Joe Haldeman - The Coming

“But I really do want to be involved. SETI is pretty far from my specialty, but I seem to be thrust into it. Besides, it was a passion with me thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate.”

“Was that about the time they found the first source?”

“Five or six years before that, actually. By the time they heard from Signal Alpha, I was pretty much committed to the physics of nonthermal sources, academically—not much time for little green men.”

“Who didn’t materialize anyhow.” Marya took a leatherbound bookfile from her purse, flipped through the pages, and pulled out a blue crystal with SETI-L printed in small block letters across the top. “You have the Leon survey book?”

“No. Heard of it.” She took the crystal and slipped it into the reader on the desk. It hummed a query note, copyright, and Rory told it “general fund.” It copied the crystal and ejected it. Rory looked at it. “This has the raw data?”

“All three stars. The reductions, too.”

“Well, we might want to redo them. It’s been a few years, early forties?”

Marya squinted at the back of the crystal. “Twenty forty-three.”

“Don’t know how much has happened in eleven years.” She asked the desk for the department roster, and it appeared on two screens. “You’ll be talking to Leon, I guess—he’s where, Cal Tech?”

“Berkeley. I called his office and left a message asking for an appointment. But who do you have doing SETI here in Gainesville?”

“No one specializing… but Parker’s pretty sharp. He does our radio astronomy courses, intro and advanced, and he’s kept up on SETI. Keeps the undergrads excited.” She wrote his name and number down on a slip of paper. “Excited as I was… and will be again, looks like. Mysteries.”

“It should be a good show. Network gave me two days to come up with forty-five minutes, though, so I have to move.” She put the crystal back, and hesitated. “Um… can you sort of assign me someone? Someone less senior than Parker, some grad assistant I could call at any ungodly hour for information?”

“No, I can’t get you a grad assistant,” she said, and studied Marya’s reaction. “You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t let anybody else share in the fun. Parker can give us both an update, but I’m your pet astronomer for the project. Finders keepers.”

The elevator bonged. “Well, hablar del diablo. Here comes Parker.” A tall man, unshaven and bleary-eyed but wearing a coat and tie with his kilt, shambled down the hall toward them. He had small rimless glasses and a goatee.

He leaned against the doorjamb, a little out of breath. “Rory… what the hell?”

“A reasonable question. Pepe Parker, this is Marya Washington.”

He peered at the attractive black woman. “I know you. You’re on television.”

“Not at the moment,” she said. “Newsnet asked me to put together a special on this message.”

“And I took the liberty of volunteering you.”

“Oh, muchas gracias. I had so much time on my hands.”

“If you’d rather not—” Washington said.

He raised one hand. “Kidding. Look, I don’t have half the story: Lisa Marie had the news on and recognized your voice; she punched ‘record’ and woke me up. Or tried to. I was up at the dome till past three,”

“What on earth for?”

“Don’t ask. Don’t get me started. Be nice if somebody besides me could make the goddamned bolometer work. So you got some LGMs?”

Washington looked at Bell. “‘Little Green Men.’ I don’t know what else it could be. Open to suggestions.”

“Could it be a long-delayed hack? That occurred to me on the way over. Some eighty-year-old probe with a practical joke encoded.”

“Nice try. You haven’t seen the spectrum, though. Eighty years ago there wasn’t that much energy on the whole planet.”

“And it’s actually English?” She nodded slowly. “Holy Chihuahua. What’s it doing now?”

“Carrier wave. It’s a 21-cm. signal blue-shifted to 12.3 cm.”

“Yeah, okay. How fast is that?”

“Call it 0.99 c . Decelerating.”

“Oh, yeah—Lisa Marie said you said it would just take three months? To slow down and get here? Fifty goddamned gees?” Rory nodded.

“What if it didn’t slow down?” Washington asked. “What if it hit us going that fast?”

“Terminado,” Pepe said. “If it’s any size.”

“Let me see.” Rory turned to address the wall. “How much kinetic energy is there in an object massing one metric tonne, going 0.99 c ?”

“Four-point-four-three X 10 21joules,” it answered immediately. “Over a million megatons.”

“Crack this planet like an egg,” Pepe said. He was amused by Washington’s avid expression. “I think she’s got a lead for her story,” he said to Rory.

“I’m not the one you have to worry about,” Washington said. “By noon you’re going to have stringers from every tabloid in the country down here. If I were you I’d have some secretary send them all to the Public Information Office.”

“Do we have one?” Pepe asked.

“Yeah, some kid runs it,” Washington said. “I talked to him, Pierce, Price, something.” She took a Rolodex card out of her breast pocket and asked it, “Name and office number, Chief, University of Florida Public Information Office.” It gave her “Donate Pricci, 14-308.”

Rory wrote it down. “Good idea,” she said. “God knows when we’ll get any science done around here. You straight newspeople are going to be bad enough.”

“We try,” Washington said. “But wait until you meet the science editor from Dayshot. He’s also the astrology columnist.”

“Maybe we better put the secretary down by the elevator,” Pepe said. “The front door. Maybe with a couple of fullbacks.”

Washington checked her watch. “I better get down to the station. See what local talent can cover; how many people I’ll have to bring in. Try to bring in.”

She squeezed past Norman, coming through the door. He put the white box with the spinach pie in the cooler under the coffee machine. “Buenos, Pepe. Program looked good, hon.”

Rory looked momentarily confused. “Oh, the early one. We just did another.”

“I don’t know about that million megatons,” Pepe said. “That’ll be on every front page in the world tomorrow morning.”

“What million megatons?” Norman said.

Rory gestured at the wall. “I asked it how much kinetic energy the thing had.”

“If it were to hit us without slowing down,” Pepe said.

“Save Germany and France some trouble.” He tossed the folded-up newspaper sections onto the table by the coffee machine. “Comics and world.”

“From the sublime to the ridiculous,” Pepe said.

The phone chimed and Rory picked it up. “Buenos… why, Mr. Mayor. Such an honor.”

“Mr. Mayor, right.” Cameron Southeby lived across the street from Rory and Norman; they’d been neighbors for nine years. “So what can I do to help you? What can you do to help me?”

Rory told him that the situation wasn’t clear yet; there might be a lot of reporters—if she could figure out some way to send them over, she would.

“Do that. We eat ’em alive.” He swiveled around and looked out the glass wall over the city, two hundred feet below. “City of Trees” was becoming an embarrassment. “City of High-Rise Parking Lots” wouldn’t help real-estate values, though. “Seriously… keep me in mind, Rory. You know our university liaison, June Clearwater?” She didn’t, but read him off the Public Information name that Washington had given her.