Kenneth Gantz - Not in Solitude

“Check, will you?” Dane insisted. “I’m picking up a signal from about three miles out. On the radar frequency.”

Spear swore again. “Will the Old Man ever fry ‘em! I’ll run down who it is.”

“And let me know, will you?”

“Okay, okay.” Spear signed off.

Immediately he broke in again. “Dane? Spear to Dane. Say,” he said, “what kind of a signal did you say?”

Dane repeated. “A signal on the radar. A blip. A blip winking on and off like code.”

“That’s what I thought you said. Radar. You’re seeing things. We don’t have any communications equipment that would make a signal like that.”

“That I know. At least I was pretty sure of it,” Dane told him, his excitement mounting, “but I’m not mistaken about the signal. I’m looking at it right now. It might be interference from some piece of equipment someone has taken out there and is operating. Check, man,” he shouted at the intercom. “We’ve got to know! Airman Humphries is here with me,” he added, somewhat out of sequence.

Dane was appalled at his neglect of witnesses and the record. “Humphries, come here,” he called. “Look at this.” Quickly he brought the movie camera to bear on the luminosity of the plane table and started its motor.

He needn’t have worried. The phenomenon persisted steadily, as unvarying as if it emanated from a timing device.

“What have you got?” the airman asked him.

Dane had to talk to someone. “It could be a query. One, two, three. One, two, three. The simplest form of a statement and a query. One, two, three. Over and over again. Something out there could be counting up to three for us. For us to notice that it is counting. For us to recognize that if it can count, therefore it exists. It’s not saying one, two, three. It’s saying, ‘I am! I am! Do you recognize me?’”

Humphries looked startled. “There ain’t nobody out there. You heard what the captain just said. You feel all right?”

Dane thought for a minute. “I don’t know how I feel.”

The intercom rasped. “All present and accounted for,” Captain Spear sang out, like a group commander at retreat. “Nobody outside. You’d better get your equipment checked.”

It was a let-down. He hadn’t thought of a malfunction in his own device. He pushed the camera out of the way and studied the winking point. He decided to call the radio engineer.

Lieutenant Yudin had fat, moist-looking hands and a pallid round face that he appointed for an air of effectiveness with a small dark mustache and glasses in circular frames of black plastic. He liked to talk brusquely and firmly. “Must be in the antenna, he pronounced, like a suburban medic rounding out a diagnosis for the soldier commuters. “Better reel it in. Couldn’t be outside interference. Nothing out there to cause it.” He began to manipulate switches.

“Hold it,” Dane ordered. “I want to try something first. Can you rig up a make-and-break switch so we can interrupt our transmitter beam and send out some signals on it? Like dots and dashes?”

Yudin’s smallish eyebrows went up. “What for?”

“I want to try something,” Dane repeated. “Can you do it?”

Yudin looked as if he had just remembered what he had been told by his wife not to forget. “Sure I can, but what are you up to now? Some of your friends out there again?” He peered out a port at the flashing horizon.

“No, but it looks as if we’re getting a signal.” Dane pointed at the scope.

“What do you mean, ‘No, but it looks like we’re getting a signal’? If nobody’s out there, how could we?”

“That blip.” Dane pointed again. “One, two, three. One, two, three. It’s too regular for a malfunction. It’s exactly the way an ordered, reflective intelligence might approach a supposedly intelligent intruder. It could be a way of saying, ‘I’m here. Do you recognize me?’”

Yudin’s jaw slacked. Then he laughed raucously. “I’d better call the colonel and tell him you’ve really gone off your nut.”

“Okay. Okay,” Dane checked him. “First hook up the switch. Then do your calling. There’s a chance something might be out there we didn’t bring with us. Someone, if you want to call it that. I’ve got an idea.”

“Migod, he really means it!” Doubt slanted toward bewilderment. “You really mean it?”

“The switch!” Dane insisted.

Yudin pointed at the control panel. “You can use the main power switch. It won’t burn up on you. There’s not enough juice.”

Dane tried it. It was awkward, but he could do it. If he went at it slowly.

He waited until the mysterious blip showed and then interrupted itself. Trying to work the switch in the same cadence, if not the same speed, he sent out answering pulses. One, two, three. One, two, three. Then he stopped.

The blip came on again. One, two, three. The same as before.

“Next will be our Brooklyn hour. After a few dozen scenes with our sponsor.” But Yudin was caught up in the experiment, staring nearsightedly at the table scope.

Again Dane repeated the signal, striving to mock its tempo. A thought occurred to him. “I’ll reverse it.” He sent, three, two, one. Three, two, one.

They waited a minute. Another long minute. “Looks like you signed him off,” Yudin said, relief in his voice. “Fooling around with that switch probably upset some impedance in the antenna circuit that was causing it.”

Dane felt the knot of tension loosen. “Maybe you’re right.” Was he disappointed?

Yudin picked up his tool kit. “You didn’t really think there might be something out there watching us, did you?”

“Look!” Dane shouted. The blip was on again. Winking furiously. Then, while he stood stiffly, arm half raised to point, it settled into the signal. One, two, three. One, two, three.

“I’d better pull that antenna in,” Yudin said. Suddenly he whispered, “Migod!” He stared at the scope.

The thing was winking the reverse signal. Three, two, one. Three, two, one!

Dane leaped for the switch. Four, two, three, one, he signaled. Four, two, three, one.

Immediately the answer came. Four, two, three, one. Even the slower tempo of Dane’s sending was imitated!

“I’ll try a word on it!” Dane seized the switch handle and spelled out c-a-t in code.

Back came the answer. Dash-dot-dash-dot, dot-dash, dash. C-a-t ! Then the identification signal was repeated. One, two, three.

Beginning to perspire, Dane sent the word that associated itself. Back came the answer, Dash-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dash-dash-dot. D-o-g !

Yudin stepped away from the radar table. He swore softly and looked at Dane, not framing the question in his eyes.

Dane felt a weird stroking against the nerves in his back. “There’s something out there,” he said hoarsely. “Something out there is aware of us.”

Yudin took off his glasses and examined their cleanliness. “What do you think it is?”

“I’m going to ask it,” Dane told him. He called Airman Humphries from his task with the searchlight. “I’m going to transmit the question ‘Who are you?’ Watch the radar carefully and remember what you see.” He went back to the switch. “You read the code, don’t you?”

Humphries looked at Yudin.

The lieutenant nodded.

Humphries said, “Some.”

“Watch it closely, then,” Dane said. He took hold of the switch. “We ought to make a record of this.” He indicated the charting table. “Both of you take pencil and paper and write down exactly what I send and what comes back.”

He waited until they had picked up the writing materials, watching them with vivid attention as they selected pencils and handled the scratch pads. Then he began to send, W-h-o a-r-e y-o-u ? He repeated, W-h-o a-r-e y-o-u ?