‘Yes.’
‘Why “these people”? Why exclude Freya and Tom?’ Vashislav called over, without looking up from his papers.
Gibson ignored the comment. ‘Okay. Proceed to principle number two. “The discoverer should inform his or her relevant national authority.”’
‘Our respective governments. But you must have told HMG already.’
‘Yes and no. I naturally assumed Vashislav here was raving. You know, a lifetime of vodka. But yes, I did make a precautionary phone call.’
‘To?’
‘The President of the Royal Astronomical Society. I made it clear that it was an extremely long shot, not to be taken too seriously at this stage. My guess is he fired it up to the President of the Royal Society or even the Minister of Science.’
‘My invitation came from Downing Street,’ Petrie said. ‘Did you ask for me specifically?’
‘Yes, Tom. As I said, I heard you at Uppsala last year. All that chaos theory and pattern recognition. You were a natural, just the man to check out Vashislav’s ravings. You’re a rising star.’
‘And being junior, I’m easily controlled. Less likely to steal the limelight than some big name.’
Shtyrkov gave a deep belly laugh. Gibson pouted.
Petrie continued: ‘But they didn’t route it through GCHQ.’
Shtyrkov said, ‘The government would bring ridicule on itself if they got caught up in a false alarm.’
‘Who cares? I asked for you and I got you.’
‘Then I got this warning at Heathrow.’
‘I don’t understand that,’ Gibson admitted. ‘And I don’t like it.’
‘And Freya? Where does she come into it?’ Petrie asked.
‘We need to know where the signal’s coming from. You’ll find that out for us, won’t you, Freya?’
The Norwegian girl carried on typing.
Petrie pointed to the paper on Gibson’s lap. ‘Okay, Charlie, what’s next?’
‘Principle number three. Wait for it, I love this one. “A confirmed detection of ET should be disseminated promptly, openly, and widely through scientific channels and public media. The discoverer should have the privilege of making the first public announcement.” Since I’m the PI, that means me.’ Gibson smiled a smile of great happiness.
‘You’ll be on CNN around the world within hours. I can see the flashbulbs reflecting in your eyes already. Even horsemen in Mongolia will know your name.’
Gibson continued to radiate beatitude. ‘And that’s about it, Tom. The rest is just stuff about protecting signal frequencies and distributing data.’
‘Okay, Charlie. So the protocols say you first inform HMG and then Joe Public. How? Do you just phone up the Prime Minister?’
‘I’ll feed it through the RAS President like before. Let him handle the problem. What about you, Vash?’
‘It’s not a problem for me. Friends in high places.’
‘And then we tell Joe Public straight away.’
‘No, Charlie.’ Svetlana turned round in her chair. ‘Wait until we can name the source of the signal.’
‘We can’t wait for that. We can’t risk some civil servant upstaging us.’ Gibson’s face was dark. ‘I make the announcement today.’
Shtyrkov said, ‘Our governments will not make any announcement without thoroughly checking out the story. That will take them days, maybe weeks.’
Petrie said, ‘There’s a message for humanity in that signal. We don’t even know if that DNA is human. It’s far more kudos for us if we, rather than some other group, tell the world what the signallers are saying.’
The argument had an immediate effect on Gibson. ‘You know, Tom, I think you’re right. If some other outfit interpreted the message it could draw attention from us.’
Petrie drove the point home. ‘People would think we just hit it lucky but they were the real gurus. The high priests interpreting the sacred text.’
‘My God, yes.’ Gibson looked as if he had just stepped back from the edge of a chasm. ‘What day is this?’
‘Wednesday afternoon,’ Freya said. ‘I need as much time as you can give me.’
Gibson scowled. ‘But the longer we delay, the bigger the risk of a leak.’
‘So how long are you giving me, Charlie?’ Freya asked.
Gibson counted up to three with his fingers. ‘Okay. There’s a balance. The longer HMG has this, the bigger the risk of a leak, but at the very least we need to tell people where the signal came from. However, with or without the source, I go public with this on Monday. We daren’t delay any longer than that.’
Svetlana, at her terminal again, said in a startled voice, ‘Oh, my goodness. What’s this?’
11
The Bishop and the Chorus Girl
‘It can only be a hoax. I mean, what else can it be?’
David Maddox, President of the Royal Astronomical Society, twirled spaghetti on to his fork. ‘The genuine article?’
Lord Sangster, Minister for Science, gave a sceptical smile. ‘David, let’s keep our feet on the ground here. Let me look at it again.’
A red London bus roared noisily past the restaurant door. Maddox waited until it had passed, and handed the paper over. ‘It was securely encrypted.’
‘Not against our friends in the NSA, if they got to know of it.’ Sangster put down his fork and read the e-mail, carefully, for the fifth or sixth time:
Dear Professor Maddox,
(1) In my communication of three days ago I forewarned you that we may have picked up an intelligent extraterrestrial signal with our Tatras cave facility. I requested that cryptanalytic expertise be arranged in the form of Dr Thomas Petrie, whose abilities in this area are outstanding.
(2) He arrived yesterday, and after an overnight session confirmed my opinion that such a signal has, in fact, been received by us. We are in the process of identifying the source of the alien message.
(3) We have so far decrypted only a tiny fraction of the signal. The information to this point is of a biological nature.
(4) In accordance with the SETI League protocol, paragraph 2, I request that news of this discovery now be passed on to HMG.
(5) Once we have identified the home planet, I will proceed to paras 3 and 4 of the protocol, hopefully within the next three or four days. As principal investigator, I claim the right to make the first public announcement.
Yours sincerely,
C.T. Gibson
Sangster looked up, glanced again around the shabby little restaurant, its walls studded with paintings of rural Tuscany, and dust-covered Chianti bottles along the shelves. Near the bar, at the far end, an old man was picking at a plate of fish soup. Two waiters — elderly men with grey waistcoats and faces, napkins over arms — were standing dutifully, looking like extras in The Godfather. ‘What’s your opinion, David?’
‘A SETI signal? And from an underground dark matter facility rather than a radio telescope? It hardly seems credible.’
‘Can we ignore it, then?’
Maddox wrinkled his nose. ‘Suppose we ignore Gibson’s message and the signal turns out to be real…’
Sangster said, ‘The tabloids would crucify us.’
‘And if we declare the signal to be genuine and it turns out a mistake?’
‘The tabloids would crucify us, and come election time we’d be laughed out of office.’ Sangster sipped at his Sicilian wine and made a face. ‘Quite native, I would say. Tell me, David, this SETI League…’
‘A league of respected bodies, the International Academy of Astronautics chief amongst them, but their SETI protocols have no legal force. They want the state that discovers the signal to inform the Secretary General of the United Nations as well as the public and international community.’