by Ben Bova
And the radio telescope was pointing straight at it.
Stoner shuddered and headed back inside the observatory. He did not notice the unmarked black Plymouth sitting in the tiny visitors’ parking section out in front of the building. Nor the two grim-faced men in conservative gray business suits sitting inside the car.
Showered and back in his open-neck shirt, slacks and sweater, Stoner looked over the main room of the observatory, a slight frown of distaste on his face.
An astronomical observatory should look shadowy, sepulchral, like a domed cathedral with a huge optical telescope slanting upward toward the heavens. Men should speak in awed whispers. There ought to be echoes and worshipful footsteps clicking on a solid cement floor.
The radio observatory looked like the bargain basement of an electronics hobby shop and bustled like an old-fashioned newspaper city room. Desks were jammed together in the middle of the room. Papers scattered everywhere, even across the floor. Electronics consoles tall as refrigerators lined all the walls, humming and whirring to themselves. Men and women, all younger than Stoner, yelled back and forth. The room vibrated at sixty cycles per second and smelled faintly of solder and machine oil.
They were almost all students, Stoner knew. Graduate students, even some post-docs. But the regular staff itself was little more than thirty years old. Old McDermott was the nominal head of the observatory, chairman of the department and all that. The real day-to-day boss was Jeff Thompson, who was waving to Stoner from the far side of the island of desks set in the sea of paper.
“Want to hear it?” Thompson called.
Stoner nodded and started around the desks.
“Dr. Stoner,” one of the women students said to him, reaching for his arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute? Professor…”
“Not now,” Stoner said, hardly glancing at her.
Thompson was a sandy-haired middleweight with the pleasant, undistinguished features of the kid next door. An assistant professor at the university, he was nearly Stoner’s age, the “grand old man” of the regular observatory staff.
“It’s coming through loud and clear,” Thompson said as Stoner approached him. With a relaxed grin he reached across the nearest desk and pulled a battered old set of earphones from under a heap of papers.
“We hardly ever use these,” he said. “But I thought you’d like to actually listen to what we’re getting.”
Stoner accepted the headphones from Thompson and walked with him to the humming consoles along the wall. Thompson held the wires leading from the earphones in one hand. We must look like a man walking his dog, Stoner thought.
Thompson plugged the wire lead into a jack on the console and nodded to Stoner, who slipped the earphones over his head. They were thick with heavy padding.
All the noise of the bustling room was cut off. Thompson’s mouth moved but Stoner couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Nothing,” Stoner told him, hearing his own voice inside his head, as if he were stuffed up with a sinus cold. “Nothing’s coming through.”
Thompson nodded and clicked a few switches on the console. Stoner heard a whirring screech that quickly rose in pitch until it soared beyond the range of human hearing. Then the low hissing, scratching electronic static of the steady sky background noise—the sound of endless billions of stars and clouds of interstellar gases all mingled together.
He began to shake his head when it finally came through: a deep rumbling bass note, barely a whisper but unmistakably different from the background noise. Stoner nodded and Thompson turned a dial on the console ever so slightly.
The heavy sound grew slightly louder, then faded away. In a split second it returned, then faded again. Stoner stood in the middle of the silenced hubbub of the busy room, listening to the pulses of energy throbbing in his ears like the deep, slow breathing of a slumbering giant.
He closed his eyes and saw the giant—the planet Jupiter.
The radio telescope was picking up pulses of radio energy streaming out from Jupiter. Pulses that were timed more precisely than a metronome, timed as accurately as the clicks of a quartz watch. Pulses that had no natural explanation.
Slowly he pulled the heavy earphones off.
“That’s it,” he said to Thompson over the bustle of the room.
Thompson bobbed his head up and down. “That’s it.” He took the headset from Stoner and held it up to his ear. “Yep, that’s what it sounds like. Regular as clockwork.”
“And nobody’s ever heard it before?”
“No, nothing like it. Not from Jupiter or any other planet.” Thompson unplugged the earphones and tossed them back onto his desk, scattering papers in every direction. “It’s not on the same frequency as the pulsars, or the same periodicity. It’s something brand new.”
Stoner scratched his thick, dark hair. “What do you think is causing it?”
Grinning, Thompson answered, “That’s why we brought you here. You tell me.”
With a slow nod, Stoner said, “You know what I think, Jeff.”
“Intelligent life.”
“Right.”
Thompson puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath. “That’s a big one.”
“Yeah.”
He left Thompson standing there, lost in his own thoughts, and headed for the stairs that led up to his second-floor office. The same young student fell in step alongside him.
“Dr. Stoner, can I speak with you for a minute?”
He glanced at her. “Sure, Ms.…?”
“Camerata. Jo Camerata.”
He started up the steps without a second look at her. Jo dogged along behind him.
“It’s about Professor McDermott,” she said.
“Big Mac? What’s he want?”
“I think it’s better if we talk in your office, with the door closed.”
“Well, that’s where I’m heading.”
“You were out there, weren’t you?” Jo asked, to his back. “You helped build Big Eye, out there in orbit.”
They reached the top of the stairs and he turned around to take a good look at her. She was young, tall, with the classic kind of face you might find on a Greek vase. Black short-cropped hair curled thickly to frame her strong cheekbones and jawline. Her jeans clung to her full hips, her sweater accentuated her bosom.
An astronaut groupie? Stoner asked himself as he replied, “Yes, I was part of the design and construction team for the orbital telescope. That’s why Big Mac invited me here, because I can sweet-talk my old buddies into sneaking some shots of Jupiter to us.”
It was quieter up on the second floor, although the floor still hummed with electric vibrations. Stoner stalked down the narrow hallway, Jo trailing half a step behind him. He opened the door to the tiny office they had given him.
Two men were inside: one by the window where Jo had been standing earlier; the other beside the door.
“Dr. Keith Stoner?” asked the one by the window. He was the smaller of the two. Stoner’s desk, with the photographs of Jupiter scattered across it, stood between them.
Stoner nodded. The man by the window was inches shorter than Stoner, but solidly built. The one beside him, at the door, hulked like a football lineman. Professional football. They were both conservatively dressed in gray business suits. Both had taut, clean-shaven faces.
“Naval Intelligence,” said the man by the window. He fished a wallet from his inside jacket pocket and dangled it over the desk. It held an official-looking identification card.
“Will you come with us, please?”
“What do you mean? Where…?”
“Please, Dr. Stoner. It’s very important.”
The big agent by the door gripped Stoner’s arm around the biceps. Lightly but firmly. The smaller man came around the desk and the three of them started down the hallway in step.
Jo Camerata stood by Stoner’s office door, gaping at them. The expression on her face was not shock or even anger. It was guilt.
* * *
<
br /> …Jansky had unexpectedly recorded radio waves from the Galaxy while investigating…crackles and noises that interfere with radio communication. Jansky’s discovery in 1932 marked the first successful observation in radio astronomy. It is indeed strange that it took so long to recognize that radio waves were reaching us from celestial sources.
J. S. HEY
The Evolution of Radio Astronomy
Science History Publications
1973
* * *
CHAPTER 3
In Moscow it was nearly 11 P.M. A gentle snow was sifting out of the heavy, leaden sky, covering the oldest monuments and newest apartment blocks alike with a fine white powder. By dawn, old men and women would be at their posts along every street, methodically sweeping the snow off the sidewalks for the lumbering mechanical plows to scoop up.
Kirill Markov glanced at the clock on the bed stand.
“That tickles,” said the girl.
He looked down at her. For a moment he could not recall her name. It was hard to make out her face in the darkness, but the golden luster of her long sweeping hair caught the faint light of the streetlamp outside the window. Nadia, he remembered at last. Sad, a part of his mind reflected, that when you pursue a woman you can think of nothing else, but once you’ve got her she becomes so forgettable.
Woman! he snorted to himself. She’s only a girl.
“You’re tickling me!”
Markov saw that his beard was the culprit and, moving his chin in a tiny circle, ran the end of the whiskers around the nipple of her right breast.
She giggled and clutched him around the neck.
“Can you do it again?” she asked.
“In English,” Markov said to her in a gentle whisper. “Our bargain was that all our lovemaking will be done in English. It is the best way to learn a foreign language.”
She pressed her lips together and frowned with concentration. Her face is really quite ordinary, Markov thought. Vapid, even.
Still frowning, she said slowly in English, “Are you able to fork me another time?” Her accent was atrocious.
Suppressing a laugh, Markov said, “Fuck…not fork.”
She nodded. “Are you able to fuck me another time?”
“That word is considered to be in bad taste by the English and the Americans. Not so by the Australians.”
“Fork?”
“No. Fuck. They usually employ a euphemism for the word.”
“Euphemism?”
Markov’s eyes rolled heavenward. She’ll never pass the exams, no matter whose bed she flops into. As he explained in Russian the meaning of the word, he mentally added, Unless she can fuck the computer.
“Now I understand,” Nadia said in English.
“Good,” he said.
“Well, can you?”
“Can I what?”
“You know…”
“Ah!” Realizing that her mind had not deviated from its carnal goal, he replied, “Make love to you once again? Gladly! With white-hot passion. But not now. It is time for you to get back to your dormitory.”
In Russian she bleated, “Must I? It’s so cozy and warm here.” Her fingers traced lines down his shoulder and back.
“It won’t be cozy much longer. My wife will be returning very soon.”
“Oh, her!”
Markov sat up on the bed. The room felt cold to his bare skin.
“She is my wife, dear child, and this is her apartment even more than it is mine. Do you think a mere university professor of languages would be given such an elegant apartment, in such a fine part of town?”
The girl got up out of the bed and padded naked to the bathroom without another word. Watching her, Markov saw that she was heavy in the thighs and rump. He hadn’t noticed that before they had gone to bed together.
Sighing, he pulled himself out of the bed and stripped off the sheets. He kept two sets of bedclothing: one for the marriage and one for fun. His wife had a keen sense of smell and was fastidious about certain things.
Nadia re-entered the bedroom, tugging on her quilted slacks and stuffing her blouse into the waistband.
“What does she do, this wife of yours, to rate such a fancy apartment? A private bathroom, just for the two of you!” It was almost a reproach.
“She works in the Kremlin,” said Markov. “She is a secretary to a commissar.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh, I see. No wonder she is treated so well.”
Markov nodded and reached for his robe. “Yes. In our progressive society, the commissars work so hard and give so much of their lives for the good of the people that even their secretaries live like…like we shall all live, once true communism is established throughout the world.”
She nodded without acknowledging the irony in his words. He walked her through the little sitting room to the hallway door.
“This is a wonderful way to learn English,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’ll need many lessons.”
Markov patted her shoulder. “We’ll see. We’ll see. In the meantime it might be a good idea for you to study the regular lessons and spend more time with the tapes in the language lab.”
“Oh, I will,” she said earnestly. “Thank you, Professor.”
He leaned down to kiss her lips, then swiftly ushered her through the door and out into the dimly lit hallway.
Closing the door behind her, Markov leaned against it for a moment. Hopeless, he told himself. Forty-five years old and you still play childish games.
But then a grin broke out on his bearded face. “Why not?” he mused. “It’s fun.”
He was an inch over six feet in height, lanky in build with long legs and arms that swung loosely at his sides when he walked. His reddish hair was starting to fade and his scraggly beard was almost entirely gray. But his face was still unlined and almost boyish. The ice-blue eyes twinkled. The full lips often smiled.
When he lectured at the university his voice was strong and clear; he needed no microphone to reach the farthest rows of the auditorium. When he sang—usually at small parties where the vodka flowed generously—his baritone was remarkable for its fine timbre and lack of pitch.
He pulled himself away from the front door abruptly, hurried into the bedroom and finished changing the sheets. The soiled ones he stuffed into the special suitcase he kept behind his writing desk. Once a week he laundered them in the machine in the basement of the student lounge at the university. It was a good place to meet girls who didn’t attend his classes.
Finally, he scrubbed himself down, pulled the heavy robe around his tingling skin and sat in his favorite chair in the front room, before the electric heater. He was just picking up a heavy tome and sliding his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose when he heard Maria’s key scratching at the door.
Maria Kirtchatovska Markova was slightly older than her husband. Her family came from peasant stock, a fact that she was proud of. And she looked it: short, heavyset, narrow untrusting eyes of muddy brown, hair the color of a field mouse, cut short and flat. She was no beauty and never had been. Nor was she a secretary to a commissar.
When Markov had first met her, a quarter century earlier, he had been a student of linguistics at the university and she a uniformed guard recently discharged from the Red Army. She was ambitious, he was brilliant.
Their union was one of mutual advantage. He had thought that marriage would make love blossom, and was shocked to find that it did not. She quickly agreed to let him pursue “his own interests,” as he euphemistically referred to his affairs. Maria wanted only his intelligence to help further her own career in the government.
Their arrangement worked well. Maria was recruited by the KGB and rose, over the years, to the rank of major. She was now assigned to an elite unit concerned with cryptanalysis—decoding other people’s secret messages. To the best of Markov’s knowledge, his wife had never arrested anyone, never interrogated a prisoner, never been involved in the tortures and killings that were always darkl
y rumored whenever anyone dared to whisper of the security police.
Markov was now a professor of linguistics at the same university where he had been a student. His career was unremarkable, except for one thing: his fascination with codes, cryptology and exotic languages. He occasionally wrote magazine articles about languages that alien creatures might use to make contact with the human race. He had even written a slim book about possible extraterrestrial languages, and the government had even printed it. He never bothered to wonder if he would have risen so far without Maria, except now and then in the dead of night, when she was busy at her office and he had no one else to sleep with.
“Aren’t you cold, with nothing on but that robe?” Maria asked as she closed the door and let her heavy shoulder bag thump to the floor.
“No,” Markov said, peering over the rims of his glasses. “Not now, with you here.”
She made a sour face. “Been tutoring your students again?” She knew how to use euphemisms, too.
He shrugged. It was none of her business. Besides, even though she knew all about it, she always got angry when he spoke of it openly. Strange woman, he thought. You’d think she would have become accustomed to the situation. After all, she did agree to the arrangement.
“Why do you have to work so late?” he asked her without getting up from his easy chair. He knew that she would not answer. Could not. Most of her work was so sensitive that she could not discuss it with her husband. But once in a great while, when she was really stumped on a code or a translation, she would let him take a stab at it. Often he failed, but there had been a few times when he’d made a Hero of the Soviet Union out of her.
Maria plopped into the chair closest to the electrical space heater. Little puddles of melted snow started to grow around her boots, soaking into the ancient oriental rug. She glared at the heater. “This thing isn’t working right,” she grumbled.
“It’s the voltage, I think,” Markov said. “They must have lowered the voltage again, to save power.”