mainly along back roads.
“Where the hell are you guys going?” Stoner demanded.
“Just relax,” said the agent sitting beside him on the rear seat of the car. He called himself Dooley. The bigger one was up front, driving, his massive bulk hunched over the steering wheel.
Stoner tried to keep track of the road signs, but they were swerving and lurching along back roads in complete darkness. They could have been passing open fields, or huge buildings, or even the ocean. The sky had clouded over and there were no lights along the roadside.
Finally they pulled onto a crunching, bumpy gravel driveway. Stoner saw thick boles of venerable trees leaning close in the dim light of the car’s headlamps. A house loomed up ahead of them: big and old and boxy. The shingles were unpainted cedar. The car slowed, and in the headlamp glow Stoner could see a garage door swinging up automatically for them. They drove into the lighted garage and stopped.
“Wait a minute,” Dooley said.
Stoner sat still and heard the garage door swing down again. Then the car’s door locks clicked open.
“Okay.”
The driver was out of the car before Stoner could get his door open, and stood waiting alongside as he climbed out.
“You guys don’t take any chances, do you?” Stoner said to them.
Dooley let a slight smile cross his lips. “Against a black belt? We watched you working out.”
Poor scared pigs, Stoner thought. All they’ve got is guns and bullets.
They led him into the house, an old Yankee farmhouse that had obviously been remodeled by a millionaire. The original rooms were small, with low ceilings that sagged so much the timber beams almost touched Stoner’s head. Fireplaces in each room. And radiant baseboard electrical heating units. Thermal windows. A sparkling ultramodern kitchen, and another small kitchen just off the living room that served as a wet bar. The living room itself was all new, wide, spacious, with a high slanted cathedral ceiling. Beyond it were sliding glass doors that looked out onto a sunken swimming pool. Not quite Olympic size, but big enough.
They led him up a narrow staircase to the second floor.
“This will be your room, Dr. Stoner,” Dooley said, opening a bedroom door. “There’s some clothes in the closet that should fit you. Bathroom with shower through there. Socks and stuff in the bureau.”
“How the hell long am I going to be here?” he asked. “Don’t I get a phone call or something?”
Dooley gave another tight smile. “We’ll bring dinner up to you. Somebody will be here to talk to you in the morning. No phone calls.”
So Stoner sat on the bed and watched raindrops start to spatter on the dark window, listened to the rain drumming against the old house.
This must be how they felt when the Nazis bundled them off to Dachau, he thought. Stunned…confused…totally off balance.
There could be only one reason for it, he realized. They wanted to keep him quiet, to prevent him from telling the world what he had discovered.
Which meant he was truly a prisoner.
----
I think, therefore, that we will get a message, but it will not be simple…
…which will come (perhaps in ten years, or a hundred, or maybe longer)—when some satisfactory radio-telescope work or something similar will acquire evidence of the deliberate beaming of a protracted message from space. First, the most important issue is the recognition of the message…
PHILIP MORRISON
Life Beyond Earth & the Mind of Man
Edited by Richard Berendzen
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
NASA SP-328
1973
----
CHAPTER 5
“Professor Markov, you are a Party member?”
Markov nodded at the woman.
“But you have never been admitted to the Academy?”
“Not yet,” he answered with a frosty smile.
They were sitting in a tiny interrogation room, a cramped, blank-walled windowless chamber. One of the fluorescent lamps in the ceiling was flickering; Markov could feel it tapping against his brain like a
“Where the hell are you guys going?” Stoner demanded.
“Just relax,” said the agent sitting beside him on the rear seat of the car. He called himself Dooley. The bigger one was up front, driving, his massive bulk hunched over the steering wheel.
Stoner tried to keep track of the road signs, but they were swerving and lurching along back roads in complete darkness. They could have been passing open fields, or huge buildings, or even the ocean. The sky had clouded over and there were no lights along the roadside.
Finally they pulled onto a crunching, bumpy gravel driveway. Stoner saw thick boles of venerable trees leaning close in the dim light of the car’s headlamps. A house loomed up ahead of them: big and old and boxy. The shingles were unpainted cedar. The car slowed, and in the headlamp glow Stoner could see a garage door swinging up automatically for them. They drove into the lighted garage and stopped.
“Wait a minute,” Dooley said.
Stoner sat still and heard the garage door swing down again. Then the car’s door locks clicked open.
“Okay.”
The driver was out of the car before Stoner could get his door open, and stood waiting alongside as he climbed out.
“You guys don’t take any chances, do you?” Stoner said to them.
Dooley let a slight smile cross his lips. “Against a black belt? We watched you working out.”
Poor scared pigs, Stoner thought. All they’ve got is guns and bullets.
They led him into the house, an old Yankee farmhouse that had obviously been remodeled by a millionaire. The original rooms were small, with low ceilings that sagged so much the timber beams almost touched Stoner’s head. Fireplaces in each room. And radiant baseboard electrical heating units. Thermal windows. A sparkling ultramodern kitchen, and another small kitchen just off the living room that served as a wet bar. The living room itself was all new, wide, spacious, with a high slanted cathedral ceiling. Beyond it were sliding glass doors that looked out onto a sunken swimming pool. Not quite Olympic size, but big enough.
They led him up a narrow staircase to the second floor.
“This will be your room, Dr. Stoner,” Dooley said, opening a bedroom door. “There’s some clothes in the closet that should fit you. Bathroom with shower through there. Socks and stuff in the bureau.”
“How the hell long am I going to be here?” he asked. “Don’t I get a phone call or something?”
Dooley gave another tight smile. “We’ll bring dinner up to you. Somebody will be here to talk to you in the morning. No phone calls.”
So Stoner sat on the bed and watched raindrops start to spatter on the dark window, listened to the rain drumming against the old house.
This must be how they felt when the Nazis bundled them off to Dachau, he thought. Stunned…confused…totally off balance.
There could be only one reason for it, he realized. They wanted to keep him quiet, to prevent him from telling the world what he had discovered.
Which meant he was truly a prisoner.
----
I think, therefore, that we will get a message, but it will not be simple…
…which will come (perhaps in ten years, or a hundred, or maybe longer)—when some satisfactory radio-telescope work or something similar will acquire evidence of the deliberate beaming of a protracted message from space. First, the most important issue is the recognition of the message…
PHILIP MORRISON
Life Beyond Earth & the Mind of Man
Edited by Richard Berendzen
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
NASA SP-328
1973
----
CHAPTER 5
“Professor Markov, you are a Party member?”
Markov nodded at the woman.
“But you have never been admitted to the Academy?”
“Not yet,” he answered with a frosty smile.
They were sitting in a tiny interrogation room, a cramped, blank-walled windowless chamber. One of the fluorescent lamps in the ceiling was flickering; Markov could feel it tapping against his brain like a
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