“Lord, I hope not. Spent enough of my life in tropical paradises.”
Stoner sank back into his armchair, thinking, So they’ve brought NATO into it. Maybe my letter to Claude helped. I wonder if he forwarded the note to that Russian linguist?
Thompson came in with a tray bearing three mugs. Stoner took his and saw that it was black coffee. One sip, though, convinced him never to allow Thompson to make coffee for him again.
“Professor Cavendish was a prisoner of war for nearly five years,” Thompson said. “In the Pacific.”
“Burma, actually,” said Cavendish. “Bridge over the River Kwai and that sort of thing. Very nasty. Best forgotten, if you can.”
Within minutes their national origins and earlier lives were forgotten as they started talking shop.
“There’s just not enough data,” Stoner admitted, “to backtrack the thing’s point of origin. I don’t think we’ll ever figure out where it came from.”
“But you have enough to show that it couldn’t have been launched from Jupiter,” Cavendish said.
“I think so,” Stoner said. “We’ve tried every possible launch window. If the spacecraft appeared near Jupiter at the same time the radio pulses started, there isn’t any possible way it could have been launched from Jupiter itself. No way.”
“It’s a negative proof,” Thompson said.
“All the stronger for that,” said Cavendish. “If we can definitely rule out Jupiter as the origin of our visitor, then that’s quite an accomplishment.”
“I suppose the next step would be to rule out the other planets.”
“Easily done. I should think your computer could crunch through those numbers quickly enough.”
Stoner stretched his legs out and slouched back on his chair. He put the steaming coffee cup on his belt buckle and said, “So it’s definite—the thing came from outside the solar system. We have the numbers to prove that.”
“We will have,” Thompson said, “in a few days.”
“But that makes things even more puzzling, doesn’t it?” said Cavendish.
“How so?”
“Well, if it came from outside the solar system, from another star, it must have taken thousands of years for the blasted thing to reach this far. Millions of years, more likely.”
“If it’s an unmanned probe…”
“Even unmanned”—Cavendish waved his emptied teacup—“a piece of machinery that can stay intact and operate reliably for millennia? For eons? Difficult to believe.”
“For human machinery.”
“What if there’s a crew aboard?” Thompson mused. “Our own spacecraft have worked better when astronauts were aboard to repair malfunctions.”
“But it’s the blasted time factor that makes all these arguments so difficult,” Cavendish insisted. “If you have a spacecraft traveling from one star to another it would take so many centuries that the crew would have to be prepared to spend its entire life on the ship…plus the lives of its children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—dozens of whole generations, don’t you see?”
“Not if the ship could fly at the speed of light, or close to it,” Stoner said.
“Relativistic effects,” Thompson muttered. “Time dilation.”
“Not bloody likely,” Cavendish countered. “And your own observations show it poking along at a rather sedate speed, actually, more like your Voyager and Mariner probes.”
Thompson finished his cup and got to his feet. “Well, one thing’s for sure. Whichever way you look at it, the damned thing is impossible.”
“But it’s there,” said Stoner.
“Ahh,” Cavendish said with a growing smile. “That’s what makes science interesting, isn’t it?”
Chapter 11
TOP SECRET
Memorandum
TO: Lt. R. J. Dooley, U. S. Naval Intelligence
FROM: Capt. G. V. Yates, NATO/HQ
SUBJECT: Security clearance, Prof. Roger H. T. Cavendish, FRS, FIAC, OBE, PhD.
1. Prof. Cavendish holds security clearances up to and including TOP SECRET from British Army, Royal Scientific Establishment, and NATO. See attached documentation.
2. Latest security check was concluded 24 Aug 80.
3. Initial security clearance was granted Cavendish 15 Dec 59 after his repatriation from USSR in 1957. He was a POW in Burma, later Manchuria, and then taken into custody by Soviet troops at end of WWII. He remained in USSR voluntarily until 1957, when repatriated to UK.
4. British MI suspected Cavendish as a Soviet agent, but repeated checks of his activities have uncovered no suspicious activities. Consequently he has been cleared up to and including TOP SECRET.
5. Conclusion: If Cavendish is a Soviet agent, he is a “deep agent,” assigned to do nothing for many years, until he has penetrated to a position of high trust and responsibility. Project JOVE may be that position.
TOP SECRET
Walking along the gravel path that skirted the long rows of silvery radio telescope antennas, Kirill Markov pulled his fleece hat down over his tingling ears and reflected on how much of the Russian spirit is shaped by the Russian climate.
A melancholy people in a bleak land that suffers a dreary climate, he told himself.
He stopped and surveyed the scene. Endless vistas of flat, snow-covered country, with hardly a hillock to break the monotony. Heavy, dull gray clouds pressing down like the hand of a sullen god. A cold wind moaning constantly, without even a tree to catch it and offer a lighter, cheerier sound.
Why did they have to build this research station out here in the steppes? Why not by the Black Sea, where the commissars have their summer dachas and the sun shines once in a while?
He shook his head. Admit it, old boy. If you were getting somewhere with this puzzle they’ve handed you, you wouldn’t mind the scenery or the climate so much.
It was the truth. The radio pulses had him stymied. If they were a language, or even a code, he had not been able to make the slightest dent in it during the months he’d been working on the problem.
Wearily, he turned in his tracks and started trudging back toward his living quarters. The wind tugged at his long overcoat. His feet were freezing.
And the radio pulses were as much a mystery to him as they had been when he had first tackled the problem.
He was walking past the gray cinder block of the administration building when Sonya Vlasov’s bright, high voice caught him.
“There you are, Kir! I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”
Inwardly he groaned. Sonya had been an easy conquest, if conquest was the correct word to use with someone so willing. Willing? She was demanding. Markov had a notion that their long nights together in bed had something to do with his inability to crack the Jovian puzzle. She was young, frighteningly energetic, athletic and more inventive than a team of Chinese acrobats.
She rushed up and grabbed his arm. “Have you forgotten that the laboratory director has invited you to tea this afternoon?”
It was already getting dark. The lights atop the buildings and along the paths had been switched on. Markov felt cold and utterly bleak deep inside his soul. Incredibly, Sonya was smiling, bouncy and coatless. She wore nothing more than a sweater, loose-fitting slacks and boots.
Her sweater was not loose-fitting, though, and despite himself Markov felt a tiny glow within. He smiled down at Sonya’s round, happy face.
“Yes, I had quite forgotten about the invitation. Where would I be without you?”
She laughed. “In bed with one of the other girls. They’re all very jealous of me, you know.”