Echo

by Jack McDevitt

We broke out of the clouds but were still being tossed around by heavy wind gusts. “Alex, I’ve a question for you.”

  “Okay.”

  “When people ask whether you believe there’s anyone else in the Milky Way, other than us and the Mutes, you always say you don’t know. That there are probably a few others. That, since there are at least two in the Orion Arm, there should be others somewhere, but that they will be extremely rare. But you usually go on to admit that maybe you’re wrong, and the place, except for us and the Mutes, is empty. When you say that, people always get annoyed.”

  “I know.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  Alex smiled. “Why do they want so desperately to find somebody else?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, as the politicians say when they don’t know how to respond, that’s an interesting question. I mean, we’d be a lot safer if we were alone.”

  “Do you have a theory?”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I’m not sure. Given my preferences, I don’t think I’d want to live in a galaxy where we were the only ones.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. I just think I’d rather take my chances that somebody else might be unfriendly rather than he not be there at all.”

  “Yeah.” Alex fished another link out of his seat pouch and inserted it into his neck chain. Then he dropped the chain into a pocket. “We seem to be social critters, Chase. I don’t think we like being alone, either as individuals or as a species.”

  I put the glass down and went back to calibrating the relays that the cub had scrambled. “I guess,” I said.

  “You have another idea?”

  “The universe is too big.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We seem to have a spiritual dimension. And don’t ask me what that means because I’m not sure. Maybe a need to believe in a higher power, that the universe is made for us in some indefinable way. But to have a universe like this, so big that light from some places won’t reach us in the lifetime of the species—Well, that just makes it seem as if we’re of no consequence. We’re just an accident. A by-product. Maybe even a waste product.”

  Alex asked whether I wanted more wine. I’d already violated my code, which required abstinence during operations, but it had been a tough landing. In several ways. Still, enough was enough. So I passed.

  “I’ve never thought of you as being religious, Chase.”

  “I’m not, really. I don’t think about it much. Except sometimes out here. But I suspect that’s what’s behind the desire to find others. Maybe we’re really looking for God. For somebody who knows we’re here. Does that make any kind of sense?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. It’s a bit metaphysical for me.”

  “I just don’t know. But I do know that, whatever the reason, the thought of a universe with just us and the Mutes is depressing.”

  “Alex,” said Belle, “I can confirm the existence of another world in the biozone.”

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  “Range from the sun is two hundred five million klicks. It appears to be slightly larger than Echo II. I haven’t been able to get a good look at it, but there’s no question it’s there, and there’s a high probability it’s a terrestrial.”

  “Are we picking up any electronic signals?”

  “Negative, Alex. It’s silent.”

  “Damn.” His head dropped back, and he glared at the overhead. “We’re just not going to get a break, are we?”

  Echo III was on the far side of the sun. To save fuel, we took our time getting over there. Meanwhile, I worked on the lander. I replaced the damaged parts but couldn’t lock the chair down properly. If we used the vehicle again, Alex would have to sit in back. And there was nothing I could do about the outer hatch. So getting in and out would be a battle. But we’d manage.

  It was indeed terrestrial, and it had a big moon, broad green continents, and sparkling blue oceans. A second living world. It was unusual to find two of them in a single system.

  We were coming in on the daylight side. The polar regions were snow-bound. Mountain chains cut across the face of the world. There were inland seas. An enormous canyon, almost continentwide, cut through one landmass. High in the northern latitudes, a volcano was erupting. “Anything in orbit?” asked Alex.

  “I do not see anything.”

  Belle was putting everything on the displays. We were watching them, watching forests and plains slide past. And suddenly Alex stiffened. “Look,” he said.

  A city!

  I wasn’t positive until we kicked the magnification up a couple of notches. But there it was, towers and rectangles glittering in broad sunlight along one of the shores. Piers stretching out into the ocean. Streets crisscrossing each other.

  Yes!

  It might not be aliens, but we had something. “Not supposed to be anybody out here,” I said.

  We might or might not have found an alien civilization, but we had at the very least located one that had gotten lost to history. I was about to congratulate him, but he didn’t look receptive. “Why isn’t there any electronic activity?” he asked.

  “Maybe they have a more advanced technology.”

  “Okay. Why is nothing moving down there?”

  I looked again. At the streets. At a broad walkway that bordered the ocean for the entire length of the city.

  At the beach itself.

  There was nothing. The waves swept in on an empty shore. Nothing moved anywhere. I saw a couple of animals in one of the streets. Other than that—

  “It’s empty,” said Alex.

  We were coming in off the ocean, passing over the city. It was implacably still. A bridge lay just ahead, crossing what appeared to be marsh-land. It was narrow, rickety, supported by timbers. One end had collapsed and been partially washed away.

  The buildings at the center of the city weren’t as tall as they’d appeared during our approach. The highest was maybe five or six stories. Thousands of smaller structures, mostly houses, spread out toward an encroaching forest, which seemed to overwhelm them at the fringes.

  “The streets aren’t paved,” Alex said. The only visible vehicles were carts. They littered the sides of the roads. One was in the middle of a bridge.

  The buildings, close-up, had a dilapidated appearance. “It’s pre-industrial,” I said.

  Alex nodded. “Where is everybody?”

  “I’d assumed the polygon was built by someone from this world. But that can’t be.”

  “Hard to say, Chase. A planet’s a big place. The fact that there’s a low-tech city here doesn’t mean—” He looked at me. Shrugged. “It’s too early to make judgments.”

  A large open enclosure lay ahead. Maybe a stadium. It, too, was empty. If the field within had once been grass, it was now mostly just tall brown bushes and weeds.

  We kept going, leaving the city. Headed west, with the sun behind us.

  We passed over a road. Or a trail.

  Nothing moved on it.

  “Another town ahead.”

  Smaller this time, a few hundred houses. Some relatively large buildings that might have been municipal structures or churches. We passed over a lake, lined with houses. Boats were still tied up in some places. Several had sunk.

  We were outrunning the sun, fleeing into a gathering darkness. Alex remained silent and simply watched, alternately looking out the wraparound and studying the images Belle put on-screen.

  We rode through the night. Hoping to see lights somewhere. But none were visible. And eventually, under the glow of a full moon, we reached the western edge of the continent and passed out over the ocean.

  There were no lights at sea, either. Then we were over land again. But it didn’t matter. The ground was dark. After a while, clouds blocked off our view. Lightning bolts flickered.

  “Still nobody home,” said Alex.

  It was unsettling.

  Belle must have sens
ed the disquiet in the cockpit. Whatever it was, she began giving us details: “Equatorial diameter is twenty-one thousand kilometers. Temperatures are moderate, an average of two degrees cooler than Rimway’s. Gravity is one point one five standard. And there is a second moon, not visible at the moment.”

  “Belle,” I said, “I don’t think any of that matters just now.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was trying to be helpful.”

  “Let’s try a change of orbit,” said Alex.

  “Have you any specifications?”

  “Just angle it by about twenty degrees above and below the equator. Let’s get a good look at the areas where the temperature is most conducive—” He didn’t finish.

  “You okay?” I asked him.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know, Chase. I don’t know what I’m thinking. Did that city, those towns, look old to you?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, nobody’s been taking care of them, but they didn’t look ancient.”

  Belle broke into the gloom: “We’re picking up a radio signal.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Fear the assassin who waits in the lonely passages of the heart.

  —Teri Kilborn, Broken Fences

  She played the transmission for us. A voice with a remarkably high pitch. “It is an unknown language, Alex.”

  It was almost a series of squeals. Not at all like a normal voice pattern. We listened in silence for several minutes. “That can’t be human,” I said.

  “Belle, how many voices are there?”

  “Only one.”

  “So nobody is responding to the transmission.”

  “Not that I can determine.”

  “It never pauses,” said Alex.

  It went on and on. “It seems more like a general broadcast,” I said, “than a two-way transmission.”

  “Belle, what’s the point of origin?”

  She showed us on the display. It was coming out of a string of islands in the middle of an ocean, at about thirty degrees south latitude.

  “What time is it there?”

  “Approaching midnight.”

  “What can you see?” Alex asked.

  “I’m running a scan now. There seems to be a town. A group of buildings. They’re all single-story. Small houses, apparently. But one of them seems to be illuminated.”

  She showed us, and I caught my breath. There were about twenty houses in the town. With lights on in the ground floor of one.

  Lights!

  If they were humans, they’d been cut off a long time. But the voice certainly didn’t sound human.

  When I pumped a fist and made some noise, Alex kept watching the displays. I knew what he was thinking. But I was inclined to enjoy the moment. How many people, how many Sunset Tuttles, had lived and died over the past nine thousand years, hoping for a moment like this? A glimmer of light? A radio transmission from an unknown source. A voice that was almost certainly not human. Please, God, let it be so.

  “Don’t get too excited,” he said. In fact, he was having problems following his own advice. His voice sounded uneven. “We don’t know what we have yet.”

  “Hey, I’m calm. You know me.”

  “Absolutely.” He was staring at the house with the light.

  “You think that’s where the signal’s coming from?”

  “There’s an antenna. Belle, do you see any others?”

  “Antennas? No, Alex.”

  “That’s strange. Anything moving anywhere?”

  “Other than what appears to be windblown, no.”

  “The town looks run-down,” I said. We were approaching it from the east. “We going down?”

  “You bet.”

  “We can do it on the next pass.”

  He nodded. “Let’s get ready.”

  “Maybe we should radio them first? Say hello?”

  “What language would you use?”

  “Standard. Friendly voice. See what happens.”

  Alex looked uncertain. Finally, he said okay. “You talk to them, Chase. You’d be less threatening.”

  “Belle,” I said, “open a channel.”

  A momentary pause. Then: “Done.”

  “Hello,” I said. “This is Chase Kolpath aboard the Belle-Marie. Do you read?”

  The voice stopped. Then, it answered. We had no idea what it was saying, of course, but it sounded excited.

  I told it we were visitors, that we wanted to meet whoever it was, and that we were friendly. When I finished, it replied again.

  I would at that moment have given anything to have been able to understand it. I explained how we’d come from Rimway, how we were curious who was speaking with us, and explained that we were going to come down to meet him, or her, and we hoped that wouldn’t be an imposition.

  “It understands,” I told Alex. “It knows what’s going on.”

  Alex remained cautious.

  While all this was happening, we were getting into our pressure suits and preparing to leave the ship. Alex buckled on a holster and slipped his scrambler into it. “You know,” he said, “it would kill me if we actually found an alien and had to shoot him.” He leaned over the control panel. “Belle?”

  “Yes, Alex?”

  “Are there any other artificial structures on the island? Other than the town?”

  “There are two piers. Something that is probably a boathouse. Nothing else shows any activity, however.”

  “That means there’s no vehicle of any kind, either?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Is there a possibility there could be a lander down there, and you missed it?”

  “If it’s hidden in a cave. Or buried. Otherwise, the possibility is remote.”

  “Okay.” His face scrunched up the way it does when he’s trying to make up his mind. “There’s an outside possibility that after we’re on the ground, I’ll send you a message that I will want you to ignore.”

  “Then why would you send it, Alex?”

  “Only out of necessity.”

  “And how shall I know this bogus transmission?”

  “I’ll start by saying, ‘We have a problem.’”

  “ ‘We have a problem’?”

  “Yes. If you hear that sentence, play along. Okay?” I must have been looking at him funny. “It’s just a precaution, Chase. Until we find out who’s down there.”

  We went below and climbed into the lander. I was talking to the voice the whole time. We are leaving now. Will be on the ground in an hour or so. I’m looking forward to meeting you.

  When the Belle-Marie was in position, I started the engine, the launch doors opened, and we were on our way. The smaller moon was overhead, a pale, diminutive orb barely visible in the crowded sky. The bright definition of the night sky at Rimway had given way to a kind of misty blur. Too many stars out there in the Veiled Lady, too much loose gas.

  Alex remained quiet on the way down. When I offered to put him on with the voice, he shook his head no. “You’re doing fine,” he said.

  The rim of the second moon, the big moon, was just visible over the horizon. As we descended, it disappeared into the ocean.

  “The air is breathable,” Belle said. “And there is no evidence of dangerous bioorganisms. However, I suggest you exercise due caution.”

  She meant wear the pressure suit. No surprise there.

  We began to pick up a bit of wind. Then the wind went away, and we drifted down through occasional clouds, and finally we emerged in clear weather above the island.

  It was the largest in a chain of five or six, about eight kilometers across at its widest point. It was mostly covered by forest. There was a natural harbor. And it was generally flat save for a pair of low hills on the north side. The town was located near the hills, along the shoreline.

  “There are a couple of open places in the town where we can land,” I said. “Or we can use the beach.”

  “Use the beac
h. It feels safer.”

  “We’ll have a fifteen-minute walk.”

  “That’s okay.”

  While we made our final approach, I kept the scope on the house with the lights. House might be a bit of an exaggeration for the structure. It was a two-story shanty, typical of the town, run-down and in need of paint, with a sagging front porch. Curtains were pulled across the windows. One of the shutters was broken. The place had a chimney, but there was no sign a fire was burning.

  But Alex never looked up from the screen. And as we dropped toward the sand, he caught his breath. “Something moved inside.” He spoke in a whisper, as if concerned that he might be overheard.

  I was still talking to the Martian, which was how I’d begun to think of the owner of the voice. We are coming down on the beach. See you in a few minutes. The view out here is magnificent.

  “Look,” said Alex.

  “What?” He was pointing at the screen while I tried to make sure we didn’t land in the ocean.

  “Belle, rerun that last segment.”

  We were looking at the house. And a shadow moved across the curtains.

  I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. We’d known all along that maybe this was what Rachel had found, that she had come across someone.

  Something.

  When I shut off the engine, the gravity came back. My weight jumped by about seventeen pounds. Alex’s went up by roughly twenty-seven. It’s a feeling you never get used to.

  I released my belt. “We’re here,” I told the Martian.

  Alex was surveying the outside. Moonlight. Incoming tide. Forest. “But no movement.”

  “Alex, what do you expect? He couldn’t understand a word I said.”

  I told him we were coming, that we’d be there in a few minutes. We put our helmets on and went for the airlock. With a hole cut through the outer hatch, it was of dubious value. We got into it as quickly as possible and closed the inner hatch. (Belle would check to ensure that no dangerous bioorganisms had gotten into the cabin.) The sound of insects and the rumble of the tide were audible through the hole in the outer hatch. I opened up.