“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
Mitch turned to see a man standing next to the pole in the center of the room. He looked like he had just gotten out of bed and forgotten to brush his hair. Unlike everyone else Mitch had seen, he wasn’t wearing a jumpsuit but a pair of gray tweed slacks and a green knitted cardigan.
“I was just admiring the keyboard,” Mitch said. “I’ve never seen touch-screen technology that works this well before.”
The man walked over and extended a hand. “I’m Heinz Gerber.”
“Mitch Rainey,” Mitch said.
“The man from Washington who found our missing satellite. Tell me, did you actually track it, or did Marius forget to secure the connection?”
“I used an index of signature values I created based on previous test readings,” Mitch said.
“And if you don’t mind my asking, how did you trace them to Darkstar?”
“The launch registry,” Mitch said.
Heinz considered this for a moment and nodded. “Quite ingenious, I must admit.”
“What is this place?” Mitch said.
“This is room eight, the home of my beloved Harriet,” Heinz said.
“Harriet?”
“Our interface to the base-eight programming language used by Origin. I named it after my first dog because getting either of them to do what I wanted at first proved almost impossible.”
“Used by Origin?” Mitch said. “The spaceship?”
Heinz laughed. “I know. When two grown men start using that word in a serious conversation you have to ask yourself what the world is coming to, right? But you get used to it, trust me.”
“You’re saying that programming language came from a spaceship?”
“Indeed,” Heinz said. “From what I can gather, it’s not unique to Origin either, but the base computer language of the entire civilization that built her. I’m speculating of course, but it seems like a fair assumption.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mitch said.
Heinz nodded. “That’s hardly surprising when you consider the nearest computer using it is almost four hundred million miles away. The system uses eight characters because –”
“Because it’s based on high-density multiple layer compression,” Mitch finished. “I’m guessing something in the region of three or four thousand to one.”
Heinz looked taken aback. “More like six thousand, actually. Sarah says you studied computer programming. May I ask where?”
“Arizona State. How fast is their system?”
“We don’t actually know, but based on response times, we think somewhere in the region of one and a half terahertz.”
“Christ,” Mitch said. “How the hell do they do that?”
Heinz pointed at the pole in the middle of the room. “Probably by building systems out of that alloy. We pulled it out of the ice twenty miles from the North Pole. If it were made of steel it would weigh just under half a ton. Its actual weight is six point five seven tons. The alloy is one of four used in the ship’s construction.”
“You’re telling me that thing is indestructible?” Mitch said.
“Hardly,” Heinz said. “It would have been forged like any other metal. Although it’s fair to say there isn’t a foundry on this planet that would be able to get it much more than warm.”
“What is it?” Mitch said.
“It’s a probe. A kind of automated landing beacon, you might say. It has no propulsion or guidance systems, so whatever launched it was probably a lot closer to the planet than the ship is now. We think it was simply super-heated, aimed and fired like an arrow. It was buried in solid rock when we found it. The hardware is embedded in the top. It’s a signal transmitter and receiver, an atmospheric measuring platform, a proximity sensor, and a link to the ship’s main computer.”
“You can actually use that thing to access the ship’s own systems?” Mitch said.
“Not with that, no. Or at least, not directly. The probe has no user interface or input devices, and creating a physical bridge to our own system is out of the question. For one thing, we don’t know enough about the hardware, so any attempt to deconstruct and reverse engineer it would almost certainly end in disaster. What we have had to do is intercept the incoming and outgoing signals and study them in order to create a crude emulator that can run base-eight code on a base-two system. I probably don’t have to tell you, but that’s like trying to render full-texture three dimensional video on a calculator.”
“Is the transfer protocol at least similar to ours?” Mitch said.
“Not even close. Their system uses six separate data streams, each transmitted simultaneously at slight frequency variations within a very narrow band. The sixth stream is an encrypted merger algorithm needed to combine the other five. And it changes with every transmission. Once we put the files together, there are five levels of decompression. The main difficulty is that the merger algorithm is only valid for a single reply.”
Mitch nodded. “You need more time than the system will give you.”
“Correct. When you consider we have to not only decompress and assemble the files, but trans-code them too, and then reverse the entire process, we just don’t have the power to return more than crude responses.”
Mitch could barely keep up with his own racing mind. “Your emulator, what hardware does it use?”
“I’ll show you,” Heinz said.
Mitch followed him to the doors on the other side of the room and Heinz pushed a button mounted to the counter next to it. The doors parted to reveal a much thicker set of doors with a large rectangular view-port in each. Mitch stood looking in for a long time before he said, “What chips are the servers using?”
“Six hundred custom made eight-core processors using a chip-integrated liquid nitrogen cooling system.”
“Clock speed?” Mitch asked.
“Sixty-three hundred Megahertz.”
Mitch considered this and said, “You could get them to eight with helium. Seven and a half at the very least. How do you transmit the response if you can’t use that thing?”
Heinz regarded Mitch with a kind of guarded reverence. “We don’t actually intercept the incoming transmission here, only what the spike itself sends back. The atmospheric loss is too great for any of our ground receivers to pick up a clear enough signal. The amazing thing is that that thing can do it without a hitch. We still rely on the antenna array we put into orbit over a decade ago to see if the ship was sending anything at all. It’s how we isolated the signal from Origin in the first place and also how we eventually located the spike. Our platform relays the signal to Darkstar, which passes it on.”
Mitch turned and looked at the workstation he had been sitting at. “Is that their language?”
Heinz walked to the monitor. He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket, put them on and knelt to look at the screen. The image contained a list of characters drawn from a simple matrix of symmetrical lines. Next to each was one or more letters from the English alphabet.
“Is it really that simple?” Mitch said.
Heinz stood and nodded. “They use forty-one letters, but the sounds they represent appear almost identical to those used in our own languages. Structurally, the language is remarkably similar to Hungarian, although the pronunciation is more Germanic.”
For once, Mitch was lost for words. Heinz laughed and nodded. “That’s right, the crew of Origin are as human as you or I. Or at least they were.”
Chapter 55
London, Heathrow
Sunday 23 July 2006
1900 EDT
Neither Jesse nor Amanda would have recognized the man who stepped into the arrivals hall at Heathrow International Airport that Saturday afternoon, but they would certainly have noticed him.
Gary Copeland was a punk of the old school variety, and the spikes of his Mohawk were colored green and red alternately to prove it. When he emerged from the bathroom he had added jet-black eyeliner
and lipstick. There was a silver ring in his nose and several earrings in both ears. His faded black leather jacket had more studs than a Texas horse ranch. He’d also chosen a black t-shirt with the word “Pantera” printed across it in red letters made to look like dripping blood. To finish the look, he had even managed to squeeze into a pair of skintight dark gray drainpipe jeans that were held up needlessly with a black studded leather belt.
With only his backpack and no luggage to collect, he made his way to the underground tube station and took the first train to South Kensington, switched to the Circle line and got off at Victoria. He found a bathroom, washed the gel and dye out of his hair, then the makeup off his face and changed into a pair of jeans, a sweater and Converse All-Stars.
He took the Victoria line to Green Park and ran to the platform for the Jubilee Line just fast enough to know if he was being followed. He got off at London Bridge, then walked the last half-mile to the address Reginald had given him, arriving just after nine in the evening.
Francis crossed the street and stepped into the alley between two of the buildings. He waited for a full five minutes before crossing back over. Instead of ringing the bell, he waited until an elderly woman came out to walk her dog and slipped through the closing door behind her.
Once inside he took a mobile phone from his pocket and called Mike, who, if all had gone according to plan, would be waiting in a bar just across the Thames. Ten minutes later, a black cab stopped two blocks down the road. The man who got out was bald, visibly overweight and dressed in a dark gray hand-me-down wool suit. He wore a pair of thick glasses held together in two places with dirty gauze tape.
Francis opened the door when Mike arrived. “You look good, Mike.”
“Piss off. Can I take this stomach off now? It’s beginning to make my back ache.”
“Sure, but don’t lose it. You’ll need to put it back on when we leave.”
They took the stairs to the fourth floor, emerging into a dimly lit, dusty hallway with a cracking stone floor and yellowing walls. 405 was the last door on the right.
Francis told Mike to stay back and stood at the door, listening. He was prepared to accept that nobody was home when he heard what might have been a pan drop onto the floor, followed by a quick round of cursing in a foreign language. Francis looked back down the hall, nodded at Mike and knocked on the door.
The man who opened it and peered out at Francis over the chain was sixty if he was a day. He was wearing a threadbare bathrobe and a pair of moccasins in no better shape. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, but the face wasn’t hostile or even suspicious, just curious. “Can I help you?”
He looked Francis up and down several times with no hint of a reaction.
“I was asked to give you this,” Francis said and held out a brown paper envelope.
“Open it,” the man said.
Francis tore off the end of the envelope and pulled out a stack of crisp British fifty-pound notes folded in a single sheet of lined notepaper.
“Here,” the man said and held out his hand.
Francis handed him the envelope.
The man first counted the money then read the note. As he did, the creases on his forehead gave way to an amused narrowing of the eyes, and finally a smile. “I should send you back with an answer. But I’m guessing you didn’t come from across the river.”
He closed the door, released the chain and opened it again. “Come in. And please forgive my manners. When I moved here in ‘76, life was simpler. Now you never know what the hell people want when they start banging on your door.”
Francis stepped inside and was immediately consumed by the unmistakable odor of books. It was a pleasant smell, not moldy exactly, but musty.
“I have a friend,” Francis said. “Waiting outside.”
“Then by all means, tell her to come inside.”
“It’s not –”
“I’m joking,” the man said. “Ask him in. It’s all here in the note.”
When Mike joined them the man held out a hand to Francis and said, “My name is Maksym, but you should call me Max or I may not realize you’re talking to me. It’s been a long time since anyone used it.”
“I’m Gary,” Francis said.
“Ah, yes, Gary. Like Tom, Dick and Gary. Never mind, you don’t have to tell me. You call me Max, I’ll call you Gary and Tchaikovsky can write the music. It’ll be great.”
Francis laughed and stepped aside.
“I’m Mike,” Mike said, and shrugged when Francis gave him a foreboding look.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mike,” Max said. “It’s a good look for you, I think. You look like you sell shitty used cars to people like Gary here who can’t afford anything else.”
Both Mike and Francis found themselves laughing.
“I know, I’m hilarious,” Max said. “My granddaughters think I look like that asshole on Coronation Street, you know the old man, Cole? No, of course you don’t know. I don’t really know either, but I can imagine. Most people on TV these days look like assholes.”
Francis smiled, “Aren’t you curious to know why we’re here?”
“A little,” Max said. “But I figure you’re the one that came to see me, so you’ll tell me or decide you don’t want to, in which case I’d be an ass for asking.”
“How do you know Reginald?” Francis asked.
“He’s a bum,” Max said and laughed. “I met him at the embassy in Vienna. The man can play poker, I’ll give him that much.”
“Where did you defect from?” Mike asked.
“The Ukraine. Although back then it was all just the USSR. Even today they call us Russians.”
Max spat out the last word, as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth. “But enough about me. You have come a long way. I can tell by your accents. Are you Canadians or Americans?”
“Americans,” Francis said. “I have something that might interest you. Do you have a computer?”
“Do bears shit in the woods?” Max said and walked down the hall.
They followed him into a spacious living room with an old oak writing desk at one end surrounded by several stacks of books. There was a tattered Chesterfield at the other end of the room in front of a large fireplace. Max sat down at the desk and flipped open the lid on his laptop. The desktop background was a grainy, sepia-tone picture of a group of young men in flight suits standing in front of an empty rocket launching site. Max saw both of them looking and said, “Baikonur in ‘72. I’m the handsome one.”
Francis handed him the CD. “I should warn you now, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Like an American showing up at my door on a Sunday night to pay off a thirty year old gambling debt?”
When it was obvious Max was going to do things at his own pace and preferably in silence, Francis and Mike both took a seat on the couch and began leafing through old copies of National Geographic. Mike began to doze.
When he opened his eyes, he didn’t know if he had fallen asleep or just nodded off for a few seconds, but when he turned around, both Francis and Max were gone. Mike was on his feet and moving across the room before he even noticed someone had taken off his shoes. He headed for the door, but saw the chain was still on. Then he heard a soft humming from somewhere in the house and followed it to the kitchen.
Max was standing by the sink pouring champagne into three tea mugs on a plastic tray. Francis was bent over at the other end of the kitchen with his head in the fridge. Max looked up when Mike came in with a grin that ended just below his earlobes. “My dear boy, I was just coming to wake you. I mean to propose a toast.”
Francis looked on, amused, as Max picked up the tray and walked back into the living room.
“I’m not going to ask you where you got that disc,” he began, “Because I think it might ruin the moment. But tell me, is it real?”
“It’s real,” Francis said. “I can –”
“Not another word,” Max said. “That’s all I want
ed to know.”
He handed them each a cup and raised his own. “Za vashe zdorovie!” he said and downed the mug in a single gulp.
They did their best to repeat the toast and followed his example. When he put his mug back down on the tray Francis said, “I’m glad we’ve made your day, I really am –”
“But you didn’t come here to drink. I know. Forgive an old man his follies.”
“Consider them forgiven,” Francis said. “I just want to know –”
“If I’ve lost my mind or actually have something useful to tell you?” Max finished.
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes.”
“Have you ever been in space, Gary? Either of you. Mike?”
“Call me Francis, that’s my real name. And no, we’ve never been in space. That’s right, isn’t it, Mike?”
“Very funny,” Mike said.
“Okay,” Max said, “then you’ll have to use your imagination. Seeing the earth with the stars behind you changes a man. I don’t mean it makes you crazy; that’s just incidental in my case. Well, mine and a few others that I can think of. But anyway, I digress. Once you have been up there, you cannot look at the universe the same way again. It has a way of bringing the blind arrogance of those who believe we are unique to the universe into stark contrast with reality. The earth is not a grain of sand in the desert; it is a single molecule in one of those grains. When we talk of probability within the finite world of man on earth, we openly accept that as the numbers grow larger, the chances of variables increase. If we discover a rare bug on a tree or a flower in some remote rain forest, we conclude quite happily that the chances of finding another in all the thousands of acres that surround it are probably quite high. Only the bug or the flower, for whom such distances are unfathomable, and for whom their immediate surroundings are by necessity the world entire, would refute the possibility outright. The human observer accepts it as fact because he is on the outside looking in. To see the world from the outside, is to see that bug and marvel at its stupidity. The chances of there not being other intelligent life in the universe are so slim they don’t bear thinking about. Do you follow me? Tell me if you don’t; I know I’m rambling.”
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