Golden Fleece

TEN

The fourth and final page of the message from Vulpecula was most puzzling of all. It was some 10¹⁴ bits in length, a massive amount of data. The total number of bits, as with the earlier pages, was the product of two prime numbers. I tried arraying it with the larger prime as the horizontal axis, which had been the custom established by the other three pages. No image was immediately apparent. I did my best electronic shrug, taking a nanosecond to resort my RAM tables. I then tried the other configuration, with the larger prime as the vertical axis. Still nothing apparent. Fifty-three percent of the bits were zeros; 47 percent, ones. But no matter which way I looked at them, there seemed to be no meaningful clustering into a geometric shape or picture or diagram. And yet this page of the message was obviously the heart of what the aliens had to say, being, as it was, eleven orders of magnitude larger than the other three pages combined.

Earth’s first attempt at sending a letter to the stars, the Arecibo Interstellar Message, had been beamed at the globular cluster M13 on 16 November 1974. It had been a mere 1,679 bits in length, insignificant compared to the size of the final page of the message received from Vulpecula. Yet that handful of bits had contained a lesson in binary counting; the atomic numbers of the chemical constituents of a human being—hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorous; representations of the nucleotides and sugar-phosphate structure of DNA; the number of such nucleotides in the human genome; the size of the population of the Earth; a stick figure of a human; the height of the human in units of the wavelength of the transmission; a little map of the solar system, showing that the third planet is humanity’s home; a cross-sectional view of the Arecibo telescope; and the telescope’s size in wavelengths.

All that in less than two kilobits. Of course, when Frank Drake, the human who wrote the message, asked his colleagues to decipher it, they were unable to do so completely, although everyone at least recognized the stick-figure human, looking like the male icon on a men’s washroom door.

Ironically, the first three pages of the Vulpecula message had been simple in comparison to Earth’s first effort. Registration cross, solar system map, Tripod and Pup: I felt confident that I’d interpreted these reasonably correctly.

But the fourth page was complex, data-rich, one hundred billion times the size of the Arecibo pictogram. What treasures did it hold? Was it the long-hoped-for Encyclopedia Galactica? Knowledge from the stars, given away without so much as a harangue from a door-to-door salesperson?

If the data on page four was compressed, I’d found no clue as to how to decompress it in the first three pages of the message. What, what did those gigabytes of data mean? Could it be a hologram, interference patterns captured as a bitmap? A chart of some sort? Perhaps simply a collection of digitized photographs? I obviously just wasn’t looking at it in the right way.

I loaded the entire message into RAM and studied it minutely.

Aaron hurried across the beach, the hot sand putting a gingerliness into his step. Two hundred and forty-one nude or almost-nude people swam in the freshwater lake, frolicked on the shore, or basked in the 3,200-degrees Kelvin yellow light of the simulated late-afternoon sun. Aaron nodded in passing to those he knew well, but even after two years together, most of the people on board were still strangers to him.

This beach was not patterned after any particular real one, but rather represented some of the finest features of various seashores on Earth. The cliffs rising high above the sands were the chalk white of those at Dover; the sands themselves were the finely ground beige of those of Malibu; the waters, the frothy aquamarine of Acapulco. Sandpipers ran to and fro, gulls wheeled and soared overhead, parrots sat contentedly in the coconut trees.

The first 150 meters of beach, including live birds, was genuine. The rest, stretching to a hazy horizon, was me: a constantly updated real-time hologram. Sometimes, as now, far up the beach I painted a lone, small figure, a youngster playing by himself, building a sand castle. To me, he was real, as real as the others, a boy named Jason; but he could never enter their world and they could never enter his.

Aaron was almost to the beginning of the simulacrum. He passed through the pressure curtain that warned the birds away from the invisible bulkhead. A doorway opened in the wall, a rectangular aperture just above the holographic sands, revealing a metallic stairwell beyond. He banged down the steps and entered the level beneath. The ceiling was sculpted in deep relief, irregular with the geography of the shoreline, bowing deeply at the middle of the lake. Beads of condensation clung to the cold metal. Among the buttresses and conduits were workbenches and cabinets, an expansion of the engineering shops. Far off, clad in dirty coveralls, was Chief Engineer I-Shin “Great Wall of China” Chang, working on a large cylindrical device.

“Ho, Wall,” Aaron called, and the other man looked up. “JASON said you wanted to see me.”

Chang, a giant in any room, seemed particularly large in this cramped space, his excess of limbs exacerbating the problem. “That’s right.” He extended his upper right hand toward Aaron, saw that it was greasy, withdrew it, and tried again with his lower right. Little time was given to formal greetings aboard Argo, since one was never far away from anyone else. With raised eyebrows, Aaron clasped his friend’s hand. “I hear that you were none too happy about today’s newscast,” said Chang, the words a burst of machine-gun fire.

“You have a gift for understatement, Wall. I was furious. I’m still trying to decide whether I should go rearrange Koenig’s face.”

Chang tilted his head toward my camera pair. “Be careful about what you say in front of witnesses.”

Aaron snorted.

“Are you upset with me for participating?” asked Chang.

Aaron shook his head. “I was at first, but I listened to the recording again. All you did was describe the technical procedure we used to bring Diana—to bring the Orpheus—home.”

“That little Japanese man asked many other questions, but I tried to respect your privacy.”

“Thank you. Actually, I was flattered by what you said. ‘The Rossman Maneuver,’ eh?”

“Oh, indeed. What you did with the magnetic field was one for the textbooks. It never would have occurred to me. So there are no hard feelings?”

Aaron smiled. “None about the broadcast, as long as there are none about the football game. I understand my boys whupped you good.”

“The Hangar Deck Stevedores are an admirable team. But my Engineering Rams are getting better, yes? Next time we will be victorious.”

Aaron smiled again. “We’ll see.”

Quiet, except for the regular plink-plink of water dripping from the ceiling.

“You’re not busy?” said Chang at last. “I’m not inconveniencing you?”

Aaron laughed. “Of course not. There hasn’t been a lot for me to do these last couple of years.”

Chang chuckled politely at the tired joke. “And you are well?”

“Yes. You?”

“Fine.”

“And Kirsten?”

“Bright and beautiful, as always.”

Chang nodded. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

“Yes.”

There was silence between them for six seconds. “I’m sorry about Diana,” Chang said at last.

“Me, too.”

“But you say you’re okay?” said Chang. His great round face creased in sympathy, an invitation to talk about it.

“Yes.” Aaron declined the invitation. “Was there something specific you wanted to see me about?”

Chang looked at him for three seconds more, apparently trying to decide whether to pursue his friend’s pain. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do have something to discuss. First, though, how are you going to vote tomorrow?”

“I thought I’d use my thumb.”

Chang rolled his eyes. “Everybody’s a comedian. I mean, do you favor Proposition Three?”

“It is a secret ballot for a reason, Wall.”

“Very well. Very well. I personally do favor the proposition. If it does pass, well, then, I won’t be needing your help. But if the people don’t take that chance for salvation, I have an alternative. Come.”

He led Aaron over to his workbench, its plastiwood surface nicked by hacksaw blades and marred by welding burns. With a proud sweep of his upper left hand, Chang indicated a cylindrical object that was mounted on the top of the bench. It was a metallic casing, 117 centimeters long and 50 centimeters in diameter—a section of reinforced plumbing conduit, cut to length with a laser. Its ends were closed off by thick disks of red plastic. On its side was an open access panel. Although at this moment I couldn’t see within, six days ago I had got a good look at the interior when Chang had rotated the cylinder to do some work through another, smaller access plate that was located ninety degrees around from this one. It had been filled with a grab bag of components, many only loosely mounted by electrician’s tape, a collection of circuitry breadboards stuffed with chips scavenged from all sorts of equipment, and a thick bundle of fiber-optic strands, looking like glassy muscle. The whole thing had a rough, unfinished look to it—not the smooth, clean lines technology is supposed to have. I had had no trouble determining what the device was, but I doubted Aaron would be able to figure it out.

“Impressive, yes?” asked Chang.

“Indeed,” said Aaron. Then, a moment later: “What is it?”

Chang smiled expansively, the grin a great arc across the globe of his face. “It’s a bomb.”

“A bomb?!” For a brief moment, Aaron’s telemetry underscored the shock in his voice. “You mean someone planted a bomb on board? My God, Wall! Have you told Gorlov—”

“Eh?” Chang’s grin faded fast, a curving rope pulled tight. “No. Don’t be a mystic. I built it.”

Aaron backed away from Wall. “Is it armed?”

“No, of course not.” Bending, the engineer gently prized another access panel off the curved surface. “I don’t have any fissionables to—”

“You mean it’s a nuclear bomb?” I was as surprised as Aaron. That part of it hadn’t been obvious from my quick peek at the device’s innards.

“Not yet,” said Wall, pointing into the newly revealed opening in the casing, presumably the place where he intended the radioactive material to go. “That’s what I need you for.” He stepped closer, one of his giant strides being enough to narrow the gap Aaron had opened between them. “There are no fissionables within the Starcology. Doubtless you’ve heard that garbage about reducing radiation exposure.” He made an unusual sound deep in his throat that might have been a laugh. “But once we get to Colchis, we can mine for uranium.”

Aaron took back the lead in their little dance, circling around to the other side of the workbench, interposing its bulk between him and the big man. “Forgive me, I-Shin. I must be missing the obvious.” He met the other man’s gaze, but after holding it for several seconds, blinked and looked away. “What do we need a bomb for?”

“Not just one, my friend. Many. I plan to make scores before we return home.”

Aaron swung his eyes back on I-Shin’s watery brown orbs. They had yet to blink or move since Aaron had first tried to make contact with them. “Why?”

“Assuming Proposition three is defeated, and my deepest fear is that it will be, a hundred and four years will pass on Earth before we get back. Relativity, damn it all. What will the world be like then? A lot can happen in a century, yes? Think of what’s happened in the last hundred-odd years. True artificial intelligence, like our friend JASON here.” He pointed at my camera pair, mounted on a buttress supporting the sculptured ceiling. “Life created in the laboratory. Interstellar travel with crewed missions. Teleportation, even if only over a distance measured in millimeters. Artificial gravity and antigravity, like the system used to augment the perceived gravity due to Argo’s acceleration.”

“Granted the world will be different when we get back,” said Aaron.

“Yes!” Chang’s grin had returned. “Yes, indeed. But different how? What kind of welcome are we going to get?” He sidled around the workbench to stand next to Aaron again.

Aaron tried to sound jaunty. “You kidding? Parades. Talk shows. The first interstellar travelers.”

“Maybe. I hope so. But I don’t think so.” He put his arm around Aaron’s shoulders. “Suppose there’s a war on Earth. Or a disaster. Things could be very hairy by the time we return, each person carving out an existence in a savage society. We might not be welcome at all. We might be resented, hated.” He lowered his voice. “We might be eaten.” He gave the steel casing a pat. “My bombs could make all the difference. We can take what we want if we have bombs, yes?”

Aaron peered through the large access panel, looking at the gleaming electronics. He shuddered. “What do you want from me?”

“Two things,” Chang said, holding up thick fingers in what used to be a symbol for peace. “You’re in charge of scheduling the Colchis survey flights. You must organize a search for deposits of uranium that we can mine.”

“It’s over six years until we arrive at Colchis.”

“I know, but the other project will keep you busy from now until the end of the flight. You’ve got to modify those boomerang craft of yours to carry my bombs. Picture those ships, zooming over fields of savages, dropping bombs here and there to keep them in line. Stirring, yes?”

As always, Aaron’s EEG was calm. Ironically, so was Chang’s. “Come on, I-Shin—,” began Aaron, but he ground to a halt. He looked into Chang’s brown eyes, almost invisible behind epicanthic folds, then tried again. “I mean, seriously, Wall, wouldn’t it be better if we find we’re unwelcome on Earth to just take Argo somewhere else? That’s the beauty of a ramship, isn’t it? We’ll never run out of fuel.”

“Somewhere else?” A look of terror crossed the vast globe of Chang’s face. “No! Never.” His vital signs had suddenly changed from peaceful to agitated, his voice rising an octave and gaining a rough edge. “Damn it, Aaron, I couldn’t take that! I couldn’t take another eight or more years in this flying tomb! I—” He made an effort to calm himself, to breathe evenly, deeply. He looked at his feet. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, it’s just that, well, I—I don’t think I can even last the next six years to Colchis.”

“It is a long time, isn’t it?” said Aaron.

Chang eased himself onto a stool next to the workbench, its plastiwood legs creaking under his weight. “We’re not even halfway there,” he said at last. “We’ve been at it for two years now and the end isn’t even in sight.” Now that he was seated, Chang’s eyes were level with Aaron’s. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I—I’ve been working too hard.”

Aaron’s expression was blank, but perhaps he was thinking the same thing as I, which was, No, you haven’t; there hasn’t been any work to do. “It’s okay,” he said softly.

“You know,” said Chang, “when I was little, my parents used to send me to camp in the summer. I hated it. Other kids made fun of me because of my extra arms, and I never could swim very well. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I would have enjoyed it much even if I had been …” He paused, as if looking for an appropriate word. Apparently, though, he couldn’t find one. He smiled sadly. “… normal.”

Aaron nodded, but said nothing.

“Anyway, I used to keep track of the time. They sent me away for three weeks. Twenty-one days. That meant each day represented four and three-quarters percent of the time I had to spend there. Each night before bed I’d calculate how much had gone by and how much I had left to endure. Two days meant nine and a half percent had been done; three days, fourteen and a quarter percent done. But even though I was miserable, the time still passed. Before I knew it, I was on the downside—more time had elapsed than I had left to spend.” He looked at Aaron, eyebrows up. “Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been gone for 740 days. We left Earth ages ago, an eternity. But we’ve still got 2,228 days left to go. We’ve covered just one-quarter of the time we’ve got to endure. A quarter! For every day we’ve spent here, locked in this tin can, we’ve got another three to go. It’s—it’s—” Chang looked around him, like a man lost, trying to get his bearings. His gaze fell on the cylinder of the bomb, his own round face reflecting back at him from the metallic casing. “I think …” he said slowly, “I think I want to … cry.”

“I know how you feel,” said Aaron.

“It’s been twenty years since I last cried,” said Chang, shaking his head slightly. “I’m not sure I remember how.”

“Just let it come, Wall. I’ll leave you alone.” Aaron started to move toward the exit.

“Wait,” said Chang. Aaron did so, standing quietly for a full ten seconds while Wall sought the words he wanted. “I— I don’t have any family, Aaron. Not here, and not back on Earth. Oh, I did, but my parents were old, very old, when we left. They could very well be gone by now.” He looked away from Aaron. “You’re the closest thing I have to a brother.” Aaron smiled a little. “You’ve been a good friend, too.”

Silence again, its passage marked only by the regular dripping of condensation from the ceiling.

“Please stay with me,” said Chang.

“Of course. For as long as you like.”

“But don’t look at me.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Chang put his head down on the table next to the bomb, but no tears came. Aaron took a seat and gazed absently at the bends and curves of the sculpted gray ceiling, outlining the features of the lake above. I shut off my cameras in that room.

When I checked again half an hour later, they were still there, sitting exactly the same way.