Nebula Awards Showcase 2008

by Ben Bova

  “What’s the use of arguing about something we can’t know anything about?” Sonnenborn said reasonably. “We have to base our position on probabilities. Shklovskii and Sagan estimated that there are more than one thousand million habitable planets in our galaxy alone. Von Hoerner estimated that one in three million have advanced societies in orbit around them; Sagan said one in one hundred thousand. Either way it’s good odds that there’s somebody there—three hundred or ten thousand in our segment of the universe. Our job is to listen in the right place or in the right way or understand what we hear.”

  Adams turned to MacDonald. “What do you say, Mac?”

  “I say these basic discussions are good for us,” MacDonald said mildly, “and we need to keep reminding ourselves what it is we’re doing, or we’ll get swallowed in a quicksand of data. I also say that it’s time now to get down to the business at hand—what observations do we make tonight and the rest of the week before our next staff meeting?”

  Saunders began, “I think we should make a methodical sweep of the entire galactic lens, listening on all wavelengths—”

  “We’ve done that a hundred times,” said Sonnenborn.

  “Not with my new filter—”

  “Tau Ceti still is the most likely,” said Olsen. “Let’s really give it a hearing—”

  MacDonald heard Adams grumbling, half to himself, “If there is anybody, and they are trying to communicate, some amateur is going to pick it up on his ham set, decipher it on his James Bond coderule, and leave us sitting here on one hundred million dollars of equipment with egg all over our faces—”

  “And don’t forget,” MacDonald said, “tomorrow is Saturday night and Maria and I will be expecting you all at our place at eight for the customary beer and bull. Those who have more to say can save it for then.”

  MacDonald did not feel as jovial as he tried to sound. He did not know whether he could stand another Saturday night session of drink and discussion and dissension about the Project. This was one of his low periods when everything seemed to pile up on top of him, and he could not get out from under, or tell anybody how he felt. No matter how he felt, the Saturday nights were good for the morale of the others.

  Pues no es posible que esté continuo el arco armado ni la condición y flaqueza humana se pueda sustenar sin alguna lícita recreación.

  Within the Project, morale was always a problem. Besides, it was good for Maria. She did not get out enough. She needed to see people. And then…

  And then maybe Adams was right. Maybe nobody was there. Maybe nobody was sending signals because there was nobody to send signals. Maybe man was alone in the universe. Alone with God. Or alone with himself, whichever was worse.

  Maybe all the money was being wasted, and the effort, and the preparation—all the intelligence and education and ideas being drained away into an endlessly empty cavern.

  Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,

  Juristerei und Medizin,

  Und leider auch Theologie

  Durchaus studiert, mit heissem Bemühn.

  Da steh’ ich nun, ich armer Tor!

  Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;

  Heisse Magister, heisse Doktor gar,

  Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr

  Herauf, herab und quer und krumm

  Meine Schüler an der Nase herum—

  Und sehe, dass wir nichts wissen können

  Poor fool. Why me? MacDonald thought. Could not some other lead them better, not by the nose but by his real wisdom? Perhaps all he was good for was the Saturday night parties. Perhaps it was time for a change.

  He shook himself. It was the endless waiting that wore him down, the waiting for something that did not happen, and the Congressional hearings were coming up again. What could he say that he had not said before? How could he justify a project that already had gone on for nearly fifty years without results and might go on for centuries more?

  “Gentlemen,” he said briskly, “to our listening posts.”

  By the time he had settled himself at his disordered desk, Lily was standing beside him.

  “Here’s last night’s computer analysis,” she said, putting down in front of him a thin folder. “Reynolds says there’s nothing there, but you always want to see it anyway. Here’s the transcription of last year’s Congressional hearings.” A thick binder went on top of the folder. “The correspondence and the actual appropriation measure are in another file if you want them.”

  MacDonald shook his head.

  “There’s a form letter from NASA establishing the ground rules for this year’s budget and a personal letter from Ted Wartinian saying that conditions are really tight and some cuts look inevitable. In fact, he says there’s a possibility the Project might be scrubbed.”

  Lily glanced at him. “Not a chance,” MacDonald said confidently.

  “There’s a few applications for employment. Not as many as we used to get. The letters from school children I answered myself. And there’s the usual nut letters from people who’ve been receiving messages from outer space, and from one who’s had a ride in a UFO. That’s what he called it—not a saucer or anything. A feature writer wants to interview you and some others for an article on the Project. I think he’s with us. And another one who sounds as if he wants to do an exposé.”

  MacDonald listened patiently. Lily was a wonder. She could handle everything in the office as well as he could. In fact, things might run smoother if he were not around to take up her time.

  “They’ve both sent some questions for you to answer. And Joe wants to talk to you.”

  “Joe?”

  “One of the janitors.”

  “What does he want?” They couldn’t afford to lose a janitor. Good janitors were harder to find than astronomers, harder even than electronicians.

  “He says he has to talk to you, but I’ve heard from some of the lunchroom staff that he’s been complaining about getting messages on his—on his—”

  “Yes?”

  “On his false teeth.”

  MacDonald sighed. “Pacify him somehow, will you, Lily? If I talk to him we might lose a janitor.”

  “I’ll do my best. And Mrs. MacDonald called. Said it wasn’t important and you needn’t call back.”

  “Call her,” MacDonald said. “And, Lily—you’re coming to the party tomorrow night, aren’t you?”

  “What would I be doing at a party with all the brains?”

  “We want you to come. Maria asked particularly. It isn’t all shop talk, you know. And there are never enough women. You might strike it off with one of the young bachelors.”

  “At my age, Mr. MacDonald? You’re just trying to get rid of me.”

  “Never.”

  “I’ll get Mrs. MacDonald.” Lily turned at the door. “I’ll think about the party.”

  MacDonald shuffled through the papers. Down at the bottom was the only one he was interested in—the computer analysis of last night’s listening. But he kept it there, on the bottom, as a reward for going through the others. Ted was really worried. Move over, Ted. And then the writers. He supposed he would have to work them in somehow. At least it was part of the fallout to locating the Project in Puerto Rico. Nobody just dropped in. And the questions. Two of them caught his attention.

  How did you come to be named Project Director? That was the friendly one. What are your qualifications to be Director? That was the other. How would he answer them? Could he answer them at all?

  Finally he reached the computer analysis, and it was just like those for the rest of the week, and the week before that, and the months and the years before that. No significant correlations. Noise. There were a few peaks of reception—at the twenty-one-centimeter line, for instance—but these were merely concentrated noise. Radiating clouds of hydrogen, as the Little Ear functioned like an ordinary radio telescope.

  At least the Project showed some results. It was feeding star survey data tapes into the international pool. Fallout. Of a process that had no oth
er product except negatives.

  Maybe the equipment wasn’t sensitive enough. Maybe. They could beef it up some more. At least it might be a successful ploy with the Committee, some progress to present, if only in the hardware. You don’t stand still. You spend more money or they cut you back—or off.

  Note: Saunders—plans to increase sensitivity.

  Maybe the equipment wasn’t discriminating enough. But they had used up a generation of ingenuity canceling out background noise, and in its occasional checks the Big Ear indicated that they were doing adequately on terrestrial noise, at least.

  Note: Adams—new discrimination gimmick.

  Maybe the computer wasn’t recognizing a signal when it had one fed into it. Perhaps it wasn’t sophisticated enough to perceive certain subtle relationships…. And yet sophisticated codes had been broken in seconds. And the Project was asking it to distinguish only where a signal existed, whether the reception was random noise or had some element of the unrandom. At this level it wasn’t even being asked to note the influence of consciousness.

  Note: ask computer—is it missing something? Ridiculous? Ask Olsen.

  Maybe they shouldn’t be searching the radio spectrum at all. Maybe radio was a peculiarity of man’s civilization. Maybe others had never had it or had passed it by and now had more sophisticated means of communication. Lasers, for instance. Telepathy, or what might pass for it with man. Maybe gamma rays, as Morrison suggested years before Ozma.

  Well, maybe. But if it were so, somebody else would have to listen for those. He had neither the equipment nor the background nor the working lifetime left to tackle something new.

  And maybe Adams was right.

  He buzzed Lily. “Have you reached Mrs. MacDonald?”

  “The telephone hasn’t answered—”

  Unreasoned panic…

  “—Oh, here she is now, Mr. MacDonald, Mrs. MacDonald.”

  “Hello, darling, I was alarmed when you didn’t answer.”

  That had been foolish, he thought, and even more foolish to mention it.

  Her voice was sleepy. “I must have been dozing.” Even drowsy, it was an exciting voice, gentle, a little husky, that speeded MacDonald’s pulse. “What did you want?”

  “You called me,” MacDonald said.

  “Did I? I’ve forgotten.”

  “Glad you’re resting. You didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “I took some pills.”

  “How many?”

  “Just the two you left out.”

  “Good girl. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you.”

  But her voice wasn’t sleepy anymore. “You won’t have to go back tonight, will you? We’ll have the evening together?”

  “We’ll see,” he promised.

  But he knew he would have to return.

  MacDonald paused outside the long, low concrete building that housed the offices and laboratories and computers. It was twilight. The sun had descended below the green hills, but orange and purpling wisps of cirrus trailed down the western sky.

  Between MacDonald and the sky was a giant dish held aloft by skeletal metal fingers—held high as if to catch the stardust that drifted down at night from the Milky Way.

  Go and catch a falling star,

  Get with child a mandrake root,

  Tell me where all past years are,

  Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;

  Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

  Or to keep off envy’s stinging,

  And find

  What wind

  Serves to advance an honest mind.

  Then the dish began to turn, noiselessly, incredibly, and to tip. And it was not a dish anymore but an ear, a listening ear cupped by the surrounding hills to overhear the whispering universe.

  Perhaps this was what kept them at their jobs, MacDonald thought. In spite of all disappointments, in spite of all vain efforts, perhaps it was this massive machinery, as sensitive as their fingertips, that kept them struggling with the unfathomable. When they grew weary at their electronic listening posts, when their eyes grew dim with looking at unrevealing dials and studying uneventful graphs, they could step outside their concrete cells and renew their dull spirits in communion with the giant mechanism they commanded, the silent, sensing instrument in which the smallest packets of energy, the smallest waves of matter, were detected in their headlong, eternal flight across the universe. It was the stethoscope with which they took the pulse of the all and noted the birth and death of stars, the probe with which, here on an insignificant planet of an undistinguished star on the edge of its galaxy, they explored the infinite.

  Or perhaps it was not just the reality but the imagery, like poetry, that soothed their doubting souls, the bowl held up to catch Donne’s falling star, the ear cocked to hear the shout from the other side of the universe that faded to an indistinguishable murmur by the time it reached them. And one thousand miles above them was the giant, five-mile-in-diameter network, the largest radio telescope ever built, that men had cast into the heavens to catch the stars.

  If they had the Big Ear for more than an occasional reference check, MacDonald thought practically, then they might get some results. But he knew the radio astronomers would never relinquish time to the frivolity of listening for signals that never came. It was only because of the Big Ear that the Project had inherited the Little Ear. There had been talk recently about a larger net, twenty miles in diameter. Perhaps when it was done, if it were done, the Project might inherit time on the Big Ear.

  If they could endure until then, MacDonald thought, if they could steer their fragile vessel of faith between the Scylla of self-doubt and the Charybdis of Congressional appropriations.

  The images were not all favorable. There were others that went boomp in the night. There was the image, for instance, of man listening, listening, listening to the silent stars, listening for an eternity, listening for signals that would never come, because—the ultimate horror—man was alone in the universe, a cosmic accident of self-awareness that needed and would never receive the comfort of companionship. To be alone, to be all alone, would be like being all alone on earth, with no one to talk to, ever—like being alone inside a bone prison, with no way to get out, no way to communicate with anyone outside, no way to know if anyone was outside….

  Perhaps that, in the end, was what kept them going—to stave off the terrors of the night. While they listened there was hope; to give up now would be to admit final defeat. Some said they should never have started; then they never would have the problem of surrender. Some of the new religions said that. The Solitarians, for one. There is nobody there; we are the one, the only created intelligence in the universe. Let us glory in our uniqueness. But the older religions encouraged the Project to continue. Why would God have created the myriads of other stars and other planets if He had not intended them for living creatures; why should man only be created in His image? Let us find out, they said. Let us communicate with them. What revelations have they had? What saviors have redeemed them?

  These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me…. Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And we are witnesses of these things.

  And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

  Dusk had turned to night. The sky had turned to black. The stars had been born again. The listening had begun. MacDonald made his way to his car in the parking lot behind the building, coasted until he was behind the hill, and turned on the motor for the long drive home.

  The hacienda was dark. It had that empty feeling about it that MacDonald knew so well, the feeling it
had for him when Maria went to visit friends in Mexico City. But it was not empty now. Maria was here.

  He opened the door and flicked on the hall light. “Maria?” He walked down the tiled hall, not too fast, not too slow.

  “¿Querida?” He turned on the living room light as he passed. He continued down the hall, past the dining room, the guest room, the study, the kitchen. He reached the dark doorway to the bedroom. “Maria Chavez?”

  He turned on the bedroom light, low. She was asleep, her face peaceful, her dark hair scattered across the pillow. She lay on her side, her legs drawn up under the covers.

  Men che dramma

  Di sangue m’e rimaso, che no tremi;

  Conosco i segni dell’antica fiamma.

  MacDonald looked down at her, comparing her features one by one with those he had fixed in his memory.

  Even now, with those dark, expressive eyes closed, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. What glories they had known! He renewed his spirit in the warmth of his remembrances, recalling moments with loving details.

  C’estce dequoy j’ay le plus de peur que la peur.

  He sat down upon the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss her upon the cheek and then upon her upthrust shoulder where the gown had slipped down. She did not waken. He shook her shoulder gently. “Maria!” She turned upon her back, straightening. She sighed, and her eyes came open, staring blankly. “It is Robby,” MacDonald said, dropping unconsciously into a faint brogue.

  Her eyes came alive and her lips smiled sleepily. “Robby. You’re home.”

  “Yo te amo,” he murmured, and kissed her. As he pulled himself away, he said, “I’ll start dinner. Wake up and get dressed. I’ll see you in half an hour. Or sooner.”

  “Sooner,” she said.

  He turned and went to the kitchen. There was romaine lettuce in the refrigerator, and as he rummaged further, some thin slices of veal. He prepared Caesar salad and veal scalop-pine, doing it all quickly, expertly. He liked to cook. The salad was ready, and the lemon juice, tarragon, white wine, and a minute later, the beef bouillon had been added to the browned veal when Maria appeared.