Emprise (17 page)

“But you said it’s getting too hard for you by yourself. We have computers that could do the hard labor, and you could just do the thinking.”

Eddington showed a spark of interest. “They’d let me do that?”

“They encourage us students to have projects of our own. I can’t believe it’d be different for the staff. And maybe I’d get to see you some. Oh, please, give it a try.”

The waitress arrived at that moment and slid a steaming golden-crusted pie before each of them. “Perhaps I will,” Eddington said, unfolding a napkin. “Perhaps I will.”

Terry Miller cracked open the door to Aikens’s office and poked his head through the gap. “Have half a minute, boss?” Aikens set aside his scratchpad and waved the Science Service personnel director in. “What’s up?”

“Nothing too weighty, it’s just that I’ve got an applicant I don’t quite know what to do with. He’s an old one, claims to know you. Laurence Eddington.”

Aikens’s breath caught in his throat. “Good Lord.”

“You do know him, then?”

“Quite well. What’s your problem?”

“I don’t know how to place him—or should I place him? You seem put off.”

“No,” said Aikens, removing the glasses he had come to need and wiping the right lens. “We owe him something. If truth be told, there’d be no Consortium if not for him.”

“So where would he be best put?”

Aikens shook his head. “He has nothing to contribute as an idea man. Or a detail man, for that matter. He’s a lone wolf, not good at following another’s lead.”

Miller perched on the arm of a chair. “Croyden Institute’s still short-staffed. Could he handle the mathematics classes there? I’d like to free up Dr. Avidsen for full-time work on Star Rise—he’s been splitting his time, and Driscoll is pushing them hard over there.”

“What level are the classes?”

“Second form and some independent study.”

“Who else is over there in that department?”

“Um—just Dalton, I think.”

Aikens mulled over his answer for a few moments, cleaning the other lens. Then he replaced the glasses and looked up. “There—that’s better. Yes, he could do that. And as I say, we owe him something.”

“What level clearance should he receive? Class A?”

“Ws don’t owe him that much,” Aikens said quickly, and sighed. “He knows about the Senders, or I’d try to hold him at class C. Class B, I suppose. But let’s keep him on the restricted briefing list for a while.”

“Done. Look, since you know him, do you want to tell him about his appointment yourself? I asked him to come back tomorrow.”

That question required no introspection. “No. But pass on my best.”

“Of course.”

Eddington thought his new position ideal. Not only did he inherit several bright students from Avidsen, but he also inherited Avidsen’s generous personal allotment of CPU time on the school’s mainframe computer. After finding he did not need to justify how he used either, he enlisted the students and appropriated the CPU time so as to push work on the message forward.

In the arrays and patterns returned to him, Eddington saw the face of the Senders. It still took him many hours to draw the subtle inferences and follow the elegant clues. But since he was able to concentrate on that aspect alone, the pace of progress quickened.

After just ten months at Croyden, he felt the triumph of completion. From a deceptively simple 333-character message, he had evolved more than three hundred pages of data on the Senders: their world, their biology, their society, their ethos. He reread his report that night with deep satisfaction. The Senders had offered a test. Only he, Eddington, had recognized it. Only he had taken on its challenge. Only he had mastered it. All his previous failures faded into inconsequentiality beside this achievement. He knew the Senders as no other human did, and he would gain the recognition due him at last.

Eddington fell asleep that night clutching the binder to his chest. In the morning, he called for an appointment with Driscoll.

“I’m afraid it works the other way around, Dr. Eddington,” said his secretary. “As busy as the director is, he decides who he wants to see and calls them in. But I can arrange a meeting with Dr. Aikens for you—”

“You tell Driscoll that Larry Eddington at Croyden has some information he’d better make sure
he
has before he makes one more decision. You tell him that,” Eddington said angrily, “and we’ll see if he doesn’t want to see me.”

No return call came that day, and the next morning Eddington started over.

“Larry Eddington to speak to Dr. Driscoll.”

“Dr. Driscoll is not available.” There was a noticeable frostiness in the secretary’s voice. “Then schedule me to see him when he is available.”

“As I tried to explain to you yesterday, I can’t do that.”

“Did you give him my message?”

“Dr. Driscoll is an extremely busy man with many responsibilities—”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“If you’ll let me finish, I was trying to tell you that I passed your request to Dr. Aikens.”

“I don’t want to see that old fool. You stop making decisions for your boss and give him this message. Tell him the Senders live on the second planet of a seven-world system, live to be a hundred and fifty, and have never known war. You got that? Tell him exactly. And tell him that when he wants to know more, I’m the only one who has it to give.” He hung up, pleased with himself.

Late that day, relaxing between classes in his Croyden office, Eddington received the call he had been confident would come.

“Dr. Eddington, please.”

“Speaking.”

“This is Director Driscoll’s secretary. He has asked me to call and inform you he wishes to see you at ten A.M. Friday, and asked that you bring the information you spoke of. Have you been here before?”

“No.”

“If you present your identification at the main gate, you’ll be escorted to the administration offices.”

“Fine. Oh, sweetheart, one thing—it isn’t
Dr
. Eddington. It’s Larry. One can put too much stock in titles, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid that my good manners prevent me from saying what I think, Mr. Eddington. Good day.”

Amused, Eddington replaced the receiver, and leaned back in his chair.
You shut me out, Marc
, he thought.
You wanted it all. Well, just wait until you hear. Just wait until you find out you ended up with nothing
.

Driscoll introduced himself and offered Eddington a seat. “Who’s that?” Eddington asked, nodding towards the short, black-haired man seated across the room.

“Jawaharlal Moraji. He’s from the Consortium staff in Delhi. I asked him here. He’ll report to Chairman Rashuri when he returns.”

“Very good,” said Eddington. “I’m glad you’re taking this as seriously as it needs taking.”

“Yes,” Driscoll said ambiguously. “How is it you know about the Senders?”

“How much has Aikens twisted the story?” Eddington asked, suddenly angry. “I was the first. No one in England knew about the Senders before me. I made the first recordings of the signal. I called Aikens and the others in. They took their lead from me. But I didn’t get any recognition for it. Aikens got a big office here with you. I got bundled off to Maudsley.”

In the wake of his outburst there was silence.

“I just want you to understand that I had to do this on my own,” Eddington went on, his tone moderating. “Aikens thought the greeting level of the message was all there was. Good God, a twelve-year-old girl was able to translate it, but he didn’t think there was anything more to the Senders than that.”

“But there is, you say.”

Eddington shook his binder in the air. “There are
six
levels, every one more revealing than the last. They knew that we would be curious about them, but at the same time they wanted to be more cautious than we had been with what we sent them.”

“So they double-encrypted it.”

“And more. For the highest levels, nothing was concrete. I had to use the mathematical implications of what they said to interpolate what they wouldn’t say. They think very differently than we do, Director.”

“So tell us, then—what are the Cassiopeians like?”

Eddington set the binder on the floor at his feet and leaned forward in his chair. “Physically, they’re tall, slender, lightly furred bipeds,” he said earnestly. “Because of the lower gravity and thinner atmosphere, they have an enlarged chest cavity and hear with large vibration antennae, kind of like a moth’s. They evolved from a fast-moving herbivore that inhabited their planet’s temperate zones a few million years ago. There’s nothing like them here, because the energy value of our plants is too low by comparison. All our fast herbivores are small.”

“They told you that they evolved, then,” said Driscoll from behind his folded hands.

“They told us the outlines of everything. What do you want to know? Their system has seven planets, and they live on the second one. It has a thirty-two-hour day and a great equatorial mountain range. There are two moons, both smaller than ours. Three of the other planets are visible from their surface. Now, this is really interesting,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “Since they developed in close harmony with nature, their family unit is organized according to astronomical principles. There’s a sexually neutered elder, representing the sun; two producers, or workers, symbolized by the fast-moving moons; and a breeding triad, two donors and a host.”

“The visible planets, I presume,” said Driscoll.

“Yes. They’re thought to have the attributes of stability and patience.” Eddington grinned. “Their children must be like ours, eh?”

“You said something about them never conducting a war.”

“They’re not acquisitive, and everyone has a voice in the conduct of society through their family elder—that’s all there are, just two levels to their power structure. They don’t have nations as we know them. What reason do they have to fight?” he asked, spreading his hands wide, palms up.

“You have to take their word on all this, of course,” said Driscoll.

“It also meshes with their philosophical and religious beliefs.”

“Oh? What do they believe in?” asked Moraji.

“Family. They teach their own children, police their own transgressors, care for their own sick and aged. That’s more than tradition, it’s a religious obligation. Beyond that, they believe in eternal life as part of the living fabric of their universe. Elders brighten the sun, producers speed the moons in their orbits, breeders confer their fertility on the visible planets.”

“Very symmetrical of them.”

“Oh, they’re very special in a lot of ways. Look, I could tell you about them for hours, but it would probably be easier if I just left you this”—he held the binder on his knee—“and then came back to talk about it when you’re done. There are some things I want to know from you, too—these rumors about a spaceship, other things.”

Driscoll walked across the room to take the binder. “You have copies, I presume?”

“Of course. And it’s in a protected computer file at Croyden.” Eddington kept his grip on the binder as Driscoll grasped it. “This is three years of my life,” he said softly. “I’m trusting you.”

“You’ll get the credit you deserve,” Driscoll promised.

Eddington stood, shook Driscoll’s hand, then crossed the room to shake Moraji’s as well. “I’m so glad to be dealing with intelligent men,” said Eddington, pausing at the door. “Men who can recognize what this means. Not hidebound dogmatists like Aikens.”

“Thank you for bringing it to us,” Driscoll said.

The moment the door closed behind Eddington, Driscoll rolled his eyes skyward and shook his head. “I should have been an actor.”

“A fanciful man. I found much of what he said intriguing,” said Moraji.

“Oh, I was entertained myself,” said Driscoll, dropping the binder on his desk unceremoniously. “But there’s not a word of fact in what he said, and he certainly didn’t get any of it from us. If his story checks with Aikens, then all we have is a crank, not a security leak.”

“I will check it immediately, of course.”

“You also had better think about having him institutionalized again. He’ll expect us to take action on this. When we don’t, I have no doubt he’ll start to proselytize elsewhere.”

“He could be a danger in that way,” Moraji agreed. “I will have him picked up.”

“Be sure to get the other copies of this,” said Driscoll, tapping the binder. “Wrong as it is, it’s not the kind of thing we want lying around.”

Seated in the enclosed courtyard adjoining his office, Rashuri listened raptly as Moraji recounted Eddington’s extrapolations.

“My friend, where would I be today without your vigilance and circumspection?” he said affectionately when Moraji finished.

“You rise on your own great spirit, Devaraja, not on my poor assistance,” Moraji answered.

“Modestly ill suits you, good Jawaharlal.”

Moraji beamed. “Then no doubt you would be farming the Thai Desert now without the benefit of my wisdom and guidance.” Rashuri laughed gently. “Eddington is safely in our custody, I trust.”

“He is.”

“And you have a copy of his work?”

“I took the precaution of retaining one.”

“Then see that it’s copied and delivered to all who were at this morning’s gathering. I will draft a note asking them to evaluate its usefulness to us.”

“It will not find favor with Dr. Driscoll.”

“Then have him come see me, and perhaps we can resolve our differences in private.”

Driscoll arrived within the hour, bearing a copy of Eddington’s treatise. His eyes seethed with anger.

“What land of a fool are you?” he demanded without preamble. Flinging the report into a rattan waste container, he shot Rashuri a challenging look. “That’s where that belongs. I can’t believe you’ve given it even a moment’s consideration.”

“I don’t wish you to misunderstand me,” said Rashuri calmly. “I’ve given it more than consideration. I hope to use it as part of our general announcement.”

“You know that not a word of it is true.”

“I know nothing of the sort.”

“It isn’t science or the product of science. It’s fantasy, the product of an obsessed and unstable mind. A dedicated numerologist can come up with anything with enough numbers and enough time. But it has no more validity than if I were to try to divine your personality by running my fingers over the bumps on your head.”

“That may be,” said Rashuri. “But his is a concrete, benign vision. It answers the questions—and the fears—an unadorned announcement would raise. His aliens are everything we would want these strangers to be.”

“But the whole business is totally chimerical! Eddington’s invented it all!”

“You mean to say that in every detail, from the specific to the general, Eddington is wrong. You’ve reviewed his methods in detail and found them wanting.”

“I’ll put it this way—the woods behind my home have a better chance of arranging themselves into a log cabin during a windstorm than he has of being right.”

“Very well,” said Rashuri. “Then tell me what the Senders
are
like.”

Driscoll stared at Rashuri with open surprise. His mouth worked noiselessly. “You know I can’t do that,” he said at last. “You need not match Eddington’s detail. Just provide me with a demonstrable fact or two which contradicts his account.” Concern creased Driscoll’s forehead. “You know that the only objective fact is the message. Anything else is guesswork.”

“Then it’s on the basis of guesswork that you reject Eddington’s conclusions.”

Driscoll drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, shaking his head. “Arguing with you is like fencing with a goddamn ghost. Look, if you want absolute proof that he’s wrong, no, I don’t have it. If you want a considered judgment from the director of the Science Service, then I’ll say that what he gave us should be considered extremely speculative and highly suspect.

“If you want Ben Driscoll’s opinion, then I’ll tell you it feels wrong. I don’t see a society that thinks its sun and moons are ancestors as very likely to build a starship. I’m not even persuaded they would have a technological bent.”

“Perhaps not,” Rashuri said gravely. “But it is as easily true, I would think, that such mystical beliefs have made the heavens very important to them, and that, listening for their ancestors’ voices, they heard ours instead.”

“There’s no heading you off on this, is there?” Driscoll asked sadly. “My final decision won’t be made until we meet with the others and see their feelings.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment,” said Driscoll sharply.

“Believe what you like.”

“You’re going to consciously and deliberately lie to the one billion people on the NET.”

“I hope that more than that will hear our news. We intend to spread this among the independents as well.”

“Do you realize the shock you’re setting them up for? What about when we know what they’re really like? How will you tell them?”

“Eddington need not receive our imprimatur. The Consortium will break the news of the message. We will give Eddington his freedom and a pipeline to the people, and he will do the rest himself. By allowing his natural history to be presented as a speculative conception, we protect ourselves. If the masses reject it, so can we. If they accept it, we will still distance ourselves from it so that we can credibly correct any errors when contact finally is made.”

Driscoll wore an expression of disgust. “If it’s all the same to you, I won’t stay around to hear you make the others think this was their idea. Not when there’s real work to be done.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Rashuri said slowly. “What was it you said this morning? That you would tend to your business and trust us to handle ours? An excellent thought, since Star Rise still struggles to live up to its name. I wish you a safe and swift journey.”

It was a dismissal, and a cold one at that. Driscoll stood a moment, clenched and unclenched his fists, glaring, his chest rising and falling with barely contained emotion. Rashuri waited impassively, saying nothing, then raised his eyebrows as if to say, “
Aren’t you leaving?
” At last Driscoll threw out his hands as if pushing Rashuri away. To hell with you, then,” he muttered and stomped off.

With a sigh, Rashuri settled on a silk-covered divan and nibbed at his temples. “I don’t believe in your Christian devil, Benjamin,” he said to himself in a weary whisper. “But if he existed, I think sometimes he would be very fond of me.”

The announcement was made as soon as possible, which turned out to be twenty-seven days later, at noon, Greenwich time, December 12, 2016. Some thought had been given to choosing a date with some significance, an anniversary or historical benchmark. That notion was abandoned when it was realized that, for better or worse, whatever date was chosen would become a benchmark of such significance so as to overwhelm any prior associations it might have.

For the first time since its first satellite was activated, all PANCOMNET channels and all language bands carried the same programming. For the first time, the NET utilized on a global scale its capability of activating individual receivers and of taking over local broadcast systems. For the first time, no effort was made to fit a broadcast into the rhythms of local life: the broadcast was heard at dawn in Spanish America, at noon in western Europe, and late in the evening in Japan and Australia.

Every effort was made to assure the largest possible audience; Rashuri wanted the distorting effects of secondhand story-telling held to a minimum. Ominous announcements were carried on the quarter hour for the three days preceding the broadcast. Thirty minutes before it began, all PANCOMNET screens went black except for the legend SPECIAL BULLETIN IN and a backward-counting clock.

With ten minutes to go, all telephone service was interrupted by a repeating message to tune to the NET. Satellite transmitters carried an alert to the Americas and other independents via the shortwave frequencies which had, over the last four years, become a sort of Radio Free Pangaea.

Rashuri himself made the introductory speech, an unprecedented event in itself. But, though his prior appearances had been deliberately limited to carefully selected “news” footage and a series of flattering profiles, there were few in the audience who did not recognize him on sight.

Though the broadcast looked live and was labeled as such, every portion of it, from Rashuri’s words to each individual frame of supporting graphics, had been tested for clarity and effect on a variety of sample audiences. The only factor left to chance was the only factor beyond the Consortium’s control: the dynamic that would be generated in the days that followed by those who would be listening. The Consortium’s sociologists expressed confidence officially, but apprehensions privately. Whatever the reaction, it would be on a scale completely without historic equal.

“I am Devaraja Rashuri, Chairman of the Pangaean Consortium.”

A carefully calculated hesitation, and he continued, “It is with joy that I address you tonight, joy at the marvels of the Universe in which we live and joy that I am privileged to be alive at this moment in human history.

“I will let others explain to you the how and the why of the good news I have to share with you. I leave to them the task of placing my words in context and answering the questions they will raise.

“But before I proceed, I am obliged to offer an explanation some will take as an apology. It is not an apology, for I am convinced that all that was done was necessary.

“Since its inception, the Consortium has been keeping a secret—a secret kept for no reason other than to be certain that what we thought was so, truly was. Because of the unequaled importance of the issue, we owed it to you to be certain.

“No doubt now remains.

“So I come before you to share with you that secret. After hours of pondering I find no way but the simplest will do.”

The picture of Rashuri faded, and the massed billions watching were taken on an imaginary space flight much like the familiar sequence which each day, in each community of Earth, marked the start of the broadcast day. Except that this star was a little smaller and a little redder, and this trip ended on the surface of the second planet, not the third.

“We now know without any doubt that under another sky on another world, orbiting another star too faint in our own sky for most of us to see, there is life. These are beings that hold faith, know love, and celebrate their good fortune to exist. They are our brothers in the Universe.”

In the animation on the screen, there were figures moving in the distance, too far away and too obscured by haze to be seen clearly.

“Of their numbers, their shapes, their lives, we can only guess. But we know their minds stir with curiosity like ours do, and that their hearts stir with daring and bravery.

“We know that because they have sent a message to us, and that message tells of a tiny ship sent into the dark and lonely void that lies between our worlds. They are coming to meet us, to join hands with us. And we will go out to light the path for them, to greet them and guide them here as our guests. As we now count the years, they will reach our world in 2027. But I propose that we consider it Year 1 of a new Galactic Era.

“You need and have the right to know the many details of how this was discovered and confirmed, and about our preparations for their visit, and for the next two hours the men and women who have worked on those matters will share that with you. But I urge you not to let the details obscure the key point—

“We are not alone in the Universe.”

Rashuri paused. “Each of us has cause to think on that and realize what it means for them. For myself, it has renewed my pride in my membership in the human family—and my sense of responsibility. For all our foibles, we are Earth’s best. It falls to us to represent our world in this startling new arena. We must recognize both the honor and the burden of that duty. We must send our best sons and daughters as envoys. We must be at our finest when the Senders arrive, at peace with ourselves and in harmony with nature. And we must allow their differences not to frighten us, but to teach us the difficult lesson of the oneness of mankind.”

Rashuri’s speech was followed by a basic astronomy lesson which showed how to find Cassiopeia in the night sky and attempted to make clear the great distances at which its various components lay.

Next came a slightly sanitized docudrama depicting the message’s discovery. Allen Chandliss was portrayed as a much younger man, earnest of face and strong of mind, and nothing was said of his death. Penny Eddington, AKA Agatha, was described as a member of Tsiolkovsky Technical Institute, with her age not noted and a current—that is, putatively adult—portrait used. But aside from such omissions and careful phrasings, the tale was reasonably accurate.

A tour of PANCONTRAC was used as a vehicle to present the message and its translation, and ambiguous scenes from Sriharikota and the Orbital Operations Center were used as backdrop to an explanation of Project Star Rise. Not mentioned were Tai Chen’s defense platforms, the first of which was at that moment en route to the orbit of Pluto. Rashuri and his advisors hoped to avoid even the suggestion of xenophobia.

Eddington’s turn came in a heavily edited “interview” with a NET newscaster. Through the miracle of videotape, he appeared calm, reasonable, and confident as he described the life of the Senders of Mu Cassiopeia.

But the large-eyed, gracile Senders, as described by Eddington and given life by the NET’s graphic artists, were themselves more eloquent. The Sender family, six adults and two young, stood on an alien plain, speaking in a melodious but alien tongue, contemplating the setting of an alien sun, while subliminal messages spoke
home… trust… friendship
…
family
.

Then it was time not to talk, but to listen.

Through the last weeks of 2016 and into the new year, Rashuri’s agents listened in the public squares and the drinking houses to the call-in talk shows and to the comedians’ routines. His sociometrists sampled opinion and tested understanding. His economists watched productivity. His security forces watched Consortium installations. All were under the same orders: “Tell me nothing until you are certain—which way is it going to go?”

For the first three days, there was an edge to the atmosphere at Consortium headquarters. There was a bull market in rumors: industrial productivity was up ten percent (it wasn’t); the white inhabitants of Capetown were rioting (they weren’t); NET director Weddell had resigned in disgrace (he hadn’t).