The Lure

17 We Have a Problem

‘I can explain that.’ Gibson’s voice had a triumphant edge to it. ‘Vashislav said it himself. Two civilisations so close together can’t be a coincidence. Well, let’s follow the logic. If he’s right — if I’m right about the F star — there must be a Galactic club out there. Millions, maybe billions, of civilisations talking to each other. That means a gigantic telephone network to go with it, particle flows crisscrossing everywhere. We just happened to drift across one of their lines of communication. The signal was just a lucky intercept.’

Shtyrkov put his hands on top of his head and frowned in concentration for some seconds. Then, ‘Charlee, here are two experiments for you. Number one: let a fly loose in a cathedral, blindfold yourself, and fire a pistol in any direction, preferably not at your head. Number two: put Lake Tatras out there somewhere in the Galaxy, even just halfway to the nearest star, and fire a signal in a random direction. Let me tell you this: you’d stand a better chance of hitting the fly in the cathedral than the lake in the Galaxy.’

Petrie was scribbling on paper. He looked up and said, ‘Vashislav is right. The chances of a random interception, even with a big galactic club, everyone chattering to everyone else, are too slim for words.’

Gibson said, ‘Use your common sense. How can aliens know about an experiment in an underground lake?’

Freya said, ‘I can prove that they do.’

The physicist gave Freya the floor with an ironic flourish.

She unconsciously flicked hair back over a shoulder and then itemised the points with her fingers. ‘First. At the latitude of Lake Tatras we’re spinning at fourteen hundred kilometres an hour round the Earth’s axis. Second. The Earth’s orbiting the Sun at thirty kilometres a second. Three. The Sun’s drifting at thirteen kilometres a second through our neighbouring stars, us along with it. And Four. Our neighbourhood, millions of stars in it, is orbiting the centre of our Galaxy at two hundred kilometres a second.’

Shtyrkov said, ‘Of course, Freya. Seen from even a light year away, the lake isn’t just a tiny target, it’s a fast-moving one.’

Freya nodded. ‘And the signal corrected for all these movements. It matched the lake’s speed through space with great precision.’

‘What’s your point?’ Gibson asked curtly.

Freya tapped her calculations. ‘Admit to error, Charlie. Whoever fired that signal knew about your underground cave and targeted it.’

‘Oh yes, of course they did,’ Gibson said, his face flushing. ‘Naturally they have telescopes that detect underground lakes from light years away and they even know we’ve set up an experiment under the water waiting for a signal. In fact, they knew we were going to set it up before we knew it ourselves — and if you believe this M51 rubbish, they knew we were going to do that before we even existed!’

‘I don’t claim to have any sort of background in science,’ said the Science Minister’s envoy, ‘but that would seem to be a problem.’

‘Indeed, Jeremy. And here’s another problem. How do I face the world’s press on Monday and sell them a garbage tale like that without being carted off screaming to the nearest paddy wagon by men in white coats?’

‘Jeremy?’

Petrie, in quiet conversation with Freya on a sofa, caught the unctuous tone of Gibson’s voice. He glanced across. The physicist was leaning over Hanning, charm oozing out of his face and looking like a benevolent frog.

Hanning looked up from his scribbled notes in surprise. ‘Yes, ah, Charlie?’

‘Time is short.’ The computer clocks were reading just after three o’clock. ‘I thought you might lend us a hand.’

Hanning glanced down at his notes. ‘Sangster is looking for a situation report at nine p.m. Still, I can spare some time. But be warned, I have no specialised knowledge, at least not in science.’

‘We need help with Svetlana’s viruses, if that’s what they are.’

‘There are thousands of them,’ Svetlana said without looking up from her screen.

Gibson pushed his spectacles back to the bridge of his nose. ‘There are also thousands of terrestrial viruses. I was wondering if you might like to try to match them up. There are pictures of them on websites.’

‘It’s a big job,’ Svetlana said. ‘For instance, there are things called pico-rna-viridae, and they’re divided into five genera — entero-, rhino-, aphto-, cardio- and unassignedo-viruses. If you take the rhinovirus it’s divided into human and bovine, and if you take the human it has a hundred serotypes. And these are just the small RNA viruses; there are thousands more.’

Hanning looked blank. ‘RNA viruses?’

‘Forget them,’ Shtyrkov called over. ‘They change by the year. Any signal representing them would refer to viruses which have evolved beyond recognition. In fact, this is a big problem, people. Any picture beamed to us from far away and long ago should refer to microorganisms which no longer exist. E. coli reproduces so fast it can mutate as much in a day as humanity does in a thousand years.’

Svetlana sighed. ‘There’s another problem. We’re all desperately ignorant about this and we’re running out of time.’

Charlie said, ‘So work harder. I want us to learn as much as we possibly can about this signal before we go public with it.’

‘I’ve told you about going public without authorisation, Charlie.’

‘I know.’ Gibson’s cheek twitched nervously. ‘You’re just being asked to match pictures. Any idiot could do it.’

Hanning said, ‘Have you ever thought about a career in the Diplomatic Service?’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

Hanning laughed. ‘Of course I’ll help. Let’s see if these things are earthly.’

Gibson sighed with relief, and promptly exited from his unctuous mode. ‘Svetlana, you still haven’t told me if that thing is human.’ He turned to Shtyrkov, who was lying back on another sofa, staring at the ceiling. ‘Vashislav, are you a waste of space or what?’

The Russian waved a dismissive arm in the air. ‘I’m meditating.’

‘What the hell use is that? And what about you two?’ Gibson wanted to know. Freya and Petrie were heading for the door. ‘Don’t tell me you people are meditating too?’

‘I’ll be in the theological library,’ Petrie said.

‘Good, good. More decoding, Tom?’

‘No, I’ll be looking for a Bible. I expect the theological library has one.’

Gibson’s face showed bafflement. ‘What in God’s name has the Bible got to do with anything?’