Voyagers I

by Ben Bova

  Benedetto nodded reluctantly. “The entire foundation upon which their faith is built could be shaken. It could be the greatest blow to the Church since Luther.”

  Von Friederich shook his head. “Not Luther. It was Galileo and the scientists who destroyed the authority of the Universal Church. Luther was nothing without them. Rome had dealt with schisms and heresies before the scientists led to the Protestant movement.”

  “A harsh view of science,” the Pope said, smiling.

  “Heretics we can convert, given time,” Von Friederich said, his voice trembling. “It was the scientists who subverted the Church.”

  The Pope raised a hand. “We are not here to reopen centuries-old schisms. Science has found this alien artifact. What should Holy Mother Church do about it?”

  “Pray that it goes away,” said Von Friederich.

  “Apparently,” said Benedetto, “both the Americans and the Russians are trying to keep the information secret, for the time being.”

  “Good!”

  “They are hinting at the possibility of working together in investigating the artifact,” Benedetto went on, “but both of them really want to seize the alien knowledge for themselves, for their own military purposes.”

  The Pope’s face went somber. “Of course. What else would they think of? But how long can they keep this knowledge secret from their own people?”

  “Someone is bound to speak up sooner or later,” Benedetto agreed.

  “We must decide on how to handle the situation when the news is made public,” said the Pope.

  “We could make the revelation ourselves,” Benedetto suggested.

  “No!” Von Friederich snapped.

  “It would give the Holy Father great prestige,” Benedetto argued, “and also show the faithful that our Pope is unafraid.”

  Von Friederich thought for a moment, then replied, “But if the Americans and Russians are both trying to keep this a secret, wouldn’t they deny everything if we tried to make the news public? After all, the Americans have not made a formal announcement of their discovery. We have learned of it through the most circumspect of channels. And the Russians…!”

  Benedetto said, “The American and Soviet governments may wish to keep this a secret. But their scientists do not, I’m certain. And there are many other scientists, in other nations, who could confirm the truth once His Holiness revealed it.”

  “You are sure of that?” the Pope asked.

  “Reasonably sure, Your Holiness.”

  “Reasonably,” Von Friederich sneered.

  “But have we decided,” the Pope asked softly, “that the time is right to release this news to the public?”

  “We must consider this carefully before plunging into a precipitous course of action,” Von Friederich said.

  The Pope cocked an eyebrow in his direction. “The Propaganda Fide wants a few weeks to think about it?”

  “Yes, Your Holiness.”

  “Or a few months?”

  Von Friederich tried to shrug, almost failed.

  “We don’t have months,” Benedetto urged. “We may not even have weeks. We must decide now. Quickly!”

  The Pope turned toward him. “My friend, I have learned in my time here that nothing is done very quickly in the Vatican.”

  “There is one thing that we can do immediately,” Benedetto countered. “With your permission, of course, Your Holiness.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The Americans are inviting the Russians and scientists from many other countries to join them in a co-operative research program, to study these signals and attempt to make contact with the alien artifact.”

  “Yes?”

  “So our people in Washington tell me,” Benedetto said, a bit smugly, Von Friederich thought.

  “What has this to do with us?” the Pope asked.

  “We should send a scientist to join this group, if the Americans actually are sincere in their words.”

  “A scientist from the Church? Now, who…”

  “We have just the man,” Benedetto said, with the air of a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat. “A Dominican lay brother in a monastery in Languedoc. He was a world-renowned cosmologist who received the Nobel Prize for his theories…”

  Von Friederich interrupted, “A cosmologist who received the Nobel and then retired to a Dominican monastery?”

  Benedetto spread his hands in an Italian gesture of regret. “He wished to get away from the world. He had a problem with alcohol. There were also other rumors…about carnal excesses…”

  “This man should represent the Vatican?”

  “He is much older now,” Benedetto said. “The monastic life has purified him.”

  “Will he be able to face the temptations of the outer world, beyond his monastery’s walls?” the Pope wondered.

  Smiling, Benedetto answered, “At some scientific research station? I should think so.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Reynaud. Edouard Reynaud.”

  “I never heard of him,” Von Friederich muttered.

  “He is a very famous scientist.”

  “Very well,” said the Pope. “Ask his Order for his services. He should come here first, to discuss the matter with you in detail.”

  “Yes, Your Holiness.” Bendetto bowed his head meekly.

  Von Friederich gathered his strength and said firmly, “But we will make no public announcements. We must not alarm the faithful.”

  The Pope nodded. “I agree, my Lord Cardinal. If the Americans and Russians remain silent, we must keep silent, also.”

  The pain washed over him, but with it Von Friederich felt a profound sense of relief, almost gratitude. At least I have accomplished that much, he thought. I’ve stemmed the Italian tide one more time. I’ve protected Christ’s Vicar on Earth from making a fool of himself.

  Even through the red haze of his suffering, Von Friederich relished the look of discomfort on Benedetto’s swarthy face.

  * * *

  REVIVALISTS, UFO FANS CLASH

  SAN DIEGO: A near riot broke out at an outdoor revival meeting in Marineland of the Pacific last night as followers of Urban Evangelist Willie Wilson clashed with UFO fans who had infiltrated Rev. Wilson’s meeting.

  More than six thousand persons were jammed into the outdoor meeting grounds, police estimate, to hear Rev. Wilson preach his “watch the skies” message. Shortly after he began speaking, an organized band of UFO enthusiasts began heckling, booing and waving protest signs. Several scuffles broke out, but police armed with riot gear quickly quelled the disturbances.

  “He’s a phony,” said Fred W. Weddell, a local UFO expert, of Rev. Wilson. “He’s trying to scare everybody with an end of the world sermon. We all know that UFOs are friendly, peaceful.”

  Rev. Wilson declared, “My message is one of peace and hope. It has nothing to do with UFOs. I’m merely warning people that a Great Change is coming to this world, and we should all be watching the skies for it.”

  Seventeen persons were injured in the fighting, including two who were hospitalized. Police arrested eight…

  * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  A storm was coming.

  Stoner had lived in New England long enough to know the warnings. The eleven o’clock news on television—two bland men so alike they might have been clones, in their gold blazers, teamed with a carefully coiffed Hispanic woman who traded inane small talk with them—had given a weather forecast of “clear and colder, with an overnight low around zero, winds from the west light and variable.”

  But now, just past midnight, the wind was moaning and roaring outside the New Hampshire house. A look through the dining room windows showed clouds scudding across the face of the Moon. Trees were swaying and clacking their frozen branches together. The house began to creak like an old wooden ship laboring through heavy seas.

  Cavendish, who now shared the house with Stoner, shivered as he stared out the window. “My god, to thi
nk that the Puritans faced this kind of weather. They must have been totally unprepared for it.”

  Stoner laughed to himself. This is the winter that Big Mac was going to save us from. The winter we were going to spend in Puerto Rico.

  As he sat at the dining room table, surrounded by Big Eye photographs of Jupiter and computer printouts, Stoner studied the Englishman. Cavendish was smoking a pipe. He wore a sweater beneath his tweed jacket. He turned back from the window and peered from beneath his bushy brows at the photos strewn across the table.

  Tapping at the pinpoint of light at the center of one photo, he asked, “You’re really quite certain that this thing is from beyond the solar system?”

  Stoner said, “Yes.”

  “Mathematically certain?”

  “Check the numbers yourself. It’s a tourist, a visitor, from outside this solar system.”

  “H’mm.” Cavendish puffed a cloud of smoke ceilingward. “And the radio pulses have stopped.”

  Nodding, “It’s been nearly a week now. Nothing.”

  “Just abruptly…turned off, eh?”

  “That’s what Jeff Thompson told me. And now the spacecraft is spiraling out from Jupiter, moving away from the planet.”

  “Moving away? Really?”

  “That’s what the numbers from the computer show. It’s taken a look at Jupiter, and now it’s going away. Maybe it’s heading back home.”

  Cavendish said nothing for a few moments. The pipe smoke smelled pleasant to Stoner, comforting.

  “Nothing close enough to us to be a reasonable home for the beast, is there?” the Englishman asked.

  Stoner shrugged. “Alpha Centauri’s more than four light-years away, but there’s no evidence of planets there.”

  “Quite. Nearest star with planets is Sixty-one Cygni, isn’t it?”

  “Barnard’s Star,” Stoner corrected, “if you accept Van de Kamp’s work. Not quite six light-years out.”

  “Really?” Cavendish puffed reflectively for a few moments, clouds of smoke rising slowly to the low, sagging ceiling of the dining room.

  Stoner pulled his chair over to the computer terminal, perched on the far end of the dining room table. His fingers played over the keyboard briefly.

  “Where’s the blasted thing heading?”

  “That’s what we’d all like to know. The computer’s chewing on it now. Seems to be aiming out of the solar system entirely. If we extend its present velocity vector, it’ll climb way up above the ecliptic and head back out into deep space.”

  “You think it’s going back home, do you?”

  “Or off to another solar system.”

  “But out of our solar system entirely,” Cavendish said.

  “Right.”

  “Without visiting us.”

  Stoner looked up from the keyboard. “We’re not that important to it, I guess. It’s an alien craft. It entered our solar system, went to the biggest planet it could find, sniffed around, and now it’s leaving. Maybe it flew by Saturn before we discovered its presence, I don’t know. But whoever sent it probably came from a giant planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, I would guess. They probably can’t imagine life existing on a small, hot world like Earth.”

  “Rather a blow to one’s ego, isn’t it?” Cavendish murmured.

  “What hurts most is that it won’t come close enough for us to study in detail.”

  “Yes. Pity.”

  With a sigh that he hadn’t realized he had in him, Stoner nodded. “No more radio pulses, and our alien visitor is leaving us. Looks like we won’t need Kwajalein after all.”

  “Puzzling.”

  “Damned frustrating.”

  Cavendish paced along the dining room table. “Do you always work this late?”

  Leaning back in his chair, Stoner answered, “I was hoping the computer could give us an accurate projection of the alien’s track tonight, so we could get some kind of fix on where it’s heading. But there must be a glitch in the system somewhere. Nothing’s coming through.”

  “Perhaps the machine’s gone to sleep?” Cavendish said it with a vague smile.

  “It never sleeps.”

  “Neither do you, apparently.”

  “You’re up kind of late yourself, Professor.”

  Cavendish’s smile crumpled. “Yes, quite. You see, sleep is something of a bad show with me. I dream, you know.”

  Stoner turned in the heavy dining room chair to follow the old man’s pacing.

  But Cavendish changed the subject. “So the thing is actually heading out of the solar system.” He pointed at the silent computer with the stem of his pipe.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Good. Get rid of it. Godawful nuisance. Something more for the East and West to fight over. Be a blessing if the damned thing would just go away.”

  Stoner felt surprised. “But we’ll never find out where it’s from, who sent it, what it’s all about.”

  Cavendish shrugged his frail shoulders. “We already know the important part of it, don’t we? We are not alone. It really doesn’t matter who made it or where it’s from or even why it was sent here. The important fact is that we know now, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that there are other intelligences out there, among the stars. We are not alone in the universe.”

  “We know it,” Stoner grumbled, “but the rest of the world doesn’t.”

  “Oh, everyone will, in time. Don’t be so impatient. The whole world will find out soon enough.”

  “Not if Tuttle and Big Mac have their way.”

  “They won’t,” Cavendish assured him. “Not for long, at any rate. The news will be out sooner or later.”

  Stoner sat back and waited for the old man to say more. But Cavendish merely walked to the window and stood staring out at the tempestuous night, puffing clouds of aromatic blue smoke from his pipe. The wind shrieked out there, and from high above came the trembling whine of a distant jetliner.

  With a glance at the strangely quiet computer terminal, Stoner got up and headed for the telephone, in the living room.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told Cavendish. “I’m going to call the computer center and find out what the hell’s going on with this machine.”

  “Good,” said Cavendish. “In the meanwhile, I think I’ll pour myself a brandy. Good night for it.”

  “Fine. Make one for me, if you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly,” Cavendish said.

  Jo sat in the little secretary’s chair at the main input console of the computer. The glareless fluorescent light panels up in the ceiling gave the huge room a sense of timelessness. There were no windows, no way to tell if it was day or night.

  Like a Las Vegas gambling casino, Jo told herself. They want your whole attention devoted to the machines, not to any distractions like sunshine or rain.

  The clock on the far wall showed it was well past twelve. Jo knew it was midnight, but a nagging part of her mind warned her that she just might have it all wrong, and it could just as easily be bright noon outside the solid walls of the computer complex.

  “Hey, I’m going out for coffee.”

  Startled, she looked up to see the other graduate student who was working the graveyard shift this week.

  “You want any?” He grinned down at her. Pleasant face, young, unlined. He was trying to grow a beard but only a few wisps of blondish hair marred his jawline.

  “No, thanks. I brought a lunch.” She glanced at the big shoulder bag resting on the floor near her chair.

  “Okay. I’ll be back in ten—fifteen minutes. Don’t open the door for anybody; I’ve got my key.” He dangled the key from its ring. “Too many freaks out there this time of night to take any chances.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Jo said.

  “Okay.”

  He pranced off, whistling off-key to himself.

  Once he closed the heavy steel door behind him, Jo rose to her feet, stretched her cramped legs and arms and started some deep knee bends. The only sounds
in the room were the sixty-cycle hum of the lights, the deeper rumble of the computer’s main core and her own rhythmic breathing.

  The computer was working on something, a problem that was soaking up a large part of its capacity. It had been humming and blinking to itself without a single line of printout ever since Jo had shown up for her shift, nearly an hour ago.

  Maybe it’s working on a problem for Keith, she thought as she bent down to sit on her heels. The corners of her lips tugged down. More than two weeks now and he hasn’t called, hasn’t even sent a message through Dr. Thompson or any of the other people who go up to the house.

  He just doesn’t care, Jo realized. He doesn’t give a damn about me. I was just a convenient lay for him.

  The phone rang.

  Grunting, she got to her feet and went over to the handset built into the console, next to one of its keyboards.

  “Computer center,” she said into the phone.

  “This is Dr. Stoner,” Keith’s voice replied. He sounded slightly annoyed. “Who am I speaking to?”

  “Keith…” She tried to mask the sudden breathlessness of her voice, tried to tell herself it was from the exertion of the exercises.

  “Jo? Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re working at the computer center now?”

  She nodded, then realized how foolish it was. “Yes. That’s what they’ve got me doing now. I’m on the swing shift this week.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m…” she hesitated, put her thoughts in order. “I’m all right, Keith. And you?”

  “About the same.” His voice became guarded, too. “Not much we can say over the phone, is there?”

  “No. I suppose the security regulations…”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Suddenly there was nothing she could say.

  After a moment’s silence, he asked, “How’s Big Mac treating you?”

  A flash of electricity went through her. Does he know? she wondered.

  “I heard from Jeff Thompson that he’s written a letter to NASA for you.”

  She could feel the cold anger in his words. Just as coldly, she replied, “That’s right, Keith. He has.”