Joe William Haldeman
Tricentennial
Scientists pointed out that the Sun could be part of a double star system. For its companion to have gone undetected, of course, it would have to be small and dim, and thousands of astronomical units distant.
They would find it eventually; “it” would turn out to be “them”; they would come in handy.
The office was opulent even by the extravagant standards of twenty-first-century Washington. Senator Connors had a passion for antiques. One wall was lined with leather-bound books; a large brass telescope symbolized his role as Liaison to the Science Guild. An intricately woven Navajo rug from his home state covered most of the parquet floor. A grandfather clock. Paintings, old maps.
The computer terminal was discreetly hidden in the top drawer of his heavy teak desk. On the desk: a blotter, a precisely centered fountain pen set, and a century-old sound-only black Bell telephone. It chimed.
His secretary said that Dr. Leventhal was waiting to see him. “Keep answering me for thirty seconds,” the Senator said. “Then hang it and send him right in.”
He cradled the phone and went to a wall mirror. Straightened his tie and cape; then with a fingernail evened out the bottom line of his lip pomade. Ran a hand through long, thinning white hair and returned to stand by the desk, one hand on the phone.
The heavy door whispered open. A short thin man bowed slightly. “Sire.”
The Senator crossed to him with both hands out. “Oh, blow that, Charlie. Give ten.” The man took both his hands, only for an instant. “When was I ever ‘Sire’ to you, you fool?”
“Since last week,” Leventhal said, “Guild members have been calling you worse names than ‘Sire.’ ”
The Senator bobbed his head twice. “True, and true. And I sympathize. Will of the people, though.”
“Sure.” Leventhal pronounced it as one word: “Willathapeeble.”
Connors went to the bookcase and opened a chased panel. “Drink?”.
“Yeah, Bo.” Charlie sighed and lowered himself into a deep sofa. “Hit me. Sherry or something.”
The Senator brought the drinks and sat down beside Charlie. “You should of listened to me. Shoulda got the Ad Guild to write your proposal.”
“We have good writers.”
“Begging to differ. Less than two percent of the electorate bothered to vote: most of them for the administration advocate. Now you take the Engineering Guild—”
“You take the engineers. And—”
“They used the Ad Guild.” Connors shrugged. “They got their budget.”
“It’s easy to sell bridges and power plants and shuttles. Hard to sell pure science.”
“The more reason for you to—”
“Yeah, sure. Ask for double and give half to the Ad boys. Maybe next year. That’s not what I came to talk about.”
“That radio stuff?”
“Right. Did you read the report?”
Connors looked into his glass. “Charlie, you know I don’t have time to—”
“Somebody read it, though.”
“Oh, righty-o. Good astronomy boy on my staff: he gave me a boil-down. Mighty interesting, that.”
“There’s an intelligent civilization eleven light-years away—that’s ‘mighty interesting’?”
“Sure. Real breakthrough.” Uncomfortable silence. “Uh, what are you going to do about it?”
“Two things. First, we’re trying to figure out what they’re saying. That’s hard. Second, we want to send a message back. That’s easy. And that’s where you come in.”
The Senator nodded and looked somewhat wary.
“Let me explain. We’ve sent messages to this star, 61 Cygni, before. It’s a double star, actually, with a dark companion.”
“Like us.”
“Sort of. Anyhow, they never answered. They aren’t listening, evidently: they aren’t sending.”
“But we got—”
“What we’re picking up is about what you’d pick up eleven light-years from Earth. A confused jumble of broadcasts, eleven years old. Very faint. But obviously not generated by any sort of natural source.”
“Then we’re already sending a message back. The same kind they’re sending us.”
“That’s right, but—”
“So what does all this have to do with me?”
“Bo, we don’t want to whisper at them—we want to shout! Get their attention.” Leventhal sipped his wine and leaned back. “For that, we’ll need one hell of a lot of power.”
“Uh, righty-o. Charlie, power’s money. How much are you talking about?”
“The whole show. I want to shut down Death Valley for twelve hours.”
The Senator’s mouth made a silent O. “Charlie, you’ve been working too hard. Another Blackout? On purpose?”
“There won’t be any Blackout. Death Valley has emergency storage for fourteen hours.”
“At half capacity.” He drained his glass and walked back to the bar, shaking his head. “First you say you want power. Then you say you want to turn off the power.” He came back with the burlap-covered bottle. “You aren’t making sense, boy.”
“Not turn it off, really. Turn it around.”
“Is that a riddle?”
“No, look. You know the power doesn’t really come from the Death Valley grid; it’s just a way station and accumulator. Power comes from the orbital—”
“I know all that, Charlie. I’ve got a Science Certificate.”
“Sure. So what we’ve got is a big microwave laser in orbit, that shoots down a tight beam of power. Enough to keep North America running. Enough—”
“That’s what I mean. You can’t just—”
“So we turn it around and shoot it at a power grid on the Moon. Relay the power around to the big radio dish at Farside. Turn it into radio waves and point it at 61 Cygni. Give ‘em a blast that’ll fry their fillings.”
“Doesn’t sound neighborly.”
“It wouldn’t actually be that powerful—but it would be a hell of a lot more powerful than any natural 21 centimeter source.”
“I don’t know, boy.” He rubbed his eyes and grimaced. “I could maybe do it on the sly, only tell a few people what’s on. But that’d only work for a few minutes … what do you need twelve hours for, anyway?”
“Well, the thing won’t aim itself at the Moon automatically, the way it does at Death Valley. Figure as much as an hour to get the thing turned around and aimed.
“Then, we don’t want to just send a blast of radio waves at them. We’ve got a five-hour program, that first builds up a mutual language, then tells them about us, and finally asks them some questions. We want to send it twice.”
Connors refilled both glasses. “How old were you in ‘47, Charlie?”
“I was born in ‘45.”
“You don’t remember the Blackout. Ten thousand people died … and you want me to suggest—”
“Come on, Bo, it’s not the same thing. We know the accumulators work now—besides, the ones who died, most of them had faulty faiL-5afes on their cars. If we warn them the power’s going to drop, they’ll check their faiL-5afes or damn well stay out of the air.”
“And the media? They’d have to take turns broadcasting. Are you going to tell the People what they can watch?”
“Fuzz the media. They’ll be getting the biggest story since the Crucifixion.”
“Maybe.” Connors took a cigarette and pushed the box toward Charlie. “You don’t remember what happened to the Senators from California in ‘47, do you?”
“Nothing good, I suppose.”
“No, indeed. They were impeached. Lucky they weren’t lynched. Even though the real trouble was ‘way up in orbit.”