The Expert Dreamers (1962) Anthology

by Frederik Pohl (ed. )

  “It’s fantastic. Must be an extremely rapid burst of ionization.”

  “What d’you think we ought to do?”

  “Wait, I suppose. It may be a transient effect. In fact, it looks rather like it.”

  “If it goes on we might shorten the wavelength.”

  “Yes, we might. But scarcely anybody else could. The Americans could work up a new wavelength pretty quickly, and probably the Russians as well. But it’s doubtful if many of the others could. We’ve had enough trouble getting ‘em to build their present transmitters.”

  “Then there’s nothing to do but hang on?”

  “Well, I don’t think I should try transmitting, because you’ll never know if the messages get through. I should just leave the receiver on recorder. Then we shall have any stuff that happens to come through—if conditions improve, that is to say.”

  There was a brilliant auroral-type display that night, which the Nortonstowe scientists took to be associated with the sudden burst of ionization high in the atmosphere. They had no idea of the cause of the ionization, however. Very large disturbances of the Earth’s magnetic field were also noted.

  Marlowe and Bill Barnett discussed the matter as they strolled around, admiring the display.

  “My God, look at those orange-colored sheets,” said Marlowe.

  “What baffles me, Geoff, is that this is obviously a low level display. You can tell that from the colors. I suppose we ought to have a shot at getting a spectrum, although I’d swear to it from what we can see right now. I’d say that all this is going on not more than fifty miles up, probably less. It’s in just the place where we’ve been getting all the excessive ionization.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Bill. That it’s easy to imagine a sudden puff of gas hitting the extreme outside of the atmosphere. But that would produce a disturbance much higher up. It’s difficult to believe this is due to impact.”

  “No, I don’t think it possibly can be. It looks to me much more like an electrical discharge.”

  “The magnetic disturbances would check with that.”

  “But you see what this means, Geoff? This isn’t from the Sun. Nothing like it from the Sun has ever happened before. If it’s an electrical disturbance, it must come from the Cloud.”

  Leicester and Kingsley hurried along to the communication lab after breakfast the following morning. A short message from Ireland had come in at 6:20. A long message from the U.S. had started at 7:51, but after three minutes there had been a fade and the rest of the message was lost. A short message from Sweden was received about mid-day, but a longer message from China was interrupted by fade-out soon after two o’clock.

  Parkinson joined Leicester and Kingsley at tea.

  ‘This is a most disturbing business.” he said.

  “I can imagine so.” answered Kingsley. “And it’s another queer business.”

  “Well, it’s certainly annoying. I thought we’d got this communication problem in hand. In what way is it queer?”

  “In that we seem to be on the verge of transmission the whole time. Sometimes messages come through and sometimes they don’t, as if the ionization is oscillating up and down.”

  “Barnett thinks that electrical discharges are going on. So wouldn’t you expect oscillations?”

  “You’re becoming quite a scientist, aren’t you, Parkinson?” laughed Kingsley. “But it isn’t as easy as that,” he went on. “Oscillation yes, but hardly oscillations like the ones we’ve been getting. Don’t you see how odd it is?”

  “No, I can’t say I do.”

  “The messages from China and the U.S., man! We got a fade-out on each of ‘em. That seems to show that when transmission is possible it’s only barely possible. The oscillations seem to be making transmission just possible but only by the slightest margin. That might happen once by chance but it’s very remarkable that it should happen twice.”

  “Isn’t there a flaw there, Chris?” Leicester chewed his pipe, and then pointed with it. “If discharges are going on, the oscillations might be quite rapid. Both the messages from the U.S. and China were long, over three minutes. Perhaps the oscillations last about three minutes. Then you can understand why we get short messages complete, like those from Brazil and Ireland, while we never get a complete long message.”

  “Ingenious, Harry, but I don’t believe it. I was looking at your signal record of the U.S. message. It’s quite steady, until the fade-out starts. That doesn’t look like a deep oscillation, otherwise the signal would vary even before the fade-out. Then if oscillations are going on every three minutes, why aren’t*we getting a lot more messages, or at any rate fragments of them? I think that’s a fatal objection.”

  Leicester chewed his pipe again.

  “It certainly looks like it. The whole thing’s damn strange.”

  “What do you propose to do about it?” asked Parkinson.

  “It might be a good idea, Parkinson, if you were to ask London to cable Washington asking for transmissions to be sent for five minutes every hour, starting on the hour. Then we shall know what messages are not being received, as well as those that do come through. You might also like to appraise other governments of the situation.”

  No further transmissions were received during the next three days. Whether this was due to fade-out or because no messages were sent was not known. In this unsatisfactory state of affairs a change of plan was decided on. As Marlowe told Parkinson:

  “We’ve decided to look into this business properly, instead of depending on chance transmissions.”

  “How do you intend to do that?”

  “We’re arranging to point all our aerials upwards, instead of more or less toward the horizon. Then we can use our own transmissions to investigate this unusual ionization. We’ll pick up reflections of our own transmissions, that is to say.”

  For the next two days the radio astronomers were hard at work on the aerials. It was late in the afternoon of 9th December by the time every arrangement had been made. Quite a crowd assembled in the lab to watch results.

  “O.K. Let her rip,” said someone.

  “What wavelength shall we start on?”

  “Better try one meter first,” suggested Barnett. “If Kingsley is right in supposing that twenty-five centimeters is on the verge of transmission, and if our ideas on collision damping are correct, this ought to be about critical for vertical propagation.”

  The one meter transmitter was switched on.

  “Ifs going through,” Barnett remarked.

  “How do you know that?” Parkinson asked Marlowe.

  “There’s nothing but very weak return signals,” answered Marlowe. “You can see that on the tube over there. Most of the power is being absorbed or is going right through the atmosphere into space.”

  The next half hour was spent in gazing at electrical equipment and in technical talk. Then there was a rustle of excitement.

  “Signal’s going up.”

  “Look at it!” exclaimed Marlowe. “My God, it’s going up with a rush!”

  The return signal continued to grow for about ten minutes.

  “It’s saturated. We’re getting total reflection now, I’d say,” said Leicester.

  “Looks as though you were right, Chris. We must be quite near the critical frequency. Reflection is coming from a height of just under fifty miles, more or less where we expected it. Ionization there must be a hundred to a thousand times normal.”

  A further half hour was spent in measurements.

  “Better see what ten centimeters does,” remarked Marlowe.

  There was a pressing of switches.

  “We’re on ten centimeters now. It’s going right through, as of course it ought to,” announced Barnett.

  “This is unbearably scientific,” said Ann Halsey. “I’m going off to make tea. Come and help, Chris, if you can leave your meters and dials for a few minutes.”

  Sometime later while they were drinking tea and conversing generally, L
eicester gave a startled cry.

  “Heavens above! Look at this!”

  “It’s impossible!”

  “But it’s happening.”

  “The ten centimeter reflection is rising. It must mean that the ionization is going up at a colossal rate,” Marlowe explained to Parkinson.

  “The damn thing’s saturating again.”

  “It means the ionization has increased a hundredfold in less than an hour. It’s incredible.”

  “Better put the one centimeter transmitter on, Harry,” Kingsley said to Leicester.

  So the ten centimeter transmission was changed to a one centimeter transmission.

  “Well, that’s going through all right,” someone remarked.

  “But not for long. In another half hour the one centimeter will be trapped, mark my words,” said Barnett.

  “Incidentally, what message is being sent?” asked Parkinson.

  “None,” answered Leicester, “we’re only sending C.W. —continuous wave.”

  “As if that explained everything,” thought Parkinson.

  But although the scientists sat around for a couple of hours or more nothing further of note happened.

  “Well, it’s still going through. We’ll see what it looks like after dinner,” said Barnett.

  After dinner the one centimeter transmission was still going through.

  “It might be worth switching back to ten centimeters,” suggested Marlowe.

  “O.K. Let’s try again.” Leicester flicked the switches. “That’s interesting,” he said. “We’re going through on ten centimeters now. The ionization seems to be dropping, and pretty rapidly too.”

  “Negative ion formation probably”—from Weichart.

  Ten minutes later Leicester whooped with excitement.

  “Look, the signal’s coming in again!”

  He was right. During the next few minutes the reflected signal grew rapidly to a maximum value.

  “Complete reflection now. What shall we do? Go back to one centimeter?”

  “No, Harry,” said Kingsley. “My revolutionary suggestion is that we go upstairs to the sitting-room, where we drink coffee and where we listen to music played by Ann’s fair hand. I’d like to switch off for an hour or two and come back later.”

  “What on earth is the idea, Chris?”

  “Oh, just a hunch, a crazy idea, I suppose. But perhaps you’ll indulge me for once in a way.”

  “For once in a way!” chuckled Marlowe. “You’ve been indulged, Chris, from the day you were born.”

  “That may be so, but it’s scarcely polite to remark on it, Geoff. Come on, Ann. You’ve been waiting to try out the Beethoven Opus 106 on us. Now’s your chance.”

  It was an hour and a half or so later, with the opening chords of the great sonata still ringing in their heads, that the company made its way back to the transmitting lab.

  “Try the one meter first, just for luck,” said Kingsley.

  “Bet you that one meter is completely trapped,” Barnett said as he clicked on various switches.

  “No, it’s not, by John Brown’s body,” he exclaimed a few minutes later, when the equipment had warmed up. “It’s going through. It just isn’t believable, and yet it’s as plain as a pikestaff on the tube.”

  “What’s your betting, Harry, on what’s going to happen next?”

  “I’m not betting, Chris. This is worse than ‘spot the lady’.”

  “I’m betting it’s going to saturate.”

  “Any reasons?”

  “If it saturates Fll have reasons, of course. If it doesn’t there won’t be any reasons.”

  “Playing safe, eh?”

  “Signal going up,” sang out Barnett. “Looks as though Chris is going to be right. Up it goes!”

  Five minutes later the one meter signal saturated. It was completely trapped by the ionosphere, no power getting away from the Earth.

  “Now try ten centimeters,” Kingsley commanded.

  For the next twenty or thirty minutes the equipment was watched keenly, all comment silenced. The earlier pattern repeated. Very little reflection was obtained at first. The reflected signal then increased rapidly in intensity.

  “Well, there it is. At first the signal penetrates the ionosphere. Then after a few minutes the ionization rises and we get complete trapping. What’s it mean, Chris?” asked Leicester.

  “Let’s go back upstairs and think about it. If Ann and Yvette will be kind-hearted and make another brew of coffee perhaps we can do something towards licking this business into shape.”

  McNeil came in while coffee was being prepared. He had been attending a sick child while the experiments had been going on.

  “Why the air of great solemnity? What’s been happening?”

  “You’re just in time, John. We’re going to run over the facts. But we’ve promised not to start until the coffee arrives.”

  The coffee came, and Kingsley began his summing up.

  “For John’s benefit I’ll have to start a long way back. What happens to radio waves when they’re transmitted depends on two things, the wavelength and the ionization in the atmosphere. Suppose we choose a particular wavelength for transmission and consider what happens as the degree of ionization increases. To begin with, for low ionization the

  radio energy streams out of the atmosphere, with very little of it getting reflected. Then as the ionization increases there is more and more reflection until quite suddenly the reflection goes up very steeply until eventually all the radio energy is reflected, none of it getting away from the Earth. We say that the signal saturates. Is that all clear, John?”

  “Up to a point. What I don’t see is how the wavelength comes into it.”

  “Well, the lower the wavelength the more ionization is needed to produce saturation.”

  “So while one wavelength might be completely reflected by the atmosphere, some shorter wavelength might penetrate almost completely into outer space.”

  “That’s exactly the situation. But let me go back to my particular wavelength for a moment, and to the effect of rising ionization. For convenience in talking, I’d like to call it ‘pattern of events A’.”

  “You’d like to call it what?” asked Parkinson.

  “This is what I mean:

  “One. A low ionization allowing almost complete penetration.

  “Two. A rising ionization giving a reflected signal of increasing strength.

  “Three. An ionization so high that reflection becomes complete.

  “This is what I call ‘pattern A’.”

  “And what is pattern B?” asked Ann Halsey.

  “There won’t be any pattern B.”

  “Then why bother with the A?”

  “Preserve me from the obtuseness of women! I can call it pattern A because I want to, can’t I?”

  “Of course, dear. But why do you want to?”

  “Go on, Chris. She’s only pulling your leg.”

  “Well, here’s a list of what happened this afternoon and evening. Let me read it out to you as a table.”

  “It certainly looks horribly systematic when it’s all put together like that.” said Leicester

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not getting this”—Parkinson.

  “Nor am I,” admitted McNeil.

  Kingsley spoke slowly.

  “As far as I’m aware these events can be explained very simply on one hypothesis, but I warn you it’s an entirely preposterous hypothesis.”

  “Chris, will you please stop trying to be dramatic and tell us in simple words what this preposterous hypothesis is?”

  “Very well. In one breath—that on any wavelength from a few centimeters upwards, our own transmissions automatically produce a rise of ionization which continues to the saturation point.”

  “It simply isn’t possible,” Leicester shook his head.

  “I didn’t say it was possible,” answered Kingsley. “I said it explained the facts. An
d it does. It explains the whole of my table.”

  “I can half see what you’re driving at,’’ remarked McNeil.

  “Am I to suppose that the ionization falls as soon as you cease transmission?’’

  “Yes. When we stop transmission the ionizing agent is cut off, whatever it may be—perhaps Bill’s electrical discharges. Then the ionization falls very rapidly. You see the ionization we’re dealing with is abnormally low in the atmosphere, where the gas density is large enough to give an extremely rapid rate of formation of negative oxygen ions. So the ionization dries up very quickly as soon as it isn’t being renewed.’’

  “Let’s go into this in a bit more detail,’’ Marlowe began, speaking out of a haze of aniseed smoke. “It seems to me that this hypothetical ionizing agency must have pretty good judgment. Suppose we switch on a ten centimeter transmission. Then according to your idea, Chris, the agency, whatever it is, drives the ionization up until the ten centimeter waves remain trapped inside the Earth’s atmosphere. And—here’s my point—the ionization goes no higher than that. It’s all got to be very nicely adjusted. The agency has to know just how far to go and no further.’’

  “Which doesn’t make it seem very plausible,’’ said Weichart.

  “And there are other difficulties. Why were we able to go on so long with the twenty-five centimeter communication? That lasted for quite a number of days, not for only half an hour. And why doesn’t the same thing happen—your pattern A as you call it—when we use a one centimeter wavelength?”

  “Bloody bad philosophy,” grunted Alexandrov. “Waste of breath. Hypothesis judged by prediction. Only sound method.”

  Leicester glanced at his watch.

  “It’s well over an hour since our last transmission. If Chris is right we ought to get his pattern A, if we switch on again at ten centimeters but not on one meter, and possibly at one meter also. Let’s try.”

  Leicester and about half a dozen others went off to the lab. Half an hour later they were back.

  “Still complete reflection at one meter. Pattern A on ten centimeters,” Leicester announced.

  “Which looks as if it supports Chris.”

  “I’m not sure that it does,” remarked Weichart. “Why didn’t the one meter give pattern A?”