The Lure

50 Afterglow

His small fat wife was mouthing some words, but he couldn’t make them out. Slightly irritated — he’d reached the climax of the thriller — the President of UCLA put down the book and took the proffered receiver.

‘Professor Goldsmith? Would you wait for a call from the President’s Science Adviser?’

He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. He’d met the woman a few times, but a call at home, at eight in the evening, California time, which made it eleven at night in Washington …

‘Professor Goldsmith? Hazel Baxendale here.’ Her voice was coming over a background of chatter and clattering plates, like a dinner party or something. Goldsmith thought she was using a mobile phone.

‘I have a favour to ask,’ continued the Science Adviser. ‘We’d be grateful if the University could take on board two young people — a British man and a Norwegian lady — for a few years. It would have to be in the Berkeley campus. Not to put too fine a point on it, the country owes them a favour.’

Wisdom and experience had taught Goldsmith that a White House whim was a University President’s command. He didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course. Delighted to do so. What exactly do you have in mind?’

‘Perhaps scholarships of some sort. She has a doctorate in planetary science and I understand he’s a first-rate mathematician. Work permits and the like won’t be a problem.’

‘I’ll arrange five-year appointments and fund them through the University. Have them call into my office whenever they’re ready.’

‘We appreciate it. Also, in confidence, we anticipate a little seed funding — maybe fifty million dollars to be going on with — to look into the ET question which I dare say you’ve been seeing ad nauseam on the box.’

Fifty million dollars. To be going on with. Goldsmith felt a light sweat developing on his brow. ‘Ah, yes.’

‘Would Berkeley be able to contemplate administering this money? It still needs Congressional approval but I’m told that this will be forthcoming.’

‘I’m sure the University could manage.’

‘Good. Good.’

The Science Adviser rang off. A young Norwegian planetary scientist. A British mathematician. The country owes them a favour. The clues could hardly be more direct. He opened a diary, skimmed over the telephone pages, and dialled a number. ‘Dorothy? Henry Goldsmith here. I’d appreciate it if your Faculty could take on board two young people…’

The morning papers were waiting for them when they giggled their way into the Willard penthouse at midnight. A bunch of red roses on a dressing-table was accompanied by a handwritten card: In appreciation. Seth Bull, President of the United States. Freya slipped out of her new shoes while Petrie disappeared to the bathroom. By the time he returned she was under the sheets of the king-size bed.

They fell asleep with the newspapers untouched, the champagne in the bucket and the lights still on.

‘Tom! Are you awake?’

Petrie drags himself up from subterranean depths.

‘I know how Charlie and Vash and Svetlana escaped. They set the castle alight.’

‘What?’

‘Yes.’ Freya laughs. ‘That Melanie girl told me. The flames were a hundred metres high. Anyway, when the local fire brigade appeared, Svetlana was unconscious ha-ha and Charlie and Vash insisted on going with her in the ambulance to the nearest town, which is a place called Trnava, it seems. They had a police escort all the way.’

Petrie struggles into a sitting position. ‘That would confuse the soldiers.’

‘Most of whom were away chasing us over the Tatras. It seems one of the ambulancemen had a mobile phone. Vash borrowed it and got through to the American Embassy. Trnava’s halfway between Bratislava and the castle, and people from the Embassy got there as soon as they arrived, and spirited them away. Like you, Tom, they were kept safe. “On ice”, Melanie said.’

‘That had to be Vashislav. Sometimes I think our Russian friend comes from outer space.’

Freya pulls a face. ‘All that beautiful Hapsburg furniture.’

‘I expect they spared the library.’

‘Tom, why didn’t he let us in on his plan?’

‘In case we were caught, stupid. The less we knew the better. By the way, his temporal lobe stuff. It won’t get worse, and it can be controlled by drugs.’

She rolls over on to her stomach. ‘Actually, I think Vashislav enjoys being on a permanent high.’

‘He and I intend to meet up for a game of chess.’

‘In Moscow?’

‘In Stockholm.’

‘What about you?’ Freya asks. ‘How did you get away after Roland’s Café?’

‘The American Embassy again. Vashislav and I must have gone through the same chain of reasoning. They kept me in a flat in Lodz for three weeks.’

‘Who did?’

‘Two Americans, Amos and Obadiah. I never knew their real names, never knew whether they’d turn out to be my friends or my executioners.’

‘That must have been like waiting on Death Row.’

Petrie nods. ‘It seems they’re experts in exfiltration, that’s to say, getting people like me out of hostile countries. And that, Dr Freya Størmer, leaves you. I loved your phony e-mails.’

Freya tickles Petrie’s nipple with a strand of her hair. ‘You knew they were phony? I wondered if you’d pick up my subtext. My message inside the message.’

‘It was obvious just as soon as you said you were heading for Svalbard. Vashislav’s friend is in Murmansk. Don’t do that. Where were you actually?’

‘Prague. Unur has a friend who has a cousin. I just stayed put for two weeks, looking up the internet for bad places to lead them and firing off false e-mails to you. Melanie told me I even fooled the CIA. They chased my electronic shadow over half of Europe. Then the real me flew to Paris with Unur’s money while my virtual self was somewhere around Trondheim. After that it was Mexico City, then here.’ Freya throws off the bedcovers and unwraps the wire round the champagne cork. The ice in the bucket has melted. She says, ‘Vashislav and Svetlana are in Moscow, briefing everyone.’

‘I heard. And Charlie’s in London. They’re holding a Guildhall reception for him around now.’

Freya smiles. ‘Charlie Gibson, hero of science. The man who picked up the alien signal. I can feel his glow all the way from London.’

The cork pops gently.

Petrie asks, casually, ‘By the way, Freya, did you really spread copies of the disks around?’

She gives Petrie a sly grin. ‘That’s for me to know and you to ponder.’

The last time Petrie had stared at a ceiling, it had swarmed with patterns which almost drove him mad. And now, almost against his will, the patterns are beginning to re-form. ‘The bulk of the signal defeated me. Remember you asked about their poetry? Their art? Could it be there’s nothing analytical in there? That it’s some form of art — digital art, maybe, affecting them in a way we couldn’t connect with, any more than a dog could understand jazz?’

‘But what if the machines have replaced organic life? Could a machine enjoy jazz? Or poetry? Or sex?’ Freya asks mischievously.

But already Petrie’s restless mind is elsewhere. He is fantasising about his resignation letter. Something along the lines of Dear Professor Kavanagh, The Institute has become something remote and unreal to me, like Ruritania. Your Department is provincial and your preoccupations are petty. My office is cramped, dismal and dull, much like you. I believe it’s time for me to acquire a larger office, wherein I can deal with large affairs and high concepts. Time to become a high priest, an interpreter of the sacred text. My resignation is immediate and I will not require a reference. Yours, Petrie.

In the distance, the faint wail of a police siren, just reaching the top floor of the Willard and penetrating the double glazing.

‘Freya, I’m staying here. They’ve asked me to join the Mountain View team.’ Casually: ‘I don’t suppose you…’

‘Tom, I’d love to. But Olaf will have to join me.’

‘Olaf?’

‘My best and closest friend. Surely I’ve told you about him? On cold Arctic nights he’s better than an electric blanket.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Petrie experiences a dreadful sinking feeling.

Freya bursts out laughing. ‘My dog, stupid!’

She fills the thin glasses and wriggles back into bed, holding them. Some of the champagne overflows and fizzes down a breast. She giggles and looks at Petrie expectantly, eyebrows raised.

Petrie sighs. He has read somewhere that Eskimos do this sort of thing all winter.

In the SETI Institute in California, jubilation over the announcement that an ET signal had been received was mixed in with a very natural human reaction: glumness that others had got there first. But government funding, long denied it by a myopic Congress, suddenly began to flow in. A cryptanalysis team was set up with links to parallel groups in Washington, Moscow, two centres in Europe and the United Kingdom.

There was a debate as to whether the long-running radio search should continue. One group argued that the Galactic club saw radio as too primitive. Presumably somewhere down the line humanity would, with help, develop the science and technology needed to make the return phone call. A second group argued that there were too many imponderables in that argument. There was also an unspoken consideration: too much had been invested in the radio search to stop now. The second group prevailed, and the radio search continued. But there was a pervasive, depressing feeling that it was all a waste of time.

Once the United Nations had sent its answering message, through the huge Jodrell Bank paraboloid in the Cheshire countryside, the location of the signal became public domain. Nobody expected a reply for years, perhaps centuries: only crazy people believed Petrie’s idea about the Oort cloud.

Four months later, on a balmy summer’s evening in California, the receivers at the Institute were flooded with microwave signals of incredible power. They spanned a broad range of frequencies and the computers were quickly saturated. Almost as astonishing as the signal was the fact that it was coming from a totally unexpected point in the sky, near the nucleus of the Andromeda galaxy.

Humanity had joined the club, and the SETI Institute got its reward after all.