“Didn’t you mention that officially this project should be finished in August? By the way, why in August?”
“Not simply in August, but on the third day,” the woman explained, but seeing that this wasn’t enough, she expanded her answer: “This is the day on which Christopher Columbus set off to open the New World in 1492, exactly thousand years ago.”
“Ha, ha,” Johan giggled and theatrically widened his eyes, “A millennium anniversary, huh? Then why are you asking about the interval? Don’t we need to buy a little over four months?”
“You know,” Medea began her answer after a moment of reflection, “this is the date when he’d just set off, not yet knowing what he would achieve. In two months, by October 10, his crew had almost started a mutiny. Columbus headed off tragedy by promising them that if land wasn’t sighted in two days, they would return home. The next night land was discovered and on October 12 he confirmed the arrival in his account. It seems we’re in a similar situation.”
“So you want us to extend the project to that date?” the man asked her, seriously this time.
Medea smiled again. “Yes, I think, um, if we decided to start with one symbolic date, then let’s finish with another one. No matter what anyone thinks, I believe that the SQP deserves its last chance, and a little more. In memory of my ancestors, if you don’t mind.”
Johan smiled, too. “I don’t mind. Let’s at least once in our modest life be the ground breakers.”
Chapter 50
It didn’t take a long time to find the necessary person. The next morning, a woman in her early fifties, with thin blond hair and a round face, appeared on their TV screen. Peering into them with her penetrating, colorless eyes, she introduced herself: “I’m Clara Ricky, head of the astronomy and astrophysics department of the State Science Committee.”
After Johan had introduced Medea and himself, he got down to business.
It was long since the media had mentioned the SQP project. It was impossible to constantly maintain interest in a phenomenon that actually no longer existed. But the eccentric desire of the old couple to support it at the expense of their savings had reminded society of this project again.
All the more, in return they got the exclusive right to communicate with the aliens. Of course, this proposal had amused many people around the world. Even more fun in the public’s opinion was the unique decision of these pensioners, based on some mysterious calculation, to find out the date when they would finally lose the need for their money.
From the very beginning the spouses were ready for such an attitude towards them, and so they didn’t feel any inconvenience because of it. On the contrary, the ordinary pensioners had now become famous people, and they really liked it.
They signed a corresponding agreement with the scientific committee and then they even completed a three-day course, where the couple learned to distinguish the necessary messages from other cosmic radiation.
In addition, they got the opportunity to get acquainted with the telescope that they were renting. Their guide was a local engineer named Peter Falkstag. During their video tour, this tall, thin young man, dressed in a parka, told them that he only controlled the hardware there. Specialists from a remote laboratory, via a satellite channel, installed changes in the software, Peter explained.
Medea and Johan, through the screen of their TV, carefully examined complex devices, as if meticulously checking the goods offered to them. They not only inspected the station from the outside; with the help of a video camera, they even went inside. The woman became agitated and tears even appeared in her eyes when, on the second floor, on one of the walls of the observation room, she saw portraits of her ancestress Miriam and her son Georg among the other photographs.
The large monitor turned on as soon as Peter entered the room. From here, the software of the astrophysical complex constantly moved the parabolic receiver so that the constellation of the Northern Crown was day and night within the limits of its radio vision. Now the monitor showed the signals that the antenna was receiving at that moment. Both husband and wife already knew: this was the eternal cosmic background.
“Johan, I have to disconnect my phone from the telescope,” Medea said during dinner, a week after they’d become watchers. “I can’t take it anymore. Even if it’s just an ordinary message, my heart pinches. And you have strong nerves—you only reacted that way on the first day.”
Medea meant that the communication modem transmitted the data received from the remote equipment to their home computer and mobile phones at the same time. It informed them of any minor changes in the cosmic background, about the rotation of the parabolic antenna, the changes in weather conditions, and so on.
“This is because I did it from the very beginning. The messages distracted me from my work. Can’t we just look at them in the evening?” Johan answered with a simple-minded smile.
For a while, Medea looked at him with her eyebrows raised. Then she shook her head and grumbled: “And all this time I’ve been tearing up my nerves like a fool.”
After that, they only checked the space news in the evening. The messages were exactly the same after one day, and after ten days, and after twenty, and after a month, and after three months, and after four…
Space didn’t seem to have the same importance in these fragments of time, as for humans. There are no intervals for the universe at all. For it, any time interval is zero, because it has an infinite amount of time, and if you divide any finite value, even the largest, by infinity, the result of this will always be zero.
On this fresh, even cold winter evening, Johan had been repairing a flower bed pump and had begun to collect his tools in a box. At that moment, he felt a vibration in the pocket of his jacket. The old man pulled out his telephone, and, since he had already taken off his glasses, he squinted at his device. ‘Clara Ricky’, reported an inscription on the screen.
Johan wondered slightly, because they’d talked just the previous day and he’d reported to her about the latest news from the antenna, or rather, their usual absence. What could have happened since then? He pressed a button, and after her familiar face had appeared on the display, he spoke: “Hello Clara, have the rules changed? Now must I report to you every day?”
“Good afternoon, Johan,” the woman greeted him officially. “No, nothing of the kind, it’s just that...” she hesitated a bit before continuing, “actually, you no longer need to report to me at all.”
Johan looked at the screen in surprise.“ What’s the matter?” He asked a few seconds later, “Did another star explode?”
The woman smiled joylessly and continued to speak, as a herald of distress, “Your and Medea’s desire to fight for the dream of mankind to the very end makes me personally have great respect for you.”
The old man just looked at the screen, puzzled. The scientist nodded, as if she agreed that she’d actually stretched her story too much and said, “Today, August 3, about an hour and a half ago, a meteorite of yet unknown size hit the radio telescope that you rent. It damaged the secondary reflector and destroyed part of the parabolic reflector."
“Really? What… can it be fixed?” Johan spoke after a pause.
“Now that there aren’t enough specialists at North, because almost all of them are involved in monitoring the astronomical event, the restoration of the radio telescope will take at least several months, that is, until the end of your lease. I am really sorry.” The scientist sincerely sympathized with the old man.
Remembering suddenly, Clara added: “The unused money will be returned to your account in the coming days.”
After that, she told him the reasons for the incident, and they said goodbye to each other.
At the end of the day, Medea and Johan didn’t have dinner in the dining room, as usual, but in the guest room—it was a farewell to the SQP.
In spite of the fact that it was already August, and winter had fully taken over, warm days, from time to time, even now were admixing with
the cold. Nevertheless, this evening demonstrated that the cold was still in charge. Johan first closed the windows, and later even turned on the heating.
The couple had dinner, a duck in an apple garnish, and washed it down with champagne. Then they opened another bottle and set about dessert. Johan, after he’d put a piece of cake on his plate, left the table and sat in a recliner by the window. He put his glass of wine directly on the parquet floor, and began to devour a chocolate pie, cutting off pieces of it with a teaspoon.
“It turns out that what people didn’t dare to do, space itself has accomplished.” Medea broke the short silence.
“Exactly. That woman, Clara said just that,” her husband confirmed once again. “Together with the image of the exploding stars, what’s it called… gravitational perturbation… in short, a wave of attraction also came to us and it knocked little rocks from out of their orbits."
“What an incredible coincidence,” Medea expressed her amazement once again. “It’s good that the waves affected only small stones.”
“Not really,” Johan grinned. “Didn’t I say? As Clara said, scientists aren’t sure that these waves didn’t affect other asteroids. Astronomers are afraid that large ones may also collide with Earth.”
“Wow!” Medea exclaimed.
Johan smiled and said, to distract her from this topic, “In any case, space not only completed the SQP, but also took care that you would feel like a person who has fulfilled her duty.”
“By the way, it did something for you, too,” his wife told him with a sly smile.
At first, Johan frowned perplexedly, but then, with a pleased expression on his face he began to explain, “It’s not exactly what you think. It’s just that the situation is different, now. Since the galaxy itself has told us that there will be no more news, even if we wait till the next Big Bang, then, obviously, I am satisfied that we saved some of our money.”
“Wait a minute!” Medea exclaimed suddenly, “During all this turmoil—cooking, baking dessert, and so forth, I completely forgot to ask: how did they know about the damage of the antenna before we did?”
“What do you mean?” The man didn’t understand.
“I say that every new message from the antenna, without exception, must first come to our computer. Didn’t we pay so much money for a satellite channel because of this?” The elderly woman asked with ever-increasing suspicion.
“So what?” The old man, already defeated by alcohol, could not so easily and quickly understand the simple hint of his wife. He just frowned.
“They tricked us!” Medea exclaimed with excessive indignation. After all, she’d drunk as much wine as her husband. “All this time they were furtively receiving our signal in parallel!”
Finally, Johan realized what his wife was trying to tell him, and felt relieved. He bowed his head slightly and, without opening his lips, smiled broadly, patronizingly. He explained to his indignant wife, “Do you remember that tall guy who organized a video tour for us and said that he serves the antenna engines and other equipment?”
Medea frowned questioningly.
“It turns out that he saw with his own eyes how the telescope was broken. Fortunately, he wasn’t injured in the accident. So, this person immediately called the committee of his country, and they informed ours,” the man explained in a velvet voice.
“I see,” Medea uttered after a short silence, and then asked in a muffled voice: “Johan, do you now regret letting me drag you into this huge and, as it turned out, meaningless expense?”
This time the old man answered almost instantly. Apparently, he had already thought it over, and now he only had to present his inner conclusion to his wife. He took a glass of champagne from the floor, drained it and began his speech, which turned out to be rather grandiloquent: “It was like I was playing for the biggest prize in history. I couldn’t even have dreamed that someday I would participate in such a game. And in general, has anyone played such a game? I… we even became world famous, and we still are, although maybe not for long! And you can’t just pay some money and buy the title of world celebrity. There is no such store in the world! And it’s nice!”
He got up, went to the table and took the bottle.
“Let’s drink, for we have no regrets!”
The next day, Medea unconsciously tried not to enter the office-room. She felt that, despite their previous day’s mutual calm, she didn’t yet want to see the last fragment of the meaningless eternal messages of the universe.
Instead, she took up her gardening tools and went to her flowerbed. Johan was still setting up his watering machine, as usual, preparing in advance for the summer. They could not complete their affairs. A cold rain began, and the elderly couple had no choice but to return to the house.
Chapter 51
Ama, Mafkona, and Omis, guided by space navigation, in less than two hours had reached the imaginary border, which they had never crossed before. Here, the young people rested for half an hour, before resuming their hike, which lasted till Ro’s setting. After the luminary had disappeared behind the trees, they stopped and found that they were now eighteen kilometers away from the settlement.
Ama and Mafkona, in the light of the electric torches of their UDs, which they’d hung on neighboring plants, quickly and deftly set up a tent. Omis, meanwhile, guarded them with weapons in his hands, scanning the surroundings with the infrared rays of his device. It was the first time they’d set up a tent because of a real need; before now they’d only done it for practice.
Their four-seater marquee had two windows protected by nets, but still a good deal of stuffiness had accumulated in it overnight. At dawn, the vibrating signals on their wrists woke the young people. Ama was the first to leave the shelter and examine the forest. He didn’t notice anything on the ground, but above, among the branches, a small animal was nibbling at something. Noticing the young man, it quickly disappeared among the foliage.
Then his comrades also came out into the fresh air and began to warm up. Afterwards, as before, under the protection of Omis’s maser, the travelers dismantled the tent. When they’d folded it and put it in a backpack, the sky had at last brightened.
As in the other places they’d been so far, the forest here didn’t interfere with their progress. There were no impenetrable thickets, and only a carpet of fallen leaves rustled under their feet. Collapsed plants, whose trunks, fresh or almost rotten, had sometimes fallen across their way, didn’t detain them either. The travelers stepped over them without any problem.
Now, according to the rule, the scouts had increased their attentiveness and slowed their speed, because after the previous night they’d entered completely unknown territory. Omis led the detachment with his weapon at the ready; Mafkona walked behind him and a little to the right, also holding an activated maser. Ama closed the procession.
At first, the forest silence depressed the young people. But then, as the day began to flare up, more and more the lively fuss of small animals began to be heard from the surrounding plants. This gave the three of them a sense of vivacity, made their gait steadier, and their steps more frequent. Soon the travelers felt that the closer they were coming to the unknown river, the more noticeably the road was rising, in full accordance with the topographic data stored in their devices.
Then the forest suddenly ended, without a gradual transformation into undergrowth. The scouts found themselves on a field similar to the very long slope of a mountain. For some time they examined this territory, remaining motionless, before continuing their trip. Forty minutes later, the three reached the edge of this slope, or rather they had climbed to the top of the hill and, according to the navigation, had ended up at the unknown river.
Walking along this sloping plain had exhausted the travelers, and, having finished this difficult section, they gladly sat down on the vegetation lying at their feet. These plants had small bluish flowers and soft, orange needles instead of leaves.
They didn’t see the river itself. It w
as flowing somewhere below, and now a morning fog covered it, which lay next to the cliff like a lake of cotton. The silence prevailing there helped the young people to hear the barely audible sounds of the current, reaching their ears through the cloud under their feet.
“It is two and fourteen,” said Ama, looking at his screen. “We’ve walked thirty kilometers, there are twenty-two left.”
“Shall we wait for the fog to clear, or start the descent right now?” Mafkona asked. “Seemingly it is staying here too long.”
“I think we should not be in a hurry,” Omis replied to her. “The visibility is poor for the descent; we could fall and get hurt.”
Mafkona and Ama nodded in agreement, and the youth accompanied this movement with a question: “What about breakfast?”
“I think that it would be more correct to eat on the river bank, as this would be the real end of the section,” Mafkona expressed her opinion.
The girl meant that during their outings they would usually eat after the end of some part of the road or a task. Not like in the colony where they ate on a schedule.
“You are right. We really have not reached the river yet,” Omis agreed with her.
“Then let us inform the colony of our progress,” Ama said.
Seeing the nods of his comrades, Ama sent a general call and accompanied it with the words, “As you can see, we have come to the edge of the cliff.”
“How is your journey going?”Memi responded first.
“The night passed without incident, calmly,” Ama told him. “Now there is a thick fog and we do not see anything below. When it dissipates, we will begin the descent and eat there, on the coast. After we cross the river, we will again get in touch. See image.”
Ama pointed the lens at the cloud that lay in front of him. Then he showed an oblique field covered with flowers, and finally his resting companions appeared on the screens of the colonists. Mafkona and Omis just cast their glances at the camera.
Space for Evolution Page 22
