Across the Sea of Suns Read Online Free PDF Page A

vents
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    “Not bloody likely.”
    “Since when did you become a geologist? Look, the dust and crap down there, nobody can be sure of that IR.”
    “Right. We have to go down and see.”
    “That’s a little premature, Nigel. We’re standing off at a safe distance. Going to surface mode now would violate our guidelines, and you know it.”
    “Dead right I know it. But that’s what we’ll have to do.”

FOUR
    Ted arrived at Nigel and Nikka’s apartment a little late. He carried his usual prop, a clipboard jammed with notes. Nigel steered him first to the bar, then into the deep-cradled cushions of their new couch. Ted eased into it as if uncertain of its reliability; with its slanting legs and oblique joints, it looked rickety. Nigel had designed it for their apartment’s low gravity, using the wood he had in his personal mass allotment. He was the only person in
Lancer
with high-quality oak, and he had carefully carved this, polishing it with the oil of his hands.
    “Wish you’d come down to Command to talk,” Ted began.
    “It’s a jam down there.”
    “Yeah, pretty busy. No wonder you stay home, low gravity, plenty of rest—”
    Alex knocked; Nigel waved him in. Alex was a heavy, balding man, face dark with fatigue. He sat down on the couch like a man dumping a weight off his back. Muscles rippled in his shoulders as he flexed them, seeking an alert posture in the deep couch. Nigel had designed it to thwart such aims; finally Alex relaxed into it.
    “Whoosh!” Alex puffed. “I been worshipin’ those consoles like an acolyte.”
    “Drink?”
    “Just make me go to sleep.”
    “You’ve brought them, though?” Ted prompted.
    “Sure. I piped ’em down to your input here. They’re waitin on your screen.”
    Nigel said a soft “Thanks,” and thumbed on their flat. The screen filled with a grid. Small white dots peppered the green field. “These are your time-stepped maps, Alex?” Nigel prompted.
    “Yeah, weeks’ worth. I followed ’em one by one. Talk about your low bit rate—”
    Ted smiled and put his hands on his knees. “Well, it’s first-class work, Alex, all of it. First-class.”
    Nikka sat zazen beside Nigel, studying the men. “But the message?” she asked. “That’s what everyone’s waiting for, enough phase-coherent signal to tell—”
    “We’ve got it.” The words came out dry and tired.
    “You
have
?” Nigel said, surprised.
    “Yeah. It’s not all that hard, once you unnerstan’ that there are maybe one, two million, sources on at once. Each winks on and off, but what they’re doin’ is trying to boost the signal up by, well, ever’body chippin’ in.”
    Ted said carefully, “We haven’t released the information yet because it’s well, disturbing. But Alex has cracked it, that we’re sure of. Until—”
    Alex said wearily, emphatically, “It’s a 1956 Arthur Godfrey show.”
    “What?” Nikka said. “You mean … literally?”
    “Yeah. It’s a slow, slow playback of a radio comedy broadcast in 1956.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Nigel said with relish.
    Ted began: “We’ve been trying to place this in a context, to understand—”
    “So—we’ve come—!” Nigel erupted with laughter. The others sat, blinking, stunned. He roared on merrily, tears squeezing from under his eyelids. For a long moment the others were stiffly silent. Then they began to shift position awkwardly, looking at one another. Nikka slowly smiled. At last Nigel descended to a chuckle, gasped for breath, and seemed to notice them again.
    “The Bracewell hypothesis!”
    Ted nodded. “Some of us have ventured that explanation, but I feel it’s too early—”
    “Christ, it’s obvious! Those poor sods down there are intelligent, no mistake about that.”
    Nikka interjected, “But no more so than Dr. Bracewell.”
    “Right,” Nigel said, “because they’ve bit upon his same idea.” He spread his hands, palms up, open and obvious. “They picked up weak radio signals from us.