“Shtoner.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not coming back with you, Nikolai.”
“Shtoner…”
“I’m going to stay here, with him. Maybe in another few million years some other civilization will find the two of us.”
And he turned off his suit radio.
Kwajalein
The noontime sun beat down on the silent, deserted street. Inside the air-conditioned offices, bungalows, house trailers, every man and woman on the island sat transfixed before their television sets. The same scene showed on every screen: the alien spacecraft floating in the void. The same voice came from the alien craft: Stoner’s.
“No, I’m not coming back with you, Nikolai.”
In the bustling communications center, everything stopped. Men and women froze at their jobs and stared at their screens.
Only Reynaud reacted.
“No! No, he can’t do that! He mustn’t, it’s not necessary!” The cosmologist rushed across the room, red-faced and puffing, toward Tuttle.
“Let me talk to him!” Reynaud screamed. “Give me a link to him! In the name of Christ, let me talk to him!”
Everyone tore their attention from the communications screens to the florid, screeching madman. Tuttle put his hands out in front of him, as if to protect himself from the wild-eyed Reynaud.
“You want to talk to Stoner?”
“Yes! Quickly! Before it’s too late! I can save him! I know I can!”
Chapter 45
Stoner felt strangely calm. All the big decisions were behind him now. There was no more need to struggle. No need to worry. All his life had pointed to this ending, he realized. He would finish life alone, untouched by anyone, away from them all, lost in the starry wilderness with his member of an alien race.
Another loner, he thought, gazing down at the alien’s strange, immobile face. Were you like that in life? Is that why you chose this way to spend eternity?
In New York the FCC monitor was screaming, “Get him off the air!” while the ABC News vice-president grabbed at his flailing arms to keep him away from the master control panel. In Moscow the Soviet censor, livid with anger and fear, slammed his heavy fist into the button that cut the Soyuz transmission off the worldwide broadcast. TV screens all around the globe still showed the picture of the alien spacecraft as seen by the Soyuz cameras, but suddenly there was no voice transmission coming from space.
Stoner had relaxed into an almost fetal-like curl, hanging weightlessly a foot or so above the floor of the chamber. Through the transparent walls of the ship he could see the distant crescent of Earth and the Soyuz, still parked about a hundred meters away. It seemed to be staring at him accusingly.
Stoner flicked on his suit radio.
“…you must return,” Federenko was saying, with frantic determination. “That is an order. Only seven minutes remain…”
“Nikolai, I’ve just realized something,” Stoner said. The cosmonaut fell silent. “This spacecraft—this tomb—must have been built to seek out G-type stars, I’ll bet. Our friend here came from a star that’s similar to the Sun.”
“No time for philosophy, Shtoner.”
“And once it reached a G-class star, it searched for planets with strong magnetic fields. That’s got to be right! That’s why it headed for Jupiter first: the strongest magnetosphere in the solar system. And then toward Earth, the strongest magnetic field among the inner planets.”
“Six minutes and thirty seconds,” Federenko growled.
“The strong magnetic fields are targets for two reasons,” Stoner went on, ignoring him. “First, the spacecraft taps electromagnetic energy to recharge its batteries…or whatever it uses for energy storage. But far more important, it’s likely that only planets with strong magnetospheres can support life. Life needs a strong magnetic field to act as an umbrella that shields the planet’s surface from cosmic radiations!”
“Shtoner, stop this foolishness. Come back.”
“Did you get all that, Nikolai? Was it sent to Earth? It’s important.”
“Yes, yes. Now come back.”
At CBS News, Cronkite was putting on a bravura performance, talking over the static image of the alien spacecraft, filling in with facts, conjectures, history, opinion, while his top aides phoned frantically to Washington to see if there was any way to pick up the live radio transmission from the Soyuz again.
In the White House, the President had rushed down to the communications room, where the radio transmission was coming in over the private link from Moscow. A wide-eyed aide told the President that Walter Cronkite was on the phone. The President took it immediately, and frowned with disappointment that it was actually only Cronkite’s producer screaming incoherently into the phone.
A few calming words and Cronkite himself came on. They chatted hurriedly and the President agreed to have his technicians relay the words being spoken in space to CBS. Cronkite hesitated a moment, then asked that the same favor be done for the other networks, as well. The President smiled and nodded.
“Barbara’s going to love you, Walter,” he said.
It sounded to the President as if Cronkite sputtered. “Thank you, Mr. President,” said that famous voice. “If you’ll excuse me now, sir, I should get back to the cameras.”
“Certainly, Walter,” said the President. “God bless you.”
Jo sat stunned at her computer console. All through the vast control center everything seemed to groan to a halt, as if each of the hundreds of men and women working there had simultaneously stopped breathing.
She looked up at Markov’s stricken face.
“He’s going to kill himself.”
“You must stop him,” Markov said. “You must!”
“How can I…?”
“No one else can,” Markov said, bending over her, gripping her shoulder, speaking urgently. “He loves you. You are his only link with life. Speak to him! Quickly!”
Numbly, Jo answered, “But this console isn’t wired for transmission…”
Markov turned to Zworkin, fidgeting nervously beside him. “Do something! Please! She must get through to him!”
Zworkin licked his lips and glanced uncertainly at the guards around them. “I’ll try…”
“You’re all going to have to work together from now on,” Stoner was saying. “All the nations of the world. It can never be the same for any of you. There are others out there, other races, other intelligences—and they’re just as curious and brave as we are.”
“Five minutes, Shtoner!”
“Five minutes, five hours…it doesn’t make any difference, Nikolai. It doesn’t.”
“Wait…communication from ground. On frequency two.”
“No,” said Stoner. “I don’t want to talk with them.”
“A personal message, from a woman. Miss Camerata. She sounds very upset, Shtoner.”
He debated within himself for half a moment, then pressed the button for frequency two.
“Keith! Can you hear me?” Her voice was shaking with anxiety.
“Yes, Jo, I hear you.”
Silence. Stoner realized it would take nearly twelve seconds for her answer to reach him. I’m already so far away that it’s impossible to hold a normal conversation with her.
“Please don’t do this! Don’t be a fool, Keith! Come back, please!”
“I can’t do that, Jo. Not now. If I stay here, I can send you more details about this ark, about our visitor. It’s a treasure house of knowledge. I can’t just leave it after a few lousy minutes and allow it to sail away from us forever.”