The Listeners Page 4

  What does the universe care for my agony? I am nothing. My feelings are nothing to anyone but me. My only possible meaning to the universe is the Project. Only this slim potential links me with eternity. My love and my agony are me, but the significance of my life or death are the Project.

  By the time he reached the hacienda, MacDonald was breathing evenly. His emotions were under control. Dawn had grayed the eastern sky. It was a customary hour for Project personnel to be returning home.

  Saunders met him at the door. “Dr. Lessenden is here. He's with Maria.”

  The odor of stale smoke and the memory of babble still lingered in the air, but someone had been busy. The party remains had been cleaned up. No doubt they all had pitched in. They were good people.

  “Betty found her in the bathroom off your bedroom. She wouldn't have been there except the others were occupied. I blame myself. I shouldn't have let you relieve me. Maybe if you had been here— But I knew you wanted it that way.”

  “No one's to blame. She was alone a great deal,” MacDonald said. “What happened?”

  “Didn't I tell you? Her wrists. Slashed with a razor. Both of them. Betty found her in the bathtub. Like pink lemonade, she said.”

  A fist tightened inside MacDonald's gut and then slowly relaxed. Yes, it had been that. He had known it, hadn't he? He had known it would happen ever since the sleeping pills, even though he had kept telling himself, as she had told him, that the overdose had been an accident.

  Or had he known? He knew only that Saunders’ news had been no surprise.

  Then they were at the bedroom door, and Maria was lying under a blanket on the bed, scarcely making it mound over her body, and her arms were on top of the blankets, palms up, bandages like white paint across the olive perfection of her arms, now, MacDonald reminded himself, no longer perfection but marred with ugly red lips that spoke to him of hidden misery and untold sorrow and a life that was a lie....

  Dr. Lessenden looked up, sweat trickling down from his hairline. “The bleeding is stopped, but she's lost a good deal of blood. I've got to take her to the hospital for a transfusion. The ambulance should be here any minute.” MacDonald looked at Maria's face. It was paler than he had ever seen it. It looked almost waxen, as if it were already arranged for all time on a satin pillow. “Her chances are fifty-fifty,” Lessenden said in answer to his unspoken question.

  And then the attendants brushed their way past him with their litter.

  “Betty found this on her dressing table,” Saunders said. He handed MacDonald a slip of paper folded once.

  MacDonald unfolded it: Je m'en vay chercher un grand Peut-être.

  Everyone was surprised to see MacDonald at the office. They did not say anything, and he did not volunteer the information that he could not bear to sit at home, among the remembrances, and wait for word to come. But they asked him about Maria, and he said, “Dr. Lessenden is hopeful. She's still unconscious. Apparently will be for some time. The doctor said I might as well wait here as at the hospital. I think I made them nervous. They're hopeful. Maria's still unconscious....”

  O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!

  The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike....

  Finally MacDonald was alone. He pulled out paper and pencil and worked for a long time on the statement, and then he balled it up and threw it into the wastebasket, scribbled a single sentence on another sheet of paper, and called Lily.

  “Send this!”

  She glanced at it. “No, Mac.”

  “Send it!”

  “But—”

  “It's not an impulse. I've thought it over carefully. Send it.”

  Slowly she left, holding the piece of paper gingerly in her fingertips. MacDonald pushed the papers around on his desk, waiting for the telephone to ring. But without knocking, unannounced, Saunders came through the door first.

  “You can't do this, Mac,” Saunders said.

  MacDonald sighed. “Lily told you. I would fire that girl if she weren't so loyal.”

  “Of course she told me. This isn't just you. It affects the whole Project.”

  “That's what I'm thinking about.”

  “I think I know what you're going through, Mac—” Saunders stopped. “No, of course I don't know what you're going through. It must be hell. But don't desert us. Think of the Project!”

  “That's what I'm thinking about. I'm a failure, Charley. Everything I touch—ashes.”

  “You're the best of us.”

  “A poor linguist? An indifferent engineer? I have no qualifications for this job, Charley. You need someone with ideas to head the Project, someone dynamic, someone who can lead, someone with—charisma.”

  A few minutes later he went over it all again with Olsen. When he came to the qualifications part, all Olsen could say was, “You give a good party, Mac.”

  It was Adams, the skeptic, who affected him most. “Mac, you're what I believe in instead of God.”

  Sonnenborn said, “You are the Project. If you go, it all falls apart. It's over.”

  “It seems like it, always, but it never happens to those things that have life in them. The Project was here before I came. It will be here after I leave. It must be longer lived than any of us, because we are for the years and it is for the centuries.”

  After Sonnenborn, MacDonald told Lily wearily, “No more, Lily.”

  None of them had had the courage to mention Maria, but MacDonald considered that failure, too. She had tried to communicate with him a month ago when she took the pills, and he had been unable to understand. How could he riddle the stars when he couldn't even understand those closest to him? Now he had to pay.

  What would Maria want? He knew what she wanted, but if she lived, he could not let her pay that price. Too long she had been there when he wanted her, waiting like a doll put away on a shelf for him to return and take her down, so that he could have the strength to continue.

  And somehow the agony had built up inside her, the dreadful progress of the years, most dread of all to a beautiful woman growing old, alone, too much alone. He had been selfish. He had kept her to himself. He had not wanted children to mar the perfection of their being together.

  Perfection for him; less than that for her.

  Perhaps it was not too late for them if she lived. And if she died—he would not have the heart to go on with work to which, he knew now, he could contribute nothing.

  And finally the call came. “She's going to be all right, Mac,” Lessenden said. And after a moment, “Mac, I said—”

  “I heard.”

  “She wants to see you.”

  “I'll be there.”

  “She said to give you a message. ‘Tell Robby I've been a little crazy in the head. I'll be better now. That “great perhaps” looks too certain from here. And tell him not to be crazy in the head too.'”

  MacDonald put down the telephone and walked through the doorway and through the outer office, a feeling in his chest as if it were going to burst. “She's going to be all right,” he threw over his shoulder at Lily.

  “Oh, Mac—”

  In the hall, Joe the janitor stopped him. “Mr. MacDonald—”

  MacDonald stopped. “Been to the dentist yet, Joe?”

  “No, sir, not yet, but it's not—”

  “Don't go. I'd like to put a tape recorder beside your bed for a while, Joe. Who knows?”

  “Thank you, sir. But it's—They say you're leaving, Mr. MacDonald.”

  “Somebody else will do it.”

  “You don't understand. Don't go, Mr. MacDonald!”

  “Why not, Joe?”

  “You're the one who cares.”

  MacDonald had been about to move on, but that stopped him.

  Ful wys is he that can himselven knowe!

  He turned and went back to the office. “Have you got that sheet of paper, Lily?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you sent it?”

  “No, sir.”

&nb
sp; “Bad girl. Give it to me.”

  He read the sentence on the paper once more: I have great confidence in the goals and ultimate success of the Project, but for personal reasons I must submit my resignation.

  He studied it for a moment.

  A dwarf standing on the shoulder of a giant may see further than the giant himself.

  And he tore it up.

  Computer Run

  In the beginning was the word, and the word was hydrogen....

  Harlow Shapley, 1958 ...

  No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own.... Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us....

  H. G. Well, 1898...

  Individuals die. However, the total amount of living matter perseveres, and even increases. We can imagine a spherical organism with the cycles of physiological processes closed completely in themselves. Such an organism will be immortal and photosynthetic, and it can develop even a higher consciousness.... The main activity of the highest living organisms in the Universe can be also the colonization of other worlds. Such beings, probably, could not be of spherical form, and they will not be immortal.

  On at least one planet, somewhere, beings have achieved a technology permitting them to overcome the force of gravity and to colonize the Universe.... Colonization now is the normal manner in which life spreads. Evolution, with all its sufferings, is rare....

  In the near future short radio waves will penetrate our atmosphere and they will be the main means of stellar communication....

  Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, 1934 .

  The changes I noted were taking place periodically, and with such a clear suggestion of numbers and order that they were not traceable to any cause then known to me. I was familiar, of course, with such electrical disturbances as are produced by the sun, Aurora Borealis, and earth currents, and I was as sure as I could be of any fact that these variations were due to none of these causes....It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to intelligent control....The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another....

  Faint and uncertain though they were, they have given me a deep conviction and foreknowledge, that ere long all human beings on this globe, as one, will turn the eyes to the firmament above, with feelings of love and reverence, thrilled by the glad news: “Brethren! We have a message from another world, unknown and remote. It reads: one ... two ... three....”

  Nikola Tesla, 1900...

  Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it?

  Whence was it born, whence came creation?

  The gods are later than this world's formation;

  Who then can know the origins of the world?

  None knows whence creation arose;

  And whether he has or has not made it;

  He who surveys it from the lofty skies,

  Only he knows—or perhaps he knows not.

  Rig-Veda, c. 1000 b.c....

  one day, while considering the question of gamma ray production from the crab nebula (which apparently is the result of synchrotron radiation produced by the supernova explosion of 1054 a.d.), giuseppe cocconi began to wonder if interstellar messages could be sent by means of gamma rays; they are rare, and they stand out in the sky. why wouldn't another civilization see gamma rays as a vehicle for interstellar signaling?

  his friend and colleague, philip morrison, pointed out that gamma rays are difficult to generate and difficult to receive. radio frequencies, on the other hand, were plentiful and cheap to receive.

  perhaps one of the big radio telescopes might be persuaded to search some likely stars....

  In a universe whose size is beyond human imagining, where our world floats like a dust mote in the void of night, men have grown inconceivably lonely. We scan the time scale and the mechanisms of life itself for portents and signs of the invisible. As the only thinking mammals on the planet—perhaps the only thinking animals in the entire sidereal universe—the burden of consciousness has grown heavy upon us. We watch the stars, but the signs are uncertain. We uncover the bones of the past and seek for our origins. There is a path there, but it appears to wander. The vagaries of the road may have a meaning, however; it is thus we torture ourselves....

  Loren Eiseley, 1946...

  the mid-atlantic fish farm has just harvested a bumper crop of the new, improved north atlantic cod. the so-called supercod weighs twenty-five pounds, has a flavor that fish-fanciers claim is superior to anything yet to come out of the genetic laboratories, and can be ordered tomorrow from your local market....

  Would any civilization with a superior technology wish to do harm to one that has just entered the community of Intelligence? I doubt it. If I were looking through a microscope and saw a group of bacteria spell out, like a college band, “Please do not put iodine on this plate. We want to talk to you,” my first inclination would certainly not be to rush the bacteria into a sterilizer. I doubt that advanced societies crush out any competitive form of intelligence, especially when there is clearly no danger...

  Philip Morrison, 1961...

  after debate lasting nearly three weeks, the appropriation bill for such scientific programs as the moon colony and the listening project in puerto rico is expected to pass the house of representatives today, with some small chance that a last-minute amendment may eliminate one project or another. considered in most danger is the puerto rican program to listen for communications from other worlds which has registered nothing but negative results since it was begun nearly fifty years ago.

  another bill, which would raise the minimum annual income from the present $10,000 to $12,000 over the next two years, is expected, on the other hand, to receive only token opposition from congressmen who feel that it should be higher.

  president white has announced that he will sign both measures....

  Dear Dr. Lovell,

  ...Some week ago, while discussing with colleagues at Cornell the emission of synchrotron radiation by astronomical objects, I realized that the Jodrell Bank radio telescope could be used for a program that could be serious enough to deserve your consideration, though at first sight it looks like science fiction.

  It will be better it I itemize the arguments.

  (1) Life on planets seems not to be a very rare phenomenon. Out of ten solar planets one is full of life and Mars could have some. The solar system is not peculiar; other stars with similar characteristics are expected to have an equivalent number of planets. There as a good chance that, among the, say, 100 stars closest to the sun, some have planets bearing life well advanced in evolution.

  (2) The chances are then good that in some of these planets animals exist evolved much farther than men. A civilization only a few hundred years more advanced than ours would have technical possibilities by far greater than those available now to us.

  (3) Assume that an advanced civilization exists in some of these planets, i.e. within some 10 light years from us. The problem is: how to establish a communication?

  As far as we know the only possibility seems to be the use of electromagnetic waves, which can cross the magnetized plasmas filling the interstellar spaces without being distorted.

  So I will assume that “beings” on these planets are already sending toward the stars closest to them beams of electromagnetic waves modulated in a rational way, e.g. in trains corresponding to the prime numbers, hoping in a sign of life

  signed/Giuseppe Cocconi

  It is a project which has to be funded by the century, not by the fiscal year. Furthermore, it is a project which is very likely to fail completely. If you spend a lot of money and go around every ten years a
nd say, “We haven't heard anything yet,” you can imagine how you make out before a congressional committee. But I think it is not too soon to have the fun of thinking about it, and I think it is a much less childish subject to think about than astronomical space travel....

  Edward M. Purcell, 1960.

  frederick player, distinguished south african composer and conductor, emerged from two months of low-temperature hibernation and said, “i never felt better.” during his long sleep, which he entered at his physician's orders when he collapsed during a recent concert, he completed, he said, the “slow movement” of his new symphony which he has titled new worlds.

  One in one hundred thousand stars have advanced societies in orbit around them....

  Carl Sagan, 1961.

  One in three million. ...

  Sebastian Von Hoerner, 1961...

  The number of extant civilizations substantially in advance of our own in the Galaxy today appears to be perhaps between fifty thousand and one million. The average distance between technical civilizations is between a few hundred light years and about one thousand light years. The average age of communicating technical civilizations is ten thousand years....

  Carl Sagan, 1966...

  We shall assume that long ago they established a channel of communication that would one day become known to us, and that they look forward patiently to the answering signals from the sun which would make known to them that a new society has entered the community of intelligence....

  Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi, 1959...

  copernicus, brahe, tesla, marconi,