Stephen Baxter - Project Hades

Phillips called, “All right, lads. Move out steadily! Keep the circle, keep your shape!”

The soldiers moved out from the centre, consulting their maps, talking to each other quietly. Following the sketches they planted ordinances in the soft ground, leaving wire trailing between them. Here and there a more complex junction box was established, which sappers wired up.

Jones said, “Good. Good.”

Phillips said, “Well, I hope it works, Jones; we’re draining our ammo like pink gin on ladies’ night.” He took off his hat and brushed back grimy hair. “And you say you’re going to talk to the Magmoids with this set-up?”

“Quite so,” Tremayne said. “But even I don’t quite understand what you’re going to say, Jones.”

Jones grinned. “Have you heard of Project Ozma, Tremayne?”

“Why, I don’t—”

“A young American radio astronomer called Frank Drake. Calculated that his new eighty-five-foot radio telescope in West Virginia could pick up the strongest terrestrial radio signals, if they were beamed from the nearer stars. So, back in the spring, he listened to the stars—simple as that—to Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, if I’m not mistaken. Heard nothing, but it’s a start—and what a visionary experiment to try! Drake has ideas on how the telescopes could be used to signal to those distant cultures, and even what sort of signal to send. Anybody capable of building a radio telescope or some equivalent instrument must have a grasp of mathematics and physics, you see—and therefore ought to comprehend a message based on those principles. For mathematics is surely universal.”

“Ah,” Winston said. “And when the Professor and I analysed the Magmoids’ seismic signals, we did find traces of structure—sequences of repeating length, various correlations.”

“Exactly.” Jones dug a grubby bit of paper from his pocket; it was covered with a grid pattern. “I’ve sketched out a signal here that exploits the Magmoids’ own framing system, and I’ve included a sequence of prime numbers, counting up from two, three, five…”

Phillips nodded. “I think I see what you’re up to. If these Magmoid chaps pick up your signal, they might recognise us as intelligent, rather than as some sort of pest—”

“And permit us to survive. Exactly. My signal will be a balance, at least, to the aggression Godwin showed them.”

Phillips scratched his chin. “But we don’t have a radio telescope, Doctor Jones.”

“Nor do we need one! For the culture we are trying to contact is not up in the sky but down in the ground. We must improvise, Captain.”

A sapper ran up to Jones carrying a contact box, a simple Morse key with wires trailing to the network of ordinances on the ground. He saluted. “Ready, sir.”

“Jolly good—thank you, Sergeant!” Jones hefted the contact and glanced at his script. “Well, there’s no point in delaying this. There’s only going to be time for a brief signal—but that might be enough. Ready? Minefield clear? Hold onto your hats.” He started to tap the key.

In response small explosions clattered all across the ground.

Winston stared. “Oh, my word!”

Phillips said, “My giddy aunt, Jones, what are you doing?”

Jones, still working the key, shouted over the din, “My signal has to be turned into seismic waves, Captain—pulses in the rock—that’s how the Magmoids hear. And the only way to do that is through these blooming great bangs, courtesy of the Royal Engineers.”

Tremayne said, “Ah. It’s ingenious. And it should work. The ordinances will generate compressional acoustic waves—of course the attenuation will knock out anything much above a hundred Hertz—”

Jones said, irritated, “I compensated for that, obviously.”

The small explosions died away. Jones lowered his key.

Phillips said, “Well, that’s it. All the ordinances are used up. Now what?”

Jones said, “Now we wait to see if—”

A tremendous explosion erupted from the centre of Jones’s minefield. They all fell back; Jones found himself face down on the ground, and earth hailed around him. He heard the shriek of Grendels, and when he dared glance up he saw their quasi-spherical forms shoot up into the sky.

Winston crawled towards him, coughing, “Doctor Jones!”

“It’s all right, Winston, I’m intact.”

They stood, brushing dirt away, and peered into the fresh crater.

Tremayne said, “My God, Jones, call that a response?”

Phillips said, “It was a punch in the mouth, that’s what. We’re lucky to be alive.”

Jones was baffled. “I failed, then. I can’t understand it. They took my signal as more aggression. I was sure—”

Tremayne gripped his arm. “We’ll try again. We can re-establish the network.”

Winston said, “But what’s the point of doing the same thing over just to fail again?”

“Mister Stubbins! There’s always hope.”

Jones said, “No. He’s right. I was convinced this would work. I’m so terribly sorry.”

“Nonsense, man. Come on, let’s get back to work.”

Phillips scowled. “I’m not sure what was supposed to happen here, let alone what did happen. But I’ll keep the faith for one more try, Doctor Jones. I’ll see about establishing another minefield.”

Winston muttered, “We’re missing something. We have to be. Something obvious…”

Thelma approached Godwin. The Commodore had been manacled to a post inside a small green-canvas tent, with two uncomfortable-looking squaddies posted outside to guard him.

“Ah, Miss Bennet, isn’t it? Jones’s friend. Come to see the toppled tyrant, have you? Oh, don’t be cautious, you’re safe enough. I’m manacled quite securely.”

“I’m not here to make conversation. Here.” She handed him a metal cup of water.

“Thank you.” With his one free hand he sipped the water. “Why?”

“Not even a man like you deserves to die of thirst, Commodore.”

“How weak you are. I’d have had me killed.”

“Then I thank God I’m not like you.”

Jones appeared at the tent entrance. He looked crumpled, grimy, exhausted. “Thelma. They said I’d find you here. Should have known you’d be doing your bit, even for a man like this.”

Godwin said, “Ah, Caliban! You look a bit less cocksure. Plans not going well? But what of it? We humans are like rats, like fleas. The Magmoids can’t kill us all.”

Thelma walked out of the tent. “Ignore him, Jones. Come away.”

Jones said, “I let that man pollute my head for too long tonight.”

“Is there really no hope?”

“I can’t think why it didn’t work in the first place. Look, Thelma—we still have a choice to make. You and I.”

Thelma said, “You mean, we could go back to London.”

“This isn’t your fight—you’re a civil servant, not a soldier.”

“But we can’t simply leave, can we? Look—we came here by chance. We didn’t know any of these people two days ago—Clare, Winston, Mrs. Stubbins. But they are decent, brave folk. It’s like life, really.”

“Is it?”

“Certainly. When you’re born you’re dropped into a point of space and time, entirely at random, and you just have to do the best you can for the people around you.”

“Hmm. Well, you’re one decent, brave person yourself, Miss Bennet…”

She heard Tremayne calling. “Jones? Oh, confound the man—where are you?”

“Over here, Tremayne.”

Tremayne came bustling over, almost as grimy as Jones, but looking agitated.

Thelma asked, “What’s wrong?”

“What’s right—I hope. It’s Winston. He’s got something. Come on!”

Inside his tent, Godwin watched them go. He prised the handle off the metal cup Thelma had left with him, and began to saw at his cuffs.