A for Andromeda

by Fred Hoyle

“No.” She turned her head aside. He dropped his hand and turned away from her, as if his attention had moved to something else. The wind howled again.

  “What are you going to do about this shooting?” he asked after a pause.

  She shivered in spite of the warmth inside her, and he put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Sometimes at night,” he said, “I lie and listen to the wind and think about that chap over there.”

  “What chap?”

  He nodded in the direction of the computer, the new computer which he had made.

  “He hasn’t a body, not an organic body that can breathe and feel like ours. But he’s a better brain.”

  “It’s not a person.” She pulled Fleming down on to the bed so that they were sitting side by side. She felt, for once, much older than him.

  “We don’t know what it is, do we?” said Fleming. “Whoever sent ye olde message didn’t distribute a design like this for fun. They want us to start something right out of our depth.”

  “Do you think they know about us?”

  “They know there are bound to be other intelligences in the universe. It just happens to be us.”

  Judy took hold of one of his hands.

  “You needn’t go further with it than you want.”

  “I hope not.”

  “All you’re doing is building a computer.”

  “With a mental capacity way beyond ours.”

  “Is that really true?”

  “A man is a very inefficient thinking machine.”

  “You’re not.”

  “We all are. All computers based on a biological system are inefficient.”

  “The biological system suits me,” she said. Her speech and vision were beginning to blur.

  Fleming gave her a short, bear-like hug.

  “You’re just a sexy piece.”

  He got up, yawned and stretched and switched on the light. Feeling a sudden loosening of tension, she lolled back on the bed.

  “You need a holiday,” she told him, slurrily.

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ve been at it for months now without a break. That thing.” She pointed towards the window.

  “It had to be ready for his Ministership.”

  “If it did get out of control, you could always stop it.”

  “Could we? It was operational over a month ago. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “We’ve been feeding in the order code so that the data can all be in by the time the gentry arrive.”

  “Did anything happen?”

  “Nothing at first, but there was a small part of the order code I ignored. It arranged things so that when you switch on the current the first surge of electricity automatically sets the program working: at its own selected starting point. I deliberately left that out of the design because I didn’t want him to have it all his own way, and he was furious.”

  Judy looked at him sceptically.

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “All right, he registered disturbance. Without any warning, before we’d even started putting in data, he started to print out the missing section of the code. Over and over and over — telling me to put it in. He was very cross.” He gazed earnestly into her unbelieving face. “I switched him off for a bit and then started feeding in the data. He was quiet after that. But he was designed to register disturbance. God knows what else he was designed for!”

  She lay looking at him, not focusing.

  “We shall put the last of the data in to-morrow,” he went on. “Then heaven knows what’ll happen. We get a message from two hundred light-years away — do you think all it gives us is a handy little ready-reckoner? Well, I don’t. Nor do the people who killed Harries and shot at you and are probably tailing Dennis and me.”

  She started to interrupt him, but thought better of it.

  “Remember?” he asked. “Remember I talked about a breakthrough?”

  “Distinctly.” She smiled.

  “The kind of breakthrough you get once in a thousand years. I’ll lay you any odds...”

  He turned to the window and looked out, lost in some unthinkable speculation.

  “You could always switch it off.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps we could switch it off.”

  It was pitch black outside, with driving rain, and the wind continued to howl.

  “It’s dark,” he said. He drew the curtain across and turned back to her with the same haunted look in his eyes that she had seen before.

  “That makes two of us who are scared,” she said.

  “I’ll see you back to your hut if you like.” He looked down at her and smiled. “Or you could spend the night here.”

  Five

  ATOMS

  JUDY left him at first light and went back to her own chalet. By midday the first contingent from London had arrived and was being entertained in the mess. She moved between the charcoal-grey suits distributing information sheets and feeling fresh and alive and happy. Fleming was at the computer building with Bridger and Christine, inputting the final section of data. Reinhart and Osborne were closeted with Geers.

  Vandenberg, Watling, Mrs. Tate-Allen and the faithful and unspeaking Newby came on the two o’clock train and were met by the two best cars. The Minister was due to arrive by helicopter at three—a typically odd and showy whim which was politely passed over without comment by the rest of the party.

  By that time the rain had cleared and a guard of honour was drawn up beside the parade-ground in the middle of the camp. Reinhart and Major Quadring waited with them, Quadring wearing his best battle-dress with clean medal-ribbons, Reinhart clutching a bedraggled plastic mac.

  The other guests and hosts assembled in the porch of the new computer building and looked hopefully at the sky. Osborne made whinnying, diplomatic conversation.

  “I don’t expect you knew the British Isles extended so far north, eh General?” This to Vandenberg, who showed signs of restlessness and potential umbrage. “Eh Geers?”

  Geers wore a new suit and stood unyieldingly in front of the others, very much the Director.

  “Have they hatched a swan or an ugly duckling?” Mrs. Tate-Allen asked him.

  “I wouldn’t know. We only have time for practical work.”

  “Isn’t this practical?” Osborne enquired.

  Watling said, “I used to fly over here in the war.”

  “Really?” said Vandenberg, without interest.

  “North Atlantic patrols. When I was in Coastal.”

  But nobody heard him: the helicopter had arrived. It hovered like a flustered bird over the parade-ground and then sank down on its hydraulic legs. Its rotors sliced the air for a minute and then stopped. The door opened, the Right Honourable James Ratcliff climbed down, the guard presented arms, Quadring saluted and Reinhart tripped forward on his dainty feet, shook hands and led the Minister to the assembled company in the porch. Ratcliff looked very well and newly bathed. He shook hands with Geers and beamed and smirked at the rest.

  “How do you do, Doctor? It’s very good of you to harbour our little piece of equipment in your midst.”

  Geers was transformed.

  “We’re honoured, sir, to have work like this,” he said with his best smile. “Pure research among us rude mechanicals.”

  Osborne and Reinhart exchanged glances.

  “Shall we go in?” asked Osborne.

  “Yes, indeed.” The Minister smiled on all. “Hallo Vandenberg, nice of you to come.”

  Geers stepped forward and grasped the door handle.

  “Shall I?” He looked challengingly at Reinhart.

  “Do,” said Reinhart.

  “It’s this way, Minister.” And Geers shepherded them in.

  The lights were all working now in the computer room and Geers did the honours of display with some pride. Reinhart and Osborne left him to it and Fleming watched sourly from the control desk. Geers introduced Bridger and Christine and — quite casually — Fleming.
r />   “You know Dr. Fleming, Minister, who designed it.”

  “The designers are in the constellation of Andromeda,” said Fleming.

  Ratcliff laughed as if this was a very good joke.

  “Well, you’ve done a pretty big job. I see why you all wanted so much money.”

  The party moved on. Mrs. Tate-Allen was much impressed by the neon lamps; the men in charcoal suits studied blue-painted cabinets of equipment with baffled interest, and Fleming was forced to fall in at the rear with Osborne.

  “There’s no business like show business.”

  “It’s a compliment in fact,” said Osborne. “They entrust it to you: the knowledge, the investment, the power.”

  “Bigger fools they.”

  But Osborne did not agree. After they had been round the memory cylinder, the whole group gathered in front of the control desk.

  “Well?” said Ratcliff.

  Fleming picked up a sheet of figures from the desk.

  “These,” he said, so quietly that hardly anyone could hear him. “These are the end groups of the data found in the message.”

  Reinhart repeated it for him, took the paper and explained, “We’re now going to pass these in through the input console and trigger the whole machine off.”

  He passed the sheet to Christine who sat down at the teletype machine and started tapping the keys. She looked very deft and pretty: people admired. When she had finished, Fleming and Bridger threw switches and pressed buttons on the control desk and waited. The Minister waited. A steady hum came from the back of the computer, otherwise there was silence. Somebody coughed.

  “All right, Dennis?” Fleming asked.

  Then the display lamps began to flicker.

  It was very effective at first. Explanations were given: it showed the progress of the data through the machine; as soon as it had finished its calculations it would print out its finding on that wide roll of paper there....

  But nothing happened; an hour later they were still waiting. At five o’clock the Minister climbed unsmiling into his helicopter, rose into the sky and was carried southwards. At six o’clock the remaining visitors drove to the station to catch the evening train for Aberdeen, accompanied by a tight-lipped and crestfallen Reinhart. At eight o’clock Bridger and Christine went off duty.

  Fleming stayed on in the empty control-room, listening to the hum of the equipment and gazing at the endlessly flashing panel. As soon as she could, Judy joined him and sat with him at the control desk. He didn’t speak, even to swear or complain, and she could think of nothing adequate to say.

  The hands of the clock on the wall moved round to ten, and then the lamps on the panel stopped flickering. Fleming sighed and moved to get up to go. Judy touched his sleeve with her finger-tips to suggest some sort of comfort. He turned to kiss her, and as he did so the output printer clattered into life.

  Reinhart stopped overnight in Aberdeen, where a Scottish Universities seminar was taking place. The seminar was an excuse; he did not want to spend the rest of the journey face to face with the politely condescending company from London. His one consolation was that he met an old friend, Madeleine Dawnay, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh. She was perhaps the best biochemist in the country, immensely capable and reassuring and with all the charm, her students said, of a test-tube-full of dried skin. They talked for a long time, and then he went off to his hotel bedroom and worried.

  In the morning he had a telegram from Thorness: FULL HOUSE. ACES ON KINGS. COME QUICK. FLEMING. He cancelled his plane reservation to London, bought a new railway ticket and set off north-west again, taking Dawnay with him.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  “I hope to heaven it means something’s happened. The damn thing cost several million and I thought last night we were going to be the laughing-stock of Whitehall.”

  He did not know quite why he was taking her. Possibly to give himself some moral support.

  When he telephoned the camp from Thorness station to ask for a car and an extra pass, his call was put straight through to Quadring’s office.

  “Damn scientists,” said Quadring to his orderly. “They’re in and out as if it were a fairground.”

  He took the pass the orderly had written and walked down the corridor to Geers’s office. In the ordinary way he was a pleasant enough character, but Judy had been in to report the affair of the shooting and he was on edge and tetchy.

  “I wonder if you’d sign this, sir?” He put the pass down on Geers’s desk.

  “Who is it?”

  “Someone Professor Reinhart’s bringing in.”

  “Have you checked him?”

  “It’s a ‘her’ actually.”

  “What’s her name?” Geers squinted down at the card through his bifocals.

  “Professor Dawnay.”

  “Dawnay! Madeleine Dawnay?” He looked with new interest. “You don’t have to worry about her. I was at Manchester with her, before she moved on.”

  He smiled reminiscently as he signed the pass. Quadring shuffled uneasily.

  “It’s not easy keeping track of these Ministry of Science bods.”

  “As long as they stick to their own building.” Geers handed the pass back.

  “They don’t.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Bridger for one. He goes out in his boat a lot to the island.”

  “He’s a bird-watcher.”

  “We think it’s something else. My own guess is he takes papers with him.”

  “Papers?” Geers looked up sharply with a glint of spectacles. “Have you any proof?”

  “No.”

  “Well then —”

  “Would it be possible to have him searched at the landing-jetty?”

  “Suppose he hadn’t got anything?”

  “I’d be surprised.”

  “And we’d look pretty foolish, wouldn’t we?” Geers took off his glasses and stared discomfortingly at the major. “And if he was up to something we’d put him on his guard.”

  “He is up to something.”

  “Then get some facts to go on.”

  “I don’t see how I can.”

  “You’re responsible for the security of this establishment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Geers gave it his full attention for a moment.

  “What about Miss Adamson?”

  Quadring told him.

  “Nothing since?”

  “Not that we can see, sir.”

  “Hm.” He closed the legs of his spectacles with a snap that dismissed the matter. “If you’re going over to the computer building you might give Professor Dawnay her pass.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Then send someone. And give her my regards. In fact, if they’re through at a reasonable hour they might look in for a sherry.”

  “Very good, sir.” Quadring backed gingerly away from the desk.

  “And Fleming, I suppose, if he’s with them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He got as far as the door. Geers was looking wistfully at the ceiling, thinking of Madeleine Dawnay.

  “I wish we did more primary research ourselves. One gets tired of development work.”

  Quadring made his escape.

  In the end it was Judy who took the pass. Dawnay was in the computer control-room, being shown round by Reinhart and Bridger while Christine tried to raise Fleming on the camp phone. Judy handed over the pass and was introduced.

  “Public Relations? Well, I’m glad they let girls do something,” said Dawnay in a brisk, male voice. She looked hard but not unkindly at everyone. Reinhart fluttered a little; he seemed unusually nervous.

  “What did John want?”

  “I don’t know,” Judy told him. “At least, I don’t quite follow it.”

  “He sent me a telegram.”

  After a minute Fleming hurried in.

  “Ah, there you are.”

  Reinhart pounced on him.

  “What’s happ
ened?”

  “Are we alone?” Fleming asked, looking coolly at Dawnay.

  Reinhart introduced them irritably and fidgeted from one tiny foot to the other while she quizzed Fleming about the computer.

  “Madeleine’s fully in the picture.”

  “She’s lucky. I wish I were.” Fleming fished from his pocket a folded sheet of paper and handed it to the Professor.

  “What’s this?” Reinhart opened it.

  Fleming watched him with amusement, like a small boy playing a trick on a grown-up. The paper bore several lines of typed figures.

  “When did it print this?” Reinhart asked.

  “Last night, after you’d all gone. Judy and I were here.”

  “You didn’t tell me.” Bridger edged in reproachfully.

  “You’d gone off.”

  Reinhart frowned at the figures. “It means something to you?”

  “Don’t you recognise it?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “Isn’t it the relative spacings of the energy levels in the hydrogen atom?”

  “Is it?” Reinhart handed the paper to Dawnay.

  “You mean,” Bridger asked, “it suddenly came out with that?”

  “Yes. It could be.” Dawnay read slowly through the figures. “They look like the relative frequencies. What an extraordinary thing.”

  “The whole business is a little out of the ordinary,” said Fleming.

  Dawnay read through the figures again, and nodded.

  “I don’t see the point.” Judy wondered if she was being unusually obtuse.

  “It looks as if someone out there,” Dawnay pointed up to the sky, “has gone to a lot of trouble to tell us what we already know about hydrogen.”

  “If that’s really all.” Judy looked at Fleming, who said nothing.

  Madeleine Dawnay turned to Reinhart. “Bit of a disappointment.”

  “I’m not disappointed,” Fleming said quietly. “It’s a starting point. The thing is, do we want to go on?”

  “How can you go on?” Dawnay asked.

  “Well, hydrogen is the common element of the universe. Yes? So this is a piece of very simple universal information. If we don’t recognise it, there’s no point in the machine continuing. If we do, then he can proceed to the next question.”

  “What next question?”

  “We don’t know yet. But this, I bet you, is the first move in a long, long game of questions and answers.” He took the paper from her and handed it to Christine. “Push this into the intake.”