Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

“Radio archeology,” said Gabe.

“Yes. Can we do it? When we’re done here?”

Gabe did not see any point in such an effort. But it was his earnest hope that Alex would follow in his footsteps and become an archeologist. There was no more rewarding profession. For all its frustrations, it provided an opportunity to put history on stage, to contribute to the sense of who we are. So maybe this was a time to give in. Maybe it would light a fire in his nephew. “You’d really like to go out and try to find a transmission, wouldn’t you?”

Alex lit up. “Yes, I would. Does that mean you’ll do it?”

“You do the research and math.”

They did not find Gustofalo. But that was okay. Gabe knew that success in his field was often matched with failure. They hadn’t actually located the tomb, but they did come away with a few artifacts, which he turned over to the Holcomb Museum. They duly thanked him with a certificate of achievement. And meantime, Alex did his homework on Brandy. The date and time of the Rover’s departure from the solar system was on record. So he could estimate within a few hours when it had arrived at Zeta Leporis.

The drive engine had blown during its arrival. Analysts maintained that Brandon could have survived no more than four hours maximum after the explosion. That outlined a ten-hour time period during which any transmission would have been sent. So he could calculate within about seven billion miles where the signal would be at any given time.

“You really think you can do that?” said Gabe, for whom mathematics was not a strong suit.

“Absolutely,” said Alex. “When do we leave?”

Andiquar University owed Gabe a few favors, so they were willing to smile quietly, pretend he was proposing a serious mission, and grant him access to their interstellar carrier, the Tracker . They also included their pilot, Tori Kolpath, in the package. Gabe and Tori had flown a number of joint missions over the past decade. She was tall and quiet, absolutely unflappable, with gray eyes and black hair. The person you’d want on the bridge if you ran into a meteor storm. When he explained the mission to her, Tori made no effort to conceal her amusement. But otherwise she played it straight.

“Do you think there’s a problem?” Gabe asked her.

“No. Not at all.”

“Then why the smile?”

“Who is this guy Brandon again?”

Alex had to provide a specific destination. “That depends on the time we get there,” he said. “The signal’s moving at 186,282.7 miles per second.” Tori rolled her eyes, and he realized immediately that she didn’t need that kind of explanation. Of course she knew the velocity of radio signals.

“The transmission will be roughly a third of the way to the solar system,” she said. “Is that right?”

“Yes, Tori.”

“I can get us into the area in about four days. Since we don’t know the precise location of the signal, let’s arrive a few hours early so it doesn’t get by us. Okay?”

They rode up to the space station, boarded the Tracker and launched.

Alex spent the first few hours on the bridge, watching her operate. He’d once considered the possibility of a career as a pilot. There was a problem, though. Alex tended to get ill when they made jumps into and out of transcendental space. He didn’t know yet what he wanted to do with his life. Hanging around Uncle Gabe had left him with a fascination for history, but there was so much of it, thousands of years and hundreds of worlds. What you had to do if you became a historian was to concentrate on a specific culture, and a specific era. He thought how much simpler life must have been when the human race was confined to a single world.

He knew that Gabe hoped he’d become an archeologist, but Alex didn’t think he’d want to spend his life digging holes.

It was a four-day flight. They spent their time watching shows, arguing about history, and talking about how exciting it would be to pick up a forty-year-old radio signal. But it was clear to Alex that Uncle Gabe and Tori were faking it. They were humoring him. It didn’t matter. He wanted to bring home that last transmission. He wanted to know that Brandy had been at peace with the way things turned out. And he also believed that capturing the transmission would be something he could one day brag about.

That was the problem with Gabe. He thought of archeology as the science of recovering physical artifacts. Jewels, weapons, agricultural instruments. Stuff like that. But the Brandon Signal could open up a whole new era. And one day Gabe would thank him.

That first night, when he’d retired to his cabin and the ship grew quiet, he found himself thinking again about him, about Brandy, trapped on the Rover with his air running out. And he wondered whether, even if there had been a final broadcast, he really wanted to hear it.

He tried to hide his feelings. He spent progressively more time reading. He played electronic games with the AI. And he worked out a lot. But he could not get the radio great out of his mind. And he began to hope there would be no signal.

Finally, after four days of flight, Tori arrived at breakfast and made her announcement: “We’re almost there. We have fifteen minutes to finish. And then belt down.”

Alex hurried through his French toast, and Tori invited him onto the bridge for the jump. He sat down beside her and drew the harness down over his shoulders. “Ready?” she said.

“Absolutely.” And please don’t get sick.

He came through it okay, and they glided out under a sky full of stars. They were in the middle of nowhere. The nearest planetary system was three light-years away. Tori checked their location and nodded. “We’re right where we want to be, Alex. And we’re about four hours early. If you have the numbers right, we’re not likely to hear anything until after lunch. The signal should arrive sometime between two o’clock and midnight.” She aimed the antennas in the direction from which the transmission would be coming, and they settled in to wait.

Tori and Gabe looked through the ship’s library for a show they could relax with. They invited Alex to help, but he declined. “Whatever you guys want is okay with me,” he said.

They decided on something from twenty years ago, a comedy featuring actors who, to Alex, just seemed dumb. Eventually he excused himself and went back onto the bridge to look for the signal. It was the first time he’d seen a sky so dark. The stars were bright, but somehow it didn’t matter. You needed a sun somewhere.

He sat in the captain’s chair. He knew Tori wouldn’t approve, but he’d hear her if she got up, and that would give him plenty of time to get to his feet. When the signal arrived, a green lamp on the instrument panel would flash. And the AI would inform the rest of the ship.

Gabe and Tori were laughing back in the cabin. They didn’t seem to understand what this was really about. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. Even the brightest adults could somehow miss the point. He’d brought some of Brandy’s broadcasts along. He hadn’t listened to any of them yet because he’d been a bit nervous about what lay ahead. But it was time. He checked the titles and set it to play.