts came from the monitor. A playback relayed from space.
“Request what?” Carissa wondered aloud. Todd was startled. She was sharper than he had realized. Obviously she could follow most comp shorthand.
“Decryption,” Dian explained, “is a term borrowed from the military lexicons. Usually it refers to some general asking for a breakdown of a code. And this is a code, in a way. But because it’s not in any human language, the comp couldn’t convert it. This process is going to take considerable time to complete, but not too long, we hope.”
Carissa glanced back at Dian gratefully and mouthed a thank-you. She accepted all this, unbothered by the cosmic implications. Pat and Jael were sitting like stones, but Todd knew their minds were racing. Mari would be his ally. She was anticipating, leaning forward, eager.
Good girl. Back me up. Help me get through to them. They’ve got to realize that the whole history of our species will undergo a radical change.
Mari was the first to notice the pattern in the static. The monitor’s electronic tone was repetitive, but so was the static, coming in seemingly random waves. Mariette, familiar with sunspot interference and other space noise, penetrated the scratchy sounds. “That’s coherent.”
“A . . . a message?” Jael’s voice sounded very far away. “Are you saying that’s an intelligent message?”
The curving half row of chairs drew Todd’s eyes away from the now-familiar holo-mode re-enactment. My mother. My brother. My sister. Carissa, and the child in her body. Saunders, all. Kevin’s a Saunder, too, bound by his love for Mari. What Mari sees here, Kevin will see, and he’ll understand. Dian . . . Dian already knows.
Todd answered Jael’s fearful query. “Yes, Mother, it’s intelligent. It came from outside the Solar System, but we don’t know exactly where from yet. We’ve checked, blind-tested, worked it in every human language, in clear, in code, in computerese, to every degree. We made sure. It’s not natural, and it’s not merely mimicking our signals. Whatever it is creates. It listens. It interprets. And it responds.”
Pat was on his feet, silhouetted between the projector and the image. At Mari’s yelp of protest, he moved out of the way, standing to one side. There was barely leashed terror in his hoarse voice. “Intelligent? Let me get this straight. That orbiter of yours is getting a reply? What reply? What’s it saying? Where is the damned thing?”
“It’s an interstellar vehicle,” Mari replied scornfully. “Of course. Sit down and watch and maybe you’ll learn something. You won’t be able to see it, not yet. How far out is it, Todd? How many A.U.’s?”
“Approximately twenty-eight, as of yesterday, and coming fairly fast. We originally estimated a year to make Earth orbit. It was making one-twentieth of one percent C, but that’s gone up considerably.” Mari’s jaw dropped in admiration as Todd confirmed, “Faster than our best. But not light-speed, which will relieve a few physicists at the Science Council.” He smiled to himself, not bothering to tell the others about the theoretical wars among the ranking minds of celestial mechanics. “We believe it’s quite small, and obviously very sophisticated,” he said. “We’re talking a couple of months till visual contact, with the orbiting Wilson-Palo lens and the Council’s big radio scanners. They haven’t been looking in that region of the sky. But they will when we give them the data. It’s just too damned bad the Australian scope got wrecked before the Space Neutrality Treaty went into effect. That was a beautiful eye. We certainly could—”
“A few months until you can see it and define its shape,” Jael interrupted. She waved toward the monitor scene within the holo-mode. “Your data claims it’s adjusting its course.”
“That’s right. Reacting to us.”
“Maybe . . . maybe it’s one of our own,” Jael suggested somewhat desperately. “I remember they launched a number of deep-space craft, before I was born and when I was a child. Until funding got diverted into more useful channels.”
“This thing is incoming, Mother,” Todd reminded her with great patience. “The chances of its being one of ours are nil. But we held off announcing this until we could be sure. It’s an alien vehicle, no question whatsoever.”
His image and Dian’s in the holo-mode projection resembled those of proud parents displaying a new baby. There was a bit of historical posing in their manner. They faced the cameras, aware they were going into the records along with the astonishing readouts. Feeble signals were computer enhanced and boosted. New signals were sent, new incoming data added to that building in the files. Time condensed. Confusing static became regularly spaced intervals alternated with other patterned bursts. Energy commg from Neptune’s orbit began to form symbols and, possibly, letters and numerals. Dian’s team responded in kind. The alien copied, questioned, returned its own queries—or at least that was what they appeared to be. It took days, sometimes, before the precious answer would come. And the most recent response was a binary readout. Not the one Project Search had sent, but the sequence intelligently re-formed and returned to demonstrate that the machine understood what they were trying to do.
The checks and rechecks had worn their patience thin. The tension had become nearly unbearable. Dian was tireless, and even she grew snappy. A hundred times. A thousand. Again. No doubt. They had it. Payoff. Project Search, out of all the scanning efforts, had tracked down its quarry.
And now the dream had come true.
Was it going to be Pandora’s box, or Prometheus’ stolen gift to mankind? There was no way to predict— whichever it was, it was going to happen.
On the holo-mode monitor, the long-sought word appeared after each laborious cross-check: Cnfrmd.
The inserts disappeared, and so did the frozen star-field photo. Dian poised her hands over the glowing projector panels. “I can run back anything you’d like to see again. We have a great deal more, but it’s redundant. Everything here and lots more very dry stats. The extreme emphasis and time compression came from the last three months, when we were positive we were onto something. The signal’s been getting steadier as the vehicle corrects its Vector . . .”
“Lights!” Jael’s normally soft voice was shrill with panic.
Dian obeyed. Interior illumination dimmed the stars beyond the dome. Mari jerked around, staring at Todd. “Correcting? How? And why?”
He thought over his reply, knowing that she, most of all, was aware of celestial navigation’s distances and problems. “We don’t know what its propulsion system is. We assume it’s realigning via our frequencies.”
“Homing in on Earth’s telecommunications, in other words,” Mariette finished for him, nodding.
“My God.” Pat breathed that prayer. “You . . . you’re leading it to us.”
Dian shook her head, dismayed. Todd went on guard. “No, I’m not. Earth is leading it. Hear me out, Pat. That thing’s a probe. It was coming in on Neptune’s orbit when we detected it. In all likelihood, it’s been programmed to prowl interstellar space, looking for a contact just like ours. The odds are high it had already picked up plenty before we beamed anything directly at it. Maybe it’s been talking for quite a while, saying ‘hello,’ trying to get an answer out of us. Only we didn’t talk its language and didn’t notice what it was doing—not until Project Search.”
He paused, waiting to see if they would interrupt. “I can’t claim I found it. I don’t know if I did. Maybe Project Search is just the first Earth station that answered the com when that thing was hailing us. Now that we have responded, it’s talking back. We think it can learn. We hope so. We’re like two children—our species and that one out there which sent the messenger—and we speak totally different languages. We’re seeing each other for the first time across a pool in a park. A very tiny pool, as interstellar distances go. This child, Homo sapiens, hasn’t learned to walk or swim very well yet.”
“We can!” Mari said fiercely. “We have the capability to go out there right now. Have had it for decades. If only those damned reactionary—”
“Stop it!” Todd waited for her to cool down, then resumed his explanation. “All right. Humanity hasn’t been allowed to swim across the pool very far, for lack of encouragement and support. Okay, Mari? But that other child, the alien messenger, can swim. It’s doing so. It’s been looking for us, or something like us—intelligent life. Funny, isn’t it? Both of us looking for the same thing, we from the bottom of a well, they from the top. Now it’s coming over to meet us.”
“You mustn’t!” Jael’s terror transformed her face and voice. “You mustn’t talk to it any more. You mustn’t let it know where we are.”
Dian didn’t hide her disappointment. She spoke gently. “Mrs. Saunder, we’re way past that. For all we know, that probe’s been coming our way for over a century, wandering at random. Maybe it picked up our first radio signals a long while ago. You must see that. We aren’t doing anything to attract it. What’s happened is that we picked up on it in progress. It was coming here, anyway. This way, we have time to talk to it, learn its language and teach it ours, communicate with it and find out something about its creators.”
“Sending.” Blood drained from Jael’s round face. “It receives and sends. It thinks.”
“Of course it does.” Mariette didn’t consult with Todd. Something in her manner alarmed him. Her excitement was fading. “And it’s probably already sent word home when it first picked up an Earth transmission. I wonder where its home is?” She looked at Todd, on his wavelength once more. But the rapport was brief. She rose to her feet, began pacing back and forth. “Pick and vector and align itself, talk, interpret. Told its masters where it’s going. Now it’s going to have a look.”
“Try cutting off its funds in P.O.E.,” Mari suggested, laughing nastily. “How does it feel to meet an entity you can’t buy off or control?” Todd felt the moment slipping away from him, going off in directions he couldn’t control.
Jael was ranting. “Our resources are stretched to the limits now . . . just recovering from the Chaos . . . can’t let it . . . we have it all about to work . . .”
“Oh, shut up!” Mariette exploded. “You haven’t got the slightest idea what—”
“Dammit!” Pat said suddenly, “Are you blind? I’ve got a kid brother who talks to aliens and thinks it’s wonderful. Starry-eyed kid brother. That thing’s a threat. You say it’s faster than our fastest spaceships, intelligent, and you’re going to feed it everything it needs to know about us humans.”
“Everything we need to know may come to us in return!” Todd roared, trying to outshout him. Futile. Desperate, he kept on. “We can’t run away from it. We’d better learn to deal with it. Mankind’s tried that before, fearing changes and trying to stifle exploration. There was a time when we tried to halt travel by machines, vaccination against disease, anesthetics, nuclear experiments, investigation and use of recombinant DNA, seabed thermal energy drilling, building Goddard. We probably tried to stop the discoveries of fire and the wheel. But we can’t! Not as long as we’re human. We have to take the risks along with our curiosity!”
Tomorrow’s Heritage Page 19