The Lure

9 Genome

Gibson spotted Petrie a couple of hundred metres away. The mathematician was wandering down the long path outside the castle; his head was bowed and he seemed to be muttering. His hands were waving as if he was addressing an imaginary audience. The path went towards the village but Gibson suspected the young man didn’t know where he was going.

A light mist was clearing from the trees and the early morning sky was blue, but there was ice in the wind.

Gibson took a short cut over the snow and caught up with Petrie at the church. The mathematician’s eyes were bloodshot and he had an overnight stubble. His face was drawn, almost as if he was in pain. He looked at Gibson vaguely, as if he didn’t recognise the man.

‘For Christ’s sake, Tom, look at you. Get to bed.’

‘What about the others?’ Petrie asked. The words came out slurred.

‘They flaked out hours ago.’

‘What about Freya?’ Petrie didn’t know why he’d asked that; it just came out.

‘She’s up early, like me. She’s reading a ton of downloads in the computer room.’

‘Has she made progress?’

Gibson made a so-so facial gesture. He was now pacing alongside Petrie; they turned left along a quiet road. A middle-aged man was sitting humped forwards on a hay-cart pulled by a small horse, sacking over his head and shoulders to protect him from the cold. There was an exchange of ‘Dobryden’, and then the horse had clip-clopped past them. The smell of hay and horse lingered in the cold morning air.

‘What about you?’

Petrie gave Gibson a strange look. He said, ‘I have something to announce.’

Gibson stopped. ‘Well?’

‘Get them out of bed, Charlie. I want everyone to hear this together.’

‘I run this outfit. Tell me what you’ve got.’

‘This is for your team to hear.’

‘Tom!’

Petrie relented; the man was like a starved dog waiting for a biscuit. He said, ‘Okay, I tell the team but you get the preview. The signal is intelligent.’

For some seconds Gibson could have been a statue. He peered into Petrie’s eyes, looking for clues. Then he gave a sort of moan, like a man in a trance. He performed a brief Zorba the Greek dance on the road, clicking his fingers and laughing. Finally his eyes widened, he shouted, ‘God in heaven!’ and sprinted back along the road, passing the hay-cart and swerving right up the hill towards the castle. Petrie carried on walking, humming to himself.

In a minute Petrie heard running footsteps. He turned. Gibson had reappeared at speed, arms waving to keep balance on the slippery road. His mood had swung from beatitude to desperate anxiety. He stopped at Petrie, his chest heaving with the sprint. ‘Pulsars. Fucking pulsars. Bleep bleep bleep in the Cambridge radio telescope. A secretive lot, that group, they sat on it for six months because they thought they were detecting little green men only it turned out they weren’t little green men, they were spinning neutron stars.’ He glared fiercely at Petrie, looking for reassurance.

‘Charlie, pattern recognition is my business. It’s why you asked me here, remember? No natural process could produce what you detected. That signal is the product of a mind.’

Charlie smiled again, an enraptured saint. ‘The discovery of all time. The Nobel for sure.’

‘A Nobel Prize, Charlie, but that’s the least of it. Think about it. We’re not alone. There are thinking beings out there. What effect is this going to have on society?’

‘Who cares? The effect on me is a Nobel Prize.’ Then: ‘The pattern really is intelligent? You’re absolutely sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘You said a mind? A signal?’ Gibson’s face was distorted by a ferocious intensity. ‘Are you saying it’s a message?’

‘I don’t know what it is.’

Gibson took Petrie by the arm and they reversed direction, back towards the castle and the receding hay-cart. His eyes were lit with an evangelical gleam and his words came out rapidly, almost staccato. ‘I’m very concerned about you, Tom, you need sleep, then you can waken up nice and fresh and crack the code, you’ll do that, won’t you, Tom? You’ll wake up nice and fresh and crack the code? Then we’ll all get big juicy Nobel Prizes, you for cracking the code and me for being the big cheese and we’ll all be famous just so long as you get some sleep and then wake up and crack the fucking code for Christ’s sake, please, just as quick as you can.’