The Preston jumped a third time, across 200 million kilometers, and emerged within rock-throwing distance of the new world. It floated peacefully ahead in a sea of clouds. She put the terrestrial on-screen and magnified it. Continents, broad oceans, island chains, mountain ranges. Save for the shape of the continents, it could have been Earth.
It even had a single, oversized crater-ridden moon.
Magnificent.
“McAdams dead ahead,” said Phyllis.
“Anything artificial in orbit?” Rudy asked.
“Negative,” said Phyl. “If I locate anything I will let you know, but there seems to be nothing.”
“How about on the moon? Any sign they’ve been there?”
The lunar surface appeared on the auxiliary screen. Gray, cratered, a few peaks. Bleak, unbroken landscapes. “No indication visible.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” said Antonio. “We know they had space travel in an earlier era.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Rudy. “Anything could have happened.”
The lunar images vanished and were replaced by telescopic views of the planet. Cities glittered in the sunlight. Hutch climbed out of her seat, raised both fists over her head, and embraced Rudy. Antonio lined up, and she hugged him, too. “At last,” she said. “I’d given up believing it would ever happen.”
They were majestic structures, with towers and bridges and wide highways. “Got aircraft,” said Phyl. An airship appeared. A propeller-driven dirigible, it might have come directly out of the early twentieth century. And a jet. “Big one,” said Phyl. “Probably carrying two hundred passengers.”
She switched back to one of the cities. It was enormous, straddling two rivers. Lots of traffic moving in its streets. Cars. Vehicles that might have been trains or buses.
“Can we get a look at them?” asked Rudy. “The inhabitants?”
Yes. Phyllis focused on a street corner.
They were thick-waisted bipedal creatures, not unlike barrels with limbs. Vehicles moved past in a steady stream. Then there must have been a signal because they stopped and the creatures swarmed into the street. Most wore loose-fitting trousers and shirts. There was no distinguishing between sexes, nor could anyone figure out how big the creatures were. Their skin was slick, vaguely repulsive, in the way a reptile’s might be. They had faces: two eyes on the sides of the skull, rather than in front. “They started out as somebody’s prey,” said Antonio.
There was a nose and a mouth, but no sign of ears. The eyes were relatively large.
They watched a jet aircraft take off from a runway well outside the city. Moments later, another one followed.
“What are we going to do?” asked Antonio. “Go down and say hello?”
“In Academy days,” said Rudy, “that would have been prohibited.”
Hutch nodded. “The pilot would have been required to notify us, and we’d have sent a team.”
She was dazzling in that moment. Her eyes were filled with light. “And did anyone ever notify you?” asked Antonio.
“We never really found anybody. Not while I was there.”
“Except a few savages,” said Rudy.
The sheer joy that had swept through Antonio suddenly drained off at the prospect they might make a few notes and move on, leaving the contact to someone else. “So what do we do?” he asked.
Rudy was awestruck. Antonio could hear him breathing, watch him shaking his head as if he’d arrived in Paradise. “Not sure,” he said. They were outrunning the sun, leaving it behind. Ahead, more cities glittered in an approaching dawn.
When things calmed down, Hutch realized she almost wished they’d found nobody home. Maybe that was what she was used to. Maybe in the end she was too cautious for this line of work. Or maybe she’d simply gotten old. “Last time we tried dropping by to say hello,” she said, “we lost some people.”
Rudy nodded and said something, but he wasn’t listening. His mind was down on the city streets.
“Phyl,” she said, “can you read any of the radio signals yet? What they’re saying?”
“Negative, Hutch. It’s going to take a while. For one thing, there seem to be quite a few different languages.”
“How long?”
“How long will it take? I’ll need a few days.”
“We can’t wait that long,” said Rudy. He was already looking aft, down the passageway that led past their compartments to the zero-gee tube and the access to the launch bay.
“Why not, Rudy? What’s your hurry?”
My God, wasn’t it obvious? “Come on, Hutch, we’re not going to play that better-safe-than-sorry game, are we?”
“Glad you see it my way, Rudy,” she said, in a tone that made it clear who was in charge. “We will not go plunging in. And anyhow, even if you went down this afternoon and shook somebody’s hand, you’d have a hard time saying hello.”
“I know. But goddam it—”
“Let’s just keep cool. Okay?” Then, to Phyclass="underline" “Let us know when we’re able to talk to them.”
“Okay.”
“Also, we’ll want to find someone we can have a conversation with. Try to find somebody like”—she smiled—“Rudy. Or Antonio. A physicist or a journalist. When you do, look for a way we can connect with him.”
The AIs needed almost four days to break through the language barrier. “Mostly it’s just entertainment,” Phyl said. “Drama. Adventure. Comedy. A lot like what we’d have. There’s probably also a fair amount of station-to-station traffic that we’re not getting. The broadcast stuff is likely to have a stronger signal.”
“Drama, adventure, and comedy. Can you let us take a look?”
“I’ll make them available. Do you have a preference?”
“Whatever you have,” said Rudy. “Maybe show us their quality stuff.”
“I have no way to make that judgment.”
Rudy tried not to look foolish. Of course. Kidding. “Just pick something at random. Can you provide a reading copy? It’ll be faster.”
“Of course.”
“Me, too,” said Antonio.
“And you, Hutch?”
“I’ll take as close as you can get to the broadcast version. Good show, Phyl. One more thing: If we’re able to set up a conversation with somebody, will you be able to do on-the-spot translation?”
“Not at the moment. I’m not yet proficient. And there will necessarily be some limitations.”
“Okay. That’s your next task. Pick one of the more widely used languages.”
A series of mode lamps began blinking. “I’ll be ready tomorrow at about this time.”
The comedies were slapstick. The creatures ran con games against each other, inevitably got caught, and fell down a lot. They pretended to skills they didn’t have, chased each other around the set, pursued hopeless get-rich-quick schemes, failed consistently in their efforts to score with members of the opposite sex.
Even up close, Hutch had trouble distinguishing the sexes. The females were smaller, but otherwise possessed no obviously different features. No breasts, no flaring hips, no sense of softness.
The shows contrasted to the relatively sophisticated comedy to which she was accustomed. When she commented along that line to Rudy, he smiled condescendingly. “You have to open your mind, Hutch. Don’t assume just because it’s different that it’s not at our level.”