“Yes?”
“The second had to do with what he had detected.”
“Pardon?”
“Over the radio telescope.” Chikamatsu closed her eyes, as if wrestling for one final moment about whether to go on. Then she opened them and said softly, “The Centaurs were not the first aliens we made contact with; they were the second.”
Kyle creased his forehead skeptically. “Oh, come on!”
“It is true,” said Chikamatsu. “In nineteen ninety-four, Algonquin picked up a signal. Of course it was not from Alpha Centauri—you cannot see that star from Canada. Huneker detected a signal from somewhere else, apparently had no trouble decoding it, and was stunned by whatever it said. He burned all the original computer tapes, encrypted the only remaining record of the message, and then killed himself. To this day, nobody knows what that alien message said. They closed down the Algonquin Observatory immediately thereafter, citing budget cuts. What they really wanted to do was disassemble everything to see if they could determine which star the signal had come from; Huneker had been scheduled to survey over forty different stars during the week he was alone up there. They tore that place apart, but never figured it out.”
Kyle digested this, then: “And Huneker used—what? RSA encryption?”
“Exactly.”
Kyle frowned. RSA is a two-key method of data-encryption: the public key is a very large number, and the private key consists of two prime numbers that are factors of the public key.
Chikamatsu spread her hands, as if the problem was plain. “Without the private key,” she said, “the message cannot be decoded.”
“And there were five hundred and twelve digits in Huneker’s public key?”
“Yes.”
Kyle frowned. “So it would take conventional computers trillions of years to find its factors by trial and error.”
“Exactly. We have had computers working full time on it since just after Huneker killed himself. So far, no luck. But, as you say, that is with conventional computers. A quantum computer—”
“A quantum computer could do it in a matter of seconds.”
“Precisely.”
Kyle nodded. “I can see why leaving an encrypted message behind might appeal to a Turing fan.” Turing had been pivotal in defeating the Nazis’ Enigma encoding machine in World War II. “But why should I agree to do this for you?”
“We have a copy of the Huneker disk—something very hard to get hold of, believe me. My partners and I believe the disk encodes information that may be of great commercial value—and if we can decode it first, we will all make a lot of money.”
“All?”
“When I was talking to them on the phone, my partners empowered me to offer you a two-percent share of all proceeds.”
“And what if there aren’t any?”
“Sorry, I should have been more explicit: I am prepared to offer you an advance of four million dollars, against a two-percent share of all proceeds. And you keep all rights to your quantum-computing technology; we simply want the message decoded.”
“What makes you think there’s anything of commercial value in the message?”
“Huneker’s second handwritten note said simply, ‘Alien radio message—unveil new technology.’ The disk with the encoded transmission—a three-and-a-half-inch floppy, if you remember such things—was found lying on top of that note. Huneker had clearly understood the message and felt that it described some innovative technology.”
Kyle frowned dubiously and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve spent half my life trying to decipher what students mean when they write something. He could have just been saying that we’d need a new technology, such as quantum computing, to break his encryption.”
Chikamatsu sounded unduly earnest. “No, it must describe some great innovation—and we want it.”
Kyle decided not to argue the point with her; she’d clearly devoted way too much time and money to this issue to countenance the thought that it was all a waste. “How did you find out about me?”
“We have monitored quantum-computing research for years, Professor Graves. We know exactly who is doing what—and how close they are to a breakthrough. You and Saperstein at the Technion are both on the verge of solving the technical difficulties.”
Kyle exhaled. He hated Saperstein’s guts—had for years. Did Chikamatsu know that? Probably—meaning that she might be baiting him. Still, four million dollars…
“Let me think about it,” he said.
“I will contact you again,” said Chikamatsu, rising. She held out a hand for the memory wafer.
Kyle was reluctant to let it go.
“It only has the public key on it,” said Chikamatsu. “Without the actual alien message, it is useless.”
Kyle hesitated a moment longer, then handed over the plastic wafer, now slick with perspiration from his palm.
Chikamatsu wiped it on a tissue, then returned it to her purse. “Thank you,” she said. “Oh, and a word to the wise—I rather suspect we are not the only ones aware of your research.”
Kyle spread his arms and tried to sound jaunty. “Then maybe I should simply hold out for the best offer.”
Chikamatsu was already at the door. “I do not think you will like the sort of offers they make.”
And then she was gone.
15
The phone rang in Heather’s office. She glanced at the call-display readout; it was an internal U of T call. That was a relief: she was getting tired of the media. But then, it seemed, they had gotten tired of her, too; the cessation of the alien messages was already old news, and reporters seemed to be leaving her alone now. Heather picked up the handset. “Hello?”
“Hi, Heather. It’s Paul Komensky, over at the CAM lab.”
“Hello, Paul.”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Ah, yours, too, thanks.”
Silence, then: “I, ah, I’ve got those substances ready you asked me to mix up.”
“That’s great! Thank you.”
“Yeah. The substrate, it’s unremarkable, essentially just a polystyrene. But the other stuff, well, I was right. It is a liquid at room temperature, but it does dry—into a thin, crystalline film.”
“Really?”
“And it’s piezoelectric.”
“Pi—pi—what?”
“Piezoelectric. It means that when you put it under stress, it generates electricity.”
“Really?”
“Not much, but some.”
“Fascinating!”
“It’s not all that unusual, really; it happens a lot in various minerals. But I wasn’t expecting it. The crystals this stuff dries to are actually similar to what we call relaxor ferroelectrics. That’s a special kind of piezoelectric crystal that can deform—that is, change shape—ten times as much as standard piezoelectric crystals do.”
“Piezoelectric,” Heather said softly. She used her fingertip to write the word on her datapad. “I’ve read something about that—can’t offhand think where, though. Anyway, can you make the tiles now?”
“Sure.”
“How long will it take?”
“The whole run? About a day.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Can you do it for me?”
“Sure.” A pause. “But why not come over here? I want to show you the apparatus, make sure it’s going to produce exactly what you want. Then we can start the run, and then maybe grab some lunch?”
Heather hesitated for a moment, then: “Sure. Sure thing. I’m on my way.”
The manufacturing equipment was simple.