Joe Haldeman

by The Coming

  The coffee and roll came and he asked for a glass of ouzo. Not his normal breakfast drink, but this was no normal morning.

  “Nick,” he said when the man brought the liquor, “Would you mind turning on the seven o’clock news? Channel Seven; Rory’s going to be on.”

  “Your wife? Sure.” He shouted something in Greek and the cube behind the bar turned itself on.

  Still five minutes to go. The local station was filling time with its trademark “Girls of Gatorland” nude montage. He watched a pretty young thing display her skills on the parallel bars, and then went back to the paper.

  Water riots in Phoenix again. Inner-city Detroit under martial law, the national guard called in after a police station was leveled by a predawn kamikaze truckload of explosives. A man in Los Angeles legally married his dog. In Milwaukee, twins reunited after sixty years immediately start fighting.

  The local section had an unlovely, but possibly useful, photoessay that showed the types of facial mutilations that various local gangs used to tell one another apart. They were more like social clubs nowadays, however fearsome the members looked. Ten years ago there was a lot of blood spilled. Now they just have those strange tournaments, killing each other in virtual-reality hookups, with dozens playing on each side. Why couldn’t Europe do that?

  The Coming 11

  Too American, he supposed, though the Koreans had actually started it.

  He folded up the paper as the news program started. The lead story was Detroit, of course. There was dramatic footage of a water-dumping helicopter that was fired upon and had to drop its load a block away from the fire and retreat. The crowd shots around the ruins of the police station showed little grief; one group of boys was cheering, until they saw that the camera was on them, and scattered.

  Rory’s discovery hadn’t made the lead, but it got more time than Detroit. It wasn’t often they had a story that was both interplanetary and local.

  There was an interesting deja vu feeling to watching it, seeing which parts of the interview were chosen, and how they were modified. They didn’t actually monkey with Rory’s responses, but some of the questions were changed. Predictably, there was nothing about parallax or the noncoincidence of the human minute being part of the signal; nothing about what the distance and speed implied. That would come in a later broadcast. This seven o’clock one just established their scoop.

  Nick had brought the ouzo and stood by Norman, watching the broadcast. “Your wife gonna be famous?” he said. “She gonna still talk to you?”

  “Oh, she’ll talk to me.” Norman sipped the ouzo and looked away from the screen, which was featuring a graphic feminine hygiene commercial.

  “Guys from outer space,” Nick mused. ” ‘Bout time they admitted they was out there.”

  “Really.”

  “Sure—been in the papers since I was a kid. Damn air force shot one down a hundred years ago.

  They got the dead aliens in a freezer.”

  “Nick. You don’t believe that.”

  “It was in the paper,” he said. “Hell, it was on the cube.” He raised both eyebrows high and bent to polish a table that was already spotless.

  “This could be pretty big,” Norman said. “Rory didn’t think there was any way it could be a hoax.

  Otherwise, she wouldn’t have called the news.”

  “Well, you don’t never know, do you?”

  “I guess in about a week we’ll find out. You wouldn’t care to make a gentleman’s bet?”

  Nick stared at his reflection in the plastic tabletop and scowled comically. “Where you from, Mr.

  Bell?”

  “Boston.”

  “Well, I never make bets with people from Boston.”

  “I was actually born in Washington, D.C.”

  “You kiddin’? That’s even worse.”

  The news picked up with outer space again. They’d had time to contact the Moon. A confused Japanese astronomer, the one who had verified Rory’s signal, was on live, providing more questions than answers: What do you mean, message? Speed of light? Who is this Aurora Bell? Rory hadn’t identified herself personally, of course, she was just some code name like UF/GRB-1.

  When the announcer explained to the scientist that Professor Bell had decoded the signal as “We’re coming,” repeated sixty times, his eyes narrowed. “Is this some sort of a college prank?” Then someone off-camera handed him a piece of paper. He stared at it for several seconds and then looked up. “We …

  um … we apparently have verified the Florida analysis. “We’re coming’?”

  “So what does it mean, Dr. Namura?”

  The delay was longer than the usual Earth-Moon time lag. He shook his head. “I suppose it means they’re coming. Whoever ‘they’ might be.” He spread his hands in a gesture more Gallic than Oriental. “I really don’t have the faintest idea. Of course we can’t rule out the possibility of a hoax. Not to accuse your Mr. Bell.” He glanced off-camera and back. “Mrs. Bell, Dr. Bell. Excuse us. We really do have to discuss this.” He walked away, the camera starting to track the back of his head, and then cutting to the moonscape in the holo window behind where he’d been standing.

  “Tell you what, Mr. Bell. I say it’s a hoax. If I’m right, you owe me a hundred bucks. If I’m wrong …

  you and me gotta trade jobs for a day.”

  “What, you can play the cello?”

  “Maybe. Never tried.”

  Norman laughed. “It’s tempting, but I’ll pass. Never was much of a pastry chef.” He pointed. “Oh, yeah. Rory wanted a slice of spanakopita.”

  “Sure thing. Fresh this morning.”

  A small dark man came in and let the door slam behind him. He was in formal evening wear and looked as if he’d been up all night. “¿Que pasa, Professor?”

  “Not much,” Norman said. The man had called him Professor ever since he found out his wife outranked him. “Invasion from outer space.”

  “Yeah, right. Lay ya odds.”

  “Better talk to Nick about that. Thanks.” Norman took the spinach pie, paid, and left.

  Willy Joe

  “What the hell he’s talkin’ about?” Him and Nick probably been in the back room, coupla fuckin’

  mariposas, everybody knows about Greeks, and the musicians, hell, do anything. Take turns down the ol’

  dirt track. Otherwise why’s he always here in the morning? Half the time, anyhow.

  “They got some weird radio thing at the observatory. Had his old lady on the news.”

  “It’s always somethin’, ain’t it?”

  ” Siempre.” Nick brought out a small cup of strong coffee, a sausage pastry, and a glass of retsina wine. He set them down in front of Willy Joe with a neatly folded five-hundred-dollar bill under the saucer. “So how’s business?”

  Willy Joe palmed the bill and took a sip of coffee. “Always good, first of the month. Runnin’ me ragged, though.”

  ” Pobrecito,” Nick muttered as he walked back to the pastry counter.

  “So what’s that mean?” he snapped. “What the fuck you mean by that?”

  “Just an expression.”

  “Yeah, I know what it means. You watch your fuckin’ mouth.” Willy Joe shifted, slumping back in the chair. The new belt holster was uncomfortable in the small of his back. He didn’t have to carry a gun on these collection rounds, anyhow. Who’d fuck with him? Not to mention Bobby the Bad and Solo out in the car.

  Got this fuckin’ town by the nose, now the new mayor’s in. Bought an’ paid for before the Commission election back in ‘40. The bitch last year was hard to handle. She found out what it was to push on Willy Joe, though. Might as well piss in the sea, bitch. Nothin’s gonna change.

  He unfolded his list and checked off the Athens. It was the last twenty-four-hour joint; the others wouldn’t be open for a while. He took the phone wand out of his pocket and said, “Car.”

  “Solo here.”

  “Look, we’re ahead. You guys go
do what you want till quarter to nine. Make it nine, outside Mario’s.” He put his thumb on the hang-up button while he drained the retsina. “Sanchez.”

  “Buenos.”

  “Willy Joe. Where you at?”

  “Second and North Main, like you said.”

  “Okay; you try and keep up with Solo. Black and red Westinghouse limo pullin’ out from the Athens.”

  “No problema if he stays in town.” Sanchez was on a bicycle. With the ATC going in the morning, you could keep up with traffic on foot without overexerting yourself.

  The limo moved smoothly in a diagonal from the curb, between two cars and into the left lane.

  Headed for the ghetto, interesting. Bobby the Bad was okay but a little dumb. Solo was new; friend of a friend in Tampa. He acted a little too tough. Willy Joe would love to get something on him. Someday he might need a little lesson in who’s boss.

  “Nick.” He held up the empty wineglass. “Another retsina. You got the sports page?”

  “Get you one.” He brought the bottle over and then put a buck in the paper machine.

  Willy Joe snatched the sports section. “See if I got any money left.” He took a leatherbound notebook from an inside pocket and checked his bets against the columns of results: Thoroughbreds at Hialeah, dogs at Tampa, jai alai in town. He knew from last night’s news that he’d lost his biggest wager: convicted murderer Sally Anne Busby chose the wrong door and was electrocuted. The bitch. He’d played a hunch and put a thousand on lethal injection.

  Won a dog trifecta, though. All told, he was down $378. So he’d bet double that today. He spent twenty minutes drawing up a list distributing the $756 among safe bets and long shots, and then called his bookie.

  The cube had some black broad talking to the professor’s wife. “Did you ever expect this sort of thing to happen?” she asked. “Is there any precedent?”

  “Nick, you wanna put somethin’ else on the cube? Enough about the fuckin’ president.”

  Marya Washington

  “Nothing I’d call a precedent,” Professor Bell said. “As you certainly know, there have been ambiguous SETI results—”

  “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” Marya supplied for her audience.

  “Yes … that may come from other intelligent species, or they may be radio signals generated by some natural process we don’t completely understand.”

  “Like intelligence,” Marya said.

  “Quite so.” She smiled broadly at the younger woman. “But in more than twenty years of analysis, we haven’t gotten any clear semantic content from the three suspect sources. This one is as plain as a slap in the face.”

  “And as aggressive?” She held up two fingers in front of her chest, out of sight of the camera.

  “That’s not clear. If they were attacking us, why announce that they were on their way? Why not just sneak up?”

  “On the other hand,” Marya said, “if their intent is benevolent, why don’t they say more than ‘ready or not, here we come’?” One finger.

  “Well, they have three months to go. This first signal might just have been to get our attention.”

  “They certainly have done that. Thank you so much, Dr. Bell, for taking time here at the University of Florida to explain this interesting new development to our audience at home; this is Marya Washington reporting live from Gainesville, Florida; we now return you to your local stations.” She smiled into the large camera until it clicked twice. Then she leaned back in the chair and yawned hugely.

  “Caramba. I guess astronomers always discover things at ungodly hours.”

  “Used to be. It’s around the clock now.”

  “I suppose. Well … thanks, Aurora—can I call you Aurora?”

  “Rory.”

  “Thanks for your patience. I wish we’d had more time, but we’re competing with some big hard news.” She laughed. “As if a police station being blown up was anything compared to this.”

  “Oh, my. Was anyone hurt?”

  “Eleven dead they know of. It was leveled.”

  “Funny I didn’t hear the explosion.”

  “Oh, no, no. It was up in Detroit. It may not have been directed at the police, either. They were holding some Mafia guy who was going to sing to the grand jury on Monday … You didn’t know about any of this, did you?”

  “No, I—I’m afraid I don’t pay much attention to the news.”

  “Me neither, for a reporter. Since I specialize in science stories. My big newsmagazine is Nature.”

  Rory picked up a beige crystal. “Astrophysical Review Letters. All the latest gossip.” She tapped it on the table, thinking. “So what about this special? What will you want me to do?”

  Marya interpreted the gesture as impatience. “Oh, don’t worry. No rehearsal or lines or anything. I’ll just be interviewing you the way I did today, but in more depth. Bother you as little as possible.”

  “But I really do want to be involved. SETI is pretty far from my specialty, but I seem to be thrust into it. Besides, it was a passion with me thirty years ago, when I was an undergraduate.”

  “Was that about the time they found the first source?”

  “Five or six years before that, actually. By the time they heard from Signal Alpha, I was pretty much committed to the physics of nonthermal sources, academically—not much time for little green men.”

  “Who didn’t materialize anyhow.” Marya took a leatherbound bookfile from her purse, flipped through the pages, and pulled out a blue crystal with seti-l printed in small block letters across the top.

  “You have the Leon survey book?”

  “No. Heard of it.” She took the crystal and slipped it into the reader on the desk. It hummed a query note, copyright, and Rory told it “general fund.” It copied the crystal and ejected it. Rory looked at it.

  “This has the raw data?”

  “All three stars. The reductions, too.”

  “Well, we might want to redo them. It’s been a few years, early forties?”

  Marya squinted at the back of the crystal. “Twenty forty-three.”

  “Don’t know how much has happened in eleven years.” She asked the desk for the department roster, and it appeared on two screens. “You’ll be talking to Leon, I guess—he’s where, Cal Tech?”

  “Berkeley. I called his office and left a message asking for an appointment. But who do you have doing SETI here in Gainesville?”

  “No one specializing … but Parker’s pretty sharp. He does our radio astronomy courses, intro and advanced, and he’s kept up on SETI. Keeps the undergrads excited.” She wrote his name and number down on a slip of paper. “Excited as I was … and will be again, looks like. Mysteries.”

  “It should be a good show. Network gave me two days to come up with forty-five minutes, though, so I have to move.” She put the crystal back, and hesitated. “Um … can you sort of assign me someone?

  Someone less senior than Parker, some grad assistant I could call at any ungodly hour for information?”

  “No, I can’t get you a grad assistant,” she said, and studied Marya’s reaction. “You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t let anybody else share in the fun. Parker can give us both an update, but I’m your pet astronomer for the project. Finders keepers.”

  The elevator bonged. “Well, hablar del diablo. Here comes Parker.” A tall man, unshaven and bleary-eyed but wearing a coat and tie with his kilt, shambled down the hall toward them. He had small rimless glasses and a goatee.

  Pepe Parker

  He leaned against the doorjamb, a little out of breath. “Rory … what the hell?”

  “A reasonable question. Pepe Parker, this is Marya Washington.”

  He peered at the attractive black woman. “I know you. You’re on television.”

  “Not at the moment,” she said. “Newsnet asked me to put together a special on this message.”

  “And I took the liberty of volunteering you.”

  “Oh, muchas g
racias. I had so much time on my hands.”

  “If you’d rather not—” Washington said.

  He raised one hand. “Kidding. Look, I don’t have half the story: Lisa Marie had the news on and recognized your voice; she punched ‘record’ and woke me up. Or tried to. I was up at the dome till past three,”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Don’t ask. Don’t get me started. Be nice if somebody besides me could make the goddamned bolometer work. So you got some LGMs?”

  Washington looked at Bell. ” ‘Little Green Men.’ I don’t know what else it could be. Open to suggestions.”

  “Could it be a long-delayed hack? That occurred to me on the way over. Some eighty-year-old probe with a practical joke encoded.”

  “Nice try. You haven’t seen the spectrum, though. Eighty years ago there wasn’t that much energy on the whole planet.”

  “And it’s actually English?” She nodded slowly. “Holy Chihuahua. What’s it doing now?”

  “Carrier wave. It’s a 21-cm. signal blue-shifted to 12.3 cm.”

  “Yeah, okay. How fast is that?”

  “Call it 0.99c. Decelerating.”

  “Oh, yeah—Lisa Marie said you said it would just take three months? To slow down and get here?

  Fifty goddamned gees?” Rory nodded.

  “What if it didn’t slow down?” Washington asked. “What if it hit us going that fast?”

  ” Terminado,” Pepe said. “If it’s any size.”

  “Let me see.” Rory turned to address the wall. “How much kinetic energy is there in an object massing one metric tonne, going 0.99c?”

  “Four-point-four-three X 1021 joules,” it answered immediately. “Over a million megatons.”

  “Crack this planet like an egg,” Pepe said. He was amused by Washington’s avid expression. “I think she’s got a lead for her story,” he said to Rory.

  “I’m not the one you have to worry about,” Washington said. “By noon you’re going to have stringers from every tabloid in the country down here. If I were you I’d have some secretary send them all to the Public Information Office.”

  “Do we have one?” Pepe asked.