Space Visitor Read online

  Fascinated by Bracewell’s article, Lunan had got hold of the original reports made by Carl Stormer. Suspecting a code, he attempted to graph the echoes. One axis was a measure of the amount of time each echo was delayed. The other axis indicated the position of each echo in the sequence. Then he reversed the axes, and the result was striking: a collection of dots that looked to him like a sky map of the constellation Bootis, with the double star Epsilon Bootis significantly out of place. Lunan explained that might be the starship’s way of saying that Epsilon Bootis was its place of origin.

  Further research indicated that Arcturus, the constellation’s brightest star, was situated in the suggested map in roughly the position it had occupied thirteen thousand years ago. Lunan’s theory was that that dated the time the probe arrived in the Earth’s vicinity and instructed its computerized equipment to scan the skies and draw up the star map.

  Immediately, others began to send off blip-like radio signals into space at regular thirty-second intervals in hopes of stirring the space probe into another response.

  At approximately the same time, the United States sent off the first message-bearing spacecrafts, Pioneer Ten and Pioneer Eleven, aimed to pass near enough to Jupiter to send back pictures and data, make a half turn about the giant planet, and then soar out into space. Both were equipped with a message to any alien civilization which might some day intercept it. Each of the Pioneers carried plaques showing two nude human figures, with other information in symbols that NASA hoped were universal. Maps of the solar system and the planet Earth were also included.

  It was shortly after that the Glormar Explorer of the Hughes Tool Company began the controversial mining of the deep-sea beds for manganese nodules, billions of tons of which were estimated to be on the ocean floor. Some parts of the Pacific floor were literally paved with potato-sized nodules rich in manganese, copper, nickel, and cobalt.

  Immediately delegates from ninety-one nations met in Geneva to wrangle over the jurisdiction of the international deep-sea beds. A hectic international scramble to grab this wealth of priceless resources developed. It was finally resolved that twenty-five percent of all profits taken from the ocean’s beds would go to the new Reunited Nations, to be utilized for the human race as a whole. Otherwise, the ocean’s bottom was available to all to exploit.

  It was not surprising that the first truly major effort of the Reunited Nations was the creation of an ultra-large radio telescope on the far side of the moon, to search space for fellow intelligent life. Thousands of automated shuttlecraft hoisted men and materials to orbiting spaceships, which in turn ferried them over to Luna. Hundreds of technicians were trained to assemble three gigantic antenna dishes each a mile across. They were nestled in separate craters but connected to a single receiver.

  The observatory was under remote control from Earth by the Ozma Department of the Reunited Nations, the name derived from Project Ozma, which, under the leadership of Frank D. Drake, had been the first to attempt to listen in on potential extraterrestrial radio emanations. After two months of negative results, the project was suspended, but by no means had the dream been given up.

  To avoid meteorites, Luna City, or what some were want to call the Luna Hilton, was constructed beneath the moon’s surface. It housed a permanent group of six: two communications technicians, one doctor-psychiatrist, one geologist, one chief-cook-and-bottle-washer, and one so-called recreation officer. Their principle task was to take care of visitors from earth, many of whom were in space for the first time. Their tour of duty lasted six months, the pensions they then received were fabulous; and none, with one exception, ever volunteered for a second tour of duty. Prolonged stay on Luna, no matter what the pay, was universally undesirable.

  The one exception, Werner Brecht, was now seated in the recreation hall of the Luna Hilton, his five companions gaping at him, his own expression defensive.

  Max Zimmerman said anxiously, “Jesus Christ, Kraut.

  “Kraut, are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind? What do you mean you’ve found an extraterrestrial spaceship?”

  Brecht sighed. From a pocket of his coveralls he brought forth a small sheaf of Poloroid-type photos and tossed them to the table, then knocked back the balance of his drink.

  “There you are,” he said gratuitously.

  The other five had already gathered around.

  Brett-James exclaimed, “I say, by George, it looks like one of those early Russian Vostoks such as the one Yuri Gagarin used. Possibly somehow it crashed and———” He let the sentence dribble away.

  Brecht shook his head. “No dice, Your Majesty.” He hunted around in the photos for one that depicted him standing next to the mysterious spacecraft, slightly under a rock ledge. He said, “I put the camera on a tripod and self-timed it to get this shot. The thing’s twice the size of a Vostok, and it doesn’t look like any other spacecraft ever manufactured on Earth, either.”

  They were still gawking, still unbelieving.

  He said, “There’s something else.” He fished into another pocket and came up with a potato-sized rock. “I took this from underneath it.”

  It was absolutely quiet in the recreation hall. None of them knew what he was building up to.

  He said very slowly, “I’ll have to check further, in the lab, but unless I’m very much mistaken, this rock is older than that period in which life first was formed in the oceans of our world.”

  “Wow!” Azikiwe let out finally. “Let’s get into our spacesuits and go out and see it.”

  “Bloody right,” Brett-James exclaimed, turning in the direction of the room which housed the nearest spacelock.

  “Wait a minute,” Brecht said quietly. He got up and headed to the bar and poured himself another stiff Scotch, once again ignoring ice or mix.

  They all looked at him, waiting.

  “I’m not taking you to it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Zimmerman stared at him as though the other were demented. “What in the hell are you talking about? It’s the biggest discovery in the history of the human race: We are not alone in the galaxy.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Brecht said doggedly, knocking back half of the second drink. “Frankly, I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Mary Lou echoed. “Afraid of what, darling?”

  “Not of what,” he told her. “For whom. I’m afraid for the human race.”

  He returned to his chair and slumped into it. One by one, the others went to the bar and poured drinks for themselves before coming back to the table.

  Brecht was a small man, Latin in appearance in spite of his name. His hair was dark and so were his eyes, his teeth sparkling white when he smiled, which wasn’t often. He was small and wiry and moved with a quick grace. He had few friends but among them where these five, for any one of whom he would have given his life; only partially because back on earth, before taking this most recent Luna tour of duty, the psychiatrists of the Ozma Department had implanted that affection hypnotically.

  He said now, weariness in his voice, “I discovered the damn thing on my first tour here, three years ago. My first inclination was to reveal it immediately, of course, and go down in history as the first man to discover an extraterrestrial artifact. But then I had second thoughts.

  “This alien life form had reached a level of technology that enabled them to cross space… possibly before the lowest life form had even begun to evolve on earth…”

  “I say, old chap, what’s that got to do with it?” Brett-James asked.

  Brecht eyed him. “Don’t you see? Sooner or later we are going to come up against this intelligence. Do you know what, Your Majesty? The human race is crazy as bedbugs.”

  Brett-James murmured, “You’re not making much sense, Kraut.”

  “Maybe he is,” Mary Lou said thoughtfully. “Go on, Werner.”

  He took a deep breath. “Let’s face it, an intelligent life form can’t develop technologically without at the same time developi
ng ethical and moral codes along with it. Why? Because eventually it reaches the point where the culture will destroy itself without such codes. We reached that point—the ability to destroy ourselves—with the advent of nuclear weapons. The United States, which first developed the A-bomb, didn’t have a moral code strong enough to keep it from destroying two Japanese cities, even though Japan was already reeling, and the better part of the world was zeroing in on her by that time since the threat of Germany and Italy had been eliminated. Within a few years, the Soviet Union had nuclear fission bombs, and even beat the Americans to the ones based on fusion. The British, French, and Chinese did not lag far behind——-»”

  “The People’s Republic was forced to develop them in self-defense,” Li Ching interrupted.

  The geologist didn’t bother to respond. He went on, “The world went into an unprecedented arms race. Hundreds of billions were spent to develop ever more powerful bombs and more efficient missiles with which to deliver or intercept them. And when man went into space it was with full competition between nations, not cooperation. Today, any of the great powers, Common Europe, United America, the Soviet Complex, the People’s Republic of China, could destroy that whole planet of ours several times over. And they’re all ready to do it, given any kind of a slip.”

  He paused to look around at each of them, then shook his head.

  “With this mentality, are we ready to contact alien life forms undoubtedly far, far more advanced than we are in science?”

  Zimmerman shifted unhappily in his chair. “That’s all very well, but the thing’s there and we can’t make it go away by ignoring it. We’ve got to find out why it’s there, where it came from, and how it managed to get across deep space.”

  “Jolly well told,” Brett-James agreed somewhat indignantly.

  Brecht grunted. “Have you ever considered why we are sitting here at the Luna Radio Interferometer Observatory patiently directing our radio telescope all about this area of the galaxy, listening for intelligent communications attempts, but at the same time not directing our own signals into space for other intelligences to pick up?”

  They scowled at him uncomprehendingly.

  “The reason is the Ozma Department wants to know where they are, but they are afraid to let them know where we are. We’re still seeing it in terms of bug-eyed monsters, or little green men with death rays who want to conquer the Earth. I’m not going to reveal the location of that star-ship until I know what the world is going to do about it.”

  Azikiwe took up the photos again and looked through them carefully. “I note that you’ve fuzzed out the background by focusing with very little depth. There’s no hint in the pictures of their location.”

  “It won’t wash,” Brett-James said. “We’ll go out with metal detectors. There are several of them, top strength, in the engineer’s warehouse.”

  Brecht shook his head. “No dice. Remember, I’ve been checking out the thing for three tours of duty. I don’t think it’s made of metal, not as we know it. Neither the hull, nor anything inside reacts to a metal detector.”

  Mary Lou asked, “You couldn’t hear anything, I suppose?”

  He shook his head. “Not even with a gimmick the engineers call an electronic-stethoscope which will theoretically pick up a mouse’s footsteps across a table through a couple of inches of steel.”

  They searched for sensible questions, still not quite able to accept what he was telling them.

  Zimmerman asked, “What else did you do?”

  “I checked out the hull with everything I could think of—acids, a diamond drill, so on and so forth.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t even scratch it with the drill and none of my chemicals reacted to it.”

  “Heavens to Betsy!” Mary Lou exclaimed.

  “Was there any kind of an entry?” asked Li Ching.

  “Something that could have been one. Circular, similar to a porthole. Too small for an ordinary man, but a child, or possibly a small woman such as you, Chink, could make it.”

  Zimmerman asked the next question: “Did you try to open it?”

  “I considered it but decided that it better wait until such experts as we can dream up are present. Or possibly it should be shipped back to Earth where it can be worked on under laboratory conditions. I don’t know, but I didn’t want to open Pandora’s box, so to speak.”

  “It still won’t wash, Kraut.” Zimmerman was emphatic. “It’s there. We’ve got to reveal its existence. When we report it—report you’ve found it—they’ll send up a few dozen technicians and they’ll find it sooner or later.”

  Brecht shook his head. “Oh no they won’t. If you’ll check the Jaguar, you’ll find a pickax and a crowbar. I jimmied that rock ledge down and buried the spacecraft.”

  Brett-James raised his eyes upwards in a gesture of despair. He picked up two of the best photos, including the one with Brecht in it, and said, “Come on, Chink.”

  Li Ching blinked. “Where?”

  “To the communications room. It’s time we checked in with the Ozma Department. Who the hell’s the director this month, that Swede? You’d better come too, Kraut. He’ll probably bust your eardrums at the other end of the 230,000 miles involved. They say he’s got a temper like a male walrus in breeding season.”

  “We’ll all come,” Zimmerman said, standing.

  They filed down the hall to the communications room. Brett-James took his place behind the Rube Goldberg board and screen; Li Ching, his second in command, stood behind hers, almost an exact duplicate. Communications officers were duplicated on the Luna teams in case one of them came down with space cafard. Anybody else was more or less expendable, but they had to have communication with the home planet.

  The others stood around and watched.

  Finally the last switch was flicked, a last dial twisted. “Luna City calling Ozma Department. Brett-James here. Come in, Ozma.”

  The laser-beam he was utilizing bounced off the small communications satellite stationed permanently above the Observatory and took off on its way to Mother Earth. The communications officer, and everyone else in the room, waited out the two-and-a-half-second time lag each way.

  A face faded onto the screen, a sleepy-looking face. “Ozma Department. Harlan Jones here. Hi, Kingsley, what’s up?”

  “I want to have a scrambled talk with Director Nilsson Vogel. I mean, really scrambled, Harlan. Not even you.”

  “Are you completely around the bend, Kingsley? It’s two o’clock here in Greater Washington.”

  “I dare say. However it is D-Day here. Get him on soonest, Harlan. This is top-top emergency.”

  “See what I can do.”

  Ten minutes passed.

  A new face faded onto the screen, irritated, a heavy Scandinavian face more than averagely wrinkled for a man in his early sixties. He glared at Brett-James and rumbled, “Well?”

  The Englishman asked, “Is this scrambled, sir?”

  “So Harlan Jones tells me.”

  “Sir, Werner Brecht, our team geologist, has discovered an extraterrestrial spacecraft in seemingly perfect condition.”

  The number of seconds that passed before the reply came could not be attributed solely to the time lag.

  The face on the screen was incredulous. “Are you down with space cafard, Brett-James? Immediately repeat what you just said in detail.”

  “Yes, sir. Exploring with one of the Luna vehicles, geologist Werner Brecht has discovered an extraterrestrial spacecraft.” Brett-James put the two photos against the screen. “Here are pictures of it.”

  The Director muttered something in Swedish that sounded like heartfelt profanity, then said in Esperanto, “Put him on immediately.”

  Werner Brecht slid into the chair Brett-James vacated for him, before the screen. The Englishman stood to one side, watching the controls, delicately adjusting a dial here and there at intervals.

  Brecht said slowly, “I discovered the space vehicle on my first tour of duty. Since than I have been
examining it to the best of my ability. I’ll have to wait until I have Earthside access to laboratories and am in a position to confer with colleagues more advanced in the field than myself before I am certain, but I believe the vehicle has been on Luna for millions of years.”

  “Good God! Is it intact?”

  “Yes, as Commander Brett-James reported, it is seemingly in perfect condition. It was under an outcropping of rock, quite secure from small meteorites at least.”

  “I’ll have a team of appropriate technicians up there within days. Don’t touch it meanwhile. How far from Luna City is it located?”

  Werner Brecht looked directly into his superior’s eyes. “I won’t tell you that, sir.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They went by the twenty-four-hour clock and adhered to their schedule religiously. Meals and sleeping hours were always the same, be it agelong night or age-long day. It was the only possible way to keep their physical and mental health intact. In his insistence on routine, Max Zimmerman was almost tyrannical.

  It wasn’t long after the call to the director of the Ozma Department on Earth that Zimmerman and Li Ching entered their quarters.

  Theoretically, there was no official position on the sleeping arrangements of the staff of the Radio Interferometer Observatory. However, six months on the surface of the moon was bad enough; not having normal sexual relations, in addition to all other discomforts, would have been an unnecessary hardship. In practice, therefore, it was a bit of a setup. The teams always consisted of three men and three women, all between the ages of thirty and forty, all free of close entanglements, including marriage, at home. They were screened out for racial or nationalistic prejudices, and homosexuality. Thus it was that the Ozma Department not only allowed such relationships but actually encouraged them, though this was a little-known fact among the average citizens back on Earth. Too many howls might have gone up on the part of religious groups and other puritanical elements.