Fred Hoyle: A for Andromeda

Protocol insisted that Britain and her neighbours were still sovereign states, but in fact initiative was fast slipping out of their hands. Although General Vandenberg was modestly styled representative of the Defence Co-ordination Committee, he was, in effect, air commander of a friendly but dominant occupying power to whom this country was one square on a large chess-board.

An ex-bomber-boy, bull-necked and square-headed, he still looked brash and youthful in middle age; but there was nothing brash about his manner. He was a New Englander, quietly spoken and civilised, and he talked with authority, as if he knew more about the world than most of the people in it.

They were speaking about Whelan. A note about him hung limply from Osborne’s hand.

“I can’t do anything now.”

“There is a kind of priority—”

Osborne heaved himself up out of his chair and called his secretary through the intercom on his desk.

“The Defence Co-ordination Committee have a low boiling-point,” Vandenberg observed.

“You can tell them we’ll cope.”

Osborne gave the note to the secretary as she came in.

“Get someone to look after that, will you?”

She took it and put a folder of papers on his desk. She was young and pretty and wore what looked like a cocktail dress: the civil service had moved on.

“Your papers for Bouldershaw.”

“Thanks. Is my car here?”

“Yes, Mr. Osborne.”

He opened the folder and read:

“The Minister’s party will arrive at Bouldershaw Fell at 3.15 p.m. and will be received by Professor Reinhart.”

“That’s to-morrow,” remarked Vandenberg. “Are you walking up?”

“I’m going a day early to meet Reinhart.” He stuffed the folder into his brief case. “Can I give you a lift to the top of Whitehall?”

“That would be a Christian deed.”

They were wary of each other, but polite—almost old-fashioned. As he rose, Vandenberg asked casually:

“Do you have an operational date for it?”

“Not yet.”

“This grows a little serious.”

“The stars can wait. They’ve waited for a long time.”

“So have the Defence Co-ordination Committee.”

Osborne gave a shrug of sophisticated impatience. He might have been a Greek arguing with a Roman.

“Reinhart will undertake military programmes as and when he can. That’s the arrangement.”

“If there’s an emergency...”

“If there’s an emergency.”

“You read the newspapers?”

“I can never get beyond the magazine section these days.”

“You should try the news pages. If there’s an emergency we’ll need all the ears we can grow this side of the Atlantic.” Vandenberg nodded to an artist’s impression of the radio-telescope on the wall of the office. “It’s not a kid’s toy to us.”

“It’s not a kid’s toy to them, either,” said Osborne.

After they had gone, Fleming phoned through from Bouldershaw Fell; but it was too late.

Judy arrived at the radio-telescope just before Osborne and Reinhart, and had a quiet chat to Harries in the hall.

“What about Bridger?”

Harries tried to look as though he were polishing a door-handle.

“Two or three visits to a back-street bookie in Bradford. Apart from that, nothing.”

“We’d better watch him.”

“I’m watching him.”

When Osborne and Reinhart arrived, they took her into the control room with them. The place was quiet and almost empty; only Harvey sat tinkering at the desk, surrounded by a litter of papers and cigarette-ends and empty drinking-cups. Reinhart clucked at it like a disturbed hen.

“You’ll have to keep this place clean.”

“Will they be able to swing the focus for the Minister?” Osborne asked.

“I hope so. We haven’t tested the tracking apparatus.”

Reinhart pottered round busily while Harvey tried to attract his attention.

“You look as if you’ve been up all night, Harvey.”

“I have, sir. So have Dr. Fleming and Dr. Bridger.”

“Struck a snag?”

“Not exactly, sir. We’ve been tracking.”

“On whose instruction?”

“Dr. Fleming’s.” Harvey was quite casual about it. “We’re lining up again now.”

“Why wasn’t I told?” Reinhart turned to Osborne and Judy. “Did you know about this?”

Judy shook her head.

“Fleming appears to make his own rules,” observed Osborne.

“Where is he?” Reinhart demanded.

“In through there.” Harvey pointed to the equipment room. “With Dr. Bridger.”

“Then ask him to spare me a minute.”

While Harvey spoke into a microphone on the desk, Reinhart paced to and fro on his small feet.

“What were you tracking?” he asked.

“A source in Andromeda.”

“M.31?”

“Not M.31, sir.”

“What then?”

“Another signal near there. An interrupted signal.”

“Have you heard it before?”

“No, sir.”

When Fleming came in he was tired and unshaven, sober but very excited in a subdued way. He held in his hand a bunch of papers from a line-printer. This time Reinhart made no allowances.

“I gather you’ve taken over the telescope.”

Fleming stopped and blinked at them.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I didn’t have time to fill in the proper forms in triplicate.” He turned to Osborne. “I did telephone your office, but you’d gone.”

“What have you been doing?” asked Reinhart.

Fleming told them, throwing the papers down on the desk in front of them.

“—And that’s the message.”

Reinhart looked at him curiously.

“You mean signal.”

“I said message. Dots and dashes—wasn’t it, Harvey?”

“It did sound like that.”

“It went on all night,” said Fleming. “It’s below the horizon now, but we can try again this evening.”

Judy looked at Osborne, but got no help from him.

“What about the opening?” she asked diffidently.

“Oh, to hell with the opening!” Fleming turned on her. “This is something! This is a voice from a thousand million, million miles away.”

“A voice?” Her own voice sounded weak and unreal.

“It’s taken two hundred light-years to reach us. The Minister can wait a day, can’t he?”

Reinhart seemed to have recovered himself. He looked up at Fleming with amusement.

“Unless it’s a satellite.”

“It’s not a satellite!”

Reinhart wandered over to Jacko’s folly.

“Before you get too excited, John, let’s check on the ironmongery in orbit.”

“We have.”

Reinhart turned to Osborne.

“You haven’t heard of anything new going up?”

“No.”

“Look,” said Fleming, “if it were a satellite it wouldn’t have stayed put all night, in the middle of the Andromeda constellation.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t the Great Nebula?”

“We located that separately, didn’t we, Harvey?”

Harvey nodded, but Reinhart still looked unconvinced.

“It could have been pattern interference—anything.”

“I know a message when I meet one!” Fleming said. “Besides, there’s something about this message I’ve never seen before. Between the groups of dots and dashes there’s a fantastic amount of fast, detailed stuff. We’ll have to lash up special receiving gear to record that.”

He keyed down the intercom and called Bridger to come from the other room, then he picked up the papers and pushed them into Reinhart’s hand. “Have a look! Ten years or more people have been waiting for this. Ten centuries for that matter.”

“Is it intelligible?” asked Osborne in his detached civil-servant’s voice, high and whinnying.

“Yes!”

“You can decypher it?”