The Listeners Page 8

  “We start with that,” MacDonald said. He turned and selected a book from the shelf behind him. “Take a look at this,” he said to Thomas, “and maybe you'll understand it better.”

  The book was The Voices of the Thirties. Thomas leafed through it. He looked up. “This is about the early days of radio, more than ninety years ago.”

  “What we heard,” MacDonald said, “as you would discover from this book and others if you made a careful study, was broadcast during that period; music, news, comedy, drama, adventure, what they called soap operas, mysteries, fireside chats, agony shows.... There was a great deal of foreign language fragments, too, but we screened them out.”

  “You think I'm going to believe that you received this nonsense from the stars?”

  “Yes,” MacDonald said. “This is what the Big Ear picked up when the astronomers listened in a direction about five-hours’ right ascension, about fifty-six degrees declension, in the general direction of Capella—”

  “How could Capella be sending us this Earth garbage?”

  “I didn't say it was Capella,” MacDonald said, “just that it was in that general direction.”

  “Of course,” Adams said.

  “It's too ridiculous,” Thomas said.

  “I agree,” MacDonald said. “So ridiculous that it must be true. Why would I try to deceive you with something so transparently foolish when it would be simple to plant some signals almost indistinguishable from noise. Even these could be proven false in time, but we could brazen it out and maybe pick up some real signals before our deception was discovered. But this! Easily checked—and too ridiculous not to be true.”

  “But it's—how could Capella—or whatever—be sending—?”

  “We've been listening for fifty years,” MacDonald said, “but we've been transmitting for more than ninety years.”

  “We've been transmitting?”

  “I told you, remember?” Adams said. “Ever since radio transmission began, these relatively feeble radio waves have been spreading through the universe at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.”

  “Capella is about forty-five light-years from Earth,” MacDonald said.

  “Forty-five years for the radio waves to get there,” Adams said.

  “Forty-five years to get back,” MacDonald added.

  “It's bouncing off Capella?” Thomas said.

  “The signals are being sent back. They're being picked up near Capella and beamed directly back to us in a powerful, directional transmission,” MacDonald said.

  “Is this possible?”

  “We couldn't do it,” Adams said. “Not with the equipment we have now. A really big antenna in space—perhaps deep in space, far from the sun—would be able to pick up stray radio transmissions, even feeble ones like those in our early transmission history, from a hundred light-years away or more. Perhaps we would find that the galaxy is humming with radio traffic.”

  “Even so, it is surprising that we can discern anything at all across forty-five light-years and back. The stray signals arriving at Capella must be incredibly faint, scarcely distinguishable from noise,” MacDonald said. “Of course they may be using other devices—perhaps a receiver relatively close to Earth, in the asteroid belt, for instance, which could pick up our radio broadcasts and beam them directly at Capella. This would imply, of course, that this solar system has been visited by aliens—or at least by their automated pick-up and transmission devices. It doesn't matter. The fact is that we are receiving a delayed rebroadcast, ninety years out of our past.”

  “But why would they do that, even if they could?” Thomas protested.

  “Can you think of a better way to catch our attention?” MacDonald asked. “To tell us they know we're here and that they are there? A signal we can't miss?”

  “Just a big hello?”

  “That wouldn't be all,” Adams said.

  MacDonald nodded. “Some of the static may not be static. There seems to be some kind of order to some of it, a series of pulses, groups of on-off signals, a series of numbers, or a message in linear form or something that might make a picture if we knew how to put them together. Maybe it's nothing; maybe it's some early telegraphy. We don't know yet, but Saunders and the computers are working on it.”

  “It's the beginning,” Thomas said. He could feel his pulse beating faster and his palms beginning to perspire. He had not felt like this since he was working on The Inferno.

  “We are not alone,” Adams said.

  “What could they have said to us?” Thomas asked.

  “We'll find out,” MacDonald said.

  “And then—?” Thomas asked.

  “There's that,” MacDonald agreed. “Just as there is the question before us now of how we announce what we have discovered or if we announce it at all. How will people react to the demonstrated fact of other intelligent beings in the galaxy? Will they be terrified, angry, curious, pleased, excited, exultant? Will they feel proud or suddenly inferior?”

  “You've got to announce it,” Thomas said. He had a deep conviction that he was right. This too was something he had not felt for a long time.

  “Will they understand?”

  “We must make them understand. There's a race of intelligent beings out there on a world something like ours, and they must have a great deal to say to us. What great news for humanity! It demands not fear but celebration. We must get people to see that, to feel it.”

  “I don't know how.”

  “You're joking,” Thomas said. He was smiling. “You've handled me like a master psychologist, steering me the way you wanted me to go each step of the way. No matter. I'll help. I can get others. We'll communicate every way we can think of: articles, television, books, fact and fiction, interviews, polls, games, toys.... We'll make the Project the doorway to a new world and this Earth needs one right now. It's bored with what it has, and boredom is an enduring danger to the human spirit—”

  “We mustn't forget,” Adams said, “that there's a world of intelligent creatures near Capella who have sent us a message, who are waiting for a response. That's the main thing.”

  “They aren't human, you know,” MacDonald said. “In fact, their environment is markedly different. Capella is a red giant—or rather twin red giants—somewhat cooler than our sun but much larger and brighter.”

  “And probably older, if our theories of stellar evolution are correct,” Adams said.

  “Capella's suns are what our sun may become in a galactic decade or two,” MacDonald said. “Think what it must have meant to have evolved with two red giant suns in the sky, with the irregularities in light and dark and in orbit itself, in the nature of the world one lives on, its growing conditions, its extremes of heat and cold! What kind of creatures will have survived such conditions—and thrived?”

  “What strange viewpoints they must have!” Thomas said. “Dante descended into hell to find out how other creatures lived and what they thought. Our creatures are much more alien, and all we have to do is listen.”

  “We, too, have our descents into hell,” MacDonald said.

  “I know. Are you going to tell your staff tomorrow?”

  “If you think it's wise.”

  “It's necessary, wise or not. Urge everyone, for now, to treat the information as confidential. I'll write my profile for Era, with your permission, but it will be a little different from the one they expected.”

  "Era would be ideal, but would they print it?”

  “For an exclusive like this, they would come out in favor of communicating with Satan and all his fallen angels. They'll toss the Solitarians into the inferno and lead the mandarins and the technocrats into the promised land. Meanwhile, I'll recruit some colleagues and we'll have a series of stories and interviews ready for all the media when Era hits the mail.”

  “It sounds good,” MacDonald said.

  “Meanwhile,” Thomas said, “here's a thought for you: do the Capellans understand the radio transmissions they receive from
Earth? And are they judging our civilization by our soap operas?”

  Thomas stood up and turned off his recorder. “It's been a good day,” he said. “I'll see you in the morning.” And he started for the door, and, although he didn't know it until later, approached his purgatory.

  Computer Run

  No field of inquiry is more fascinating than a search for humanity, or something like humanity, in the mystery filled happy lands beyond the barriers of interstellar space....

  Harlow Shapley, 1958...

  The stray signals likely to reach us from a sophisticated society ten light-years away are likely to be too weak for detection by present antennas, but it is possible to put antennas in orbit or on the moon which would have many listening advantages. Antennas as large as 10,000 feet in diameter might be feasible in space, and they could probably detect emissions generated by the normal activity of a civilization tens of light-years away. Analysis of the tape-recorded receptions of search antennas in such a project would be tedious, but the job could probably be handled by computers....?

  J. A. Webb, 1961...

  The coded-pulse method of “piling up signals” to bring them up above the background noise suggests that our civilization may itself be easily detectable, despite our failure to send signals for the purpose....

  Frank D. Drake, 1964...

  Though I am old with wandering

  Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

  I will find out where she has gone,

  And kiss her lips and take her hands;

  And walk among long dappled grass,

  And pluck till time and times are done

  The silver apples of the moon,

  The golden apples of the sun.

  William Butler Yeats, 1899...

  scientists today made the milk-cow obsolete.

  they created the first milk-making machine through a process which duplicates the biological and chemical reactions within the animal. with certain technical improvements to eliminate unnecessary by-products, scientists put grass into one end of the mechanical cow and drew fresh milk out of the other. the process is capable of operating at ninety per cent efficiency and can operate on wood pulp, straw, or even old papers and boxes, thus providing another method for eliminating or recycling the wastes of civilization....

  He stopped short. Tenseness flamed along his nerves. His muscles pressed with sudden, unrelenting strength against his bones. His great forelegs—twice as long as his hindlegs—twitched with a shuddering movement that arched every razor-sharp claw. The thick tentacles that sprouted from his shoulders ceased their weaving undulation, and grew taut with anxious alertness.

  Utterly appalled, he twisted his great cat head from side to side, while the little hairlike tendrils that formed each ear vibrated frantically, testing every vagrant breeze, every throb in the ether.

  But there was no response, no swift tingling along his intricate nervous system, not the faintest suggestion anywhere of the presence of the all-necessary id. Hopelessly, Coeurl crouched, an enormous catlike figure silhouetted against the dim reddish skyline, like a distorted etching of a black tiger resting on a black rock in a shadow world....

  A. E. Van Vogt, 1939....

  bellatrix, pollux, mizar, spica,

  antares, castor, algol, mira,

  achernar

  barnard's star

  procyon, regulus, rigel, sirius,

  aldebaran, denebola, arcturus,

  bolide

  cepheid

  algieba, gemma, canopus,

  alpha centauri, tau ceti, polaris,

  quasar

  wolf-rayet star

  betelgeuse, altair, mirach, vega,

  formalhaut, deneb, and capella,

  pulsar

  neutron star...

  brazil has achieved zero population growth, the united nations bureau of population statistics and control announced today. jubilation raced through the halls and chambers of the united nations building at the news, and delegates were seen dancing with each other as they celebrated the accomplishment of the elusive international goal established nearly fifty years before. brazil had been the last nation with a growing population; in excuse, the bpsc explained that brazil had much more unoccupied space and more unexploited natural resources than any other nation....

  I know perfectly well that at this moment the whole universe is listening to us—that every word we say echoes to the remotest star....

  Jean Giraudoux, 1945...

  capella is latin for “little she goat.” it is found in the constellation of auriga, the charioteer, who was, in greek mythology, the inventor of the chariot. his first chariot, according to the myth, was drawn by goats....

  App.

  Star Type Mag. R/A Decl. Dist. Lum. Mass

  Capella a Go 0.2 0514 +4558 45 120 4.2

  Capella b Go 3.3

  after nearly fifty years, project picks up signals.... experts say message undeniable but cannot be translated at this time.... aliens, possibly on world circling one of the twin red giant suns called capella, forty-five light-years from earth, have received and rebroadcast earth's own early radio transmissions.... “these voices,” project director robert macdonald said, “are a signal that we are not alone as intelligent beings in the universe. i hope that everyone will rejoice with me in this news and help us seek an answer to the message that lies hidden somewhere within this communication....”

  a transcription of the reception at the listening project in arecibo, puerto rico, follows....

  a new responsive environment night spot opened in manhattan today featuring what has been widely advertised as the most totally responsive environment ever offered to the public. the public has welcomed it with a line waiting to enter the new respen and experience what has been called the greatest relaxation this side of hibernation. the line stretched twice around the block....

  It was face up there on the plain, greasy planks of the table. The broken half of the bronze ice-ax was still buried in the queer skull. Three mad, hate-filled eyes blazed up with a living fire, bright as fresh-spilled blood, from a face ringed with a writhing, loathsome nest of worms, blue, mobile worms that crawled where hair should grow....

  Don A. Stuart, 1938...

  miz! i'm from the bureau of public opinion. we are amplifying our automatic opinion sampling with individual interviews....

  get off my set, will you? i was just getting ready to watch my favorite program.

  you have a public responsibility to answer the legitimate questions of the bpo. how else is the government going to respond to public opinion?

  okay, okay, get on with it.

  how do you feel about the message from another world picked up by the listening project down in puerto rico?

  what message?

  the message from capella. the radio voices. it's been on all the news broadcasts, in all the newspapers....

  i never pay any attention to that stuff.

  you haven't heard of it?

  never heard of it. now can i watch my program?

  what program is it?

  “station in space....”

  And worlds without number have I created.... But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitant's thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them.... And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words...."

  visions of Moses, as revealed to Joseph Smith the prophet, in June, 1830...

  a showing today of one-of-a-kind art objects designed and manufactured entirely by a computer-automated factory partnership was praised today by critics for almost every major media. the exhibition will be on display for a month at the museum of modern art before going on tour of the nation's museums.

  when programmer phyliss mc cla
nahan was asked whether she didn't find it necessary to discard a great many poorly conceived or poorly fashioned items, she replied, “no more than the average artist.”

  the hit of the show was an eight-foot-tall lucite figure called—whether by the computer or ms. mc clanahan was not specified—"self-portrait of an alien."...

  So deep is the conviction that there must be life out there beyond the dark, one thinks that if they are more advanced than ourselves they may come across space at any moment, perhaps in our generation. Later, contemplating the infinity of time, one wonders if perchance their messages came long ago, hurtling into the swamp muck of the steaming coal forests, the bright projectile clambered over by hissing reptiles, and the delicate instruments running mindlessly down with no report....

  Loren Eiseley, 1957...

  With this ambiguous earth

  His dealings have been told us.

  These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth,

  The lesson, and the young Man crucified.

  But not a star of all

  The innumerable hosts of stars has heard

  How He administered this terrestrial ball.

  Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word.

  Of His earth-visiting feet

  None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,

  The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,

  Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.

  No planet knows of this.

  Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,

  Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,

  Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.

  Nor, in our little day,

  May His devices with the heavens be guessed

  His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way,

  Or His bestowals there, be manifest.

  But, in the eternities,

  Doubtless we shall compare together, hear

  A million alien Gospels, in what guise