The Hercules Text

by Jack McDevitt

  Dupre looked genuinely puzzled. “Like what?”

  Lee Barnegat, a middle-aged man whose placid blue eyes concealed administrative and negotiating skills of the first order, removed his collar and placed it on the arm of his chair. “Do aliens have souls?”

  Dupre’s dour features broke into a slow smile. “Do we care?”

  “If we still accept Aquinas,” said Cox, “the ability to abstract from matter, to think, irrefutably defines an immortal soul.”

  “What,” asked the Cardinal, “is the applicability of Christ’s teachings to beings who are not born of Adam?”

  “Come on, George,” protested Dupre. “We’re not tied to Eden anymore. Let the Bible-thumpers worry about that.”

  “I wish we could,” said Jesperson. “But I think we may have a few loose ends of our own.” Despite his half-century, the Cardinal still had the youthful good looks of his seminary days. “Did you see the pictures they got from the transmission? One of them is quite different from all the others.”

  “I know the one you mean,” said Barnegat. “It looked like something out of Dali.”

  The Cardinal nodded. “I agree,” he said. “The speculation is that it is a self-portrait. Anyway, I’m glad to see that none of you is shocked. I hope the good people who show up at the cathedral Sunday share your equanimity.”

  “Why should they not?” asked Dupre.

  “Man is made in the image of God. There is cause to doubt that simple truth, perhaps, when one sees what inhabits the streets these days. But it is doctrine, unassailable and eternal. And what are we to say about these creatures, who, as Jack reminds us, themselves…possess…immortal…souls?”

  Dupre squirmed uncomfortably. He wore much the same expression he’d adopted at the last meeting when the Cardinal had proposed granting still more latitude to the priests’ council. “I hope,” he said, “we’re not really going to take any of this seriously. I’m certainly not prepared to believe that that odd little stick figure is a picture of a creature with a soul.”

  “Well, perhaps not,” conceded Jesperson. “But I don’t think it matters, because, if we can believe our experts, if we have indeed encountered aliens, whatever they look like, it will not be like us.”

  “But surely,” objected Barnegat, “the resemblance referred to in doctrine is of the soul, not of the body.”

  “Undoubtedly. But even so, we may find many among us who will be sorely tested by the notion of sharing salvation with large insects.” The Cardinal’s eyes moved among them, resting briefly on each. “What would you say if their transmissions revealed them to be, by our standards, by the standards of the New Testament, utterly godless and amoral? Or worse, what if we are confronted by beings of compassion and apparent wisdom who, after a million years of examining the problem, have concluded that there is no God? Beings, perhaps, who have never even considered His existence?”

  Dupre grew thoughtful. “George, I think it may be our own faith that is failing here. We will not have any revelations that can call into question what we know to be true.”

  “That sounds like a comfortable position to take,” said Barnegat. “Let’s go back a little. If these things are as unlike us physically as you suggest, George, I doubt that anyone is going to care much what they think. Phil’s probably right in saying that we don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment,” said Cox, “and ask a few questions that may occur to people after they’ve had a chance to think about things a little. Would every intelligent species in the universe be subject to a test, as Adam was?”

  “I would think so,” said Dupre.

  “And some failed, and some passed.”

  “Yes,” persisted Dupre, but a little more cautiously.

  “Then there are undoubtedly numerous species in the universe that do not die.”

  Dupre coughed. “I fail to follow the logic. Nothing that is physical can be immortal.”

  “Death was the price of sin. Either we have immortals among the stars or everybody flunked the test. And I submit that, if the latter is the true state of affairs, then we have a spurious test. Or, as many will conclude, a test that never occurred.”

  They were briefly silent. “If,” Barnegat said, “we dismiss the validity of the test—”

  “—we have,” continued the Cardinal, “dismissed the validity of the Redeemer. I think we are faced with a difficult situation.”

  Dupre looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard to get hold of any of this, George. I think our best course for now is to say nothing, to simply ride it out. Does everybody remember Father Balkonsky? I think we’re in danger of emulating his example.”

  “Who,” asked Barnegat, “is Father Balkonsky?”

  Jesperson’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “He taught apologetics at Saint Michael’s. His method was to set up one of the classic objections to the faith—the problem of evil, free will, and God’s foreknowledge, whatever. He then proceeded to rebut the arguments, relying more or less on Saint Thomas. The problem was that he seemed much more persuasive with the objections than with the rebuttals. A few seminarians complained. Others suffered through premature doubts about their faith, and a few left Saint Michael’s altogether. And, for all I know, the Church.”

  “Another thing we must be careful of,” continued Dupre, “is taking a theological position that may later become demonstrably false.”

  “Or worse,” added Cox, “ridiculous.”

  “I agree with Phil,” said Barnegat. “Let’s restrict ourselves to a general reassurance that nothing can come out of Goddard that is not provided for within the corpus of Church teaching. And let it go at that. Just a brief statement at the masses.”

  The Cardinal’s eyes had closed. The silver cross in his lapel glittered in the soft yellow light from a table lamp. “Jack?”

  “I’m not sure I’d want to say anything just now.”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Dupre, “a better way to unnerve people than to tell them there’s no cause for alarm.”

  “Okay,” said Barnegat. “I can live with that.”

  Jesperson nodded. “All right, then. We’ll draft a letter to the pastors, to be kept in strictest confidence. Phil, you write it. Express our concerns. Instruct them, if questioned, to take the position that the revealed faith is God’s message to man and has nothing whatever to do with external agencies. Priests are not to bring the subject up.”

  For a long time after the others had left, Jesperson sat silently, sunk in his chair. Until recently, the only other worlds he’d ever thought much about had not been of a physical nature. But since the government had begun listening to the stars, he’d taken time to think out the implications. And when, two years earlier, the survey of nearby solar systems had suggested that men were alone in God’s creation, he’d been relieved.

  But now, this…

  When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place—What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him?

  Dr. Arleigh Packard adjusted his bifocals and spread his prepared address on the lectern. This was his third appearance before the Carolingians. He’d marked previous occasions by revealing the existence of a journal maintained by a servant of Justinian I, covering in detail the emperor’s reaction to the Hippodrome revolt; and a document in the hand of Gregory the Great excoriating the Turks and recommending that the crossbow be used against them. He’d let it be known that he had yet another juicy surprise for the society this year.

  Consequently, his audience was in a state of considerable anticipation. He was happy to see that Perrault was present, from Temple; DuBuay and Commenes from Princeton; and Aubuchon from La Salle. And it would be understating the facts to fail to notice that Packard himself was excited. The rich Viennese curtains behind him concealed a glass case that held a holograph letter from John Wyclif to a previously unknown adherent, outlining his inten
tion to produce an English translation of the Bible. The letter had been discovered in a London trunk only months before, the property of a dying garment manufacturer who’d never known he owned it.

  At the podium, Packard paused briefly, allowing Townsend Harris to step down after his introductory words, using the time to study his text and to allow suspense to build. He was surprised when he raised his eyes to find Allen DuBuay on his feet. “Before we begin, Arleigh,” he said in an apologetic tone, “I wonder if we might briefly address another matter of some urgency.”

  Informality had always been a hallmark of the Carolingians; but they were not inclined to tolerate outright boorishness. Olson, in front, grumbled loudly of Philistines, and a few others turned with obvious irritation toward DuBuay. Packard, maintaining his equanimity despite a barely noticeable tensing of the jaws, bowed slightly and stepped to one side of the lectern.

  DuBuay’s complexion was curiously tinted, perhaps by the sunlight filtered through the stained-glass window (dominated by Beatrix of Falkenburg), perhaps by some mixture of a more common sort. In any case, he was clearly not himself. His thin hair was disheveled, his tie hung at an awkward angle, and his fists were shoved aggressively into the pockets of his tweed jacket. “I regret interrupting Dr. Packard, and you know I would not do so lightly,” he said, moving from his seat near the rear into the center aisle and proceeding briskly toward the front of the chamber.

  “Sit down, DuBuay!” roared a voice from the left that everyone recognized as belonging to Harvey Blackman, a paleontologist from the University of Virginia whose interest in the Carolingians was more social than professional. He had developed a passion for another member, a young antiquities collector from Temple.

  Art Hassel, a specialist on Frederick Barbarossa, also got to his feet. “This is no time for politics!” he said angrily, by which everyone understood that Hassel had already tried to dissuade DuBuay from his demonstration.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said DuBuay, raising his hands, palms outward in a placating gesture. “I have spoken with many of you privately. And we share a common anguish at the events of the last few days. The Hercules Text belongs to us all, not to one government. Especially one whose purposes cannot be trusted. Surely, if anyone recognizes the importance of this hour, it should be us—”

  “Sit down, DuBuay,” said Harris. “You’re out of order.”

  “I would like to move that we issue a statement—”

  “DuBuay!”

  “—deploring the existing position of the government—”

  Someone grabbed his sleeve and tried to pull him into a seat.

  Everett Tartakower, on the right, rose majestically, a tall, graying archaeologist from Ohio State. “Just a minute.” He crooked one long finger at Townsend Harris. “I don’t particularly approve of Dr. DuBuay’s methods, Harris. But he has a point.”

  “Then let him make it with the steering committee!” shot back Harris.

  “To be discussed when? Next year?”

  Grace McAvoy, curator of the University Museum, wondered aloud whether it would not be wise to get some sense of the content of the Text before continuing the discussion.

  That remark was greeted by a chorus of hoots on the left. Radakai Melis, from Bangkok, leaped onto the proscenium and pleaded for order. When he got it (or a semblance of it), he decried the economic policies of the United States and their role in ensuring the continued exploitation of the downtrodden peoples.

  Harris dragged Melis off the stage and threw a backward glance at Packard, silently urging him to begin his address. But a woman whom Packard had never seen before had already climbed onto a chair in back. “If matters are left to the goodwill and humanity of this government,” she urged, “we can be sure we’ll never get the whole truth. It’s probably already too late! We’re going to go on forever asking questions and wondering whether critical pieces of information have not been squirreled away somewhere because some bureaucrat in high office thinks they might be dangerous. I’ll tell you what’s dangerous at this point: hiding the truth, that’s what’s dangerous!”

  Everyone was out of his chair now, and the shouting became general. A fight boiled out of the seats about eight rows back and swallowed DuBuay.

  The only journalist present, a reporter from the Epistemological Review, got the story of his life.

  Packard, who knew a lost cause when he saw one, watched forlornly for a few minutes, then walked behind the curtain, unlocked the display case, extracted the Wyclif letter, and left the building by a rear entrance.

  H = .000321y/1t/98733533y

  Well, thought Rimford, the old son of a bitch is still in the ball game.

  It was almost 6:00 A.M. He’d appropriated an office for himself at the west end of the spaces serving the Hercules Project. The days since they’d received the second signal had been embarrassing for him. Despite his reputation, his contribution to the translation effort had been overshadowed by Majeski’s single-minded brilliance and remarkable facility with computers. They’d made a reasonable start toward defining some of the syntactical constructions and establishing a vocabulary. But Rimford had been little more than a bystander.

  Everyone knew that mathematics was a young man’s pastime, but to have it demonstrated to him beyond any doubt, and by an arrogant individual who seemed unaware of Rimford’s reputation, had been painful. The numbers no longer came together for him: he sensed no lessening of his ability, yet the intuition of earlier days, when equations rose from a different level of perception than he could now reach, was gone.

  But maybe not entirely. Who else would have recognized the significance of the equation in Data Set 41, and consequently, the importance of the entire segment?

  The Hercules Project would constitute a sublime climax to his career. When it was done, the essence of the transmission solved and its secrets extracted, when the details could be safely turned over to technicians, he would withdraw gladly to a contemplative existence. And to history.

  H = .000321y/1t/98733533y

  Where y equals the distance light travels while Beta completes one orbit of Alpha, and t equals 68 hours, 43 minutes, 34 seconds (the period of Beta’s orbit), the resulting figure is suspiciously close to Hubble’s Constant: the rate of expansion of the universe.

  Magnificent! It was one of the more satisfying hours in a life resplendent with victories large and small. Rimford settled in to look for other mathematical relationships—the Compton Effect, possibly, or Mach’s Principle. Hurley had said it for them all: Who knew what might be buried in these electronic pulses?

  But despite his exhilaration, he was tired. And he was violating his lifelong credo: to work at his own pace, to take time out to refuel, and to refuse to recognize pressure. Yet there was much in the numbers and symbols that lay before him that would not allow sleep: suggestions and relationships tantalizingly familiar, their significance just beyond reach. He began easing the symbols of Data Set 41 across the screen: what knowledge might a culture that could manhandle stars not possess? Would they not have measured the length and width of the universe, counted all its planks, and analyzed its cogs and sprockets? Might they not even understand the manner of its creation? And perhaps the reason for its existence?

  His eyelids slid shut.

  He needed rest. Moreover, the operations center and its offices were not conducive to thought. Or to sleep. So he violated one of the new security regulations: he made a copy of DS 41, slipped it into his jacket, and returned the original to the bank.

  His green badge got him through the checkpoint at the top of the staircase without any trouble. There were three guards now, young, brawny individuals who obviously meant business. They were armed, and they had access to a computer. But apparently they were only concerned about outsiders trying to get in, and had not yet adjusted their thinking to include persons on the inside trying to take things out.

  The bungalow provided by the Center was spare, but practical. It had a glass-encl
osed, heated porch, where Rimford preferred to work. The furniture in the compact living room was comfortable, and Harry had equipped it with a supply of books on Rimford’s second love, the theater.

  He showered, and tried to slow himself down by making bacon and eggs, even though he was not hungry. But he hurried through his breakfast nonetheless, leaving the toast half eaten. He’d moved his bench and computer back inside after the new security procedures had gone into effect, so that he could work without being seen. Working outside the lab was now prohibited. Notes were not to be taken home, and discussions of Hercules data were severely restricted.

  He inserted the laserdisc into his computer, but got no further. Concentration was becoming difficult. He got up, walked three feet to his sofa, and lowered himself onto it.

  “We’ve got a lot of people down here, Harry,” said Parkinson. The public information officer was calling from the Visitor Center, just inside the east gate.

  “I’m not surprised. We’ll probably have big crowds until the story dies down a bit. Can we handle them?”

  “Well, they sure as hell aren’t going to fit into the regular programs.”

  “Anybody hostile?”

  “Some. Not many. Mostly, they’re just like the people we always get here, except now there are so many of them. We got a few carrying signs.”

  “Like what?”

  “‘Get out of Honduras.’ Stuff like that. There’s a banner out there that accuses us of scuttling the school lunch program. And there are some Jesus signs. I think they want us to convert the Altheans. But I’m not so sure. Neither are they.”

  “Okay,” said Harry. “Open up on time. Try to speed things along so we can move as many as possible through the Center and out. I’ll notify Security and get some extra units. And I’ll be there myself in a few minutes.”

  Harry notified Schenken. Moments later Sam Fleischner, his administrative assistant, came in. “We’re having an interesting morning, Harry,” he said.