The Contact Episode One
Page 11
circle. On entering the hall, Steve and Maggie stopped, looking for their places.
"I'm sitting over there against the wall," said Maggie, pointing to the red sector.
"Uh-huh." Steve peered round the tables, but couldn't find his group anywhere.
"Well, the best of luck then," said Maggie, and went to join her group.
Steve finally saw his workplace. The group of astrophysicists, unlike the others, was located on a small platform in the centre of the hall. Shelby was head of the project, so his group's table was in the centre.
Shelby himself was already in place, and was energetically discussing something with two people in uniform bending over their desktop monitors. Steve went to his table, unhurriedly took his things out of the briefcase, and sat in his chair to wait patiently. Clive's things were set out on the next table.
The hall's central display screen was showing the countdown to the official start of the project. As soon as it reached zero, a gong sounded, and the lights dimmed down gradually, leaving the hall in comparative darkness.
Shelby touched the microphone close to his mouth. It went live, showing a green light.
"Yes, check the telemetry data again please..."
His voice was heard across the hall.
"Give a sign when there is confirmation."
Shelby gave these last instructions to an officer sitting alongside him. After looking at the monitor in front of him for a few more seconds, he finally raised his head and looked round the hall.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," said Shelby, greeting those present.
"Let me bring you up to date. The object is continuing to circle in an orbit round Jupiter, sending laser pulses in the infrared, visible and ultraviolet bands to ten or so of our space-based and terrestrial telescopes. Its orbit round Jupiter is such that at any given time, it is in direct line of sight of at least two of our telescopes.
"The object's laser signals have not changed their pattern - they consist of a series of short pulses in a particular order. We have decided to respond to these signals by repeating them exactly.
"At the present time, Jupiter is at a distance of approximately forty light minutes from Earth. Thus, the shortest time between question and answer is about 80 minutes. To save us time, we already sent our 'echo' over an hour ago. We are awaiting a reply within the next few minutes."
Shelby made a sign to the operator, who displayed the countdown to the expected reply on one of the auxiliary monitors. It was now just past the five minutes thirty seconds mark.
Shelby continued.
"So, ladies and gentlemen, we are doing as we agreed yesterday. I am acting as moderator of our discussion. Your places are arranged so that you can confer directly with your colleagues in the same discipline. If you require interdisciplinary assistance, please contact the required group directly through the intercom. Please confer in low voices. Answer questions briefly; and it is of course desirable to speak in terms which will be understood by those who are not specialists in your field."
Having finished his speech, Shelby signalled to the operator, who dimmed down the light in the hall still further. Now the hall was broken down into numerous brightly illuminated oases of concentrated mental power. From outside, it was like a school competition, except that instead of spotty kids, bald heads predominated in the hall.
The countdown was approaching zero. With ten seconds to go a muffled blow was struck on the gong, and the hall at once fell silent. Hundreds of eyes watched the counter: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. On reaching zero, the counter stopped. A sea of eyes flashed across to the main screen, on which the signal from the object was displayed in visual form.
The object continued to radiate the same signals as before, without changing either the frequency or the pattern. The narrow line on the main screen kept jumping synchronously with the pulses. Suddenly the signals stopped. The hall sat with bated breath. The visualiser was showing a 'plateau'. The signal had vanished.
It seemed to Steve, who had been observing the line on the visualiser, as if not only the hall, but the whole world, had frozen in anticipation. It was as though everything alive had stopped and was staring at the monitor.
And then a blip appeared. An instant later, another, and another... For the first time in history, mankind was conversing with another form of intelligent life.
This time, the signals clearly contained some kind of information. They were of different intensity. On the visualiser, this appeared as peaks of different height.
The first peak was the biggest, followed by more, much smaller but not identical to each other. After sending a dozen or so different peaks, the object took a short break, as if taking a breath, and then started repeating the sequence from the beginning.
The first one to come to his senses was Shelby.
"So, as we see, our signal has been registered!"
Shelby's voice trembled a little, but he retained his self-control. It was apparent from his voice that his throat was dry. He took a sip of water.
"Ladies and gentlemen, today, on 26th June 2177, at 8 hours 45 minutes, we have for the first time made conscious contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence..."
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END OF EPISODE ONE
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Website: albertsartison.com
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