Voyagers I

by Ben Bova

  “And we freeze.”

  “It’s necessary, I suppose,” he said.

  She looked him over: her wary, cynical peasant’s gaze of appraisal. Can I trust him? she was asking herself, Markov knew. He could read her face like a child’s primer.

  “Do you really want to know what’s keeping me at headquarters so late each night?” she asked slowly.

  He pursed his lips. “Not if it involves anything you shouldn’t tell me.” Turning back to the book on his lap, “Don’t let me tempt you into revealing state secrets.”

  “I know I can trust you—in certain things.”

  Markov concentrated on his reading.

  “Kirill! Look at me when I speak to you! I need your help.”

  He looked up.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  She was really upset. Beneath her wary exterior he saw something close to fear in her face.

  “What is it?” he asked, taking off his glasses.

  “You must come with me tomorrow to headquarters. You must be investigated and checked out.”

  “Investigated? Why? What have I done?”

  She shook her head, eyes closed wearily. “No, it’s nothing like that. Don’t be afraid. It’s a routine security investigation. Before we can show you the data, you must have a security clearance.”

  Markov’s heart was thumping now. His palms felt clammy. “What data? If it’s so sensitive, why should I be involved?”

  “Because of that silly book you wrote. They want to talk to you about it.”

  “My book on extraterrestrial languages? But that was published six years ago.”

  Maria opened her eyes and leveled a bone-chilling gaze at her husband. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. The problem was brought to us by the Academy of Sciences.”

  “The Academy…?”

  “Academician Bulacheff himself. The chairman.”

  The reading glasses slid off the book on Markov’s lap and dropped to the carpet. He made no move to pick them up.

  “Kir,” Maria asked, “do you know where the planet Jupiter is? What it is?”

  “Jupiter?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s the largest planet of the solar system. Much bigger than the Earth. But it’s cold, far away from the Sun.”

  “There are radio signals coming from Jupiter,” Maria said, her eyes closing again, as if trying to squeeze away the problem. “Radio signals. We need you to tell us if they are a language.”

  “A language?” His voice sounded strangely high-pitched, like a frightened boy’s.

  “Yes. These radio signals may be a language. From intelligent creatures. That is why we need you to study them.”

  * * *

  Leading Physicist Says Bible Proves…

  ADAM AND EVE WERE ASTRONAUTS

  BY JAMES MCCANDLISH

  Adam and Eve were astronauts from outer space who landed on Earth 6,000 years ago.

  They came in a spaceship that so over-awed the primitive people of that time that the legend of the Garden of Eden was born to explain the amazing event.

  That is the startling conclusion of Dr. Irwin Ginsburgh, a leading physicist, who has studied the Bible and ancient religious texts for 30 years.

  “My research shows that Genesis is not a myth, but a brilliant scientific report that documents the beginning of creation,” says Dr. Ginsburgh, who published a book on his astonishing findings.

  And the world-famous researcher Erich Von Daniken—who presented evidence of ancient astronauts in his book, “Chariots of the Gods?”—told The ENQUIRER: “I am convinced Dr. Ginsburgh’s conclusions are true.”

  National Enquirer

  January 16, 1979

  * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  It was small, even by the standards of high school gymnasiums, but it was packed solidly with people. They sat on hard wooden benches and watched the slim, swaying blondish figure down at the center line of the basketball court.

  Microphone in hand, held so close to his lips that every intake of breath echoed off the bare tile walls of the gym, Willie Wilson preached his gospel:

  “And what is it that Jesus hates?”

  “Sin!” cried the eager voices of the crowd. The noise exploded inside the gym, reverberating off the stark walls, pounding at the ears.

  “What is it?”

  “Sin!” they screamed louder.

  “Tell me!”

  “SIN!” they roared.

  Fred Tuttle, lieutenant commander, United States Navy, clapped his hands over his hurting ears and grinned. He was up on the last row of benches, back to the wall. Unlike the blue-jeaned, tee-shirted crowd around him, Tuttle was wearing neatly pressed slacks and a turtleneck shirt. His jacket was carefully folded on his lap.

  “This world is full of sin!” Willie Wilson was bellowing into his microphone. “It’s dying of sin! And who can save such a sinful world? Who’s the only one that can save this dying world?”

  “Jesus!” they thundered. “JESUS!”

  “Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that’s entirely right.” Wilson’s voice fell to a hoarse whisper, and the echoes rattling around the tile-walled gym died away. The crowd leaned forward, eager to hear Wilson’s every word. “But Jesus can’t do it alone. Could if He wanted to, naturally, but that is not God’s way. Not God’s way. God isn’t a loner. If God went His way alone, He would never have created man. He would never have created this sinful flesh and this sinful world. He would never have sent His only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to come amongst us and show us His Way. Now, would He?”

  A murmur of “No” rippled through the crowd.

  “Jesus God wants to save this world. He wants to save you! He loves you. He made you in His own divine image, didn’t He? He wants you to be just like Him, and with Him, in paradise forever and ever.”

  “Amen,” someone called.

  “Amen to you, brother,” Wilson answered, and wiped sweat from his brow with his free hand. “Jesus wants to save us. Save the world. But He needs your help. He didn’t design this world for Himself. He designed it for you—each and every one of us. And He won’t save it unless we show Him—prove to Him—that we want to be saved!”

  A trim-figured man with close-cropped brown hair pushed along the row of rapt listeners and squeezed down next to Tuttle.

  “We got him,” he said, leaning over to speak right into Tuttle’s ear.

  The lieutenant commander made a shushing gesture with his lips and held up a hand to silence the other man.

  Willie Wilson, sweat drenching his sky-blue denim suit, was finishing his sermon. “This is our world. Jesus God made it for us and gave it to us. He made us to live in it, to be happy, to be fruitful and multiply. To worship Him and hate sin. He made us in His divine image, and when we commit sin—when we turn our backs on Jesus—we distort that heavenly image into something evil and ugly.”

  He paused and turned a full circle to peer at the crowd.

  “Now, that’s something to think about, isn’t it? Something to ponder on. So let us pray. Let’s meditate on how easy it is to commit sin and how hard it is to be righteous. And while we’re meditating, the Sacred Rock Singers will praise the Lord in their own special way.”

  The crowd roared its approval, and a platoon of robed young men and women, armed with electric guitars and other implements, trotted out onto center court.

  Tuttle turned to the man beside him. “Say again?”

  “We got him. Picked him up this afternoon. They’re driving him to the safe house.”

  “Good.”

  “I hope so. This isn’t the old days, you know. We’re out on a limb with nothing but your say-so.”

  “Did he offer any resistance?” Tuttle asked.

  “No.”

  “Then technically, he went voluntarily.”

  “I hope that holds up in court.”

  “It won’t go to court.”

  “You ca
n’t holler National Security and do whatever you feel like anymore.”

  The Sacred Rock Singers began to beat out a heavily amplified gospel song. The crowd immediately recognized it and began clapping in rhythm to it.

  “I’ll back you up,” Tuttle yelled over the noise. “It was doggone important to get Stoner before he ran off at the mouth.”

  The man beside him said something in reply, but it was lost in the music and clapping.

  “What?” Tuttle yelled.

  The man shook his head in disgust, got up and pushed his way out of the crowd.

  Dazedly, Keith Stoner sat on the bed of the room they had put him in. It was a comfortable bed with an old-fashioned tufted white coverlet spread neatly across it. The room was small but snug. An unused fireplace in one corner, a single wingback chair covered with a design of blotchy flowers. The bed table, one lamp, a digital alarm clock, a bureau, doors that led to a closet and a bathroom.

  And the door that led into the hallway. Locked.

  The two men who had identified themselves as Naval Intelligence agents had bundled Stoner into their unmarked black Plymouth without giving him a chance to say a word to anyone. Only Jo Camerata knew what had happened to him.

  They had driven for hours, until Stoner felt they were deliberately trying to confuse him, to make certain he could not retrace their route. It grew dark and still they drove through the New England countryside, mainly along back roads.

  “Where the hell are you guys going?” Stoner demanded.

  “Just relax,” said the agent sitting beside him on the rear seat of the car. He called himself Dooley. The bigger one was up front, driving, his massive bulk hunched over the steering wheel.

  Stoner tried to keep track of the road signs, but they were swerving and lurching along back roads in complete darkness. They could have been passing open fields, or huge buildings, or even the ocean. The sky had clouded over and there were no lights along the roadside.

  Finally they pulled onto a crunching, bumpy gravel driveway. Stoner saw thick boles of venerable trees leaning close in the dim light of the car’s headlamps. A house loomed up ahead of them: big and old and boxy. The shingles were unpainted cedar. The car slowed, and in the headlamp glow Stoner could see a garage door swinging up automatically for them. They drove into the lighted garage and stopped.

  “Wait a minute,” Dooley said.

  Stoner sat still and heard the garage door swing down again. Then the car’s door locks clicked open.

  “Okay.”

  The driver was out of the car before Stoner could get his door open, and stood waiting alongside as he climbed out.

  “You guys don’t take any chances, do you?” Stoner said to them.

  Dooley let a slight smile cross his lips. “Against a black belt? We watched you working out.”

  Poor scared pigs, Stoner thought. All they’ve got is guns and bullets.

  They led him into the house, an old Yankee farmhouse that had obviously been remodeled by a millionaire. The original rooms were small, with low ceilings that sagged so much the timber beams almost touched Stoner’s head. Fireplaces in each room. And radiant baseboard electrical heating units. Thermal windows. A sparkling ultramodern kitchen, and another small kitchen just off the living room that served as a wet bar. The living room itself was all new, wide, spacious, with a high slanted cathedral ceiling. Beyond it were sliding glass doors that looked out onto a sunken swimming pool. Not quite Olympic size, but big enough.

  They led him up a narrow staircase to the second floor.

  “This will be your room, Dr. Stoner,” Dooley said, opening a bedroom door. “There’s some clothes in the closet that should fit you. Bathroom with shower through there. Socks and stuff in the bureau.”

  “How the hell long am I going to be here?” he asked. “Don’t I get a phone call or something?”

  Dooley gave another tight smile. “We’ll bring dinner up to you. Somebody will be here to talk to you in the morning. No phone calls.”

  So Stoner sat on the bed and watched raindrops start to spatter on the dark window, listened to the rain drumming against the old house.

  This must be how they felt when the Nazis bundled them off to Dachau, he thought. Stunned…confused…totally off balance.

  There could be only one reason for it, he realized. They wanted to keep him quiet, to prevent him from telling the world what he had discovered.

  Which meant he was truly a prisoner.

  * * *

  I think, therefore, that we will get a message, but it will not be simple…

  …which will come (perhaps in ten years, or a hundred, or maybe longer)—when some satisfactory radio-telescope work or something similar will acquire evidence of the deliberate beaming of a protracted message from space. First, the most important issue is the recognition of the message…

  PHILIP MORRISON

  Life Beyond Earth & the Mind of Man

  Edited by Richard Berendzen

  National Aeronautics and Space

  Administration

  NASA SP-328

  1973

  * * *

  CHAPTER 5

  “Professor Markov, you are a Party member?”

  Markov nodded at the woman.

  “But you have never been admitted to the Academy?”

  “Not yet,” he answered with a frosty smile.

  They were sitting in a tiny interrogation room, a cramped, blank-walled windowless chamber. One of the fluorescent lamps in the ceiling was flickering; Markov could feel it tapping against his brain like a Chinese water torture. Deliberate? he wondered. Part of the interrogation? Or simply the usual sloppy maintenance?

  The woman sitting across the small wooden table wore the tan uniform with red tabs and insignia of a lieutenant. She could not have been more than twenty-two, and she was taking this interrogation very seriously.

  Markov decided to be charming.

  “My dear young lady, you have my entire life story in those papers spread before you. It hasn’t been a very colorful life, I admit, but if there is any special part of it that you want me to relate to you…”

  She glanced down at the checklist on which her left hand rested. She held a chewed pencil in her right.

  “You are married?” she asked.

  She’s going to go through the whole damned list, Markov groaned to himself. This will take hours.

  “Yes. My wife is Maria…”

  “Not yet,” the lieutenant said, diligently making another check mark in the appropriate box. “Children?”

  “None.”

  “Wife’s first name?”

  “Maria.”

  “Maiden name?”

  “Kirtchatovska.”

  It made no impression on the lieutenant. She apparently had no idea that Major Markova had the power to make a lieutenant’s life very uncomfortable.

  “How long have you been married?”

  “All my life.”

  She looked up sharply. “What?”

  Markov smiled at her. It’s really quite a pretty face, he thought. I wonder what she would do if I leaned across the table and took a nibble of that luscious lower lip?

  “Twenty-four years this January,” he said.

  She looked down again and wrote on the checklist. Then her eyes rose to meet his. “Twenty-four years and no children?”

  “I suffer from a sad malady,” Markov lied cheerfully. “The result of a war trauma, the psychologists say.”

  “You’re…impotent?” She whispered the last word.

  Markov shrugged. “It’s all psychological. Sometimes, on very rare occasions when I have found someone beautiful and truly loving, I am a tiger. But with most women…nothing.”

  “But how does your wife…?”

  The interrogation room door was flung open by a stocky man in a captain’s uniform. “Haven’t you finished the forms yet? The colonel is waiting!”

  Unfolding his lanky frame so that he had the advantage of height o
ver the young captain, Markov suggested, “If you are certain that I’m not a spy or an assassin, perhaps I could meet the colonel and then return here afterward to finish the forms.”

  The lieutenant stood up too. “Or I could complete the interview after the working day is finished.”

  Markov said carefully, “I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “I often work late,” she said. “And these forms are strictly routine. There’s nothing sensitive about them. We could even complete the interview at your apartment, if that is more convenient for you, Professor.”

  The captain snapped, “We don’t conduct security interviews in people’s apartments!”

  With a sad shrug, Markov reached for his chair. “Very well then. I suppose we’ll have to finish this here and keep the colonel waiting.”

  “No,” the captain decided. “You will see the colonel now, and then return here to complete the interview. No matter how long it takes.”

  “Whatever you say,” Markov agreed meekly. But he winked at the lieutenant.

  She kept a straight face and said, “I will see you in this room, no matter how late it is.”

  It was difficult for Markov to suppress a grin as he followed the stocky captain down the featureless corridors. The walls were bare of decoration and even though they had apparently been freshly painted, the halls looked grim and almost shabby. Men and women, most of them in uniform, hurried through the halls. Although Markov could see no cameras anywhere, he got the feeling that everyone was being watched constantly.

  The captain took him as far as an anteroom, in which a doughy-faced middle-aged civilian woman commanded a large desk with an electric typewriter and two telephones. She flashed Markov a disapproving glance, the kind that his wife often gave, the kind that automatically made him raise his hands to straighten his thinning lank hair and beard. Then she nodded to the captain and gestured wordlessly to the door beyond her desk.

  The captain, motioning Markov to follow him, went to the door, knocked once and slowly—carefully—opened it.

  Does no one speak here? Markov wondered. Are we at a shrine?