“Exactly!” Tom Cole exclaimed. “Love of Mars, Zach, we’re communicating! We’re not reverts, that’s what I’m saying. We are just stubborn humans. We resist this dehumanizing process. It’s Mother Nature fighting back—do you see that?”
Whaleman jerked his head in a curt nod. “Like early days of civilization. Natural exuberance of uncivilized races not understood by those more evolved, is race wars and hatreds and communication null.”
Tom Cole stared thoughtfully at his visitor. “Well, I don’t know if that’s exactly like same,” he muttered.
“Is like same,” Whaleman declared. His gaze swung to Stel, then to the other girl, and returned finally to Tom Cole.
What like is life for Reevers?” he asked quietly.
“Mars, man, you can see it for yourself!” the Reever exploded. “We have no rights, no stock in the Corporation. We’re kept isolated like so many mad beasts. We can’t reproduce our kind, meaning there’s no such thing as a pregnancy permit for a Reever. We’re catered and condescended to like mental deficients, tied here to Terra and commune life. Absolutely no voice in our own destiny. Don’t pretend you never knew that!”
Whaleman smiled faintly. “I am Luna-born. In most of Solana, Reevers are little more than myths.”
“Little more than what?”
“Myths, fanciful stories. Many Solanis doubt that you exist.”
“I don’t find that too surprising,” Tom Cole growled. “Sometimes, I doubt it myself.” He raised his arm in a commanding sweep of the commune.
“Is like same,” Whaleman murmured, dropping his eyes. “I also am isolated, but in space. Tied to Terra 10 and moonbase. And what is meaning of rights? Of stock in corporation? What good? Zach is have same like all defense commanders, is have right to defend Solana, is same stock as AgTech or EdTech.”
“That’s not exactly like same!” Tom Cole argued.
The Gunner smiled. “Not exactly same, like this. Zach is accept destiny, isolation, rights, stock. Tom Cole is not accept. This is like not same.”
“Your acceptance was built into your dehumanized carcass!” the Reever shouted. “Mine was not!”
Interested spectators were beginning to drift toward the table, attracted by Tom Cole’s emotional shouting. A small brown-haired girl with glowing eyes stood across the table from Whaleman, gazing warmly at him. He broke the disturbing visual contact, looked uncertainly at Stel, then turned a penetrating gaze to Tom Cole.
“This explains Reever,” he quietly declared.“You billet here, work here, Terra, garden planet, home of man, best in all Solana, and you speak not accept. Zach billet Terra 10 and Luna.” His eyes briefly examined Stel Rogers/Brandt, then returned to his host. “Work there, live there, no human companion, often deepspace—but Zach accepts. Difference is accept, not accept.”
“That’s right!” the Reever acidly retorted. “That’s the difference. You zingoes couldn’t bring the machine up to the human level, so you decided to take the human down to the machine level. Well—” He scraped slowly to his feet. “Here’s a human that ain’t going down to no machine! Now you tell me which one of us is the revert.”
Whaleman’s face turned a deep crimson. It seemed that a cold hand was clutching his guts and his heart was pounding. He thoughtfully scanned the sensation and immediately diagnosed it as anger. He quickly controlled the reaction.
“Tom Cole is the revert,” he solemnly declared. “Zach Whaleman is the per-vert.”
Tom Cole’s eyes widened, then he flashed a broad smile and leaned across the table to squeeze Whaleman’s shoulder in a giant paw.
“Thank Mars, I’ve got a human being here,” he said warmly.
Embarrassed by the sudden display of affection, Whaleman averted his gaze and turned to Stel. “Tom Cole is correct—right,” he said. “Reevers have not good life, even here on garden planet. But is also correct, good life is nowhere. Reevers, Normers, like same. Tom Cole is right. Board Island is take away human, put in machine. But this is necessity, is unavoidable—this is only path for mankind.” He turned suddenly to stare into Tom Cole’s eyes. “What is destiny of human race, Tom Cole?”
“I’m sorry but I can’t think of the whole human race,” Cole rumbled. “You tell me—what is the destiny of the Reevers?”
Whaleman’s eyes went back to Stel Rogers/ Brandt. “Stel is not qualify pregnancy permit?” he asked.
Cole’s eyes crackled. “Found something you can’t accept, Gunner?” he said coldly.
The spaceman was staring at the lovely blonde Reever with an almost melancholy warmth. “Stel is maternal ideal,” he said.
“Your machines say no!” Cole replied.
“Zach Whaleman say yes,” the Gunner quietly affirmed.
“And what do the guns of Terra 10 say?” the Reever leader asked.
Whaleman dropped his eyes and slowly got to his feet. His gaze roamed the faces surrounding him, then he looked into the heavens. The blurred images within his mind suddenly jogged into focus. He understood the message which Stel had tried to give him earlier that day, and he understood the full significance of it. The Reevers were planning a revolt. As unutterably impossible an idea as this might be, as pathetically illogical for any mind other than a Reever’s to even contemplate, this could be the only meaning for the fantastic events of the past twenty-four hours. Whaleman sighed and turned a pitying gaze onto Tom Cole.
“The guns of Terra 10 do not speak for Zach Whaleman,” he murmured.
“But they could,” Tom Cole said tensely. “Those guns could say that the human machine age is over. They could say that every human life is precious, free, and self-determining. They could say that pregnancy and childbirth is a decision for the heart and warm flesh, not for the mind and magnetic tracings. Those guns could speak for every man everywhere. They could—”
“The guns do not speak for man,” Whaleman quietly insisted. “They speak for Solana.”
“And who speaks for Zach and Stel—eh? Tell me that, Zach. No—tell Stel. Tell her she’s unfit to bear children, Zach!”
“I am not a MedTech,” Whaleman muttered.
“You’re not even a man!” Tom Cole sneered. “You’re a robot extension of Board Island, you’re a—”
“Zach Whaleman,” the spaceman clipped. “Gunner Zach Whaleman, TechCom of Solana’s gunship Terra 10. Now I return to—”
He had started around the corner of the table as he spoke. Tom Cole reached out with a steely hand and spun him around as the other hand exploded into Whaleman’s face. He was aware of moving through space before crashing down onto the smooth plastic surface of the pavilion floor and sliding into a table across the way. Pain alarms were shooting up from his face and he could taste blood in his mouth. He lay there for a brief moment of disorientation, watching the floating and distorted face of Tom Cole looming up over him, this superimposed over a vision of himself in a program error. And then the error-image washed away, and with it, the training of a lifetime, and the red heat of human rage took command.
Intellectual centers stood aside as animal reflexes brought him to his feet with the angry bellow of a jungle ape and again he was moving through space, this time self-propelled and homing-in on an image of instant hatred. And once again, he was on the floor, the surprised and perhaps frightened face of Tom Cole now beneath him, and he was battering it, and battering—and then he realized what he was doing.
With a moan of self-loathing, the Defense Commander staggered to his feet and swayed drunkenly over the unconscious figure of Tom Cole. Two men leapt at him and pinned his arms behind his back. A third stepped forward with a rough-hewn weapon of jagged plastic.
“Carve his guts out,” sneered one of the men behind Whaleman.
The Reever with the handmade knife obviously needed no urging. His knife-hand was already swooping forward—but then something arrested it. Whaleman’s emotion-fogged vision cleared at that instant, and he saw that the “something” was a grimly determined Stel Rogers/Br
andt. She was holding the man’s arm with both hands and shoving him away.
“Leave him alone,” she was saying. “Can’t you see, idiot? He’s like us. He’s proved that.” She gave Whaleman’s attacker a final push and whirled to face the Technical Commander of Terra 10. “Welcome home, Reever,” she said and took him in her arms.
CHAPTER SIX
The Glitch
Communicator Hugh Gaitsweller stiffened in his chair at the Lunar Electronics Observatory and bent closer to the signal analyzer screen, then quickly cycled the Clarification Program bank for maximum intensification. His eyes widened and he immediately hit the relay switch to Moonbase Central.
A robot tone from his console announced, “Defense.”
“Observatory,” Gaitsweller snapped. “Telepic from Andro Point Two. Command audience.”
“Skronk,” was the reply. “Standby.”
A human voice came in almost immediately. “What is it, Hugh?”
“Pulser from Andro Two,” the Communicator replied. “I’m feeding it through the signal logic, but I already know—its intelligent source.”
“Give me the pic.”
“You’re switched, take a moment for the logic. About thirty seconds more.”
“How do you know it’s intel?” the Command Auditor replied.
“It’s a pulse and separation scan almost identical to our blindsends. Only this one is beamed our way, via Andro Two.”
“Uh-huh, I’m getting it now. Can you clear that spacing?”
“I’m on max intensity now.”
“Run it through again, and this time program a high null into the spacer backgrounds.”
The Communicator frowned, then punched out a new program trace for the logic box. “Skronk,” he announced. “Here’s the replay.”
“That’s better,” said the human voice from his console. A pause, then, in tighter tones, “That’s positive, positive. Good! Do you see what I see?”
The Communicator had waited forty years to see what he was then seeing. He replied in a choked voice, “Confirm, confirm. It’s a message from other life.”
“Give it Command Broadcast!” the Auditor snapped. “Immediate!”
“Skronk,” Gaitsweller croaked. There was not even time to gloat over his find. His hands were busy at the console, setting up a replay for the Defense Command brass.
“Good listening, Hugh,” the Auditor said. “Audience off.”
The Communicator nodded his head in silent acknowledgement of the simple praise and started the replay broadcast. The robot voice from Moonbase Central came back on to demand, “Frequency report.”
“Universal frequency,” Gaitsweller reported. “First shift, sideband positive.”
Without a pause, the mechanistic voice came back with, “1420 megacycles plus shift positive, skronk. Report doppler effect.”
The Communicator sighed and bent to his tapes. Somehow it did not seem proper that he be subjected, at this moment, to an interrogation by a machine. After all, he was the first human to receive a message from an alien world. There should be dancing on the spheres of Solana. After all these millenia, man had at last discovered that he was not alone in the universe. Or perhaps there should be wailing. Either way, Gaitsweller resented the routine reporting. He sighed and began his report. “Doppler readings follow—point one, quadrant one, spectrum four repeat four—point two, quadrant one, spectrum ...”
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PLATE I - PULSER TELEPIC FROM ANDRO POINT TWO, ROBOT SENTINEL STATION
Dot-dash message as received by Communicator Hugh Gaitsweiler.
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PLATE II - PULSER TELEPIC FROM ANDRO POINT TWO, ROBOT SENTINEL STATION
Dot-dash message as arranged by Logic Program
PLATE III - PULSER TELEPIC FROM ANDRO POINT TWO, ROBOT SENTINEL STATION
Dot-dash message with 15x30 TelePic Scan, dashes dropped, depicting Solar System (star Sol and 7 planets) and visitors from outside system traveling toward third planet.
Legend: 1) Sol; 2) Mercury; 3) Venus; 4) Earth; 5) Mars; 6) Jupiter; 7) Saturn; 8) Uranus; 9) Powered Spacecraft (3). Outermost planets, Neptune and Pluto, not shown.
Ian Johns-Fielding, the Defense Director, paced thoughtfully about his paneled office on Board Island, returning frequently to gaze at the telepic which was centered on his viewscreen wall. His aide, Squadroneer Mark Bond-Durant, was staring fixedly at the display while doodling on a small magnetic traceboard. The aide had been present for ten minutes, and not a word had passed between the two men.
Johns-Fielding was 130 years of age. His Homan-brown hair, wiry and close-clipped, was showing silver glints at the temples—no other signs of middle-age marred his youthful appearance. Bond-Durant was half his age but looked old, thanks to the genetic trade-off for the less efficient Defense Command characteristics. He towered head and shoulders above his superior and outweighed him on a ratio of almost 3 to 1. His face was smooth and unlined, usually devoid of expression; his movements were fluid and perfectly coordinated and suggestive of great physical power.
Johns-Fielding turned suddenly to his aide and said, “Well, what do you think, Mark?”
The Squadroneer raised his shoulders in a light shrug. “Is standard teleview scan. Pulse is two to one, dashes to dots. Spacing unvaried. What else think? Here is alien message, long awaited.”
“That’s what bothers me,” the Director said, frowning. “It’s too standard. How would an alien mind come up with just that pattern?”
Bond-Durant twisted his lips in the faint, half-smile of Defense Commanders. He was frequently amused by the Director’s ignorance of technical matters.
“How else communicate?” he asked softly. “Frequency used is universal wavelength, is hydrogen emission rate. Is same here as anywhere in universe. All advanced life forms know this. Alien thinks...how communicate? Simple. Transmit on universal frequency. Use 2 on 1 pulser. If anyone smart enough hear, smart enough also to scan 2 to 1, set up scan pattern same, is simple elimination process. This pulser scans at 15 by 30, basic. Solani observatories also blindsend same pattern, life-probe program. Aliens hear blindsend, sure. Reply in same.”
Johns-Fielding was again gazing at the telepic. “How long have we been engaged in these lifeprobe broadcasts, Mark?” he asked thoughtfully.
“Since twentieth century, speed-of-light type. Faster-than-light, only about eighty years.”
“And we’re still using this primitive dash-dot principle? Why haven’t we gone to regular teleview transmissions? ”
Bond-Durant again smiled. “Is require sophisticated logic-reassembly of teleview transmission. Dash-dot is more basic teleview principle, available to all advanced technological cultures.”
“I see.” The director was frowning again. “So we could not presume that this message was transmitted by an intelligence much inferior to ours.”
“No, Defense Director, is opposite case.”
“We should think of them as superior beings? Why so?”
The Squadroneer pointed to the telepic. “They know our solar system. We do not know theirs.”
“They don’t know it all that well,” Johns-Fielding snort
ed. “They left out Neptune and Pluto.”
“True, 7 planets only are shown. Missing ones could be Mercury and Pluto, the smallest planets. But this is insignificant point. Note telepic. Only bodies shown as full circle are Sol and Terra. Terra is third planet from sun, like same in telepic. This is significant point.”
“I’ve caught you in an error,” the Director said. “If Mercury is one of the planets missing from the telepic, then Terra would be the second planet and Mars the third.”
“Apology,” said the Defense Commander. “You are correct. Take my second point, then. Message shows Terra as Mother Planet of system. The otherlifers know this. They tell us that they know this. They plan a visit, in more than one craft.”
“What else do you see?”
Bond-Durant shrugged. “In the telepic, nil. But... ”
“But?”
“They beamed to Andro Two, so they have received our bhndsends. They returned their message along the same route, not direct. Why not beam direct? Unless Andro Two is intermediate between systems, or ... ”
“Or what, Squadroneer?”
“Or ... they do not wish that we trace transmission origin. They hide.”
“Why would they hide?”
The big man sighed and leaned toward a communicator paneL “DDO to Lunar Observatory,” he said crisply.
A coding tone sounded. Moments later the connection was made. “DDO request,” the Squadroneer clipped. “Report origin, telepic from Andro Point Two.”
An automated voice whirred back, “Findings do not correlate.”
“Report findings,” Bond-Durant snapped. “Signal vectors follow,” the automat dutifully responded. “Direction, first quadrant, seven degrees; velocity, light at the third power plus; spectroanalysis, signal source, red negative beyond measurement. Wave source does not analyze. Repeating, findings do not correlate.”
Bond-Durant coded off the communicator and looked at the Director with a grim smile. “Our machines are overwhelmed,” he said.
“What does all that mean?”
Don Pendleton's Science Fiction Collection, 3 Books Box Set, (The Guns of Terra 10; The Godmakers; The Olympians) Page 5