by Ben Bova
“What this tells me is that while the public is intrigued by the outer space phenomena, the Space Agency is so mesmerized that it is attempting to translate the momentum into a multi-million dollar, long-range program of questionable searches for intelligence beyond our solar system.
“What’s wrong with the program? Like so many other big spending projects, this is a low priority program which at this time constitutes a luxury which the country can ill afford.
“First, while theoretically possible, there is now not a scintilla of evidence that life beyond our own solar system exists. Yet NASA officials indicate that the study is predicated on the assumption that intelligent extra-terrestrial beings are out there trying to communicate with scientists here on Earth. If NASA has its way, this spending will go forward at a time when people here on Earth—Arabs and Israelis, Greeks and Turks, the United States and the Soviet Union, to name a few—are having a great difficulty in communicating with each other.
“Second, what if from some place, somewhere a radio message had been sent? The Earth is four and one-half billion years old. Some solar systems are 10 to 15 billion years old. If we intercept messages sent from them, they could have been sent not only before Columbus discovered America or the birth of Christ, but before the Earth itself existed. The overwhelming odds are that such civilizations, even if they once existed, are now dead and gone.
“Third, NASA didn’t even select the least expensive way to do it. A less expensive, more narrowly focused SETI proposal from the Ames Research Center (cost $6.5 million over 7 years) was rejected in favor of the $14 to $15 million Jet Propulsion Lab project. However, to add insult to injury NASA has told my office that what it may do is to plug in the Ames project in the fiscal year 1980 budget so that both projects would be operating at the same time.
“At a time when the country is faced with a $61 billion budget deficit, the attempt to detect radio waves from solar systems should be postponed until right after the federal budget is balanced and income and social security taxes are reduced to zero.”
* * *
CHAPTER 21
Edouard Reynaud sipped at his fourth brandy while he reclined as far back in his seat as the chair would go. It seemed to him that he’d been inside this chartered airplane forever: Rome, Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco, Honolulu and now—would it ever stop? Was this purgatory, perhaps? A millennium or two of being locked inside an aluminum canister, able to do nothing except eat, sleep and eliminate?
It’s like being a baby again, he thought to himself, drowsy from the brandy. A flying metal nursery, that’s what they’ve put us in. And the stewards are the nursemaids.
He was fighting off sleep. He knew it would come if he relaxed, and with it would come the bad dreams, the guilt dreams, unless he had the proper level of alcohol in his blood. So he drank brandy after brandy, calling for a fresh one as soon as he finished the one in his hand.
The young blond angel in the chair beside him slept innocently, his mouth slightly open, his breath easing in and out of him as calmly as the ebb and flow of the tides.
Reynaud suppressed a desire to touch his sweet face, stroke his beardless cheek.
Instead, he turned to the window and looked out at the dark, starry sky. He recognized Orion, the Bull, the Dogs. Yes, everything is in its place, as usual, he saw. Deep in that infinite sky, he knew, new stars were being born and old ones torn apart by titanic explosions. Galaxies whirled out there in the darkness and quasars burned with a fierceness that no human mind could comprehend.
“How long,” Reynaud whispered to himself, “will you keep your secrets? If God set you in place, when did He do the job? And how?”
It did not occur to him to ask why. That was the province of the theologians. Reynaud was a cosmologist.
He saw his own reflection in the glass of the airplane’s window, and he frowned at it. A fat, round face atop a fat, round body. Sagging jowls and baggy eyes, bloodshot and failing. A man who sought refuge in the monastic life when the world became too much for him to bear, and still managed to stay fat, and drunk, still managed to lapse into homosexuality now and then, despite all the controls and the punishments the Abbot could wield over him.
Reynaud smiled bitterly at his memory of the Abbot’s face, when that stern master of the monastery was told that the Pope himself wanted Reynaud sent to him.
“What His Holiness wants with you is beyond my comprehension,” said the Abbot, his hawklike visage grim with self-control, his piercing eyes ablaze. “If the Vatican had seen fit to ask my opinion in this matter, you would spend the remainder of your days cleaning the stables, which is what you deserve.”
Reynaud bobbed his head in agreement.
But the Vatican had asked for him, for Reynaud, the famous cosmologist, the Nobel laureate. What they are getting, he told his reflection in the plane’s window, is Reynaud the drunkard, the pervert, the ruins of the man they believe they are getting.
The boy beside him stirred, sighed softly, opened his sky-blue eyes.
“Did you sleep well?” Reynaud asked in French.
He answered in some Germanic tongue, and Reynaud remembered that he had gotten aboard in Amsterdam.
With a shake of his head, Reynaud asked, “Do you speak English, perhaps?”
“Yes.” The boy smiled. Feeling old and very, very tired, Reynaud smiled back at him.
“Hans Schmidt is my name. I am from the University of Leiden.”
With a slight nod of his head, Reynaud replied, “Edouard Reynaud. I have no university affiliation, but I was…”
“Edouard Reynaud!” Schmidt’s eyes went round. “I’ve read your books!”
Feeling ancient and foolish in his shabby black suit and unshaven jowls, Reynaud shrugged. “They were written long ago. They are all outdated now.”
“Yes, of course,” Schmidt answered with the unconscious cruelty of youth, “but they were classics in their field. We had to read them in undergraduate classes.”
“You are an astronomer?”
Schmidt’s enthusiasm turned sour. “I was,” he said, growing gloomy. “Now I am a prisoner.”
“So are we all,” said Reynaud. “But don’t worry, the plane will land soon enough on Kwajalein and then we can walk in the sunlight.”
“You don’t understand,” the young man said. “All the others on this plane—astronomers and astrophysicists from all over Europe—they volunteered for this assignment. They are happy to be going to Kwajalein, to study the alien signals.”
“You are not?”
Schmidt shook his head slowly. “I discovered the radio signals. But I’ll never get credit for it.”
Reynaud made a sympathetic noise.
“I was working for Professor Voorne at the big dish in Dwingeloo, last summer. I picked up the signals before the Americans or anyone else did,” Schmidt explained, his voice going almost sulky. “We checked on their dates; I had the signals before they did.”
“Then you should get the credit,” Reynaud said.
“Fat chance! Voorne is so slow and conservative that your grandmother could run circles around him. He refused to let me send a note in to the astrophysics journal until we had triple-checked everything. By that time the NATO bureaucrats came around and put secrecy stamps on every piece of paper I had. They wouldn’t let me publish anything, not one word.”
“Too bad,” said Reynaud.
“And now they’ve exiled me to this blasted little island. I don’t want to go. They forced me to! I have my girl in Leiden; we were going to be engaged in another few weeks. But the government said either I go to Kwajalein or I go into the Army and get sent to Kwajalein anyway.”
Reynaud shook his head.
“It’s the Americans,” Schmidt muttered. “They’re behind all this. They want to get all the credit for themselves and make sure that I don’t get any.”
Reynaud pursed his lips, then replied, “Don’t you think that the matter of finding an intelligent extra
terrestrial race is the really important thing?”
“Sure! That’s why the Americans want all the credit for the discovery.”
“Well…I’ve been ordered to Kwajalein, too. I had no desire to go, but my superiors have sent me anyway. That’s why I’m on this plane, just as you are. But I don’t think it’s an American plot, really.”
Schmidt said nothing.
“I’ve been sent on this mission by the Holy Father himself,” Reynaud added.
“The Pope?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he interested in astronomy?”
Reynaud chuckled, bitterly. “He isn’t. Nor are the cardinals that surround him. They are merely interested in preserving their power, and keeping the truth from the people.”
Schmidt stared at him in disbelief. “You are a priest and you say such things?”
“A priest? Me? Oh no! Not a priest. I’m not even a monk, really. I’ve taken no vows.”
Confused, Schmidt said, “I thought…we had heard that you had retired to a monastery…”
“Yes. Yes, I had. But His Holiness has brought me out of retirement. Here I am in the world again—and it’s a very different world from the one I left, years ago.”
The two men talked as the night faded from the sky and the sun rose over the endless gray waters of the Pacific. The other passengers slowly stirred out of their sleep, stretching cramped muscles, yawning, groaning, lining up at the plane’s lavatories.
Stewards started moving along the aisle, helping people get rid of their blankets and pillows. Over Schmidt’s shoulder, Reynaud noticed that the stewards were all young men. Eventually they brought little plastic trays of breakfast. Reynaud couldn’t bear to look at the stuff once it was set before him: it was gray and dead, as plastic as the receptacles on which it was served.
The pilot came on the intercom and cheerfully announced that in a few hours’ time they would be landing at Kwajalein.
“If I can find it,” he added with a chuckle.
Reynaud shuddered a little. He looked over at Schmidt, who had eaten every scrap of food on his tray and closed his eyes to sleep. With a sad shake of his head, Reynaud turned to stare out at the featureless gray expanse of ocean so far below them, wishing that he could sleep without dreaming.
He awoke with a cold, gasping start as the plane thumped and banged.
“Landing gear,” said Schmidt, now wide awake. “I was going to wake you…”
Reynaud thanked him and looked out the window. A ring of islets showed green and white against the sea.
The plane circled the largest island of the group and finally landed with a thump that seemed more like a controlled crash than a true touchdown. But Reynaud was grateful for small miracles: purgatory was over and he could enter paradise.
The scientists were ushered off the plane and into the blindingly hot sunlight of the equatorial island. The airport seemed to be filled with Americans, many of them in military khakis, the rest in open-necked shirts and shorts.
Smiling, efficient, broad-shouldered young men led the scientists across the crushed coral rock rampway and into a cement block building. It was air-conditioned to the point of chilblains. Americans, Reynaud thought. Always so extravagant. Papers were examined, luggage picked up. Reynaud let himself be bundled into a jeep with Schmidt and another man.
“Your luggage’ll be on th’ truck,” said their driver, an energetic-looking sailor. He put Reynaud on the seat beside him; the other two had to crawl into the rear seats.
As he gunned the jeep’s motor to roaring life, the sailor asked, “You a Catholic priest, sir?”
“No,” Reynaud replied in English. “I am a lay brother of the Order of St. Dominic.” The Order of Thomas Aquinas, he added silently. And of Torquemada.
The jeep lurched into motion. “Oh. I was wonderin’, with your black suit and all,” the driver yelled over the motor’s howl. “We got a chaplain on the island but he ain’t Catholic. They fly the Catholic padre in on Sundays from Jaluit to hear confessions and say Mass.”
“You are a Catholic?” Reynaud asked, clutching the edge of his seat as the jeep barreled along the dusty road.
“Ah, well, sometimes, yeah,” the sailor stammered. “You know how it is.”
Reynaud said nothing, but thought, I know exactly how it is.
After a few terrifying minutes of racing past featureless blurs of cement block buildings, the driver pulled the jeep over to the side of the road in a grinding, squealing, skidding stop.
“Kwajalein Hilton,” he announced.
Reynaud saw a three-story gray drab building.
“Bachelor Officers Quarters,” the sailor explained as a swirl of coral dust drifted past the jeep. “BOQ is the way most people say it. Not for you, Father…” He tugged at Reynaud’s sleeve and said to Schmidt and the other scientist, “You two guys are gonna be stayin’ in here.”
They climbed out of the jeep as Reynaud remained in his seat.
“Yer luggage’ll catch up with you in a couple minutes.” The sailor put the jeep in gear and left them standing in a spray of dust. “You rate special, Father. You got a whole trailer to yerself.”
“I’m not a priest,” Reynaud said. “You should call me Brother.”
The driver gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Sounds kinda funny. But if that’s the way you want it…okay, Brother, here we are.”
He skidded the jeep to a stop and pointed grandly to a house trailer, one of a dozen standing in a row on the sandy soil, gleaming metal under the hot sun.
“All for you, Fa…eh, Brother.”
The sailor came into the trailer with Reynaud, showed him the sink and the refrigerator, the narrow, cotlike beds, the built-in cabinets, the toilet.
“By Kwaj standards, this is the Ritz.”
Reynaud nodded and mumbled his thanks. The sailor grinned and turned on the air conditioner.
“Linens are in here.” He opened a closet door. “I can make your bed for you.”
“Oh no, please. I can do it for myself.”
“Well, you got privacy and runnin’ water. What more can you ask for? See you Sunday, at Mass.”
Reynaud nodded absently and the sailor left, shutting the flimsy metal door behind him carefully. It felt as if a small, playful puppy had just gone away. Reynaud stood there, feeling bewildered, listening to the air conditioner rattle and groan and fill the trailer with a clammy, morguelike chill.
Exiled, he thought to himself. That’s what young Schmidt said, and he’s right. We’ve all been exiled to this horrible place. I sought the peace and protection of the monastery and the Pope himself pulled me away from it, exiled me here in this wretched island. Whatever becomes of me is their fault, not my own.
Stoner stalked out of the air-conditioned chill of the administration building, into the enfolding warmth of the setting sun. It was muggy, but the heat felt good after the artificial dryness of the air inside—and McDermott’s stubborn obstructionism.
Go take a long walk, Stoner commanded himself, seething. Find an empty spot on the beach and do an hour’s worth of exercising—before you punch out Big Mac’s stupid face.
McDermott was dragging his feet about the rendezvous mission. He had not yet sent his recommendation to Washington, and wouldn’t allow anyone else to make such a recommendation. Stoner had spent an hour arguing with the old man, to no avail.
Why won’t he go for it? Stoner asked himself for the twentieth time. What’s wrong with him that he can’t…?
Then he saw Jo, coming down the “company town’s” only street from the computer center, heading toward him.
“Hi, Keith,” she said brightly as she approached him. “How’re y…?” She saw the thundercloud expression on his face. “Wow! What’s got you pissed?”
“Your pal McDermott,” Stoner growled.
Jo’s own face stiffened with anger. “My pal, huh? What’s he doing now?”
“The same old crap—delaying until it’s too late
to do what needs to be done.”
She eyed him tauntingly. “I think it’s the heat. It’s got old Mac down. Literally.”
Ignoring her implication, he muttered, “I’d like to put him down. Literally.”
“He’s still not going for the rendezvous flight?” Jo asked.
“He won’t even sign a memo about it.”
“Well, it is a long shot,” she said.
“We’re here to make contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial visitor, and you talk about long shots?”
“You take everything so seriously,” Jo said, reaching up to tap a fingertip against the end of his nose. “Relax. Loosen up. We’re here, we might as well enjoy it.”
He brushed her hand away as he would swipe at an annoying insect. “We’re here to make contact with that spacecraft.”
“I know that.”
“How’s it going to look if we let the damned thing get away from us?”
“We won’t,” Jo said.
“You’ve got it all figured out, do you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But I know you. You’ll figure it out, one way or another. You’ll make Mac look good doing it, too.”
“And it won’t hurt your career, either, will it?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“Because Mac brought you with him,” Stoner snapped.
For an instant she looked sad, betrayed. “If you only knew,” she said softly.
“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. Or better yet, put it into your résumé. It’ll impress the hell out of NASA.”
“Keith, you can be a real sonofabitch when you want to be, you know that?”
“It’s the heat. It’s got me down.”
“Go to hell.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t already rewritten your resume. I know the way your ambitious little brain works.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. I can see it now, right up on the top of the page, where you list your accomplishments: ‘Research assistant, Project JOVE. Worked with elite international research team, in top-priority program to establish first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life form.’ ”
