Starbridge Read Online Free PDF

mean, the man was scared. But other people were breaking out hoarded bottles of the finest Jolian champagne and toasting one another.
    To think that we are probably making history]
    Uncle Raoul has a real dilemma: should he use our precious fuel reserves and search this area, hoping to pick up the signal again?--or just log our position, then continue on our original course and turn the coordinates over to officials Earthside?
    I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.
    Uncle Raoul has called an "all hands" meeting tonight in the galley.
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    I can't wait!
    The galley, which had never been designed to host the full ship's complement at one time, was crowded past capacity. Raoul Lamont stood in the doorway, clapping his hands for attention over the buzz of conversation.
    "Okay! Pipe down!"
    The galley quieted slowly. "Everyone knows why we're here," he began,
    "but to make sure we're all on the same wavelength" --everyone chuckled at the pun--"let me tell it the way I see it. Then we'll discuss the pros and cons."
    He waited for dissension, but none came. "Yesterday we picked up a brief transmission, on a narrow frequency. It doesn't match anything we've seen before. We have no proof that it isn't some kind of natural--though unknown--
    phenomenon, but, on the other hand, it might mean we've stumbled onto a transmission in an alien language or code."
    He nodded over at Jerry Greendeer. "Jerry and Joan have managed to amplify the audio portion, and screen out a lot of the background interference. I'd like all of you to listen to it."
    Jerry flicked a switch and sounds emerged. They were still laden with static, but much clearer than Mahree had heard on the bridge. Sharp chattering sounds merged into guttural rumbles, then higher-pitched yips and squeals.
    They were not continuous-- there were five or six short pauses, one of them lasting nearly three seconds before the sounds resumed.
    The transmission faded into bursts of static.
    Voices jumbled at Raoul Lamont in a cacophony of sound. Everyone had an opinion: "That sounded like a damn language to me!" "... just like a terrier I had when I was a kid." "Those pauses surely indicate speech!" "Pulsars have pauses, too." "With so much static, who can tell anything?" And, loudly,
    "But we've had interstellar travel for over a hundred years! If there was anybody out here, we'd have found them by now!"
    "Everyone hold on," Raoul broke in hastily. "It's a big universe, remember!
    Anything could be out here. What we have to decide is how far to pursue this. As Captain, the ultimate decision is mine, but each of you has a stake in getting our cargo home, so I want to hear what you have to say."
    "I say we keep going," a gray-haired woman from the engineering crew demanded loudly. "If we try and follow some
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    now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't signal, we'll use up our fuel and be stranded out here until our food runs out. Then we'd be shit outta luck. We can't take the risk."
    Simon raised his hand. "I agree, we should head for Earth to report this, Captain. Even if there are nonhumans out there, how do we know they'll be friendly? They might attack us!"
    Jerry waved for attention. "I say we keep going so we don't endanger them.
    We might be carrying diseases they could catch.''
    Rob Gable broke in. "We could take precautions against that . . .' everyone could stay suited. The computer will have to analyze their air anyway--
    maybe we don't even breathe the same kind. Anyway, we wouldn't unsuit or advise them to do so until we'd completed extensive testing."
    "We have no proof"--Joan Atwood's voice was hard--"that we're not just talking ourselves into something here. Without additional transmissions, we wouldn't have a prayer of homing in on anything."
    "So we stay in this area and cast around for a couple of million klicks!" yelled someone impatiently. "If we find anything, we'll be able to home in by cross-vectoring! We've got enough fuel for that!"
    "But what if they're inhuman--"