by Sam Smith
Jorge, Tulla and Nero resumed their seats. Eldon remained staring at the screens.
Watched by the others he worked his way back down through the projections, up again. On the screen the red circles covered part of one galaxy, encroached on another.
“If they can’t travel great distances,” Eldon asked Tulla, “how do you account for this leap between galaxies?”
“I can’t,” Tulla said. “I’m just making deductions from the observations. Yours, anyone’s, could be contrary to mine and as valid.”
“I do not wish to make this your responsibility,” Jorge addressed her, “but, from what you’ve said, I suspect that you have a plan.”
Tulla sized up Jorge Arbatov. On first seeing him she had thought him an old fogey wheeled in as an interim measure. He used their language. However, as much by what he didn’t say — a notable lack of protestations — as by what he had said, Tulla was beginning to realise that Jorge Arbatov was no run of the mill Service personnel. No ordinary Director would have invited his Sub into his confidence. Nor was his casual disparagement of individuals and institutions of a piece with Service tact. Nor had he once attempted to prevaricate or to pass the buck. His questions and his comments had all been to the point. He seemed to be treating the problem on its own merits.
Tulla decided to trust him, to try a direct approach rather than, as she had intended, leading them to make the decision she wanted them to make,
“The first thing we have to do is to keep police reinforcements away from here. If we should provoke the Nautili now, if we should get them into the habit of firing on police ships, we are going to be at war with them for the next hundred and sixty years. With who knows what consequences.”
“Where are our police ships now?” Jorge asked Eldon.
“Both here.”
Eldon was still leaning over the desk. He turned to Tulla,
“Why don’t they try to stop ships going to the planet? Only from leaving it?”
“Who knows,” Tulla shrugged. “Maybe they just don’t want anyone to send for help. Want to keep their colonisation a secret. Would fit with their blocking of our transmissions. Maybe they’re as frightened of us as we are of them. On the other hand their blocking of our transmissions and removing the moon could be mere side effects of some other larger plan.”
“I’m certainly frightened of them. If we fight them we’ll have to engage them along this front here,” Eldon’s blunt forefinger indicated a quarter arc of the screen. “And we don’t have ships or trained personnel enough. So I’m all for avoiding conflict. There’ll be no extra ships drafted in by me. Unless the situation drastically changes.”
“Good,” Tulla said. “I honestly don’t think they intend us any harm. And a sudden concentration of police ships could provoke them to attack in pre-emptive defence. See that,” she pointed to a dense red area. “There are two cities in there. Unharmed. We already have thirteen other planets where settlers co-exist peacefully with the Nautili. Nor do I believe that we could stop them even if we tried. Imperialism carries its own momentum. Our civilisation has met with many obstacles; and we have, so far, resolutely overcome every single one. The Nautili, though, are no obstacle. After all we’re not in competition with them. They have the seas. We have the land and Space. It’s just a matter of working around one another.”
“I too,” Jorge said, “will advise against the sending of more police ships. That will be to my superiors’ taste. They can proceed to do nothing with a clear conscience.”
“Thank you,” Tulla inclined her head.
“So what is your plan?” Jorge smiled at her.
“We have to communicate with them.”
“They’re invisible at the moment,” Jorge said. “How?”
“I believe that this is the perfect opportunity, possibly our only opportunity. Because, over the next eighty years, they’ll have no real need of us. But here and now we can be of use to them.”
“How?”
Jorge’s question again went unanswered. The phone rang. Nero sprang to answer it. For the phone to ring during a meeting the caller had to have a high priority. All awaited the answers to Nero’s brief questions. When he put the phone down it was with a smile of undisguised relief that he turned to face them.
“There’s a City Senate Member here. Hambro Harrap. He wants to see you about the Nautili on the planet Happiness.”
“Petre,” Tulla said, a friendship betrayed.
Chapter Twenty-One
To Eldon Boone’s and Tulla Yorke’s surprise, and to Nero Porsnin’s alarm, Jorge Arbatov greeted Hambro Harrap with the demand to know by what authority he came within his Department to, uninvited and without prior consultation, conduct unspecified research on a planet whose inhabitants had not received even the courtesy of a formal request for such research.
“This is in the nature of an emergency,” Hambro Harrap suavely attempted to soothe what he took to be an irascible petty official jealous of his authority.
“Then I shall declare a State of Emergency,” Jorge said.
“I don’t think,” Hambro smiled placatingly, “that would be wise. We don’t want to cause a panic, do we?”
“If the City Senate believes this to be an Emergency then I shall declare a State of Emergency.” Jorge held out his thin-skinned hand, “May I see the Senate records on this.”
“There hasn’t been time enough to fully consult the Senate.” Hambro adopted a sombre expression, “This situation requires...”
“This situation,” Jorge interrupted Hambro, “requires a considered approach. I’m having no opportunistic politician go blundering in and making matters ten times worse. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re busy.” Jorge turned from Hambro to the screens, “And should you go anywhere near that planet I will have the police there arrest you on landing. Goodbye.”
This obstreperous old man was not the usual obsequious Service type that Hambro Harrap had come to expect. More especially Hambro had fully expected to be greeted here as a saviour, at the very least to carry the day with the respect due his position.
Accustomed to people letting him have his say he was for the moment at a loss, looked to the large ginger Inspector, who was regarding his discomfiture with some small amusement; to the spiky haired blonde woman, who he guessed was the astrophysicist; to a small bald man simpering anxiously at him, as if trying to disassociate himself from the old fogey of a Director while at the same time remaining mutely loyal to him. A possible ally there, Hambro noted, but he still couldn’t think of a stratagem to overcome the old man’s dismissal. Tevor Cade came to his rescue.
Save that he was thinner Tevor Cade was of the same stamp as Hambro Harrap. Grey hair cut artfully to the curl, he looked substantial, prosperous.
“I believe,” he advanced on Jorge, “you’ll find all the authentication you’ll need here.”
Jorge looked him up and down,
“Who are you?”
“Doctor Tevor Cade.” Tulla winced at the title: she too had doctorates. “I specialise in Nautili.”
“What’s he to do with it?” Jorge asked him, signifying Hambro Harrap.
“He’s a majority contributor to my research funds.”
Jorge nodded, then walked to the door and jerked it open,
“And him?”
Outside stood a small man with shaggy black hair, cameras hung around his neck. Eldon Boone glanced to the screens: Jorge had been studying Tevor Cade’s bill of lading. Eldon was warming to Jorge Arbatov, who now dramatically slammed the door on the cameraman’s lens.
“Tell me,” Jorge asked Tevor Gade, “what you need a cameraman for? Or did he come along to film the hero here?”
Hambro instantly puffed up,
“I think I’ve...”
“Shut up,” Jorge offhandedly told him. Nero’s mouth fell open. Tulla bit her lips.
Tevor Cade’s turn to take stock,
“He came at Mr Harrap’s request.”
“G
ood. Straight talking at last. Now tell me what you hope to achieve on Happiness. And why Happiness?”
“As you will note,” Jorge was running Tevor Cade’s record onto his screens, “I am licensed to investigate any planet which the Nautili have colonised. No matter what the local situation. There are proscriptions of course, but none, so far as I can see, that apply here.”
“Unless I declare a State of Emergency.”
“Quite. You asked why Happiness. The simple answer is that it is the closest. And, straight talking, it is the planet that I agreed to investigate when I accepted the funds from Senator Harrap.”
“As you agreed to take him and his cameraman along with you?”
“Quite.”
“I can abrogate that agreement, if you so wish, and hold them both here.”
“Thank you. But I did voluntarily agree to those conditions.”
Hambro Harrap had heard enough,
“Now look here...”
“Mr Harrap you remain in this office on sufferance.” Jorge loomed over him, “Understand this — you have come here without the Senate’s authority. We are in the midst of a crisis. Should you prove to be obstructive I’ll have you locked up. Is that not so Inspector?”
“It is,” Eldon assured Hambro.
Hambro glared at them both, and seeing their calm resolution cast angrily elsewhere about the room. He took the seat that Nero hastily vacated for him.
“Now tell me,” Jorge addressed Tevor Cade, “what you hope to achieve on Happiness? And how?”
In a practised speech Tevor Cade told him that he intended communicating with the Nautili, that his ship was a self-contained research unit specifically designed for such research. The ship would drop sonar buoys into the seas of Happiness. Upon the ship he would then assemble his own radio station. The sonar buoys would transmit to the Nautili simple messages on a variety of frequencies, would listen for any response from the Nautili. Once he had received a response he hoped to establish a simple rapport, together create a language through which both could communicate.
Tulla now took over the interview.
“Didn’t Dag Olvess try something like this a couple hundred years ago?” she asked him, added, “Without success?”
“Hardly without success. It’s on some of the positive results of his research that this project is based.”
“What makes you think, though, that you’ll have any more success than he had?”
“His were hit and miss affairs. Far too generalised an approach. As well as sound he transmitted light and colour. However, from the few responses that he and others have got, I have been able to confidently concentrate my research in a comparatively narrow sonic spectrum, and intensify the broadcasts in one site.”
“Where?”
Tevor asked for a map of Happiness’s oceans. Nero, with a bravura display of efficiency, obliged.
“Here.” With his finger Tevor Cade drew two lines across an ocean, “All the responses that Olvess and others have got have been in tropical waters. There is, on this planet, only one other area of tropical water of that dimension. Here, however, it is contained in this comparatively narrow channel between these two land masses. Therefore any Nautili passing through this channel are bound to hear my broadcasts. I will set up station on this estuary here. It’s a designated wilderness, already has a field station on site. That way my being there shouldn’t alarm the natives.”
“Will it do any harm?” Jorge asked Tulla.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Tulla was studying the map projections on the four screens. “The Nautili didn’t take offence at Olvess’s attempts to contact them. But I don’t think it’ll work. As I said, it’s been tried before.”
“Not at such high density,” Tevor said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Tulla turned to him, “but isn’t this kind of experiment normally only permitted on uninhabited planets?”
“You’re wrong,” Tevor Cade happily corrected her. “In fact on one colonised planet they have a permanent listening post. And on other colonised planets limited attempts at communication have been made by the inhabitants themselves.”
“Without success.”
“They did get some responses.”
“I’ve heard this experiment described as ‘a bit like shouting at one another from different rooms.’”
“One day they might open the door.”
“Might.”
“I have been working on this for seven years now.” Tevor Cade drew himself up to his full height: he was still not as tall as Tulla, “And I guarantee that I will get a definite response within 72 hours of my first broadcast.”
Jorge Arbatov stared at the maps, flicked up Tevor Cade’s credentials onto another screen, studied them carefully. Hambro Harrap was similarly engaged in a study of Tulla Yorke. He had expected someone small and neat like Petre Fanne, someone pliable he could patronise, not this big blonde red-faced virago with a robust intellect, and who could, had she so wished, crush him with one blow of her huge hands.
“Right,” Jorge said. “You’ve got seven days starting from now. That’s two days to get there, five days to get results. By the time you reach your ship you will have my executive authority to begin your research immediately on landing. I suggest, though, that out of respect for your hosts, you first call on the Spokesman and inform him of your intentions before proceeding to the field station. In five days time Doctor Yorke and I will be leaving here. When I arrive on Happiness I will be taking over all dealings with the Nautili. You’d best,” Jorge crossed to the door and opened it, “be on your way.”
The cameraman watched them through his lens. Tevor Cade picked up his case and left. As Hambro Harrap passed Jorge he said quietly,
“If this was on record you’d...”
“Mr Harrap,” Jorge enunciated each word, “I conduct all official business on record. And be aware also of this,” Jorge made sure that he and Hambro were within the scope of the camera, “if any of your actions down there cause any of the inhabitants to be killed, or provoke any attack by the Nautili upon any Space installation, then I will make it my business to see that you never hold public office again. Goodbye.”
Chapter Twenty Two
While Jorge Arbatov sat himself at his desk and dictated the necessary authorisation for Tevor Cade’s research on Happiness, the three people in the office behind him sat each in silence with their thoughts, each trying to ascertain their own course of action since Tevor Cade’s appearance.
Jorge turned slowly from his desk.
“You could have made a powerful enemy there,” Inspector Eldon Boone told him, referring to Hambro Harrap. Jorge grunted dismissively,
“Those concealed threats... They only have any power if you believe them. Mark that Nero. Besides, at my age, what’s it matter? Now,” he clapped his thin hands together, looked brightly at Tulla Yorke, “tell me why ‘Doctor’ Tevor Cade’s project will fail.”
So, with Nero Porsnin in attendance, began a meeting of three like-minded people. To each of those three their jobs were more important than any prestigious position they might hold; each was aware of their responsibilities; each wanted to understand. Hence the patience shown in the ensuing dialogue, hence the lack of rancour.
Tulla, having collected her thoughts, leant forward and rested her elbows on her knees, hands clasped tightly between them, “Like I said, it’s been tried before. Granted Tevor Cade is this time concentrating his efforts in a narrow band; but every single contact they have had before has ultimately proved worthless. I don’t see why this time it should be any different.”
“It’s worth the effort surely?”
“No,” Tulla decidedly shook her head, “it’s not. If something doesn’t work then, no matter how you concentrate your efforts or your funds, it will still not work. Might look impressive, but it won’t get results. It’s scientific dogmatism. Oh the intentions are good, but what good are good intentions if it’s doomed to failure?”
“On their own evidence. Tevor Cade quotes Dag Olvess. Olvess was responsible for the bulk of the early research. Yet Olvess’s final paper dismissed, discounted all his own research, when he said that he didn’t think we yet had the means to communicate with the Nautili. Tevor Cade is still employing those same means.”
“Doctor Cade did say that his research was based on responses that Olvess had got?”
“Yes, Olvess got responses. And others have since. But that’s all that they are — responses. In most cases it has been the Nautili, or some other marine creature, parroting back their own transmissions. It is not, nor has it ever been, communication; merely an exchange of noises.”
Jorge, in his role of devil’s advocate, moved to speak again. Tulla forestalled him,
“It’s more than just a lack of success in acquiring hard evidence. Like me you must have encountered many feasible, but unprovable, theses. One doesn’t dismiss those theses out of hand because there’s no hard facts to support them. But the very premise for this research is mistaken. And all the available evidence, thus far, points in that direction. It is a pointless experiment. They know what the result will be before they attempt it. Of course every time they hope it will be different; but the results are always the same. If you punch a man on the nose he will bleed. Same happens every time.”
“You think Tevor Cade is about to, metaphorically, punch the Nautili on the nose?”
“Yes. Though not in the sense that he will offend them. They don’t appear to have been offended by it before.”
“Why are you so opposed to it then?”
“Because it’s a waste of time and money. The only reason, I believe, there are those who persevere with this experiment is because, like Olvess, they believe in the power of words. Olvess, who began this line of enquiry, was a philosopher. Philosophers deal first and foremost with and through words. Tevor Cade, the latest recruit,” she signified the screen where his credentials were still on display, “is a psychologist. A profession that relies on words. And ‘Doctor’ Tevor Cade has also spent so long campaigning for funds that he has, in effect, become a politician. Politicians believe that words are actions. Which is why Hambro Harrap has been so readily persuaded to fund the research. All believe in the power of words; and yet, ironically, not one of them is a linguist.”
