From Beyond the Stars
Murray Leinster (as Will F. Jenkins)
TOMMY DRISCOLL lay on his stomach in the grass outside his father's laboratory and read his comic books. He was ten years old and wholly innocent of any idea that Fate or Chance or Destiny might make use of him to make the comic books come true.
He was clad in grubby shorts, with sandals, and no socks or blouse. Ants crawled on his legs as he lay on the ground, and he absently scratched them off. To the adult eye he was merely the son of that Professor Driscoll who taught advanced physics at Harwell College, and in summer vacation puttered around with research.
As such, Tommy was inconsiderable from any standpoint except that of Fate or Chance or Destiny. They had use for him.
He was, however, wholly and triumphantly a normal small boy. As he scratched thoughtfully and absorbed the pictures in his comic book, he was Space Captain McGee of the rocket-cruiser Omadhoum, gloriously defeating—for the fifteenth time since he had acquired the book—the dastardly scheme of the Dictator of Pluto to enslave the human race to the green-skinned stalk-eyed denizens of that dark planet.
A little while since he had been the Star Rover, crimson-cloaked and crimson-masked and mysteriously endowed with the power to survive unharmed the frigidity and airlessness of interstellar space. As the Star Rover, he had triumphantly smashed the attempt of some very unpleasant Mercurians to wipe out the human race so that they could emigrate to Earth.
As both splendid figures, at satisfyingly frequent intervals, Tommy had swung mighty blows at the jaws or midriffs of Mercurians, green-skinned Plutonians, renegade Earthmen, and others.
But he had just finished reading both comics three times in succession. He heaved a sigh of comfortable mental repletion and rolled over, imagining further splendid if formless adventures with space-ships and ray-guns.
Locusts whirred monotonously in the maple trees of Harwell College campus. His father's laboratory was a small stone structure off the Physics Building, and Tommy waited for his father and Professor Wardle to come out. When they did, he would walk home with them and possibly acquire an ice-cream cone on the way. With luck he might wangle another comic.
HE HEARD his father's voice. Talking to Professor Wardle, who was spending the week-end with them.
"There's the set-up," said his father inside the laboratory. "Absurd, perhaps, but this Jansky radiation bothers me. I've found out one rather startling thing about it."* (*Note: The Jansky Radiation as described, is an actual and so-far-unexplained phenomenon. It does come from beyond the Solar System from the general direction of the Milky Way. It does affect sensitive short-wave receivers. It's cause is as obscure as its reality is certain. K. G. Jansky, of the Bell Telephone research laboratories, has described his discovery in the Institute of Radio Engineers Proceedings (I.R.E. Proc.) Vol. 20, No. 12, 1532, and Vol. 23, No. 10, 1935. It has further been discussed by G. C. Southworth in Jour. of F.I., Vol. 23, No. 4, April, 1945.)
"My dear fellow," Professor Wardle said drily, "if you publish anything about the Jansky radiation the newspapers will accuse you of communicating with Mars!"
Tommy knew by his father's tone that he was grinning.
"I've not thought of anything so conservative. Everybody knows that the Jansky Radiation comes from the direction of the Milky Way and from beyond the Solar System. It makes a hissing noise in a sensitive shortwave receiver. No modulation has ever beer detected. But no explanation's been offered either."
Professor Wardle moved, inside the laboratory.
"What's the startling fact you've discovered?" he asked.
"It's got a point source," Tommy Driscoll's father said, and Tommy could tell he was still grinning. "It comes from one spot. There's a second-order effect in our atmosphere which has masked it up to now. I can prove it."
Tommy chewed on a grass stem. As the son of a professor of physics, he was disillusioned about scientists. They were not like the scientists of the comic books, who were mostly mad geniuses with plans to make themselves Emperors of Earth and had to be foiled by Captain McGee or the Star Rover. Tommy knew pessimistically that scientists just talk long words. Like his father, now. But Professor Wardle seemed startled.
"A point source! But confound it, man! That would mean it's artificial! Not natural! That it was a signal from beyond the stars! What else could it mean?"
"I'd like to know myself," said Tommy's father ruefully. "I've checked for interruptions like dots and dashes, and for modulations, like our radio. I've made sure it isn't frequency modulated. The only thing left is television."
"Therefore the television screen," said Professor Wardle. "I see. You're trying to analyze it with a scanning system. Hm. Possible. But if it is a signal from another Solar System—"
Tommy Driscoll sat up straight, his eyes wide and astonished. His mouth formed itself into a particularly round O. This, of course, was the natural occurrence if Fate or Chance or Destiny was to use him to make the comic books come true. He had been listening with only a fraction of his ears. To a ten-year-old boy, adults do not often seem intelligent. Few of them have any interest in Space Captain McGee or the Star Rover.
But Tommy's father was talking about interplanetary communication! Of signals from the planets of another sun! From creatures who might be super-intelligent vegetables like the Wangos the Star Rover had to fight, or immaterial entities like those misty things that almost defeated Captain McGee on the Ghost Planet because when he swung his mighty fist there wasn't anything solid for him to hit. Tommy's father was talking about things like that!
He got up and gazed in the open door of the small laboratory. He regarded the rather messy assemblage of equipment on the workbench with bright-eyed, respectful awe. His father nodded.
"H'llo, Captain," he said to his son. "No hot wires around. Come in. What's on your mind?"
Tommy's eyes shone.
"Uh—you were talkin' about signals from another planet."
"I see," said his father. "Right up your alley, eh? I hadn't realized the popular appeal. But if you'd like to listen—"
Tommy fairly quivered with eagerness. His father threw a switch. There was a tiny hum from a loud-speaker, then silence. Then, presently, there was a tiny hissing noise. Just a hissing sound. Nothing else.
"That's it, Captain," his father told Tommy. "That's the noise the Jansky radiation makes. When we turn this dial we tune it out this way"—he demonstrated—"and also when we turn the dial that way. Then we tune it back in." He proved it. "Nobody has ever explained it, but it comes from outer space. I think it comes from just one spot.
PROFESSOR WARDLE, smoking a pipe and sprawled in a chair, nodded amiably at Tommy.
"Yes, sir," Tommy said, thrilled.
His throat went dry from excitement. His father threw a second switch. A television-screen glowed faintly.
"Now it's transferred to the screen," he told Tommy, "but it's still all scrambled. Nothing happens. It's quite a job to unscramble a television signal even when you know all about the transmitter. If there's a transmitter sending this, I don't know any of its constants." Over Tommy's head he said to Professor Wardle, "The possible combinations run ten to the ninth."
Professor Wardle nodded.
"Lines per inch, size of screen, images per second, possible colors." He grunted. "Then the scanning pattern and possible three dimensions and so on. You've got several billion possible variations, all right!"
"Unscramble it, Dad!" said Tommy eagerly. "Please! I want to see what the people look like who're sending it! Do you think we can lick them if they get tough?"