Gregory Benford: Across the Sea of Suns

“Which ones?”

“There’s the rub. It’s the moving IR sources, looks like.”

“The ones we got variable fixes on? I don’t under—”

“What I’m saying, Ted, is that the radio transmitters give off heat as well. And most important, they’re moving.”

“Well, I don’t—”

Hey we’ve got this whole rig up, but you guys got to keep aligned with us or we’ll have shit to show for it when —

“Alex, this is Ted, give us an overlay of your mapping. I want to match it—”

With the IR?

“Uh, yes.”

Nigel was flimming me about that stuff. Wanted the early results. I just repped and verified the points he asked about. They’re variable. Slow, but moving.

“You’re sure?”

Yeah. The IR points are pretty weak, almost fuzzed out by the thermal landscape background Jenkins told me they were probably small volcanic vents —

“Not bloody likely.”

“Since when did you become a geologist? Look, the dust and crap down there, nobody can be sure of that IR.”

“Right. We have to go down and see.”

“That’s a little premature, Nigel. We’re standing off at a safe distance. Going to surface mode now would violate our guidelines, and you know it.”

“Dead right I know it. But that’s what we’ll have to do.”

Ted arrived at Nigel and Nikka’s apartment a little late. He carried his usual prop, a clipboard jammed with notes. Nigel steered him first to the bar, then into the deep-cradled cushions of their new couch. Ted eased into it as if uncertain of its reliability; with its slanting legs and oblique joints, it looked rickety. Nigel had designed it for their apartment’s low gravity, using the wood he had in his personal mass allotment. He was the only person in Lancer with high-quality oak, and he had carefully carved this, polishing it with the oil of his hands.

“Wish you’d come down to Command to talk,” Ted began.

“It’s a jam down there.”

“Yeah, pretty busy. No wonder you stay home, low gravity, plenty of rest—”

Alex knocked; Nigel waved him in. Alex was a heavy, balding man, face dark with fatigue. He sat down on the couch like a man dumping a weight off his back. Muscles rippled in his shoulders as he flexed them, seeking an alert posture in the deep couch. Nigel had designed it to thwart such aims; finally Alex relaxed into it.

“Whoosh!” Alex puffed. “I been worshipin’ those consoles like an acolyte.”

“Drink?”

“Just make me go to sleep.”

“You’ve brought them, though?” Ted prompted.

“Sure. I piped ’em down to your input here. They’re waitin on your screen.”

Nigel said a soft “Thanks,” and thumbed on their flat. The screen filled with a grid. Small white dots peppered the green field. “These are your time-stepped maps, Alex?” Nigel prompted.

“Yeah, weeks’ worth. I followed ’em one by one. Talk about your low bit rate—”

Ted smiled and put his hands on his knees. “Well, it’s first-class work, Alex, all of it. First-class.”

Nikka sat zazen beside Nigel, studying the men. “But the message?” she asked. “That’s what everyone’s waiting for, enough phase-coherent signal to tell—”

“We’ve got it.” The words came out dry and tired.

“You have ?” Nigel said, surprised.

“Yeah. It’s not all that hard, once you unnerstan’ that there are maybe one, two million, sources on at once. Each winks on and off, but what they’re doin’ is trying to boost the signal up by, well, ever’body chippin’ in.”

Ted said carefully, “We haven’t released the information yet because it’s well, disturbing. But Alex has cracked it, that we’re sure of. Until—”

Alex said wearily, emphatically, “It’s a 1956 Arthur Godfrey show.”

“What?” Nikka said. “You mean … literally?”

“Yeah. It’s a slow, slow playback of a radio comedy broadcast in 1956.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nigel said with relish.

Ted began: “We’ve been trying to place this in a context, to understand—”

“So—we’ve come—!” Nigel erupted with laughter. The others sat, blinking, stunned. He roared on merrily, tears squeezing from under his eyelids. For a long moment the others were stiffly silent. Then they began to shift position awkwardly, looking at one another. Nikka slowly smiled. At last Nigel descended to a chuckle, gasped for breath, and seemed to notice them again.

“The Bracewell hypothesis!”

Ted nodded. “Some of us have ventured that explanation, but I feel it’s too early—”

“Christ, it’s obvious! Those poor sods down there are intelligent, no mistake about that.”

Nikka interjected, “But no more so than Dr. Bracewell.”

“Right,” Nigel said, “because they’ve bit upon his same idea.” He spread his hands, palms up, open and obvious. “They picked up weak radio signals from us. Mulled them over. To get our attention, they figured the smartest strategy was, send back the same thing. Not some clever mathematical code or TV picture—hell, they can’t pick up TV, much less 3-D.”

“Well …” Ted shifted among the pillows. “We’ve checked with our entertainment discs—an enormous file. The voice profile matches that of Arthur Godfrey, the most popular entertainer of the 1950s in the USA.”

“Dead on,” Nigel said. “A crummy, old, fleabag radio show. Scandalously banal. Something we’d recognize.” He laughed again. “Ah, old Bracewell, would that thou could be with us now. …”

Alex growled. “Depressing, you ask me. Come all this way, find out we’re listening to ourselves.”

Ted patted Alex’s thick shoulder. “Look, this is a fantastic discovery. You’re just tired.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Alex sighed.

“You’ve got something more, then, Alex?” Nigel said lightly.

Alex brightened. “Uh, yeah, I had to track individual sources of the radio to get a phase fix. I figured, hell, might as well get ’em all. Just a rep-rate problem, following all those emitters on a time-sharing basis.”

“Here.” Ted tapped his own wrist comm and the flat screen stirred to life. The white dots began to move, some winking on and off. “These EMs are also hefty infrared sources. From their body heat, I guess. They’re alive, and apparently each carries a transmitter.”

“Perhaps a nomad culture?” Nikka said softly.

“Well, we’ve thought about that. They don’t have fixed transmitters, that’s for sure, but as for why—”

“Naw” Alex put in. “I got a few that don’t move.”

“Oh?” Ted asked, puzzled. “Is your resolution good enough to be—”

“Yeah, look, see that?” Alex lurched to his feet and walked to the flat. He pointed to a cluster of dots that did not join in the slow snowflake swirl. “These aren’t goin’ anywhere. I can tell for sure ’cause they’ve got little individual signatures in the radio spectrum, if you look close. Li’l shifts in the phase and amplitude, stuff like that.”

Nikka studied the dots as they moved in jagged little jumps. “A few remain still. Perhaps they are old? They no longer take part in the nomadic cycle?”

“Doesn’t look nomadic to me,” Nigel said. “They aren’t moving all together. Look how well spaced they are. They don’t cluster.”

Ted nodded. “Correct. They move through the valley systems, Alex thinks. Sometimes they follow the dust clouds, sometimes not.”

“Any optical fix yet?” Nigel asked.

Ted shook his head. “Dust, clouds, damn dim sunlight in the first place …”

“What is the next step, then? We cannot stand out here in the dark forever,” Nikka declared firmly.