Эд Макбейн - Running From Legs and Other Stories

“I’m going to call the police,” she said. “If I leave you for a minute, will you be all right?”

“No, please,” Lucille said.

“I’m only going as far as the nearest telephone.”

“No. I’m bleeding, I think. Oh God, Mrs. Hollis, I’m bleeding.”

“The police will send an ambulance.”

“No, I don’t want the police.”

“What?”

“No police. Please.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll think it was me.”

The two women looked at each other, their eyes searching in the darkness.

Somewhere a rainspout poured water into a catch basin. There was the sound of the steady splashing, and then the sharp click of the traffic signal changing again. Their faces were suddenly tinted green.

“I didn’t do nothing to cause it,” Lucille said.

“I know that.”

“The police’ll think...”

“No, Lucille. They’ll think you were victimized.”

“No. My husband’ll...”

“Lucille, we’ve got to call the police.”

“No, ma’am, please.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ve got to describe him to the police.”

“No. No, ma’am, please, I can’t do that. I can’t let my husband find out about this.”

“Lucille...”

“Ma’am, if you’ll help me find an open drugstore...”

“Lucille, listen to me...”

“If I can maybe stop the bleeding and get some new pantyhose, then my husband won’t know what...”

“Your husband’s got to know, damn it! You were raped!”

The force of her own voice surprised her.

“He raped you,” Laura said.

“I know, ma’am, but...”

“You’ve got to report it to the police.”

“Then my husband’ll know.”

“Yes, Lucille. He’ll know you were raped.”

“But then he’ll think...”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks. You were a victim, Lucille.”

“They won’t find him, anyway,” Lucille said, shaking her head. “I’ll tell them, and they’ll know what he looks like, but they won’t find him, it won’t do any good, they’ll think I wanted what happened, they’ll...”

“Stop it!” Laura said.

The courtyard went silent.

Lucille’s eyes met Laura’s. They were the same eyes that had seen Bobby’s hand in Nessie Winkler’s lap. They searched Laura’s face skeptically now, almost accusingly.

“If it was you,” she said, “would you go to the police?”

“Yes,” Laura said.

Yes, she thought. I would march into a police station and up to the polished brass railing and I would say to the desk sergeant, “I want to report a rape. I’ve been raped.” Yes, she thought. I would.

They continued staring at each other.

Lucille nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Yes,” Laura said. “Believe me, I would.”

Lucille nodded again, more firmly this time.

Laura helped her to her feet and together they walked toward Fifth Avenue in search of a taxi. She had no idea where the local police station was but she expected the cab driver would help them find it. She would stay with Lucille while she talked to the detectives. She would remain by her side and see her through this.

And then she would go back to the apartment where she would hang her yellow slicker and rain hat in the hall closet. And she would go into the bedroom where Bobby would be lying asleep snoring lightly — he always snored so lightly, she knew so much about this man she was now ready to leave.

I want to report a rape, she would say. I’ve been raped.

A taxi was approaching.

Laura nodded, and then raised her hand to hail it.

At first, Michael thought it was another false alarm.

But the blips were quite regular.

Pulses at regularly spaced intervals of exactly one second. Precise to one part in a hundred million. And yet...

Twenty years ago, Tass reported from the Soviet Union that Gennardy Sholomitsky of the Shternberg Astronomical Institute had detected regularly spaced radio signals that indicated we were not alone in the universe. But the signals had come from a quasar, a starlike object that will emit radio frequency as well as visible radiation. A false alarm, of course. Twelve years ago, the Soviets again intercepted radio signals they thought were of extra-terrestrial origin, signals from a possible Kardashev Type III civilization. A civilization in possession of a transmitting power equal to the energy output of a full galaxy. Tass reported that the signals seemed to be coming from a satellite. Speculated that it was a space probe of the kind visualized by Ronald Bracewell at Stanford. Later admitted, with some embarrassment—

There.

Again.

And again.

He wondered if he should go wake up Lowell.

It had been more than eleven years now since Frank Drake beamed into space — from the radio telescope at Arecibo — his “anti-puzzle,” a “code designed to be easily broken.” Ever since, listeners all over the world had been waiting for a sign that someone, anyone, had received it and deciphered it. The telescope Michael was monitoring possessed a radio dish capable of scanning nearby galaxies at wavelengths of twenty-one, eighteen, and twelve point six centimeters. Drake’s message, in the form of a pictogram using the language of binary arithmetic, first explained how to count from one to ten, then went on to give the atomic numbers for hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorus, and next gave the components of DNA, the genetic molecule for life on—

The pulses were too regular and too strong to be dismissed.

Michael turned up the gain control.

The screen came into blinding focus, the blip virtually leaping from it.

And simultaneously, the printer alongside the computer monitor began clattering with a jumble of indecipherable glitches and swirls that instantly arranged themselves into what appeared to be Russian and then Chinese characters, and then words unmistakably French, and German, and Spanish and Italian, until finally the single word HELLO appeared in English.

Michael blinked.

The blips had vanished from the screen.

The printer was clattering again.

HELLO, HELLO, HELLO. WE HAVE YOUR MESSAGE. BUT WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

He stared at the printer. He thought, Lowell, for God’s sake, where are you when I need you? He thought, Oh my God, this is...

PLEASE RESPOND, YES?

He put his hands on the monitor keyboard.

Hello, he typed cautiously.

The printer began clattering.

YES, HELLO, HELLO, BUT WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH ALL THAT, YES? CENTURIES AGO. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Michael’s hands were trembling on the keyboard. Please say again, he typed. You have received the message? The pictogram?

YES, YES, HELLO. WITH ITS FORMULAS FOR THYMINE, ADENINE, GUANINE AND CYTOSINE, THANK YOU. BUT WE KNOW HOW DNA IS FORMED. YOUR PICTURE OF A HUMAN IS NICE. SO IS THE ONE OF THE RADIO TELESCOPE. AND OF YOUR SOLAR SYSTEM WITH ITS NINE PLANETS. BUT WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Is this a hoax? Michael typed.

A HOAX? NO, NO. A HOAX? NO. POSITIVELY NOT.

Then... who... what...?

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Michael began typing furiously. He told whoever it was out there that the space scientists on earth had always wanted contact, all they had hoped and prayed for all these years was contact, the tiniest signal that could not be attributed to natural radiation emissions, a clear message from space to indicate that the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence had not been in vain. And now this! More than contact! Communication! Actual communication! Over how many light years he could not even hope to guess. Where are you? he typed, his fingers racing. Who are you?