Analog SFF, January-February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Dead leaves mixed with litter were blown by an afternoon breeze along the cracked asphalt. They passed houses with boarded-up windows, and a wino camped out by a sewer grate, before they reached her place. They walked around to the side of the ramshackle house and headed down to the basement apartment. When they got in, and their jackets were removed, Lenore set about making coffee, and Don looked around. There really wasn't much that was personal to Lenore here; he knew the shabby furniture had come with the place. What few belongings she had would probably fit in a couple of suitcases. He shook his head in wonder, remembering when his own life had been so manageable, so uncluttered.

  “Here,” said Lenore, handing him a steaming cup. “This should help warm you up."

  “Thanks."

  She perched on the armrest of the couch. “And I know something else that might warm you up, Birthday Boy,” she said, eyes twinkling.

  But he shook his head. “Um, how ‘bout we play Scrabble instead?"

  “Seriously?” asked Lenore.

  He nodded.

  She looked at him like he was from another planet. But then she smiled and shrugged. “Sure, if you like."

  They lay down on the worn carpeting, and she used her datacom to project a holographic Scrabble board between them. She drew an E to Don's J, so she went first.

  Sometimes when playing Scrabble, a player will realize he has some of the letters needed to form a good word, and will set those aside at one end of his rack, hoping to acquire the others in later turns. Early in the game, Don ended up with a Y and a K, worth four and five points respectively. He passed over several opportunities to use them, but ultimately did manage to get most of what he needed, although the serious player in him hated wasting an S. He placed his tiles running to the left from a P that Lenore had put down earlier:

  SKY O

  “The blank is a T,” Don said, in response to her appropriately blank expression. “Skytop."

  She wrinkled her nose. “Um, I don't think that's really in the dictionary."

  He nodded. “I know. I just wanted to, you know, just wanted to...” He stopped, tried again. “For the rest of my life, every time I hear that word, I'm going to think of you.” He paused. “More than anything Rejuvenex's doctors did, more than any part of the rollback, it was you who made me feel young again, feel alive."

  She smiled that radiant smile of hers. “I do love you,” she said, “with all my heart."

  He replied, echoing as much of her sentiment as he could. “And I love you, too, Lenore.” He looked at her beautiful face, her freckles, her green eyes, her orange hair, committing them to memory. “And,” he added, absolutely sure it was true, “I always will."

  She smiled again.

  “But,” he continued, “I—I'm so sorry, darling, but—” He swallowed, and forced himself to meet her gaze. “But this is the last time we can see each other."

  Lenore's eyes went wide. “What?"

  “I'm sorry."

  “Why?"

  Don looked at the threadbare carpeting. “I'm about as grown up as it's possible for a human to be, and it's time I started acting that way."

  “But, Don..."

  “I've got an obligation to Sarah. She needs me."

  Lenore began crying softly. “I need you, too."

  “I know,” Don said, very softly. “But I have to do this."

  Her voice cracked. “Oh, Don, please don't."

  “I can't give you what you need, what you deserve. I've ... I've got a prior commitment."

  “But we're so good together..."

  “Yes, we are. I know that—and that's why this hurts so very much. I wish there were another way. But there isn't.” He swallowed hard. “The stars are aligned against us."

  * * * *

  Don made his way slowly, sadly back to the subway, bumping into pedestrians, including one robot, on Bloor Street's sidewalk, and getting honked at as he stepped into traffic without checking the light.

  He wasn't up to changing trains—something he'd have to do if he took the shortest route—and so he decided to go south. He'd go down one side of the great U and then almost all the way up the other side.

  He waited for the train to arrive. When it did, there was a mad scrum as passengers jostled to get on while others were still trying to get off. Don remembered how it used to be when he was young: people wanting to get on stood to either side of the subway doors, and waited patiently until all those who wished to get off had done so. Somewhere along the line, that little civility—like so many of those that had once allowed Toronto to actually deserve its nickname of “Toronto the Good"—had fallen by the wayside, despite all the P.A. announcements urging orderly behavior.

  The train was crowded, but he managed to get a seat. And, as the train started up, he thought nothing about that. He was used to people offering him a seat; some few crumbs of goodness still existed, he supposed. But it came to him that although he was indeed eighty-eight, as of today, there were people who looked that old who really needed to sit down. He got up and motioned for an elderly woman wearing a sari to take his seat, and she rewarded him with a very grateful smile.

  As it happened, he was in the first car. At Union, lots of people got off the subway, and Don maneuvered close to the front window, next to the driver's cubicle, with its robot within. Some stretches of the tunnel were cylindrical, and they were illuminated by rings of light at intervals. The effect reminded him of an old TV series, The Time Tunnel, a show he'd enjoyed in the same way he'd enjoyed Lost in Space, for the nifty art direction, while cringing at the stupid stories.

  After all, you can't go back in time.

  You can't undo what's done.

  You can't change the past.

  You can only, to the best of your abilities, try to meet the future head-on.

  The train rumbled on, through the darkness, taking him home.

  * * * *

  Don came into the entryway and paused, looking down at the tiles, at where Sarah had once lain, fallen, waiting for him to return. He took the six stairs one at a time, trudging up into the living room.

  Sarah was standing by the mantel, looking either at the holos of their grandchildren or at her trophy from Arecibo; with her back to him, it was impossible to tell which. She turned around, smiled, and started walking toward him. Don's arms opened automatically, and she stepped into them. He hugged her lightly, afraid of breaking her bones. Her arms against his back felt like sapling branches pushed by a gentle breeze. “Happy birthday again,” she said.

  He glanced past her, at the foot-high digital display on the wall monitor, and saw it change from 5:59 to 6:00. When they let go of each other, she started a slow walk toward the kitchen. Rather than hurry ahead, Don fell in behind her, taking one step for every two of hers.

  “You sit down,” Don said, when they'd finally made it into the kitchen. Although he knew he shouldn't, he found Sarah's slow, methodical movements frustrating to watch. And, besides, he ate three times as much food as she did these days; he should do the work. “Gunter,” he said—loudly, but certainly not yelling; it wasn't necessary to yell. The Mozo appeared almost at once. “You and I are going to make dinner,” he said to the robot.

  Sarah slowly lowered herself onto one of the three wooden chairs that encircled the little kitchen table. As Don and Gunter moved about the cramped space, getting down a pot and a frying pan and finding ingredients in the fridge, he felt her eyes upon him.

  “What's wrong?” she asked at last.

  He hadn't said anything, and he'd taken pains not to bang cookware or utensils together. But Sarah had known him for so long now, and even if the veneer on his body had changed his body language doubtless hadn't. Whether it had been the way he'd been hanging his head, or simply the fact that he wasn't speaking except to give Gunter the occasional perfunctory instruction that tipped her off, he couldn't say. But he couldn't hide his moods from her. Still, he tried to deny it, futile though he knew that would be. “Nothing."
/>
  “Did something go wrong downtown today?” she asked.

  “No. I'm just tired, that's all.” He said it while bent over a chopping board, but stole a sideways glance at her, to gauge her reaction.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked, her brow knitted in concern.

  “No,” said Don, and he allowed himself one more, final lie—just this one last time. “I'll be fine."

  * * * *

  Chapter 36

  Sarah woke with a start. Her heart was pounding probably more vigorously than was healthy at her age. She looked over at the digital clock. It was 3:02 A.M. Next to her lay Don, his breathing making a gentle sound with each exhale.

  The idea that had roused her was so exciting she thought about waking him, but, no, she wouldn't do that. After all, it was a long shot, and he'd been having so much trouble sleeping lately.

  Her side of the bed was the one near the window. A million years ago, when they'd chosen who would sleep where, Don had said she should have that side so she could look out at the stars anytime she wished. It was an ordeal getting out of bed. Her joints were stiff, and her back hurt, and her leg was still healing. But she managed it, pushing off her nightstand, forcing herself to her feet as much through an effort of will as through bodily strength.

  She took small, shuffling steps toward the door, paused and steadied herself for a moment by holding onto the jamb, then continued out into the corridor and made her way to the study.

  The computer's screen was blank, but it came to life the moment she touched the scroller, bringing up a suitably dim image for viewing in the darkened room.

  Within moments, Gunter was there. He'd been downstairs, Sarah imagined, but he'd doubtless heard her stir. “Are you all right?” he asked. He had lowered the volume of his voice so much that Sarah could only just make it out.

  She nodded. “I'm fine,” she whispered. “But there's something I've got to check out."

  Sarah loved stories—even apocryphal ones—about ah hah! moments: Archimedes jumping out of his bath and running naked down the streets of Athens shouting “Eureka!,” Newton watching an apple fall (although she preferred the even-less-likely version about him being hit on the head by a falling apple), August Kekule waking up with the solution to the structure of the benzene molecule after dreaming of a snake biting its own tail.

  In her whole career, Sarah had only ever had one such epiphany: that time, long ago, while playing Scrabble in this very house, when she'd realized how to arrange the text of the first message from Sigma Draconis.

  But now, perhaps, she was having another.

  Her grandson Percy had asked her about her views on abortion, and she'd told him that she'd gone back and forth on some of the tricky points.

  And she had, her whole life.

  But what she'd remembered just now was another night, like this one, when she'd woken at 3:00 A.M. That night had been Sunday, February 28, 2010, the day before the response to the initial Dracon message was to be sent from Arecibo. She and Don were in their VSQ cabin at the Arecibo Observatory, the fronds slapping against its wooden walls making a constant background hushing sound.

  She'd decided she wasn't happy with her answer to question forty-six. She'd said “yes,” the mother's wishes should always trump the father's during a mutually desired pregnancy, but then she'd found herself leaning toward “no.” And so Sarah had gotten out of the narrow bed. She fired up her notebook, which contained the master version of the data that would be transmitted the next day, changed her answer to that one question, and recompiled the response file. Her notebook would be interfaced to the big dish tomorrow, and this revised version would be the one actually sent.

  It didn't matter much, she'd thought at the time, in the grand scheme of things, what one person out of a thousand said in response to any one question, but Carl Sagan's words had echoed in her head. “Who speaks for the Earth? We do.” I do. And Sarah had wanted to give the Dracons the truest, most honest answer she could.

  By that point, copies of the supposedly finalized reply had already been burned to CD-ROM, and the backup hardcopy printout Don had recently retrieved from U of T had already been made. Sarah had forgotten all about that night in Puerto Rico, some thirty-eight years in the past, until moments ago.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Gunter asked.

  “Just keep me company,” Sarah said.

  “Of course."

  While Gunter looked over her shoulder, she began to softly dictate instructions to the computer, telling it to bring up a copy of her old set of responses to the Dracon questionnaire.

  “Okay,” she said to the computer. “Go to my answer to question forty-six."

  The highlight on the screen moved.

  “Now, change that answer to ‘no,'” she said.

  The display updated appropriately.

  “Now, let's recompile all my answers. First...” and she went on, giving instructions that were dutifully executed.

  “Your pulse is elevated,” said Gunter. “Are you okay?"

  Sarah smiled. “It's called excitement. I'll be fine.” She addressed the computer again, fighting to keep her voice steady: “Copy the compiled string into the clipboard. Bring up the reply we received from the Dracons ... Okay, load the decryption algorithm they provided.” She paused to take a deep, calming breath. “All right, now paste in the clipboard contents, and run the algorithm."

  The screen instantly changed, and—

  Eureka!

  There it was: long sequences spelled out in the vocabulary established in the first message. Sarah hadn't looked at Dracon ideograms in decades, but she recognized a few at once. That block was the symbol for “equals,” that upside-down T meant “good.” But, like any language, if you don't use it, you lose it, and she couldn't read the rest.

  No matter. There were several programs available that could transliterate Dracon symbols, and Sarah told her computer to feed the displayed text into one of those. At once, the screen was filled with a rendering of the alien message in the English notation she had devised all those years ago.

  Sarah used the scroller to quickly page through screen after screen of decrypted text; the message was massive. Gunter, of course, could read the screens as fast as they were displayed, and he surprised Sarah at one point by very softly saying, “Wow.” After a bit, Sarah jumped back to the beginning, adrenaline surging. Most of the introductory text was displayed as black, but some words and symbols were color-coded, indicating a degree of confidence in the translation—the meanings of some Dracon terms were generally agreed upon; others were still contentious. But the gist was obvious, even if a few subtleties were perhaps being lost, and, as she took it all in, she shook her head slowly in amazement and delight.

  * * * *

  Chapter 37

  Don woke up a little before 6:00 A.M., some noise or other having disturbed him. He rolled over and saw that Sarah wasn't there, which was unusual this early in the morning. He rolled the other way, looking into the little en suite, but she wasn't there, either. Concerned, he got out of bed, headed out into the corridor, and—

  And there she was, and Gunter, too, in the study.

  “Sweetheart!” Don said, entering the room. “What are you doing up so early?"

  “She has been up for two hours and forty-seven minutes,” Gunter said helpfully.

  “Doing what?” Don asked

  Sarah looked at him, and he could see the wonder on her face. “I did it,” she said. “I figured out the decryption key."

  Don hurried across the room. He wanted to pull her up out of the chair, hug her, swing her around—but he couldn't do any of those things. Instead, he bent down and kissed her gently on the top of her head. “That's fabulous! How'd you do it?"

  “The decryption key was my set of answers,” she said.

  “But I thought you'd tried that."

  She told him about the last-minute change she'd made in Arecibo. While she did so, Gunter knelt
next to her, and began scrolling rapidly through pages on the screen.

  “Ah,” Don said. “But wait—wait! If it's your answers that unlocked it, that means the message is for you personally."

  Sarah nodded her head very slowly, as if she herself couldn't believe it. “That's right."

  “Wow. You really do have a pen pal!"

  “So it would seem,” she said softly.

  “So, what does the message say?"

  “It's a—a blueprint, I guess you could call it."

  “You mean for a spaceship? Like in Contact?"

  “No. Not for a spaceship.” She looked briefly at Gunter, then back at Don. “For a Dracon."

  "What?"

  “The bulk of the message is the Dracon genome, and related biochemical information."

  He frowned. “Well, um, I guess that'll be fascinating to study."

  “We're not supposed to study it,” Sarah said. “Or at least, that's not all we're supposed to do."

  “What then?"

  “We're supposed to"—she paused, presumably seeking a word—"to actualize it."

  “Sorry?"

  “The message,” she said, “also includes instructions for making an artificial womb and an incubator."

  Don felt his eyebrows going up. “You mean they want us to grow one of them?"

  “That's right."

  “Here? On Earth?"

  She nodded. “You've said it yourself. The only thing SETI is good for is the transmission of information. Well, DNA is nothing but that—information! And they've sent us all the info we need to make one of them."

  “To make a Dracon baby?"

  “Initially. But it'll grow up to be a Dracon adult."

  There was only one chair in the room. Don moved so he could perch on the desk, and Sarah swiveled to face him. “But ... but it won't be able to breathe our atmosphere. It won't be able to eat our food."

  Sarah motioned at the screen, although Don could no longer see what was on it. “They give the composition of the air it will require: needed gases and their acceptable percentages, a list of gases that are poisonous, the tolerable range of air pressure, and so on. You're right that it won't be able to breathe our air directly; we've got too much CO2 in our atmosphere, for one thing. But with a filter mask, it should be fine. And they've given us the chemical formulas for the various foodstuffs it will need. I'm afraid Atkins didn't catch on beyond Earth; it's mostly carbohydrates."