He sank back into his chair and, almost completely in shadow, his head dark against the brighter background, said:
"I was plagued by bugs. Butterflies, moths, arachnids, hymenoptera, whatever you like. Day and night they followed me in a buzzing cloud. Or, rather, not me, but my baggage, the metal caisson box that contained the sphere. During the sea voyage, things were a bit better. Applying insecticides intensively, I rid myself of the pests. New ones didn't appear—there were none on the open sea. But the moment I landed in France, it began all over again. The ants were the worst. Wherever I stopped for more than an hour, ants showed up. Red ants, black ants, carpenter ants, pharaoh ants, large and small, they gathered at the box, engulfed it in a quivering mass, cut, ate through, destroyed all the coverings with which I had packed it, suffocated themselves, perished, ejected acid in an attempt to corrode the steel sides…"
He broke off.
"The house we're in now, its isolated situation, all the precautions I take, it's because I am constantly beset by ants."
He got up.
"I conducted experiments. Using a diamond drill, I broke from the sphere a piece no larger than a poppy seed. It exerts the same power of attraction as the entire sphere. I also found that if I surrounded the sphere with a thick jacket of lead, the effect ceased."
"Rays of some kind?" said the listener in a hoarse voice. As one hypnotized, he stared at the barely visible face of the old scientist.
"Possibly. I don't know."
"And … you have the sphere?"
"Yes. Would you care to see it?"
The listener jumped to his feet. The Professor opened the door for him, returned to the desk for the key, and hurried after his guest down the dim corridor. They entered a narrow cubicle without windows or furniture. In a corner stood a large, old-fashioned safe. Under the weak light of the naked bulb on the ceiling, the steel plates had a bluish cast. The Professor inserted the key with a sure hand and turned it. With the grating sound of bolts withdrawing, the heavy door opened. He stepped aside. The safe was empty.
IV
SETI
The cabins of the physicists were located on the fourth deck. He could find his way around now on the Eurydice. He had studied the layout of the ship, so different from the ones he had flown. He did not know the names or purposes of many of the machines in the sternmost section, which was unoccupied and cut off from the rest of the hull by triple bulkheads. The grub-leviathan was crisscrossed with connecting tunnels, like a secret network through an elongated, cylindrical city.
In his muscles was the memory of moving down narrow corridors—either oval in cross section or circular like a well—where you floated weightless, here and there pushing lightly to change direction on the turns. But in freighters you could reach the hold more simply, via the ventilation shaft; all you had to do was turn on the air compressor and be carried in the roar of a strong wind, your legs dangling uselessly, like vestigial organs. He found himself missing weightlessness, which he had cursed so many times when making repairs, because Newton's laws kept reminding one of their existence. If he used a hammer without gripping something well with the other hand, he would end up doing cartwheels that were entertaining only to spectators.
The elevators—actually wheelless oval cars with windows so curved that one saw one's own reflection in them distorted and reduced—moved without a sound, giving the numbers of the sections passed and blinking at the right stop.
The corridor had a rough yet deep carpeting. Around a corner disappeared a vacuum cleaner, looking like a turtle with wands, while he walked past a row of doors that bulged slightly, as the wall did, and that had high thresholds with brass fittings—no doubt to satisfy the whim of some interior decorator. It was hard to think of any other reason. He stood before Lauger's cabin, suddenly unsure of himself. He was still unable to become one of the crew. Their friendliness at meals, the way one group and then another invited him to their table, seemed forced to him, as if they were trying to pretend that he was really one of them—and that his lack of an assignment was only temporary. True, he had talked with Lauger, and Lauger had assured him that he could drop in whenever he wished. But this, instead of giving him confidence, somehow put him on his guard. Lauger was not just anyone; he was the number-one physicist, and not merely on the Eurydice.
He had never thought that he could be assailed with doubts about how to act with someone. Social grace was as out of place here as a parlor game in the vaults of the Great Pyramid. The door had no handle; a touch with the tips of the fingers, and it opened—so quickly that he almost drew back, like a savage before an automobile.
A spacious room. He was struck by its disorder. Among heaps of tapes, photographic plates, papers, and atlases stood a large desk, its top curved around in a half-ring with a swivel chair in the center. Behind it, on the wall, was a rectangle of black with moving dots of light. On either side of this flickering control panel hung large photographs—lit-up transparencies—of spiral nebulas, and farther on were vertical, pillarlike cylinders, partly opened, full of pigeonholes for computer disks. In the left corner stood a huge rhomboid machine with a chair attached at the base. The thing went up through the ceiling, and from a slot under a binocular eyepiece emerged a tape, in small jumps, bearing some kind of graph. The tape collected in coils on the floor, which was covered by an old Persian rug with a worn hieroglyphic pattern. It was the rug that amazed him. A cylinder-column vanished, revealing an entrance to an adjoining room. Lauger was standing there, in linen trousers and a sweater, with a head of overgrown hair, and gave him a smile that was both understanding and innocent. The face was fleshy, as of a child aged before its time—no more resembling the face of a creator of high abstractions than did Einstein's in the days when Einstein still worked in a government office.
"Hello," said the visitor.
"Enter, colleague, enter. It's good you came: at one blow you can delve into physics and metaphysics…"
He added, in explanation:
"Father Arago is with me."
The visitor followed Lauger into the other cabin, which was smaller, with a covered bunk and several chairs around a table, at which the Dominican was examining a diagram through a magnifying glass—or perhaps it was the computerized map of a planet, having lines of latitude across it.
Arago pulled out a chair near him. The three sat down.
"This is Mark. You know him, Father?" asked Lauger and, before he could reply, went on:
"I can guess your problem, Mark. It's hard to have a man-to-man talk with a machine."
"The machine is not to blame," observed the Dominican, irony in his voice. "It says what was put into it."
"That is, what you put into it," the physicist corrected him with the smile of an opponent. "The theories don't agree. Not that they ever did. We are talking, Mark, about the fate of civilizations 'above the window,'" he explained to the visitor. "But since you came in the middle of our argument, let me summarize the beginning for you. You're aware that the old notions about ETI have changed. Even if there are a million civilizations in the galaxy, their duration is so dispersed in time that it is impossible first to communicate with the host of a planet and then drop in on him. Civilizations are harder to catch than a mayfly that lives for one day. We look for pupas, therefore, and not the adults. Do you know what the window of contact is?"
"Yes."
"All right, then. Having sifted through two hundred million stars, we came up with eleven million candidates. The majority have lifeless planets, or planets below the window, or planets above the window. Imagine"—he clapped him on the knee—"that you have fallen in love with the portrait of a sixteen-year-old girl. You set out to woo her. Unfortunately, the journey will take fifty years. You'll find an old woman, or a grave. If you decide to declare your love by mail, you'll be an old man yourself before you receive the first reply. And that, in a nutshell, is the basic idea of CETI. You can't hold a conversation at intervals of many centuries."
/> "So we're traveling to a pupa?" asked "Mark." For a while now people called him that, but suddenly the thought occurred to him—he didn't know why—that the idea might have come from the monk, who, like himself, both was and was not a member of the crew.
"We don't know what we're traveling to," remarked Arago. Lauger seemed pleased by these words.
"Quite. Life-producing planets are recognized by the composition of their atmospheres. The catalogue of these, in our galaxy, runs into the thousands. We've screened them all and have about thirty that offer hope."
"Of intelligence?"
"Intelligence, in diapers, is invisible. And when it matures, out the window it flies. We have to pounce on it earlier. How do we know that our destination is worth the trouble? It's Quinta, the fifth planet of Zeta Harpyiae. We have a lot of data—"
"In dubio pro reo," said the Dominican.
"And who, Father, in your opinion, is the defendant?" Lauger asked, but again did not let him answer, continuing:
"The first cosmic symptom of intelligence is radio. Well before radioastronomy. Actually, not that much before: about a hundred years. A planet with transmitters can be detected when their combined power goes into the gigawatts. Quinta emits, in the high and ultrahigh ranges, less than its sun, but a phenomenal amount for a lifeless planet. For a planet with electronics, a moderate amount, since it lies below the level of solar noise. But something is there, in radio, below the threshold. We have evidence."
"Circumstantial," the apostolic delegate corrected him again.
"True, and only one piece," agreed Lauger. "But, more important, there have been observed on Quinta point-bursts of electromagnetism, one of which was recorded—the whole emission—by a spectroscope from orbiters near Mars. Those two orbiters cost Earth a bundle: our expedition."
"Atomic bombs?" asked the man who was resigned to the name of Mark.
"No. Rather, the preliminaries to planetary engineering, because these were clean thermonuclears. Had things on Quinta taken the course they did on Earth, it would have started with the uranides. What's more, the bursts appeared only within the polar circle—that is, on their Arctica or Antarctica. One could melt a continental glacier in this way. But that is not the point on which we differ." He glanced at the Dominican. "The question is whether or not our arrival will cause harm there. Father Arago believes it might. I am of the same opinion…"
"Then what is the disagreement?"
"I believe that the game is worth the candle. The exploration of a world, without causing harm, is impossible."
Mark began to understand the gist of the debate. He forgot his own situation; the old fire returned to him.
"You—that is, Father—are traveling with us … against your convictions?" he addressed the monk.
"Of course," said Arago. "The Church was among the opponents to the expedition. So-called contact could turn out to be the gift of a Trojan horse. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. A Pandora's box."
"You have become affected, Father, by the mythological patronage of the project," laughed Lauger. "Eurydice, Hermes, Jupiter, Hades, Cerberus … we plundered the Greeks. The ship actually ought to have been named the Argo, with us as the psychonauts. But we'll try to cause as little harm as possible. That's why the plan of the operation is so complex."
"Contra spem spero," sighed the monk. "Or, rather," he added, "I wish to be in error."
Lauger seemed not to hear, taken with another thought.
"When we reach Quinta, at least three hundred years will have passed there for our one year of ship's time. Which means that we will be catching them in the upper region of the window. If only not later! A difference of seconds in our maneuvers could hasten or delay us tremendously. As for harm … the Reverend Father knows that a technological civilization has inertia, though it is not stationary. In other words, it's not that easy to throw it off its course. Whatever happens, we will not be in the role of gods descending from heaven. We did not seek out primitive cultures, and there are no astroethnologists in CETI."
Arago, silent, regarded the physicist with narrowed eyes. The listener to this conversation ventured a question:
"But does it make sense?"
"Does what make sense?" Lauger was surprised.
"To treat the ones who are unobservable as if they did not exist. It may be practical, but…"
"You could call it opportunism, too, if you wanted," replied Lauger coldly. "We chose a task that was possible to perform. The window of contact has an empirical frame, but there is ethical justification for it as well. We won't be anointing the heads of cavedwellers with oil distilled by the twenty-second century. But enough of this pluralis majestaticus. I stood by the project and I'm here because for me contact means an exchange of knowledge. An exchange—not a patronage, not a dispensing of melioristic advice."
"And what if evil reigns there?" asked Arago.
"Does there exist a universal evil? A constant of evil?" countered Lauger.
"I fear there does."
"Then we would have to say non possumus and chuck the project…"
"I am only doing my duty."
With these words the monk rose, nodded to them, and departed.
Lauger, sprawled in his chair, made a face, moved his lips as if there was a bad taste in his mouth, then sighed.
"I respect the man—because he can rile me. He tacks wings onto everything, or horns. But enough. That's not the reason I wanted to see you. We'll be sending a scout ship to Quinta. A single-hull, able to land. The Hermes. It will fly nine or ten men. The captain and four have been decided on. The rest will be chosen, by specialty, in a ballot. Would you like to be on the ballot?"
At first Mark did not understand.
"To set foot there…"
He burned. Disbelief, joy. Lauger, seeing how the man lit up, hastened to add:
"Getting on the ballot doesn't necessarily mean you're going. Scientific achievement isn't a guarantee, either. The greatest theoretician could easily go to pieces. We need hard people—the kind that nothing will break. Gerbert is a brilliant psychonicist, psychologist, an expert on minds, but courage isn't tested in the laboratory. Do you know who you are?"
He paled.
"No."
"Then I'll tell you. On the Birnam glacier a number of people in walking machines died. Geyser eruptions took them by surprise. These were professional operators carrying out instructions given them, and they had no idea that they were going to their death. Two men went in search of them, voluntarily. You are one of those two."
"How can you know this? Dr. Gerbert told me that—"
"Dr. Gerbert and his assistant are ship physicians. They know their medicine but are weak when it comes to computers. They decided to preserve medical confidentiality—since it proved impossible to establish the identity of the man resurrected. Psychic trauma, they argued. There's no eavesdropping on the Eurydice, but there is a center with nonerasable memory. The Commander has access to it, the Head Informationist, and I. You won't tell the doctors, I hope?"
"No."
"I didn't think you would. It would be doing them wrong."
"But won't they guess if…"
"I doubt it. The doctors have to monitor constantly the state of health of our entire crew. And the voting is secret. The council votes. Out of five votes you should get three. That's my guess. And I'm telling you this now because you have a hell of a lot of work ahead of you. I know that on the simulators you showed an astrogational ability, but in obsolete categories, first-class for those times—not for today. You have a year to learn your interstellar ABCs. If you can handle that, you'll see the Quintans. And now go—I have a pile of things to catch up on."
They rose. Mark was taller than the famous physicist, and younger. "He won't be going," he thought. Lauger walked him to the door.
But Mark did not notice this, did not see the darting lights on the black screen, did not remember if he said good-bye or even if he said anything. Or how he got back to his ca
bin. He did not know what to do with himself. Going to the closet, he opened the wrong door by mistake, saw his face in the mirror, and murmured:
"You'll see the Quintans."
So he began his studies.
The result of the statistical calculations was, all in all, clear. Life arose and endured on planets for billions of years, but throughout that time it was mute. Civilizations sprang from it: not to perish but to transform themselves into something extranatural. Because the birth rate of technologies in an ordinary spiral galaxy was a constant, they came into being, matured, and disappeared with the same frequency. New ones were continually emerging, and they escaped from the interval of mutual understanding—the window of contact—before it was possible to exchange signals with them. The muteness of those existing primitively was obvious. But endless hypotheses were devoted to the silence of the highly developed. There was a whole library on the subject, which he avoided for the time being. In one book he read: "At this moment, for this century (astronomically, the same thing), it can be concluded that Earth is the only civilization already technological and still biological throughout the length, breadth, and depth of the Milky Way."
Which seemed to lay to rest the plans of CETI. A hundred and fifty years went by before it turned out that this was not the case.
The conquering of the space separating star from star, so that some Living Intelligences could meet Others and return, was not accomplishable by simple flight. Even if the astronauts traveled at speeds approaching light, they would neither meet those to whom they were going nor see again those who remained behind on Earth: at both destination and origin many centuries would pass in the few years of ship time. This categorical declaration of science prompted the Church to reflect theologically as follows: He Who created the world made the meeting of creatures from different stars an idle dream. He raised between them a barrier, completely empty and invisible yet impossible to break: an abyss that He could cross, not man. Human history, however, invariably went in directions that were not predicted. The abyss of space turned out indeed to be a barrier that could not be broken. But it could be sidestepped, through a series of special maneuvers.
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