And she thought, so were the people who’d sent out the interstellars.
SHE RETURNED TO the roadside clearing. It didn’t provide a lot of protection, but as long as no one stopped and put a light into it, the lander was reasonably out of sight. She put the knife in her harness, and the link designed by Phyl, and climbed out. There was grass. It was stiff and spiny, and it crackled underfoot.
Another car passed. When it was gone she tied one end of the cable around her waist, wrapped the other end around a thick tree branch, and gave it to Antonio. In the low gravity, her weight was lower by a quarter. “I’m going to try to walk up the pole,” she said.
He looked at the overhead wires. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
She didn’t feel especially confident either. How long had it been since she’d tried anything remotely like this? Her original idea had been that Antonio would help haul her to the top. But there was a good chance he’d lose his grip on the cable and drop her on her head.
“I just need you to keep me from falling.”
“Okay,” he said. “I think I can manage that.” He pulled the line tight, and she went up a few steps. She was in good physical condition, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t used to anything like this. Her shoulders began to ache, and the pole was round, so she couldn’t get her feet planted. Meantime, Antonio already had his hands full. “Have to find a better way,” she said.
“I’d agree with that. You can’t work from the lander?”
She looked again at the vehicle, and at the overhead lines. “Maybe we can.”
She took the end of the cable from Antonio, removed it from the branch, and carried it to the lander, where she tied it to one of the skids. Then she returned to the base of the pole, secured the other end to her harness, and called Phyl.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the AI.
“You can see where we are?”
“Yes, Hutch. I have a clear picture of the surroundings.”
“When I tell you, I want you to take the lander up just above the trees. Do it slowly. And keep in mind there’s a line tied to one of the skids, and I’m on the other end of the line.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Good. Okay, take her up.”
Phyl switched on the power, and the lander began to rise. Hutch watched the other end of the cable go up with it. Gradually it lost all slack.
“Now, when I tell you, take it away from the pole. Take it fifteen meters toward the east.” That would prevent the cable from coming loose at the top. “Do it slowly, Phyl.”
The lander hovered above her for a moment. Then it began to move away. The cable tightened and dragged her into the air.
Not very graceful.
She suddenly realized Antonio was taking pictures. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said.
“Priscilla, you look great.”
It hauled her steadily up. She made an effort to walk on the pole, as she’d seen actors do, and athletes. But it was impossible, and in the end she just allowed herself to be carried along and tried to keep herself from turning upside down.
She heard Matt’s laughter from the McAdams. “Smooth,” he said.
WHEN SHE GOT to the level of the wires, she told Phyl to stop, planted the grip shoes as firmly as she could against the side of the pole, and used the knife to remove enough of the sheath from one of the wires so that she could see metal. Then she took the link Phyl had devised and clipped it to the line. “Okay,” she told Phyl. “It’s done.”
The link was equipped with a transmitter, so Phyl could listen. “Good,” she said. “We were right. It’s a comm line.”
“Okay. What do we do now?”
“Unless you’re comfortable up there, you might come down. Once you’ve done that, we’ll try to talk to our physicist.”
Matt congratulated her, and she said thanks and wondered why she’d insisted on doing this. Two vehicles rolled by, both going in the same direction, but neither slowed down.
Phyl moved the lander in close, lowering Hutch to the ground, then returned it to the clearing. And they were ready for the great experiment.
“Now, you have the physicist’s code, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I’ll be able to talk to you without his hearing me. Right?”
“Yes, that’s the way I have it set up.”
“Okay. Let’s call him. If he answers, tell him we’re visitors from another place, that we’ve encountered one of their starships, and that we’ve come in response. And tell him hello.”
“Hutch,” said Jon, “I doubt they’ll know what Phyl is talking about. The starships are too long ago. You’re talking tens of thousands of years. They’ll have forgotten. There might even have been a different species in charge here then.”
“I don’t think it matters, Jon. As long as we’re able to get him interested.”
“He’ll think we’re crazy.”
“I suppose we could tell him we want to talk over a new quantum development.”
“Okay,” said Phyl, “I’ve punched in his code. The signal on the other end is sounding.”
Hutch and Antonio got back into the lander. She switched on the speaker and they could hear a singsong tone. “Waiting for him to answer.”
“Phyl, block off his comments. All we’ll want to hear are the translations.”
“Okay. You understand I’m not fluent.”
“Of course.”
“I will have to improvise.”
“Just do the best you can, Phyl.”
The singsong tone continued. Hutch sat in the dark, thinking once again how history was about to be made. First contact via landline. Who would have thought?
“Hello?” That was the translation. It was still Phyllis’s voice, but she modulated it, gave it a deeper sound, so they’d have no trouble distinguishing who was talking.
“Mr. Smith?” The creature’s name was, of course, a jaw breaker. So she simply substituted.
“Yes?” said the alien. “Who is this, please?”
“Mr. Smith, I’m calling you from a starship, which is currently in orbit around your world.”
Hutch listened to the distant hum of electronics. They weren’t from the ship.
“Margie,” the creature said, “is that you?”
“Tell him it’s not a joke, Phyl.”
“Mr. Smith,” said Phyl, “it’s not Margie, and not a joke.”
“All right, look: Whoever you are, I’ve got better things to do. Please stop tying up the line and go away.” He disconnected.
“That went well,” said Antonio.
“Hutch,” said Phyl, “should we try again?”
“Yes. But let’s use a different tack.” Hutch gave her instructions, and Phyl called.
“Hello,” said Smith. Hutch wondered what his tone sounded like.
“Mr. Smith, this is the same caller. I understand your skepticism. But please give me a moment and I’ll get out of your way. Please.”
Long pause. Another car went by. “Say your piece and go away.”
“Can you see the moon?”
“What?”
“Can you see the moon? From where you are now?”
“What does it matter?”
“We’ll use it to prove who we are.”
Phyl said, “I think he just used an expletive. Not sure. But the tone—”
“Okay, Phyl. Try to stay with him.”
Mr. Smith was back: “One moment.” Hutch could picture him,—it—striding irritably around his windows, looking out. Then: “Yes, I can see it.”
“Can you get access tomorrow to a telescope?”
“A what?”
“A device for making faraway objects seem close?”
“I may be able to do that.”
“Tomorrow night, at exactly this time, use it to watch the moon. Will you do that?”
Another long pause. “Yes. I can arrange to do that.”
“Will you do it?”
> “I’ll do it. Now please go away.”
Hutch passed another quick instruction to Phyl. “One more thing,” said the AI. “After the demonstration, you are to tell nobody. Is that understood?”
“What demonstration?”
“Watch the moon, Mr. Smith.”
“YOU’RE GOING TO take the ship across the face of the moon tomorrow night,” said Antonio. They were in the lander.
Hutch sat back and enjoyed the moment. “You got it.”
“He’s going to need a pretty big telescope to see us.”
“Antonio, we’re not going near the moon.”
“We aren’t?”
“No. Look, we know he can see the moon now, so that narrows down the area he lives in. We’ll just get well outside the atmosphere, line ourselves up, and make the passage there. We’ll have to cover some ground to make sure he can see us from anywhere in this area, and we can’t put the ship right in the middle of his picture, which I’d have preferred to do, but we should be able to make it work.”
“And if he does see us—”
“Yes?”
“You really think he’ll keep it to himself?”
“I’d prefer he say nothing. But even if he doesn’t, who’s going to believe him? Say, did you see that moonrider last night?”
“Who’s going to believe him is everybody else that sees us.”
“You might have a point, Antonio.”
“Why do we care?”
“Because if we’re able to set this thing up, we don’t want to have to deal with a mob. Or the local army.”
“He’ll forget,” said Jon. “He won’t even think of it tomorrow night.”
There was a spirited discussion as the lander rose back into orbit. Rudy was glad they’d gotten through, taken the first step, but he thought the event was lacking in dignity. It just didn’t feel right.
Matt thought that history would remember the images of Hutch getting dragged up the pole. “I think you’ve become immortal,” he said.
“We’ll want to call him again tomorrow,” said Jon. “Remind him to watch, or it’ll be a nonevent.”
“It’s already a nonevent,” insisted Rudy. “You’re not supposed to, finally, after all these years, run into aliens more or less at our level, and call them on the VR.”
“It’s not a VR,” said Phyl. “They used to call it a telephone.”
“The thing that struck me,” Antonio told her as they approached the Preston, “was how human he sounded. And I understand we were listening to Phyl translate everything into the vernacular, and maybe even make a few things up. But his overall reaction was exactly how I would have responded. Get off the circuit, you creep.”
“Antonio,” said Jon, “he was more patient than you would have been.”
ANTONIO’S NOTES
We’ve just conducted the first conversation between humans and a representative from a technological civilization. It wasn’t at all what I would have expected. And Rudy has made his disappointment clear enough. When it was over, he shook his head, drank his coffee, and asked nobody in particular, “Where’s the majesty?”
—Friday, December 21
chapter 25
THE WORLD ROTATED once on its axis in twenty-one hours, seventeen minutes, and change. Tomorrow they’d put on a show, and, with luck, go down and say hello to Mr. Smith.
Good old Smitty.
Aboard the starships, there was again talk of celebration, but it didn’t happen. Too soon, Jon said. Matt thought they shouldn’t push their luck. See how it goes first. Don’t jinx things.
Hutch and her passengers went over to the McAdams. (They thought of it as a night out, a chance to get away.) They decided both ships would make the lunar passage. She and Matt planned the maneuver, then they all settled in to relax. “I wish Henry could have been here,” Jon said.
Hutch could think of a number of people with whom she’d have liked to share the moment, especially those who’d given their lives. George Hackett. Maggie Tufu, lost in the hunt for the Monument-Makers. Preacher Brawley, killed in the chindi search. Herman Culp and Pete Damon, murdered by creatures who’d resembled angels. There were others. It had been a long and bloody track, leading ultimately to a moon crossing in a place incomparably far from home.
She drank to them, silently, thinking, they were all there. They had all contributed. All those who had gone out over the years on the Academy flights, and for the Europeans, and on various independent missions. Here’s to everybody.
They’d all come home disappointed. Occasionally someone had found a living world, and that had been a victory of sorts. And there’d even been a handful with sentient creatures. But until now, other than the lunatic Noks, there’d been no one with anything resembling modern technology. Nobody who understood why there was rain or what stoked the fire in the sky.
Nobody.
SHE SLEPT WELL, got up late, showered, ate a light breakfast, and sat talking quietly with Jon. He was, in some ways, still a kid. He was already wondering what he could do for an encore after the Locarno. “It’s going to be all downhill from here,” he said, laughing.
“It’s not a bad thing,” she told him, “to achieve something so monumental that it might not be possible to do something even bigger.”
He was seated beside her in the common room. He looked relaxed, happy, almost smug. “I know,” he said. “The problem is that, had Henry not been there, it would never have happened. I mean, this isn’t something I can actually take credit for. He did the breakthrough work. All I did was rearrange the circuits.”
“But you seem to have been the only one who could do that, Jon. You’ll get a lot of credit. And you’re doing exactly the right thing, handing it off to Henry. He deserves it. But that doesn’t diminish what you’ve accomplished.”
HUTCH AND MATT maneuvered the ships into position and began the crossing. They were side by side, less than a kilometer apart. The event would be visible from the ground for at least forty minutes.
“Phyl,” said Hutch, “make the call.”
Mr. Smith picked up on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
“Mr. Smith,” said Hutch, “I talked with you last evening. Do you have your telescope?”
“You’re back again? What did you say your name was?”
“I don’t think I gave it.”
“Well, whoever you are, I’d be grateful if you would leave me alone.”
“Please go to the window, Mr. Smith. And look at the moon.” While they waited, Phyl commented that he was making sounds that she could not interpret.
“He’s grumbling,” said Jon.
“Okay, I’m at the window.”
“You can see the moon?”
“Yes. I can see the moon.”
“Do you have a telescope? A lens of some kind?”
“Look, whoever you are, is this really necessary?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I don’t have a lens.”
“Yesterday you said you did.”
“I thought you’d go away.”
“Mr. Smith, you’re aware there are transmissions coming into this planetary system from outside? From other places?”
There was a pause. Then: “Yes. Of course.”
“Those signals are what brought us here. We’d like to talk with you about them.”
“Look, the joke’s over. I’m too busy for this.”
“My name is Priscilla Hutchins. How can we prove to you that we are what we say?”
Phyl’s voice broke in: “Hutch, I’ll have to make up a name for you. He wouldn’t be able to pronounce yours. Especially Priscilla.”
“Do it, Phyl. Whatever works.”
Rudy and Antonio were watching her. Rudy was acquiring a desperate look. Antonio wore a cynical smile. Things always go wrong.
“Priscilla.” Smith was speaking again. “The only way I can think of would be to bring your starship down, park it on my lawn, and let me walk around it and kick the tires.”
Rudy stared at the overhead. “Maybe we should try someone else.”
“This guy’s a physicist,” said Antonio. “If you can’t get through to him, what chance do you think you’d have with a plumber?”
“I think,” said Jon, “anyone would be skeptical. How would you react to this kind of situation?”
“Mr. Smith,” said Hutch, “are you willing to concede the possibility that we might be what we say we are?”
“Good-bye.” And suddenly, the line was clear.
“He disconnected,” said Phyl.
Hutch nodded. “Yeah, I got that impression.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Matt.
“I guess we have to get his attention.”
“Are we thinking the same thing?”
“Probably.”
“Do we do it in daylight?”
“No. It’ll be more spectacular at night.”
THE CITY SPREAD out below them. It was on the western coast of Mr. Smith’s continent, mountains behind it, a large developed harbor, ships moving in and out, a busy airport several kilometers to the north, where the mountains were lower. There was lots of ground traffic and a couple of dirigibles.
Everything was laid out in squares, a chessboard city, glowing with lights. It gave the appearance of having been designed rather than simply having expanded from something smaller. A cluster of tall buildings rose near the waterfront area, although large structures were scattered throughout. There were parks, a river, and even a couple of small lakes. The air looked clean.
The moon was in the east. It was a bright, clear night, the sky full of stars.
They came in off the sea, both landers barely two hundred meters off the ground, moving slowly, not quite seventy kph, far slower than a standard aircraft could maintain. They passed over a cluster of piers and buildings that were probably warehouses, and over an avenue filled with traffic. At Hutch’s word, they switched on their navigation lights and turned north.
They flew over rooftops and past illuminated buildings. The architecture had a more liquid flow than cities at home. Maybe it was because she was passing overhead at night, but everything seemed rounded, curved, peeling away into the dark. She picked out the broadest, busiest street she could find and led them there. They moved in just above the traffic, drawing the startled attention of pedestrians.
Cauldron Page 24