by Mark Kraver
“The World Health Organization reported that as the population of Earth passes ten billion, disease, famine and pestilence will become the critical factors in Third World countries. As maturing industrialized countries rev-up their economies, greenhouse gases will increase. The W.H.O. is also warning that a global birth-control program may be necessary to head off overpopulation soon. The Vatican was quick to condemn their findings.
“The newly-appointed Egyptian defense minister at a press conference in Cairo today said that he hopes the commitment to move back from the flash points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will bring an end to the current round of violence. ‘We are all angry. Very angry at the shooting of innocent women and children. We strongly condemn the unprovoked aggression by Israel and the United States towards Iran. It has set off a firestorm in the Middle East.’ Most believe the Israeli troops moving away from the Palestinian conflict will reengage elsewhere as early as tomorrow.”
“Islam is against nationality,” Saeed muttered to himself.
“In Sudan: An ongoing civil war between Muslims in Northern Sudan and Africans in Southern Sudan has escalated over oil-pipeline revenues. North Sudan has opened a new battlefront in the Hala’ib Triangle with Egyptian forces, an area on the Red Sea believed to be rich in oil reserves as the price for crude oil passes the $300 per barrel mark on open trading. The Triangle is claimed by both North Sudan and Egypt.
“Northern Sudan’s implementation of Sharia law gives their non-Muslim population second-class status. Deaths are estimated at around fifteen thousand, and nearly three million refugees have fled to Egypt and South Sudan amidst the conflict. The situation is worsened by the record drought and famine. Local officials warn that about one million men, women, and children are on the verge of starvation. Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt opposed the militant Islamic movement, fearing it would destabilize the emerging peace in the region following the democratic turnovers from the now-faded Arab spring.
“We shall fight you until there is no more persecution, Allah-Willing,” Saeed said with disgust.
“The price of gold hit an all-time high today at $6,660 per ounce, while the US dollar fell to a new low. Analysts are saying that with China refusing to buy more US debt over the Taiwan independence crisis, skyrocketing fuel prices seen around the world, and out-of-control deficit spending, the US economy is set to head into an unprecedented triple-dip recession that could spark a worldwide depression.
I’m Dicky Leiding, and until next time, goodbye from the BBC World Service.”
Yusef, not educated in the languages of the world, did not understand the words coming out of the radio, but saw how they made his uncle’s faraway eyes grow almost crazed with anger.
“We will break off the teeth before cutting off the head of the snake,” Saeed said. “Come, time to pray with our brothers.”
Antagonism surged inside the otherwise serene connectome.
“Naughty children?” Lanochee asked. “We have ways of dealing with such behavior at Helios.”
Chapter 7
The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
Norman Cousins, 1915-1990, Earth
Library of Souls
66.6 seconds
The cell phone on the nightstand was already on its fourth ring when Conrad rolled over and groaned, “Can you get that, honey?”
Logan’s eyes barely opened as she fumbled for the phone. She knocked it to the floor before waking up enough to answer.
“How long have I been sleeping? Crap look at the time.” She plucked the phone off the ground and cleared her throat. “Hello? Who is it? Yes, I’ll hold.”
She turned on her bedside lamp and leaned back against the headboard, fully awake now. “It’s work,” she said to Conrad, watching as he tried to unmat his red sleep-deprived eyes. “Don’t tell me they found something already,” she giggled.
Conrad smiled. “Of course they did, and my name—I mean our names will be all over the papers tomorrow. ‘SETI scientists find extraterrestrial life in the shape of an enormous boob on their first day,’” he joked, reaching for her body like a teenage boy. “How much do you think the Enquirer will pay for a story like that?”
“Hush,” she said, slapping his hand from her body.
“Oh, but it wants me. Hello, baby,” he said, in his best little-boy voice reaching for her belly again.
“Stop that! He’s on the phone, I can’t hear.”
Logan’s grin suddenly disappeared; she was listening intently without moving a muscle. “Don’t do another thing until I get there,” she said and pitched the phone back onto the cluttered nightstand. Within seconds she had bounded from bed and into the closet. “It was Harold,” she called out to Conrad, her voice muffled as she pulled on a shirt. “Those pinheads screwed up my satellite. I’m going to kick someone’s butt.”
“Calm down,” Conrad muttered. He kicked aside the covers, hopped across the room, threw on some jeans and a T-shirt and grabbed his sneakers. “We’ll get in the car and see for ourselves,” he said as he fumbled with the double knots. “What did he say?”
She was too busy battling with the clothing gods to answer. When she emerged from the closet, she grabbed her cellphone and shot out the bedroom door.
“Satellite’s broken,” she yelled back, her voice trailing down the hallway. He could hear her opening the door that led to the garage.
“Broken, how?” he shouted.
“Are you coming, or do you want to meet me at the office?”
He could not let her show up at the office without him. Conrad flew from the house with one shoe in his hand. She pulled out of the driveway, and he jumped in the passenger seat as she slammed the car into drive. The car fishtailed around the corner at the end of their street, almost hitting Miss Prissy, the neighbor’s cat.
“Oh, crap,” he said.
“What? What is it?”
He put on his little boy-look that normally brought a smile to her face. “I’ve got two different shoes.”
“You’ll be fine. No one will notice,” she said, blowing through a four-way stop.
“Whoa, slow down! You’re scaring me,” he shouted. “I can see it now: ‘Two prominent SETI scientists crash and burn before they discover little green men from another planet.’”
The ride was the longest short ride of Logan’s life. She mumbled computer algorithms trying to guess what could be wrong with her satellite. The Project Phoenix committee gambled on her to set up this mission. Most thought her project was ridiculous and expensive. Her critics had protested to NASA when the committee pushed hers ahead of ‘science-based’ research. They called her ideas “voodoo science.” It was all going to hell because incompetent computer nerds could not download data from a perfectly good satellite. She would be the sacrificial lamb around the world. Every scientist in her field would discredit her.
The security officer at the Jet Propulsion Lab’s front gate jumped aside when she flashed her badge and a sneer. After hitting speed bumps as if they weren’t there, she swerved into a handicapped parking spot next to the front door. Before she could get the keys out of the ignition, Conrad bolted for the front door.
“Hold on,” he said, with hands up, “You’re not running in there biting people’s heads off before we figure out what’s wrong.”
She pushed past him.
“Come on, Kit,” he said, his voice growing louder as she moved quickly down the hallway. “You can really piss me off sometimes, you know that?”
She stormed into the SETI satellite mission room, grabbed the first person she could find by the collar, and growled, “What happened?”
The team moved away from their consoles without a word, so she could see their instrument controls and data. She scanned the monitors for several seconds, jumping from one control panel to another until she realized everything looked normal. She studied the data again. Nothing was wrong. She didn’t know whether to be pissed or party.
�
�Nothing is wrong. This is a joke, right?” She studied the team’s frightened faces. “If this is a joke, how come no one’s laughing?”
No one spoke. Her eyes fell on the weakest link in the chain of silence. “Mac?”
Sympathetic eyes immediately turned to poor Mac. Mac was a computer whiz-kid with an IQ so high that he had lost his common sense. He was nicknamed Mac because he preferred Macintosh computers to what he called “clunky clone pieces of crap”—PCs. He wore a ski cap, because he never washed his hair, and sported a thin mustache that made him look younger than he was.
Nobody actually knew how old Mac was. He didn’t talk much, possibly because he had a bit of a stutter when he spoke, and he was notoriously about his private life. But Mac had been the first to respond to Logan’s internal email about putting together this team, three years ago, so—despite his perpetually disheveled appearance and social reserve—Logan had always felt an affectionate loyalty with him.
Mac caved. He darted over to his console, sat down, and pounded on the keyboard.
“L--listen to this,” he said, turning up the audio system so they could all hear humming static coming from the data telemetry. “Three overlapping s-signals recorded at 22:35, and then th-the-the same thing at 23:41. Check the negative n-numbers.”
“Not good?” Conrad asked.
Mac nodded. “Something’s wrong.”
“Maybe the grounding plates,” Conrad suggested.
Mac nodded. “M-maybe.”
Conrad looked at the clocks around the room and calculated the time. “So, what we’re hearing now started three hours ago. Tell me this is normal.”
“No,” Logan said, “I don’t know. Maybe. The signals are the right frequency, except they are all negative. I wonder how far away they originated. Could it be feedback or static? A sun spot?”
She hesitated for a second, thinking, and rapped Mac lightly on the arm with the back of her hand. “Get up. You’re pounding on that keyboard like an ape. How many times do I have to tell you, this is a delicate system?”
Mac sighed and rose as Logan slipped into his computer console chair. “You have to tickle, and play with the keys like a little monkey,” she said, rubbing her hands together as if warming them up. “I’ll fix it. Why would there be three signals? Surely, there aren’t three intelligent life forms wanting to contact us.”
“Why not?” Mac asked. “The u-u-universe is old. There could be hundreds or even th-thousands trying to reach you r-right now.”
“I’d be happy with one. Have you tried running a diagnostic calibration on the array?” Logan asked.
“We t-t-tried that for two hours before we called you,” said Mac. “We c-couldn’t figure it out ei-either. The signals came and w-went.”
“Maybe the satellite was damaged by the launch or those solar panels?” suggested Carroll Bogart, the satellite nerd everyone called “Booger” because he looked and acted like the character in the movie, Revenge of the Nerds. When someone would ask him why he had such a girly name, he would answer, “That’s Carroll with two R’s, two L’s, and two testicles.” Despite his advertised manly prowess, he always sat at the desk closest to the door in case he had to make a quick escape from the evil satellite queen.
“Damaged?” Logan clucked. “With triple redundant systems? Impossible. Switch to one of the backups.”
“We tried that already,” said Mac.
“How long did the signals last?” Conrad asked.
“Around a minute,” said Harold, who was the oldest and newest on the team. For some reason, people listened to him.
Mac interrupted. “Exactly 66.6 seconds, t-to the millisecond, and it-it-it repeats 66.6 minutes l-later.”
“66.6? That’s in a few minutes,” Conrad calculated.
“Right. Maybe it’s r-reflecting off the atmosphere, and we’re picking it up on the b-bounce?” Mac suggested.
Logan frowned, thinking things could be worse. The satellite could have failed completely. Multiple cyclic negative data streams at the same frequencies in the same time frame sounded like crazy software code to her.
“Okay,” Logan said, “Leave me alone. I need to figure this thing out.” To her left and right, the other men just looked at her. “Go!” she said more loudly, making a shooing gesture with her hand. “Do something else.”
She was mad, not with the team, but with herself for not being able to figure out this problem. The team rose from their seats and moved to the other side of the room, even Conrad backed off. No matter how badly she wanted their help, enough was enough.
And what if it was more than a software code issue, was on everyone’s mind. It would be better for all of them to watch from a safe distance as she spiraled through the inevitable denial, anger, grief, and acceptance that all humans suffer when something important dies.
“What are we listening to,” she mumbled to herself? Then in a louder voice, “Surely God, there can’t be ET signals so soon.” She paused for a moment to listen for an answer. “Why not?” she continued, “This is as good a time as any. Jeez, what could it be?”
Her colleagues had told her finding an intelligent signal from another planet could take years, even decades or never—not that three signals would be waiting for the damned satellite to turn on.
And yet, the signals were the right frequency. The perfect frequency of hyper-fine, transitional, neutral water resonance. Exactly what she was looking for. “But we would have picked it up on one of the radio telescopes before now,” she muttered.
Her private conversation made Conrad and the others nervous. Oh sure, they’d seen her have complete conversations for hours at a time with her God, but somehow this was different.
“Why is it so clear on the satellite?” she asked, this time loud enough to indicate she was speaking to her team. “Harold, call the radio observatories, pull in a few markers to see if they know anything.”
“Mac is on it,” Harold replied from his safe distance.
Mac looked up and rushed to an unused terminal to get an email out to radio telescopes around the world. He started by pounding on the keys, but stopped for a second, looked around, and resumed with a softer touch.
Logan looked at Conrad and rolled her eyes, sensing his unspoken admonition not to get all worked up when her terminal chirped and displayed incoming data.
“See, that’s wh-what happened,” Mac said.
“Shut up,” she ordered, watching the data streaming in. “The signal has a pattern, but still negative numbers. It has to be intelligent,” she muttered. “Harold, you and Booger get a fix on the origin of this signal. Space noise isn’t this exact.”
She knew of some one hundred-plus satellites in orbit at various altitudes and a handful of deep space probes, including the ones on Mars that could send a signal such as this to their satellite, but they’d all be positive numbers. She also knew it would take a lot of time to sort them all out. The only sound she heard over the tickling keyboards was the data stream. Noise from space didn’t turn on and off as this one did, so tracking it was possible with their equipment.
“What are the sensors looking at?” Conrad asked.
“It appears to be fixed on a small star cluster,” Booger reported. “Right ascension, sixteen hours and 41.7 minutes, and declination plus thirty-six degrees twenty-eight minutes, making it the Great Hercules Cluster, M13, about 22,800 lightyears away.”
“W-w-wasn’t that one of the pl-places the Areci-cibo Observatory sent a message to in the m-mid-seventies?” Mac asked.
“If that’s true, and this is a return message, we shouldn’t be getting it for another 45,000 years,” Harold calculated.
“M-13 was the first place I programmed to look at,” said Logan. “I don’t buy it. It must be something else. Why would the message be cut into 66.6-second segments?” She slammed her fist on the desktop. “Damn it, I want answers, and I want them fast.”
Booger scratched his head. “We still have the software scenario. Mayb
e the computer found a bug we didn't anticipate—”
“Don’t, it’s not broke till I say it’s broke,” she blurted-out.
Silence filled the room. She refused to confess to a fifty million-dollar dud satellite. Not even Conrad breathed a word. “You guys are supposed to be smart. Give me another scenario before we lose this signal,” she said, as the signals stopped—after 66.6 seconds.
Logan looked around the room at the idle fingers. Harold and Booger awkwardly began typing on their terminals. They were just as happy to be doing something, instead of waiting for the slaughter.
“I heard from P-palomar,” Mac reported. “They have no record of negative frequency activity in the p-past year.”
“You don’t think those negative numbers mean something?” she asked no one in particular. “If it’s not detectable on Earth, but it is detectable in orbit, it must mean—”
“That it’s coming from Earth,” Mac blurted, before he slapped his hand over his mouth.
Logan looked at him, eyes widening as she spoke. “Yes, that it is coming from Earth. The negative numbers must mean we have the sensor array pointed in the opposite direction of the signal’s origin.” Her mouth broke into a wide grin. “All right Mac, you are brilliant.”
Mac shrugged modestly. “W-we can look at the s-signals next time, and m-maybe we’ll—”
“It’s probably narrowband RFI,” said Harold.
“RFI?” Conrad asked.
“You know—radio frequency interference. Two or more radio waves striking something like a rusty bolt on a TV tower somewhere, mixing to form a different frequency that interferes with something else, making a system fail, or interfering with an aircraft, or yadda, yadda, yadda,” Harold explained, folding his large arms over his barrel chest.
Conrad waited for Harold to finish. “I know what RFI is,” he said with a small smirk. “I just hadn’t considered that.”
