Voyagers I (9 page)

“About my report,” Markov began slowly, waiting to be interrupted.

“Yes?”

“I presume you’ve read it?”

“Thoroughly.”

Markov nodded. “If these radio signals from Jupiter are not a language, doesn’t that mean that the chances of there being intelligent life there are rather…well, nonexistent?”

“I would agree, certainly,” Bulacheff said, hunching his shoulders in something approximating a shrug, “except that the Americans are working like fiends on the problem.”

“They are?”

Bulacheff began ticking points off on his fingers. Markov noted that they were long, slender, delicate hands: pianist’s hands.

“First, your friend Stoner is working on the problem. He has left the American space agency to work for a small, out-of-date radio telescope facility.”

Markov began to say, “He is not a friend of…”

But Bulacheff went on, “Second, Stoner has influence with the space agency people who run the Big Eye. It seems that they are processing photographs from the orbital telescope and sending them to Stoner, through secure channels.”

Markov nodded.

“Third, the entire staff of this radio telescope facility—including your friend Stoner—has been forced to sign new security oaths by the United States Navy…”

“Navy?”

Bulacheff smirked. “The Americans are very sloppy administrators. Somehow their Navy is in charge of this project.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It makes no difference. The conclusion is that they are working on the Jupiter problem in secrecy. It seems that they have put a code name to their work: Project JOVE. They have told their NATO apparatus about the problem, apparently.”

“Maybe they will make a public announcement, once they have proof…”

Bulacheff shook his head. “No. They will want to make contact with the aliens. And keep the information from us.”

“Then perhaps
we
should announce to the world that we have received their signals, also!”

Again Bulacheff flicked his eyes ceilingward. “That would be against our government’s policy.”

“But we can’t keep it a secret forever,” Markov insisted. “And since the Americans already know, and are ahead of us, it would be to our advantage to make the whole thing public and force a worldwide co-operative program.”

“I agree, Kirill Vasilovsk,” Bulacheff said. “I have considered that possibility.”

Markov nodded eagerly.

“Our ambassador to the United Nations could reveal
our
discovery of the radio signals,” Bulacheff said, steepling his fingers, “and then we would get credit all around the world for discovering intelligent life.”

“And we could recommend an international program to study the signals,” Markov added, his pulse racing. “The Americans would have to go in with us.”

“But that doesn’t mean the Americans would share their Big Eye photographs. They could claim that they have never used the telescope on Jupiter. They could still keep the information for themselves.”

“Oh,” said Markov, crestfallen.

“Which is why you are so important to us,” Bulacheff went on.

“I am?”

“Of course! The American, Stoner, apparently trusts you enough to write to you and reveal that he is working on the problem.”

“He never said in so many words…”

“Between the lines, Kirill Vasilovsk, between the lines.”

“Yes. I see.”

“Now you must write back to him. You must gain his further trust. Perhaps we can arrange for the two of you to meet—in America, perhaps.”

“Me?” Markov gulped with surprise. “Go to America?”

“Suitably escorted, of course. I understand your wife would be an admirable bodyguard for you.”

His heart sank again. “Yes…naturally…”

“It’s only a suggestion. The germ of an idea. But I think it’s important that you correspond with this man Stoner. Write him a long and friendly letter. Tell him how fascinated you are with the problem of extraterrestrial languages. Imply much, but reveal nothing.”

“I can try…”

“We will help you to compose the letter,” Bulacheff said cheerfully. “And, naturally, we will make sure that it is exactly correct before we send it overseas.”

“Naturally.”

“Good!” Bulacheff got to his feet so suddenly that Markov thought he had been stung in the rear. “I knew we could depend on you, Kirill Vasilovsk.”

Markov rose from the couch and started toward the door, Bulacheff alongside him.

“It’s time we put your name in for nomination to the Academy,” Bulacheff said, gesturing grandly. “After all, you are one of the Soviet Union’s leading linguists…and a very important man to us all.”

Markov bobbed his head meekly and took the academician’s proffered hand. He could hardly contain himself as he pulled on his coat, out in the anteroom, and pulled his fur hat down over his ears. Not even the glower of the fat secretary bothered him.

Out on the street, it was snowing harder than ever. Nothing was moving. No one else was in sight. The drifts were piling across the building’s front steps, head high. But Markov laughed, dug his gloved fingers into the snow and patted a snowball into shape. He threw it at the nearest streetlamp, nearly lost to sight in the swirling storm. The snowball flew unerringly upward through the slanting flakes and hit the lamp. The light winked out.

Startled, Markov glanced around to see if anyone had seen him destroy state property. Then he doubled over with laughter, nearly fell on the snow. Straightening up, he leaned into the wind and started the long trek back to his apartment, a boyish grin on his face, his beard beginning to look like an icicle.

“It’s all right, Maria Kirtchatovska,” he shouted into the falling snow. “Your fears were groundless. I am an important man. I will be elected to the Academy!”

Up in his warm office, Bulacheff watched Markov disappear into the snowy evening shadows.

“Fool,” he muttered. Swiveling his creaking chair away from the frost-crusted window, he poured himself another vodka. “Impressionable fool.”

The trouble is, the old man thought to himself, he is a thoroughly likable man. Immature, perhaps, but likable.

Bulacheff sighed and gulped down the vodka. Well, he told himself, if it all works out the way I want it to, Markov will become an academician. If not…it’s just as well that he likes to play in the snow.

“How did you get the letter out?” asked Lieutenant Commander Tuttle. He was standing, in uniform, before the fireplace.

Stoner looked at him for a long moment. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the flames, and the occasional pop of a knot in the firewood. McDermott sat across the coffee table, in the New England rocker. Stoner had the sofa to himself; he was in his sweat suit, they had caught him in the middle of his warm-up exercises, out by the pool.

“I slipped it into a letter I sent to a friend,” he answered carefully, “slapped a stamp on it and tossed it in with the reports and other crap that your couriers carry out of here every day.”

“You didn’t give it to Jo Camerata to mail for you?” McDermott asked, a tense edge to his raspy voice.

Stoner’s mind was racing. He made himself shrug. “She might have been the one who took that batch out; I really don’t know.”

Tuttle’s round face was grimly serious. “You realize that this is a security breach of prime magnitude.”

Stoner shook his head. “I didn’t tell them anything about what we’re doing. I merely wrote to a Russian author and asked if he’d heard anything about ETI lately.”

“You mentioned Jupiter!” McDermott growled.

“And radio pulses,” added Tuttle.

“And a lot of other things,” Stoner countered. “If you guys read that letter in its entirety, you’ll see that I didn’t really tip our hand
—unless
the Russians already know about the Jovian radio pulses, in which case there’s no breach of security.”

Tuttle gave an exasperated sigh. “You just don’t understand the security laws, do you?”

“Or won’t,” McDermott said.

“Maybe I just don’t care,” Stoner snapped.

“You could go to Leavenworth for this,” Tuttle said.

Feeling the icy calm that always came over him when he got angry, Stoner said, “Fine. Try it. You’ll have to put me on trial, and I swear to whatever gods there are that I honestly look forward to having a day in court. At least I’ll have a defense attorney; that’s more than you guys have allowed me so far.”

The little lieutenant commander shifted uneasily on his feet and glanced at McDermott, who said nothing.

“I’m going to get myself a drink,” Stoner told them, getting up from the sofa.

“Good idea,” Big Mac called after him as he headed for the kitchenette-bar. “Fix me a bloody mary while you’re there.”

Stoner grumbled to himself. Why can’t he want something simple, like a scotch on the rocks? As he searched through the cabinets over the sink for a can of mix, he heard Tuttle call, “Got any orange juice? I’ll take it with some ice.”

“Sure thing,” Stoner said. I work cheap, he added silently.

He could hear the two of them conversing between themselves while he built the drinks. By the time he had all three glasses on a tray, Tuttle and McDermott had a large map spread across the living room carpet and were studying it intently. Stoner looked down at the legend on the map as he put the tray on the coffee table. It said,
Kwajalein Atoll
.

“Don’t you guys have families?” Stoner asked, taking his own Jack Daniel’s. “I mean, it’s Sunday afternoon, five days before Christmas, for god’s sake.”

“We have work to do,” Tuttle said without taking his eyes from the map.

“You want to watch football on television?” McDermott asked derisively.

“I want to see my kids in Palo Alto,” Stoner said.

“You’ll be lucky if we let you put a phone call through to them on Christmas Eve,” McDermott snapped.

Stoner slumped back on the sofa again. “So they’re sending you to Kwajalein after all. Good. You don’t deserve Arecibo. Puerto Rico’s too lush for you bastards.”

“There’s no call for that kind of language,” Tuttle said.

“I’ve already been deprived of my liberty. Don’t try to take away my freedom of speech.”

“You’ve sent classified information to the Soviet Union,” Tuttle said, his round face going slightly red. “That’s a violation of the security laws. If we wanted to we could slap an espionage charge on you.”

“And I told you before, any half-decent lawyer would put your ass in a sling over illegal detention, duress, harassment…hell, nobody even read me my rights.”

Tuttle glared at him and Stoner realized that the mild profanity bothered the little guy more than the legal position he was in.

McDermott broke up their staring match. “Now, look here, Stoner. You’ve got to realize that what we’re sitting on here is so important that we’re not going to allow little legal quibbles to get in our way.”

“Try telling that to a judge. Or a jury.”

“You won’t get in front of a judge,” Tuttle said smugly. “You’re going to Kwajalein with us and you’re going to sit on that island until we’re ready to turn you loose.”

“Which won’t be until Project JOVE is completed,” McDermott added. “Listen to me, sonny. You can be either with us or against us, but either way you’re going to Kwajalein.”

“So what difference does it make?”

“Plenty! If you co-operate with us, work with us, then the Navy’s willing to forget any charges of security violation or espionage. Right, Fred?”

Tuttle nodded. “But if you won’t co-operate, we’ll convene a federal court on Kwajalein, try you there, and keep you in a Navy brig until we’re good and ready to transfer you to a federal prison on the mainland.”

Stoner took a swallow of Jack Daniel’s. “So it’s heads you win, tails I lose.”

“Exactly,” said McDermott.

“Military justice.”

“It’s legal,” Tuttle insisted. “I checked it out.”

Stoner laughed. “Legal. Military justice is to justice as military intelligence is to smarts.”

Tuttle took it seriously. “Don’t you go maligning military intelligence. I worked in Naval Intelligence. Nothing wrong with the smarts there. And we caught you, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, I know. You guys are so smart we won the war in Vietnam,” Stoner taunted.

“That was
Army
Intelligence! Westmoreland. All he wanted was good news. I know plenty of Army G-2 officers who got pushed further and further out into the boondocks every time they brought in a realistic intelligence report. After enough of them got knocked off by the VC, they started to realize that all Westmoreland wanted was high body counts and optimistic pipe dreams. So that’s what they sent in, and they always got rewarded with softer assignments, closer to headquarters, where it was safer.”

“And we lost the war.”

Tuttle nodded, a bit sullenly. “But that was the Army, not us. Why, if it wasn’t for my intelligence background this whole Project JOVE might never have gotten started. When Professor McDermott first told me about the radio pulses I was the one who thought of using Big Eye to search for anything unusual. It was my idea.”

McDermott’s face went splotchy, but he didn’t contradict the lieutenant commander.

Stoner said, “And that’s how I got drafted into this game, is it?”

“That’s right,” Tuttle said. “And you are
in
, for keeps. There’s no getting out.”

“So are you going to be with us or against us?” McDermott asked.

Stoner looked down at the floor again, at the map spread across the carpet. But his mind’s eye was seeing the photographs of Jupiter, the speck of moving light that was the alien spacecraft which had invaded the solar system.

Invaded? Stoner was startled at his own use of the term. Then he realized the importance of the question behind it. What is this—thing—doing here? Where did it come from? Why is it here?

Who sent it?

“Well?” McDermott demanded. “What’s your answer?”

Instead of replying, Stoner got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. “Get your coats,” he said over his shoulder. “I want to show you something.”

Puzzled, grumbling, they followed Stoner out to the back door of the house. They pulled on their heavy coats while Stoner slipped into a lined windbreaker.

It was cold outside, but clear and dry. The sun gave no heat, but the bulk of the house kept the wind off the tiny fenced-in area behind the kitchen.

“Hi, Burt,” Stoner said to the Navy guard out there. McDermott and Tuttle watched in mystified silence.

Burt was a civilian Navy employee who normally sat in an office in Boston. He was paid double time for standing by the chain link fence that surrounded the house’s rear patio. Stoner smiled at him. Burt was fiftyish, portly, with a body that had been strong once but now held more beer than muscle.

“Burt guards the house on Sundays,” Stoner explained to McDermott and Tuttle, “while guys like Dooley and the younger boys take the day off.”

“Hey, Dr. Stoner,” Burt said, grinning, “I been thinkin’ about those boards you broke with your bare hands last weekend. Next time I need some kindlin’ broke up, I’ll know where to go.”

Stoner smiled back at him. “You do that, Burt. You do that.”

He pulled himself to a ready stance and forced his body to relax. Tae kwon do is a discipline, Stoner told himself. The true disciple does not seek to fight.

He walked slowly, metering his breathing rate with deliberate care, to the chain link fence, his back to the three other men. Stopping in front of one of the steel posts that anchored the fence to the ground, Stoner gave the fiercest yell he could push out of his lungs and sprang up to kick the very top of the post.

The metal pole bent and twanged like a guitar string. The fence vibrated.

Stoner did it again, screaming savagely, with his left foot this time. And then again. The pole visibly sagged.

“Hey, Dr. Stoner! What the hell you doin’?”

Stoner turned a deadly serious gaze on the guard. “Just practicing, Burt.”

“Cheez, for a minute there I thought you was tryin’ to knock the fence down!”

Looking straight at Tuttle, Stoner replied, “I could if I wanted to.”

“I can see that.”

“Imagine what one of those kicks would do to a man’s head. Even Dooley’s.”

McDermott licked his lips, glanced at Tuttle.

“Do you carry a gun, Burt?” Stoner asked.

His hand involuntarily twitched toward the holster underneath his coat.

“Do you think you could get your gun out before I kicked your head in?”

Burt stared at him. Then grinned shakily. “Hey…Dr. Stoner, you’re kiddin’ me, ain’tcha?”

Stoner closed his eyes momentarily and nodded. “Sure, Burt. I’m kidding.” Then he stared into Tuttle’s frightened eyes and added, “Any time I want to break out of here, I can. I could pulverize Dooley and two other men with him before they could even react. The only reason I’m here is because I want to be here.”

Tuttle began, “I never thought…”

But Stoner stopped him with a pointed finger. “I don’t like being treated as a prisoner, but I decided the very first day to accept it, because I know—I knew long before
he
did”—he gestured to McDermott—“how important this project is.”

“Now, see here, Stoner,” Big Mac groused.

Stoner ignored him. “I’m here and I’ll stay. So don’t try to threaten me. I’m not some little kid who scares easily. Remember that.”

For several moments no one said a word. McDermott and Tuttle glanced uneasily at each other. Stoner listened to the wind sighing past the house, the bare trees whispering.

“You’ve made your point,” Tuttle said at last, his eyes on the bent fence post. Then he grinned slightly. “I’m glad you’re on our side.”

Stoner nodded and started for the kitchen door.

“But we still have to maintain a tight security control on everybody in the project,” Tuttle said, following after him.

“I understand that. But don’t make any cracks about my not being allowed to phone my kids.”

“All right…as long as you don’t try to smuggle any more letters out of here.”

“I won’t.”

They went into the kitchen and Stoner peeled off his windbreaker. Tuttle and McDermott headed straight for the front door, and the car outside in front of the house, waiting for them. Stoner went with them to the door, looked outside at the driveway that led to the road. No fences there.

Tuttle went to the car and started its engine. McDermott hung back by the doorway, an uncertain scowl on his beefy face.

Finally he turned to Stoner and said, “Don’t expect Jo Camerata to come waltzing up here anymore. I’ve taken her off courier duty.”

“You…what?”

“I know she took care of that letter for you,” McDermott said, his voice a low rumble, “no matter how much either one of you deny it.”

“That’s no reason to…”

McDermott broke into a malicious grin. “Listen, sonny. She’s just as happy to be out of this courier routine as she can be. She’s gotten everything she can get out of you—which is nothing but trouble. But
I
can get her into the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the university. She wants to be an astronaut, you know.”

Stoner wanted to punch that leering, grinning old face. Instead he merely said, “I know.”

“So she’s after me now. You’re out of her game plan.”

Tuttle honked the horn once, lightly. McDermott started toward the car. Over his shoulder, he said to Stoner, “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her.”

Stoner stood trapped in the doorway, unable to move, seething.