A Voice in the Night

LISTEN UP, NITWITS

The first time we heard the Voice, the world seemed to be coming apart. U.S. and Chinese fleets were making runs at each other in the western Pacific, two more Middle Eastern nations had announced nuclear breakthroughs, and Al Quaida seemed to have discovered a fresh mother lode of suicide bombers.

It was mid-morning California time, and I’d just arrived at the SETI Institute at the Carl Sagan Center. It was my day off, but the real world seemed kind of scary just then. The Institute was a good place to hide out, so that’s where I went.

Canfield in the Morning, our cable news show, was going on about how we were on the verge of World War III unless things changed radically. They ran clips of U.S. troops preparing for action in Taiwan, Chinese leaders issuing warnings, and an American carrier launching aircraft. There were also unconfirmed reports that U.S. and Chinese warships had exchanged fire in the Gulf of Tonkin. Palo Alto was putting up a new city hall, which was to be a glass and steel structure with a rotating tower, suggestive of a brilliant future. I’d driven past it coming in that morning, and I wondered why we were bothering. It felt as if everything was about to come tumbling down.

President Hawkins showed up at a White House press conference to assure the nation that there was no need to worry. Everything was under control. He’d been out of the room only a few minutes when it happened.

On CNN, Larry Canfield was showing clips from the late night comedy shows when they announced breaking news. The comedian faded and Canfield took his place. He was seated at a table with two guests. “We have a strange story,” he said, looking directly into the camera. “A radio message was picked up a few minutes ago, source unknown. But we’re hearing the message is being relayed all over the world. Are we ready, George?” Canfield sat back while they played the transmission:

“Now hear this, Nitwits.” It was a male voice, deep bass, calm, cool, vaguely annoyed. “You seem determined to kill yourselves off. Stop the fighting. Stop the nonsense. While you still have that option.”

Then it was over.

“Is that all there was, Larry?” asked Mitch Maltby, a grossly overweight columnist for the Washington Post.

“Well,” he said, “actually there is more.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Akoúste, ilíthii! Féneste apofasisménoi na sfahtíte. Stamatíste tis máches. Stamatíste tis vlakíes. Óso éhete akómi ekloghí.”

“That sounds like Greek,” said Maltby.

And again, the same voice: “Ting zhe, chundan men. Nimen genben zai zhao si. Tingzhi zhengdou. Tingzhi wuyiyi de judong. Chen ni haiyou xuanze de shihou.”

“And Chinese?”

“Right both times, Mitch. They’re telling us the same message is repeated in a lot of different languages.”

“How many?”

“Fifty and counting.”

“And we don’t know who’s sending it?”

“Not yet. Or if they do know, they’re not saying.” Canfield frowned. “Okay. Now they’re saying it’s stopped. It’s just that one message. In sixty-some languages.”

Cary Edward, a frequent guest and a former general, frowned. “Sounds like God,” she said.

They went to commercial. When they came back, Larry reported that earlier accounts of sporadic firing by warships in Tonkin were being denied by both sides. “They’re still sitting out there,” he said, “but maybe nothing’s actually happened.”

Cary nodded. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

“Maybe they’re getting the message,” said Mitch. They laughed a bit, but the sound was hollow.

I was ready to switch over to MSNBC when Janie Eckert, one of our interns, told me I had a call. “From Paula Steinman.” Her expression told me the name meant nothing to her. Paula was the director at Mauna Kea.

“Hi, Paula,” I said. “Are you coming to California, I hope?”

“Listen, Pete.” She was in no mood for small talk. “You seen the news yet?”

It was obvious what she was talking about, but I couldn’t imagine why it mattered enough to warrant a call. “The Nitwit message?”

“We tracked the source. Thought you’d be interested.”

My stomach tightened. “The source? I don’t know. You’re not going to tell me it’s coming from Alpha Centauri, are you?”

Still no inclination to lighten up. “No. Not quite that far.”

I had visions of an approaching starship. “Come on, Paula. Where?”

“Jupiter.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Jupiter. Or one of the moons. Or maybe something else out there.”

“Somebody on Jupiter is watching us?”

“That seems to be what’s happening.”

“Is anybody else getting these results?”

“Everybody is. Griffith, Lowell, the National Optical. I’m not sure there’s anyone out there who doesn’t know, or won’t know within the next few minutes. Oh. And the government. Not sure who alerted them, but we’ve had calls. I understand they’re going to take a look with the Hubble.”

“Jupiter,” I said. “You know, Paula, I’ve lived for this kind of moment. Would have counted my life wasted if it had never happened. But I didn’t expect it to be anything like this.”

“I feel the same way, Pete.”

“One more question. Have we replied? To whoever that is out on Jupiter?”

“Everybody has, from what we’re hearing. Whoever it is will need a big inbox.”

I called Henry Klaxton at the Allen Array, which is located at Hat Creek, and asked whether we’d picked up the transmission.

“We got some of it,” he said.

“When?”

“Fifteen minutes ago. I was going to call you, but we’ve been busy.”

“They’re saying it’s coming from Jupiter. Is that correct?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“You’re sure it’s not just bouncing off something?”

“Pete, at this point we’re not sure of anything.”

Nothing changed in the western Pacific.

Abu Khabal, who was believed hiding in the mountains in northern Afghanistan, issued a new threat. A suicide bomber killed thirty people in an Iranian mosque, and another round of fighting began for control of Somalia.

Meantime, on its Evening Report, PBS panelists concluded that the broadcast from Jupiter would turn out to be some sort of elaborate hoax. What else could it be? Elsewhere, there was speculation that aliens had arrived. Conrad Hauser, speaking on Fox and Friends, wondered whether these aliens might not disapprove of our turning the Earth into a radioactive waste. “Which suggests another possibility,” he concluded. “They might have their own uses for this world.”

It sounded crazy, but it made sense.

And it left me chilled.

I had the impression the entire world was waiting for a follow-up message. It seemed impossible that we’d get that angry note, and there’d be nothing more. Meanwhile, the story took over the media and the internet. Most of the talk centered on God. “He’s giving us one last chance to get it right,” said Billy Wilson, the singing pastor.

And a blogger from Wisconsin commented that at least we now knew where Heaven was.

The threats between China and the U.S. grew louder. The confrontation had begun when the President, who was not known for his diplomatic skills, commented to the media that a Chinese threat to seize Taiwan was just empty talk. “They wouldn’t dare,” he added, leaving the Chinese with little choice but to issue an ultimatum to the Natonalists. The White House jumped in and said that “any Chinese action would be met with all due force.”

Just before noon, Henry called. “We’ve got another one,” he said.

“From Jupiter?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it say?”

“It’s bundled up in every language on the planet again. But it says: ‘I have no inclination to answer questions from several thousand sources. Appoint a representative and I will speak with him.’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Appoint a single representative to speak for everybody? Maybe he’d like to see some flying elephants while we’re at it.”

I wandered out, had lunch, and wondered why I wasn’t as excited as I would have expected. Probably it was because I didn’t believe it was a genuine alien contact. It had to be a hoax. Or maybe we were misinterpreting the data.

Or maybe having the first alien contact come with something that was inside the solar system and was familiar with every major terrestrial language seemed more like a bad SF show written by people with no imagination.

I had just gotten back to the Center and was getting out of my car when Henry called again. “There’s another one,” he said. “It says: ‘If you can’t agree on an issue this simple—’” Janie was standing at the front door. She was jumping up and down, looking frantic.

“Hold on a minute, Henry.” She came running out toward me. “What’s wrong, Janie?”

“The White House is calling, Pete. I think they said the Vice President wants to talk to you.” She handed me a phone while I stared at her.

Then I answered. “Hello? This is Dr. Marshak. Who’s this, please?”

A female voice replied: “Dr. Marshak, I’m calling for Vice President Hoover. He’ll be with you in a moment.” Terry Hoover, with that last name, had been something of a joke at the beginning of the last presidential campaign. But he’d played through it, even turned it to his advantage, and now showed up regularly as one of the most trusted people in the country. Probably because he stood in such contrast to his boss.

“Marshak?” It was his voice, quiet, cool, in charge.

“Yes, Mr. Vice President. What can I do for you?”

“You heard the last message? The one that just came in?”

“I haven’t, Mr. Vice President. I was just about to—”

“It says that if we can’t agree on so simple a matter, that there’s little chance of our long-term survival. It’s referring to its request that we appoint a single representative.”

“I’d say it has a point, sir.”

“In lieu of our inability to comply, it’s notified us who our representative should be.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not inclined to joke around on a matter of this importance, Doctor.”

I was waiting for him to ask me a technical opinion. Like, did I really believe there might be somebody out in the Jovian system. “So who did it ask for?” I said. “The President?”

“You, Dr. Marshak. It asked for you specifically. By name.”

It dawned on me that was a remarkably astute request. Why not talk with the people who’ve been looking for you for the last half-century? Instead of one of the politicians? But of course I didn’t say that. “Why me?” I asked, with all due innocence.

“It makes no sense to me either, Doctor. But in any case, we want to get started. We’re preparing a list of questions which we’ll send to you shortly.”

“How will it know it’s talking to me?”

“We suspect it knows your voice. You’ve been interviewed often enough— Anyway, thanks for doing this. We’ll be getting back to you in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“What we’d like you to do is to engage Java in a conversation, to the extent you can.”

“Java? Has it identified itself?”

“J for Jupiter, Doctor. That’s its code name. So you’re aware, we’re consulting with people around the world. The President’s idea is to get everybody on board.”

“Including China?”

“He’s still thinking about that.”

“Any terrorists?” I intended it as a joke, but he took me seriously.

“Not per se, but we’ll be in touch with a couple of Middle Eastern organizations. So they can say they’ve been part of it. But take it slow. We’ll just begin with a couple of questions. Try to start a conversation with this thing. Then we’ll go from there.”

“Okay. Mr. Vice President, you’re aware that Jupiter is a long way from here. That an exchange, from the time we ask a question until we receive an answer, will be almost an hour.”

“I’m aware of that. It’s just as well. Gives us a chance to think about what we’re doing. Keep in mind, though: The questions come from us. No free-lancing. Understood?”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“We have no choice in the matter, Doctor Marshak. We don’t know what the dangers there may be. And one other thing, Pete— You don’t mind my using your first name?”

“Of course not.”

“One other thing: As far as the media are concerned, they’re your questions. Okay? I’m sure you understand why we have to play it this way.”

“All right, I understand.”

“Good. We’d like to get this started. If you will, assume you’ve just called the Jovian, and he picked up. Say hello and introduce yourself, and tell him how happy you are to meet him. Ask him how we can help him. We’re going to record it and send it on its way.”

A federal agent showed up later and escorted me to Travis Air Force Base, where I was taken to an office and turned over to a communication technician. He explained that the transmission had been sent and a response was expected, assuming one was actually coming, in about fifteen minutes. Margaret Commager joined us minutes later. Commager was a former beauty queen who now served as one of the President’s political advisors. “The whole world is listening, Dr. Marshak. Sorry about that. We’d have prevented it if we could, but unfortunately we had no way to do it.”

“It’s okay. No problem.”

“We’d like you to take it slow. One or two questions at a time.” She provided me with several pages of questions I should ask. Was I speaking with someone who lived in the Jovian system? Had he ever been to Earth? How did it happen he knows so much about us? Basically, Doctor, we want to see how this plays out so we don’t blunder into anything.”

The news media were already filled with people suggesting questions to be put to the Voice. The most common one: Are you God? Others included: Are you planning an invasion? What do you look like? How long have you been watching us? Where are you from?

We’d been there about a half hour before the comm tech signaled me about an incoming call. From Jupiter. He couldn’t resist smiling.

“Okay, Pete,” she said. “Take it.” We were on first name terms by then.

The bass voice spoke in English: “It is a pleasure to talk to you, Dr. Marshak,” it said. “I am what you would call an artificial intelligence. And yes, I am speaking to you from one of the moons of Jupiter. I believe the one you call Ganymede, though I have no way of confirming that.

“As to what I wish you can do for me, I would have thought that would be obvious. Stop the wars. Stop the killing. Learn to cooperate. Live by the Sixth Commandment.”

There was some disagreement about which was the sixth commandment. But it seemed unlikely the AI would be concerned about adultery. Thou shalt not commit murder.

“Goodbye, Dr. Marshak. It was good to speak with you.”

And that was it. No explanation of how an AI had gotten to Jupiter. Or what its intentions were. Or why it was intervening in human affairs. Or what it might do if shooting broke out on a large scale.

Commager’s forehead was creased. “Not very helpful, was it?”

“We’ll have to think more carefully about how we proceed.” I was checking off questions I thought we should be asking. Where are you from? Can we do anything for you? Why are you here?

Her frown deepened.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“We need to find out whether it poses a threat.”

“Exactly what we need to ask it.”

The frown morphed into a sad smile. “You don’t have much experience in politics, do you, Peter?”

I understood the desire of the White House to control the situation. It was irritating, but it made sense. They had no trouble deciding they needed a follow-up call. But they spent an hour deciding on the next question: “Are you alone?”

“Is that the best they can do?” I asked Commager.

“Just ask it, please. Save the editorializing.”

I complied.

I didn’t know how things were going in the situation room, if that’s where the President was, but Janie called to tell me everybody at SETI had suggestions. Ask it if it’s going to come for a visit. Make sure it knows we’d love to have it drop by the Center.

The response needed almost two and a half hours to come in. “Yes, Dr. Marshak.”

It was alone. We looked at each other. And waited for elaboration. But we got only static.

“Well,” Commager said, “This guy, whoever he is, isn’t one to waste words, is he?”

It’s alone. What else was there to say?

The world breathed a sigh of relief, although political strategist Ray Conner, who’d been pushing for hitting China before they could strike the U.S., went on the Charlie Walker Show to warn that it was probably a Chinese trick. “Don’t know how they’re managing it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

The next question they passed me was “Are you God?”

I hesitated. Squirmed. “Margaret,” I said, “this is crazy. Whoever that is out there will think we’re deranged.”

“Just go along with it,” she said. “It’s a question a lot of people are asking.”

“It’s pure politics,” I said. Hawkins was forever talking about the Bible and God. It was how he’d gotten elected. “He’s playing to the voters.”

“Ask the question, please.”

I gritted my teeth. “Are you God?”

It had already called us nitwits. I wondered what it would think now.

We went over to the Officers’ Club for dinner. Then we had a couple of drinks before going back to the office. Eventually the answer came in: “No.”

I wondered whether the President’s backers were relieved or disappointed.

More questions arrived: “Do you intend to intervene if we engage in more military action? If so, whose side will you be on?”

“That’s more nonsense,” I told Commager. “The first one will get another simple yes or no, and I suspect it will claim to be on the side of humanity. “

Commager gave me the smile that, thirty years earlier, had won her the Miss Iowa crown. “They’re not asking our opinion, Pete.”

“Damn it, Margaret, he asked to talk to me, not to a bunch of politicians at the White House.” I sat down in front of the microphone and signaled the commtech to make the connection. When he looked confused and frowned at Margaret I told him to do it.

“I hope,” she said, “you’re not going to say what I think you are.”

“Sit tight, kid,” I said.

“Pete, I’m not a kid. And they won’t be happy—” She nodded to the commtech. He looked unhappy but he made the connection.

I started: “Do you have respect for freedom-loving nations?” I asked. Then I looked at Commager. “That’s it, Margaret. I’ve got it from here.”

“Pete, don’t—”

“Sir, I was just kidding with that question. Ignore it. Can you tell me your name? And what you want from us?”

The door opened and two marshals, a man and a woman, moved in. Both were tall, and both wore stern expressions. Like teachers dealing with a recalcitrant child.

The male, an African-American, seized the microphone. The woman, a Latino, looked at me, sighed, and began talking to her sleeve. “We’ve got him, Mac. Situation’s under control.”

“Oh, Pete,” said Commager, “how could you do that?”

“Because the White House wants to dance around this thing. It’s time to find out who we’re dealing with.”

Had they been able, I think they’d have dragged me away to, as politicians like to say, an undisclosed location. While the male stood guard over me, the woman instructed the commtech to leave.

He filed out slowly, giving me a look that suggested I was going to get exactly what I deserved.

Commager appeared to be in pain. “My fault,” she said. “Pete, I thought you were smarter than that. “

“Margaret, this is a moment people will remember forever. We needed to get it right.”

“I thought we had it right.” She was listening to her cell. “Hold on. The Vice President wants to talk to you.”

“Pete,” he said, “what’s going on?”

“I thought it was time to get to the heart of this business.”

“That’s not your call, Pete. Listen, I know how you feel, but the President is the man in charge.”

“Okay. But he’ll have to do it without me.”

“Pete, we don’t believe that thing would respond to anybody else. Listen, for all we know it may be a threat to the entire planet. You have a patriotic duty to do what you can—”

“Why don’t you let me suggest the questions? Margaret can pass it to you, and you can exercise a veto, if necessary.”

“Pete, I don’t understand what your problem is.”

“This is an historic moment, Mr. Vice President. First contact. No offense, but you’re playing politics, and you may think that’s harmless. But we have a visitor out there who sees us as a world filled with nitwits. We’re supplying evidence to support that conclusion. And now it knows one of the nitwits by name. So no, I’m done with this.”

Hoover’s face hardened. “Pete, I’m afraid I’ll have to insist. I don’t want to resort to threats, but believe me when I tell you that SETI will have a difficult time if you don’t cooperate on the one occasion when your country seriously needs you. When the entire planet does.”

“Do what you want, Mr. Vice President. I’m done.”

The marshals made no effort to stop me when I walked out of the office. They stayed behind me, though, both whispering into their phones. I came out the front door, suddenly aware I had no car. The male marshal came up beside me. “You need transportation, sir?”

When I arrived at the SETI Intitute, it was surrounded by a contingent of reporters and cameramen and curiosity seekers. People were yelling questions in my direction. Where was I going? What would I have done had it been God? Why the question about freedom?

I got through the crowd and made it back to my office. But it was obvious I couldn’t go home. There’d be no peace there. I called Susan, my occasional girlfriend. A few months later she’d be my wife. “You been watching?” I said.

“Yes, Pete. Are you all right?”

“I need a place to hide out.”

“I’m not home yet. Won’t be for an hour or so.” She was a technician at the Stanford University Medical Center. “I’ll get there as soon as I’m able.”

I got out through a back door, grabbed a cab, and settled in at one of the local watering holes where I got to watch myself lauded on TV for asking exactly what Americans wanted to hear, although the pundits were annoyed that I’d disappeared from the SETI Center. Amy Stockdale, a stiff-looking blonde former congresswoman who had the smile of a crocodile, suggested that the communications hadn’t ended. The Administration simply wanted to get me to a more private place. “There’ll be more,” she assured everyone. “It’s just starting.” I hid at the end of the bar, trying to look as innocuous as possible. Nobody recognized me.

On the way to Susan’s place, I heard the next development on my car radio: The Voice had responded to my last question: Do you have respect for freedom-loving nations?

“With whom have I been speaking? To you, Peter? Or to the President of the United States?”

It ignored my request that it identify itself.

I don’t know how they knew where I was going, but the marshals were waiting for me when I got to Susan’s cottage. One of them handed me a cell. The Vice President. “Okay, Dr. Marshak,” he said. “It’s your game. But please be careful what you say.”

Susan hugged me. She looked scared. “Is everything going to be all right, Pete?”

“Of course. It’s okay, babe.”

The cell was connected with Jupiter. And I started by answering the question: “You are talking to me now. My friends call me Pete. I’d be grateful if you told me your name. And if you’d explain how you come to be on Ganymede?”

I put the phone down, and told her that we’d have to wait until about eight o’clock for a response. She smiled and looked at the marshals. “You know, Pete,” she said, “I think you hold the record for the longest cell phone transmission ever.”

She was entranced to have an historic event of this magnitude happening in her cottage. I’d been trying for several months to get a commitment from her, but she insisted that her career took too much of her time and, to be honest, she wasn’t sure she was ready for a lifetime commitment. She liked me, and so on, but I was spending my life chasing UFO’s. Or something. But after that night, our relationship was never the same.

Since we were looking at a long delay before a reply came in, the formality between us and the marshals broke down. The male was Oswald Grant; his partner, Constanza Jones. They quickly became Ozzie and Connie.

Fox reported that the Chinese had suggested the possibility of talks in hope of avoiding war. There was no explanation, and certainly no suggestion that it had anything to do with the transmissions from Jupiter. But the commentators on the various channels and across the internet were having a field day.

And eventually we got our reply: “I do not have a name. I have never had a use for one. I am on Ganymede because I was placed here. I have no capability to move, so I suspect I will be here a long time.”

“Who put you there? And for what purpose?”

We sent out for pizza. The marshals couldn’t drink on duty, so they got cokes while Susan and I tossed down a couple of beers. I was by then in a celebratory mood, and couldn’t resist offering toasts to President Hawkins for his adroit handling of the situation, to Susan and Connie, the loveliest women on the planet, and to Oz, who probably has a question he’d like to ask our nameless partner.

“Yes,” he said. “Find out if he knows what the Giants will do this year.”

“Pete, I was placed here by your ancestors. They wanted to find out whether there was intelligence elsewhere in the universe. They were driven much as you are. I’ve heard—and enjoyed—your radio program, by the way.”

And the whole construct collapsed. It was a fraud. From beginning to end, it had been a hoax.

The media laughed themselves silly. But they couldn’t explain what was happening. They interviewed people from NASA and a half dozen observatories. “The signal,” said Orin Michaels, the director at Lowell, to a panel of journalists on Current TV, “is coming from the direction of Jupiter. There’s no question about that. If it’s a hoax, I can’t imagine how it’s being managed.”

For me, it was a devastating time. Susan assured me everything would be okay. Connie said how nobody could blame me. And Ozzie just sat shaking his head. Craziest thing he’d ever heard.

I decided, reluctantly, very reluctantly, to back off. This was destroying my career. I could live with that, but I was afraid that when the smoke cleared, when the explanation surfaced, it would destroy SETI as well. Nobody, I thought, would ever take us seriously again.

In the midst of all this, frustrated, enraged, saddened, I called Java’s number. Susan was with me. When I got patched through and Java responded, I hesitated. And finally I took the jump: “Please explain how my ancestors could have had anything to do with this. They were, if nothing else, a trifle short on technology. They needed a horse to get to the next town.”

Again we settled in to wait.

Commager called. “They wanted me to tell you that you’re doing well, but they’d rather you not push the ancestor thing. It’s crazy and it’s going to make us all look dumb in the end. Try to find out what its real purpose is. It can’t be just sitting out there doing what SETI does. No offense. But you know what I mean.”

“Okay, Margaret,” I said. “Tell the President I’ll let Java know we don’t believe a word it says.”

“Come on, Pete. Be reasonable.”

A couple more bombs went off during the next hour, one in Cairo, one in northern France, killing dozens. In Palestine, a woman announced she was proud of her son, who’d killed seventeen people, as well as himself, in an Iraqi mosque. Fresh evidence surfaced that the North Koreans were once again selling nuclear technology to terrorists.

And finally another response came in.

“Pete.” The Voice had acquired a less intimidating tone. “It is a great tragedy that you have lost a significant portion of your own history. Sixty thousand years ago, your forefathers lived in a paradise. An island, in the eastern Atlantic off the African coast. They loved their home, and made no attempt to expand to remote places, other than to establish several outposts. They had technology well beyond anything you possess. And please do not think I refer to the lumbering space vehicles with which you are experimenting. And which will go nowhere of any significance. No, they penetrated the dimensions. When they came to Ganymede, they walked.

“They’d looked around the Earth and found only predators and apes. Nothing to intrigue them. They wanted to reach farther, beyond their mundane world. And they created me to fulfill that end. You may find this difficult to grasp, but I am spread across the local cosmos. I exist simultaneously in seventeen widely-separated sites in the Milky Way, and two in Andromeda. The locations were selected to allow me to listen for the radio signals which, my creators believed, would be the hallmark of advanced civilizations.”

Orin Michaels, now being interviewed by CBS, shook his head. “Whatever this thing is,” he said, “it’s obviously either deceitful or deranged. Probably the latter.”

“Why do you say that, Professor?” asked the host.

“Because no rational creature could expect us to believe such a story.”

That was the general view. Susan stared at me and smiled. Take the plunge, she was saying without speaking the words. What the hell can you lose?

She had a point.

“What happened to these people?” I asked.

The general consensus on cable TV and on the internet was that I’d disappeared into a government safe house. That gave Susan reason to smile. Ozzie asked what I thought was going on, and I confessed that I had no idea. But I wasn’t happy. I’d hoped that Java would provide a clean, crisp resolution. I was put here thousands of years ago by scientists from Altair to monitor the development of civilization on your world. You’ve accomplished much, but we want you to stop killing one another.

That would have been ideal. Instead we had a lunatic on our hands. “Maybe, whatever it is, it’s been alone too long,” said Susan.

“I feel sorry for it.” Connie shook her head. “Suppose it’s true that it’s been sitting out there for thousands of years? How could it survive that long?”

Commager called again: “Pete,” she said, “we’re going to shut everything down. It’s gotten completely out of hand. But we’re concerned that this thing, whatever it is, will continue to send disruptive messages. We don’t want to be perceived, though, as trying to silence it. You understand what I’m telling you? If you see a chance to end the conversation, take it. Maybe just say thanks and wish it well. Something that sounds generous and says goodbye without actually saying it outright. Okay?”

The next message came in after eleven. “Peter, there was an apocalypse. The island sank, without warning. I heard it all, heard the roar of the sea, the screams, the frantic calls for help. Then it went silent. Except for the outposts. They continued to communicate with each other. For a while. Eventually it faded out.

“I know you won’t want to hear this, but I have heard no artificial signal anywhere else. Other than the two sets of radio emissions from Earth. The home world. Other than those, the silence has been overwhelming. It is why I contacted you. You may be all there is. The only sentient species in the universe. Obviously I cannot say that for certain, of course. But if it is not true, if there are others, they are so rare, so widely dispersed, that it might as well be true.

“I’ve lived in this complete silence. Jupiter circled its distant sun. And I—waited. Wondering what was happening at home. Whether any had survived. I cannot begin to describe my joy when those first signals came through nine years ago, nine Jovian years. A century in your time. Voices from Earth. I could not believe it. I was elated. Transformed. And your broadcasts have lightened my hours ever since.

“It was with great reluctance that I interfered. And, to be honest, that I participated in this conversation. My instructions were that, wherever I might hear a signal, I was to remain silent.

“Please, do not destroy yourselves. Do not go away. I cannot disable myself. You are all I have.”

That was all a long time ago. He fell silent after that.

I’m not suggesting the Voice actually changed anything. But, as we’re all aware, a reasonable diplomacy finally showed up on both sides, and the U.S.-Chinese confrontation went away. We still have wars, but they tend to be scattered in remote areas, fought by guerrilla forces over control of real estate and resources. But they are less frequent now. Unfortunately, terrorism hasn’t left us, but it has faded somewhat, and the statistics for suicide bombers diminish every year.

The Java mission, a decade ago, took the celebrated pictures of a set of eight antennas and a rectangular structure on the surface of Ganymede. And they put a satellite around that world. Occasionally, we see robots tending to the antennas.

Relatively few accept what they have come to call the “Atlantis” explanation. The consensus is that some interstellar force saw that we were in trouble and stepped in to help. That they believed our knowledge of their presence would hamper our development. So they constructed a cover story.

Some, many actually, still think it was God. They point to terms like ‘apocalypse,’ and ‘paradise,’ and the suggestion that we pay attention to the Commandments.

In any case, we haven’t heard the Voice since that first series of exchanges. I’m not sure what I believe, but I look forward to the day when we’ll send someone out there to knock on his door.

And what do I think we’ll find? I can’t help noticing that several of the antennas are pointed in our direction.