Fade Out

by Patrick Tilley

  Connors looked at Allbright and Wedderkind, then moved slowly forward until he was only ten feet away from Friday. Without quite knowing why, Connors raised his right hand, then, realizing the pointlessness of the gesture, dropped it self-consciously.

  Allbright and Wedderkind moved up alongside Connors and faced Friday for a full minute without moving. During that minute, which seemed as if it would never end, Connors felt that every detail of Friday was being engraved on his brain with a red-hot wire. Tomkin was right, Friday didn’t have a mouth, but he did have the two pairs of jointed limbs common to the family Arachnidae – a short, jointed pair of mandibles for pushing food into their jaws, and a longer multijointed pair of palpi – antennae – which they use for feeling out their prey. Both the long and short pairs set on either side of Friday’s eye pod seemed to be tubular feelers. They were pointed towards Connors. On the raised end of each feeler he could see a hole opening and closing rapidly.

  The clicking noises inside Friday built to a new crescendo, then faded away to nothing. Connors’ heart missed a beat as Friday’s front left leg twitched, then lifted an inch or two above the ground.

  Behind the jeeps, the cadets slipped the safety catches off their loaded weapons, and around the Ridge and in front of the scattered TV monitors everyone held their breath.

  Friday’s front left leg continued to lift, then very, very slowly, he took three careful steps backward.

  For a moment, Connors was unable to react, to understand, then he suddenly felt a great surge of relief. He turned to Wedderkind. ‘Did you see that?’

  Wedderkind nodded.

  Connors looked at Allbright and laughed. ‘He’s frightened of us – isn’t that fantastic! When he lifted that foot up I nearly…’

  ‘It was quite a moment,’ conceded Allbright.

  Wedderkind finally found his voice. ‘After that, who needs a heart attack?’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Connors turned towards the hidden research group and waved to them to come out to look at Friday.

  Unfortunately, this impromptu gesture was interpreted as a general invitation to everyone watching. People began swarming on to the Ridge from all directions.

  Allbright and Wedderkind waved them back furiously, but in their eagerness to get a close look at Friday, everybody thought they were waving at somebody else. The result was a few frantic minutes of total confusion as the three of them became trapped in a milling crowd that closed in around Friday and, at one point, almost trampled on him.

  Friday drew his legs close in against his body, shrank down and ‘played dead’.

  As soon as they realized the mistake, Allbright’s Praetorian Guard of fourth-year cadets started bellowing orders, cutting out the third-year cadets from the crowd. Within a few minutes they had been formed up into their respective squads and doubled off to await Allbright’s displeasure.

  That left the Air Force technicians and the research group jostling each other for a closer look.

  ‘Mr Harris!’ roared Allbright. He waved towards the nearest bunch of technicians. ‘I want the names of all these men and I want them off the Ridge. Now!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ roared Harris.

  The technicians were swiftly weeded out, leaving the civilians in possession of the Ridge.

  ‘Sorry, Arnold.’

  Wedderkind gave Connors’ shoulder a benign pat. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Then to make him feel worse he added, ‘Just leave the rest to us, okay?’

  This, thought Connors, is where a lesser man walks away. He decided to stay right where he was.

  The research group backed off to form a semicircle fifteen feet away from Friday, leaving him a clear exit back to Crusoe. He obviously didn’t like being crowded. Tiny beads of condensation had formed on the sloping sides of his body – almost as if he was sweating with fear. Wedderkind called up the two Air Force photographers and had them shoot several reels of film. The research group squatted down to scan the details of Friday’s construction, discussing their impressions in low voices.

  ‘Why are we all whispering?’ asked Milsom.

  Since nobody knew why, they all began to speak a little louder.

  Milsom called out to Friday. ‘Don’t mind us, just go on with what you were doing.’

  It could only have been pure coincidence, but no sooner were the words out than Friday started clicking. Milsom almost fell over. Friday stretched out his legs and stood up, his body undulating as if on springs. The top half of his body was a good six and a half feet off the ground, his four ‘eyes’ almost on a level with their own. Complex, compound eyes, as immobile and expressionless as those of a housefly. Dark, unfathomable pools of liquid black in which Connors and the others could see nothing but myriad reflected images of themselves, the earth and the sky.

  Friday began to back off. He swivelled his eye pod halfway around towards his line of advance, which created the impression that he was walking sideways.

  ‘Do you think he’s going back in?’ asked Armenez.

  ‘If he is,’ said Wedderkind, ‘it’s something I want to see.’ He ambled towards Crusoe, taking care to give Friday a wide berth. The rest of the research group followed his cue and split up into two groups, some following Wedderkind, the others going around to the left of Friday. Connors and Allbright kept well behind him all the way to the crater.

  Reaching the edge of the hull, Friday swivelled his eye pod round to scan the two groups of researchers on either side of him then brought it back to rest on Connors and Allbright. They both halted, waiting to see what he would do next. The two front pincer arms of the ‘tool-kit’ mounted under his belly slowly unfolded. They held the opposite edges of what looked like a small rectangular metal plaque. Light flared off its highly polished surface as Crusoe placed it carefully on the ground between his front legs.

  With that manouvre completed, Friday positioned himself on top of Crusoe with his legs astride the dome. The two hatches opened with a soft swishing sound. He lowered his body halfway in, folded up his legs, and sank out of sight. Within a few seconds, the two spheres rotated on their opposed axes, sealing the entrance to Crusoe under a smooth, unbroken layer of black, diamond-hard crystal.

  The research group crowded round Connors, Wedderkind and Allbright as they took a closer look at Friday’s calling card. Their curiosity gave way to gasps of astonishment. Neame and Gilligan had both seen the plaque before; Connors and the others had all seen a photograph or drawing of it. Made from a thin sheet of gold-plated aluminium, the plaque measured six by nine inches. It was engraved with various diagrams that included a table of atomic weights, a diagram that showed the relative positions of Earth and the other planets from the sun. Linked to Earth were the stylized naked figures of a naked man and woman.

  The plaque had been put aboard the Pioneer 10 spacecraft launched from Cape Kennedy on 3 March 1972 towards the planet Jupiter for a fly-by rendezvous in December 1973. Its course past the huge planet with its mysterious red spot had taken it Uranus then out into deep space.

  Pioneer 10, the lonely trailblazer for the triumphantly-successful Voyager II fly-bys of the eighties, was carrying the gold-plated plaque in case, by a trillion to one chance in the next hundred, or next thousand, million years it reached another star system and was pulled into orbit around a planet on which there was intelligent life with a space technology of their own. It would tell them that Mankind had once existed – perhaps might even still be found, reaching out towards the stars.

  But now, that message would never reach its unknown destination. Somewhere between Uranus and the uncharted fringe of our solar system, Crusoe and Friday had intercepted Pioneer 10 and, in the first recorded act of space piracy, had taken possession of the plaque – and had returned it to Earth.

  Saturday/September 8

  THE WHITE HOUSE/WASHINGTON DC

  The President viewed the tapes of Friday with considerably more interest than those of Crusoe. He watched Connors’ performance on behalf of
mankind, then looked across at him with a smile. ‘That was a remarkable piece of egocentric behaviour.’

  ‘Somebody had to be first,’ said Connors.

  ‘Does the team have any ideas about Friday?’ asked the President.

  ‘We’re all relieved to find that he’s mechanistic,’ said Wedderkind. ‘I was beginning to get worried about the problems posed by Crusoe, but now that we’ve seen the way the hatch operates, I think we’re dealing with a fairly straighforward type of spacecraft.’

  ‘And not some diamond-coated cabbage that’s about to grow arms.’

  Wedderkind looked at the President then eyed Connors. Et tu, Brute…

  Connors accepted the charge philosophically.

  ‘I haven’t totally abandoned that hypothesis,’ said Wedderkind. ‘It’s just in cold storage.’

  ‘But at least it’s built by somebody,’ said the President. ‘With a pretty high level of technology. The engineering tolerances on the hatch aren’t beyond us, but that crystalline covering – ’

  ‘Is it really a black diamond coating?’

  ‘That’s what the spectrograph says. But in the hardness test it came out tougher than anything we’ve got – and that includes the latest synthetic silicates. The idea of its being encased in a giant gemstone is commercially attractive but scientifically irrelevant. It would still be the most valuable thing on Earth if it was made out of Kraft cheese slices.’

  ‘Tell me some more about Friday,’ said the President.

  ‘It looks like a fairly straightforward reconnaissance vehicle but with a complex reaction system. It’s probably equipped with computer-type reasoning. It might even be linked to a larger electronic brain inside Crusoe. The technology’s impressive, but none of us feel too overawed – not at the moment, anyway.’

  ‘But why eight legs?’ asked Connors. ‘Wouldn’t wheels have been a whole lot simpler? And faster?’

  ‘Not necessarily. We would probably opt for that solution because we are wheel-oriented but there are types of terrain where legs would be much more efficient – especially if developed to Friday’s level of mechanical perfection.’

  ‘But how does he work?’ asked the President.

  ‘Yes,’ said Connors. ‘I’ve spent my life reassured by the idea that giant spiders were a physical impossibility.’

  ‘That’s still true,’ said Wedderkind. ‘You can’t just enlarge a spider or any other insect and expect it to work. The weight increases with the scale, and at a certain point the original structure collapses. Friday is a completely different proposition. He’s a spiderlike machine. His legs are quite slender. His total weight can’t be more than two or three hundred pounds. I imagine four men could lift him quite easily.’

  ‘And how does he move around?’

  ‘Ah – that’s just one of the sixty-four-dollar questions,’ said Wedderkind. ‘He’s probably powered by very advanced electric batteries.’

  ‘That sort of tool kit he carries underneath,’ said the President. ‘I noticed he had at least two sets of articulated pincers – in fact they were more like hands.’

  Wedderkind nodded. ‘Yes. That feature doesn’t exist in the insect world. Well, not ours, anyway. It’s a unique feature of Man the Toolmaker.’

  ‘I’ve read somewhere that you can’t build an advanced society without it,’ said Connors.

  ‘Not an advanced technological society.’

  ‘Why did Friday back away from us?’ asked Connors.

  ‘You answered that yourself out on the plateau. You said he was frightened of us. In view of our own feelings at the time, it was a natural conclusion, but fear need not be the only reason. It could have been a sign of his peaceful intentions towards us.’

  ‘But if Friday is capable of emotions such as fear and aggression – or in this case nonaggression – he must be alive. And if he’s alive, how can he be a machine?’ asked Connors.

  ‘Very easily,’ said Wedderkind. ‘The two states are not incompatible. But if you find the concept too difficult, just think of him as a very sophisticated robot.’

  ‘Okay. How do you propose to verify these ideas?’ said the President.

  ‘By continued observation.’

  ‘Do you plan to take him apart?’

  ‘Some of the group would like to try,’ said Connors. ‘The trouble is we’re not sure whether we need a neurosurgeon or a plumber.’

  ‘A lot will depend on what Friday does next,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Which could be nothing,’ said Connors. ‘After almost getting trampled to death the first time out he may decide it’s safer to stay inside.’

  ‘He’ll be out,’ said Wedderkind.

  President Lorenzo leaned forward and tapped the clear plastic case Wedderkind had placed on his desk. It contained the plaque that Friday had presented to the research team on Crow Ridge. ‘I take it there’s no doubt about this?’

  ‘No, we checked,’ said Wedderkind. ‘It’s definitely from Pioneer 10.’

  ‘What d’you make of it?’

  Connors deflected the question on to Wedderkind. They had already discussed Friday’s surprise package at some length during the flight to Washington. There had been a great deal of speculation but they had failed to reach any meaningful conclusions. Connors thought back to Wedderkind’s remark about the difficulty of relating to an alien intelligence. Perhaps there were no answers – at least on a level that Man could understand. Perhaps the meaning of this long-awaited encounter was beyond the limits of human comprehension.

  Good old Arnold, however, was not about to give up on the case. ‘I’m not quite sure…’ He lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘According to the last data received by the Space-flight Center at Houston, Pioneer 10 was alive and well and on its way out of the solar system. Crusoe and Friday must have hijacked the plaque without altering Pioneer’s flight trajectory. It’s the only scenario that fits the known data.’

  ‘After Pioneer completed its fly-by of Uranus?’

  ‘That’s the gut feeling I have,’ said Wedderkind. ‘But it could have happened anywhere along the line.’

  ‘Could, uhh – Crusoe have come from one of those planets out there?’

  Wedderkind shook his head. ‘The chances are next to nil. Compared to Earth, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are still in a primitive state of evolution. And conditions get even worse the further out you go. Jupiter, for example, has no solid surface – ’

  The President cut in. ‘How about one of its moons? Aren’t some of them almost as big as Mercury?’

  ‘One of them is even bigger. But before the inhabitants of Jupiter could establish a moon-base, they would first have to develop space-flight technology on the planet itself. And that’s just not possible. Higher forms of life couldn’t exist there.’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure,’ said Connors.

  Wedderkind eyed him and turned back to the President. ‘Bob has developed a space conspiracy theory.’

  Connors stepped in to explain for himself. ‘All I said was we can no longer take anything for granted. Crusoe’s arrival is proof that somebody is out there. If Pioneer 10 was intercepted then the information it sent back could have been doctored. The same goes for the Surveyor package that was soft-landed on Mars, the Russian Venus probe, and the recent Voyager fly-by of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Let’s face it, the pictures and measurements are only sets of figures radioed across space and recorded down here on computer tape.’

  The President considered this proposition with a puzzled frown. ‘Why would anyone want to beam us a mass of phoney data?’

  ‘To mislead us as to the real conditions up there.’

  ‘Is that possible, Arnold?’

  Wedderkind favoured Connors with an indulgent smile then answered the President. ‘It’s an engaging theory. It’s true we have no way to verify the integrity of the transmissions but the pictures and data received so far support our previous visual observations and the predictions based on current scien
tific theories.’

  ‘So what’s your theory?’ insisted the President.

  ‘Everything points to Crusoe and Friday being sent from another star system. Since the technology involved in their construction is way ahead of ours I believe their purpose is to explore all the planets in our solar system. If I was given the job I would start at the edge and work my way in towards the sun.’

  ‘Which was how he ran into Pioneer – and tracked back from there,’ suggested the President, anxious to demonstrate that his brain was not, as some unkind critics had suggested, made from mozzarella.

  ‘Yes. On the other hand, he may have been around for some time. He could have been camping out on one of Jupiter’s or Saturn’s moons as you suggested or, alternatively, he might have been in a parking orbit around Uranus or Neptune, or circling the sun – like Halley’s comet. Waiting.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Some sign of life.’ Wedderkind stubbed out his cigarette and dispersed the wreath of smoke around his head.

  ‘You mean… some sign of life from intelligent beings who were into space flight…’

  ‘That’s one possibility.’

  Connors realized why the President got so frustrated when he couldn’t get ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Especially at a time like this with so many other problems crowding in on him. He was clearly wishing he hadn’t opened up this particular can of worms.

  ‘I don’t get it, Arnold. If Crusoe has been coasting around our solar system for some time, as you suggest, he’d know about Earth. And all the radio and TV traffic would tell him something or someone was down here. Why wait till now?’

  ‘Good point…’ Wedderkind lit another cigarette. ‘I wish I knew the answer. Maybe – until we got into space flight – he didn’t think we were worth talking to.’

  ‘There could be another reason,’ said Connors. ‘Maybe it’s because until we launched a craft that could travel out of the solar system we didn’t pose a threat to anyone. If the beings who built Crusoe already knew where we were, why remove the plaque from Pioneer 10? You’ve already accused me of being paranoid but, to my mind, there’s only one answer: to stop us from making contact with whoever else might be out there.’