It was a painting; as Brad decreased the magnification the frame came into view, then the columns and arches of an elegant setting. A museum, clean and somber, styled by a master architect.
“Intelligent, civilized, beautiful,” Ivo murmured. “But where are the living ones?”
“There are no living creatures on Planet Mbsleuti. This is a royal tomb, as nearly as we can ascertain — one of the few to be buried deeply enough to endure.”
“Endure what?”
Suddenly the scene was a heaving sea of sludge, breaking against a barren beach. Ivo could almost smell the contamination of the smoky atmosphere.
“Total pollution,” Brad said. “Earth, air, water. We have analyzed the content and determined that all of it is artificial. They became dependent on their machines for their existence, and could not control the chemical and atomic waste products. Want to bet where they got their fresh meat, just before the end? But it only hastened their extinction as a species.”
The picture of the royal woman was back, mercifully, but Ivo still saw her devastated world. “Because they overextended their resources?” he asked, requiring no answer. “Would not limit themselves until Nature had to do it for them?” He shook his head. “How long ago?”
“Fifteen thousand years.”
“All right,” Ivo said defensively. “That’s two. Any other technological species on tap?”
“One more.” Brad adjusted again, and a landscape of ruins came into view. After a time a grotesque four-legged creature shambled along a pathway between two overgrown mounds of rubble. Matted hair concealed its sensory organs, and it walked with its toes curled under — like a gorilla, Ivo thought. It looked sick and hungry.
“As we make it, civilization collapsed here less than five hundred years before this picture,” Brad said. “Population reduced from about ten billion individuals to no more than a million, and is declining. There still isn’t enough to eat, you see, and naturally no medicine. Most surviving plants are diseased themselves…”
Ivo did not bother to inquire whether the hunched creature was a descendant of the dominant species. Obviously it had once been bipedal.
Of course three samples did not make a conclusive case. They could be three freaks. But, unwillingly, he was coming to accept the notion that Man might well be a fourth such freak. Overpopulation, pollution of environment, savagery — he refused to believe that it had to proceed to species extinction, but certainly it could.
Yet the sample was atypical, for there were no neolithic-era cultures. Chance would place many more species in this stage.
“It was from the probs I got the heat-shielding technique,” Brad said, allowing the subject to shift. He had brought the picture back to Sung, their planet. “We’re still working on their books and equipment, and we’re learning a great deal. And if we’re lucky, one day we’ll discover a really advanced civilization, one that has licked this problem of overbreed, and learn how to undo the damage we have done to our own planet. The macroscope has the potential to jump our science ahead more in days than it has progressed in centuries hitherto.”
“I yield the point. This is major. But—”
“But why am I wasting time on you, instead of researching for the solutions to the problems of mankind? Because something has come up.”
“I gathered as much,” Ivo replied with gentle irony. “What has come up?”
“We’re receiving what amounts to commercial broadcasts.”
Ivo choked over the letdown. “You can’t even tune out local interference? I thought you operated on a different wavelength, or whatever.”
“Alien broadcasts. Artificial signals in the prime macroscopic band.”
Ivo digested this. “So you have made real contact.”
“A one-way contact. We can’t send, we can only receive. We know of no way to tame a macron, but obviously some species does.”
“So some stellar civilization is sending out free entertainment?” His words sounded ridiculous as he said them, but he could think of no better immediate remark.
“It isn’t entertainment. Instructional series. Coded information.”
“And you can’t decode it? That’s why you need Schön?”
“We comprehend it. It is designed for ready assimilation, though not in quite the manner we anticipated.”
“You mean, not a dit-dot building up from 2 ÷ 2 or forming a picture of their stellar system? No, don’t go into the specifics; it was rhetorical. Is it from a nearby planet? A surrender ultimatum?”
“It originates about fifteen thousand light-years away, from the direction of the constellation Scorpio. No invasion, no ultimatum.”
“But we weren’t civilized fifteen thousand years ago. How could they send us a message?”
“It is spherical radiation. That’s another surprise. We assumed that any long-reaching artificial signal would be focused, for economy of power. This has to be a Type II technology.”
“I don’t—”
“Type I would be equivalent to ours, or to the probs’ level of power control. Type II means they can harness the entire radiation output of their star. Type III would match the luminous energy of an entire galaxy. The designations have been theoretical — until recently. Presumably this message is intended for all macroscope-developing cultures within its range.”
“But — that’s deliberate contact between intelligent species! A magnificent breakthrough! Isn’t it?”
“Yes it is,” Brad agreed morosely. On the screen, the hulking mound of indolent probs continued its futile activity. “Right when we stand most in need of advice from a higher civilization. You can see why all the other functions of the macroscope have become incidental. Why should we make a tedious search of space, when we have been presented with a programmed text from a culture centuries ahead of us?”
Ivo kept his eyes on the screen. “The probs had the macroscope, and this program should have been around for at least five thousand years then. Why didn’t they use it? Or were they in the opposite direction, so it hadn’t reached them yet?”
“They received the program. So did the humanoids, we believe. That was part of the trouble.”
“You told me that they stopped using their macroscope, though. That strikes me as learning to read, then burning all your books. They should have used the alien instruction and benefited from it, as we should. The alternative — or are you saying that we’ll wash out if we have to take advice from an elder civilization?”
“No, we’re agreed here at the station that the benefits of a free education are worth the risks. Mankind isn’t likely to get flabby that way. For one thing, we’d be pursuing all other avenues of knowledge at the same time, on our own.”
“What’s stopping you then?”
“The Greek element.”
“The — ?”
“Bearing gifts; beware of.”
“You said the knowledge would not hurt us by itself — and what kind of payment could they demand, after fifteen thousand years?”
“The ultimate. They can destroy us.”
“Brad, I may be a hick, but—”
“Specifically, our best brains. We have already suffered casualties. That’s the crisis.”