Although his nature was the opposite of conspiratorial, Valerian thought he had caught an undercurrent in Drumlin’s last question: could all this be a reckless, desperate attempt by Argus scientists to prevent a premature closing down of the project? It wasn’t possible. Valerian shook his head. As der Heer walked by, he found himself confronted by two senior experts on the SETI problem silently shaking their heads at one another.
Between the scientists and the bureaucrats there was a kind of unease, a mutual discomfort, a clash of fundamental assumptions. One of the electrical engineers called it an impedance mismatch. The scientists were too speculative, too quantitative, and too casual about talking to anybody for the tastes of many of the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats were too unimaginative, too qualitative, too uncommunicative for many of the scientists. Ellie and especially der Heer tried hard to bridge the gap, but the pontoons kept being swept downstream.
This night, cigarette butts and coffee cups were everywhere. The casually dressed scientists, Washington officials in light-weight suits, and an occasional flag-rank military officer filled the control room, the seminar room, the small auditorium, and spilled out of doors, where, illuminated by cigarettes and starlight, some of the discussions continued. But tempers were frayed. The strain was showing.
* * *
“Dr. Arroway, this is Michael Kitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3I.”
Introducing Kitz and positioning himself just a step behind him, der Heer was communicating… what? Some unlikely mix of emotions. Bemusement in the arms of prudence? He seemed to be appealing for restraint. Did he think her such a hothead? “C3I”–pronounced cee-cubed-eye–stood for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence, important responsibilities at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were gamely making major phased reductions in their strategic nuclear arsenals. It was a job for a cautious man.
Kitz settled himself in one of the two chairs across the desk from Ellie, leaned forward, and read the Kafka quote. He was unimpressed.
“Dr. Arroway, let me come right to the point. We’re concerned about whether it’s in the best interest of the United States for this information to be generally known. We were not overjoyed about your sending that telegram all over the world.”
“You mean to China? To Russia? To India?” Her voice, despite her best effort, had a discernible edge to it. “You wanted to keep the first 261 prime numbers secret? Do you suppose, Mr. Kitz, the extraterrestrials intended to communicate only with Americans? Don’t you think that a message from another civilization belongs to the whole world?”
“You might have asked our advice.”
“And risk losing the signal? Look, for all we know, something essential, something unique might have been broadcast after Vega had set her in New Mexico but when it was high in the sky over Beijing. These signals aren’t exactly a person-to-person call to the U.S. of A. They’re not even a person-to-person call to the Earth. It’s station-to-station to any planet in the solar system. We just happened to be lucky enough to pick up the phone.”
Der Heer was radiating something again. What was he trying to tell her? That he liked that elementary analogy, but ease up on Kitz?
“In any case,” she continued, “it’s too late. Everybody knows now that there’s some kind of intelligent life in the Vega system.”
“I’m not sure it’s too late, Dr. Arroway. You seem to think there’ll be some information-rich transmission, a message, still to come. Dr. der Heer here”–he paused to listen to the unexpected assonance–“Dr. der Heer says you think these prime numbers are an announcement, something to make us pay attention. If there is a message and it’s subtle–something those other countries wouldn’t pick up right away–I want it kept quiet until we can talk about it.”
“Many of us have wants, Mr. Kitz, she found herself saying sweetly, ignoring der Heer’s raised eyebrows. There was something irritating, almost provocative, about Kitz’s manner. And probably hers as well. “I, for example, have a want to understand what the meaning of this signal is, and what’s happening on Vega, and what it means for the Earth. It’s possible that scientists in other nations are the key to that understanding. Maybe we’ll need their data. Maybe we’ll need their brains. I could imagine this might be a problem too big for one country to handle all by itself.”
Der Heer now appeared faintly alarmed. “Uh, Dr. Arroway. Secretary Kitz’s suggestion isn’t all that unreasonable. It’s very possible we’d bring other nations in. All he’s asking is to talk about it with us first. And that’s only if there’s a new message.”
His tone was calming but not unctuous. She looked at him closely again. Der Heer was not a patently handsome man, but he had a kind and intelligent face. He was wearing a blue suit and a crisp oxford shirt. His seriousness and air of self-possession were moderated by the warmth of his smile. Why, then, was he shilling for this jerk? Part of his job? Could it be that Kitz was talking sense?
“It’s a remote contingency anyway.” Kitz sighed as he got to his feet. “The Secretary of Defense would appreciate your cooperation.” He was trying to be winning. “Agreed?”
“Let me think about it,” she replied, taking his proffered hand as if it were a dead fish.
“I’ll be along in a few minutes, Mike,” der Heer said cheerfully.
His hand on the lintel of the door, Kitz had an apparent afterthought, removed a document from his inside breast pocket, returned, and placed it gingerly on the corner of her desk. “Oh yes, I forgot. Here’s a copy of the Hadden Decision. You probably know it. It’s about the government’s right to classify material vital to the security of the United States. Even if it didn’t originate in a classified facility.”
“You want to classify the prime numbers?” she asked, her eyes wide in mock incredulity.
“See you outside, Ken.”
She began talking the moment Kitz left her office. “What’s he after? Vegan death rays? World blower-uppers? What’s this really about?”
“He’s just being prudent, Ellie. I can see you don’t think that’s the whole story. Okay. Suppose there’s some message–you know, with real content–and in it there’s something offensive to Muslims, say, or to Methodists. Shouldn’t we release it carefully, so the United States doesn’t get a black eye?”
“Ken, don’t bullshit me. That man is an Assistant Secretary of Defense. If they’re worried about Muslims and Methodists, they would have sent me an Assistant Secretary of State, or–I don’t know–one of those religious fanatics who preside at presidential prayer breakfasts. You’re the President’s Science Adviser. What did you advise her?”
“I haven’t advised her anything. Since I’ve been here, I’ve only talked to her once, briefly, on the phone. And I’ll be frank with you, she didn’t give me any instructions about classification. I thought what Kitz said was way off base. I think he’s acting on his own.”
“Who is he?”
“As far as I know, he’s a lawyer. He was a top executive in the electronics industry before joining the Administration. He really knows C3I, but that doesn’t make him knowledgeable about anything else.”
“Ken, I trust you. I believe you didn’t set me up for this Hadden Decision threat.” She waved the document in front of her and paused, seeking his eyes. “Do you know that Drumlin thinks there’s another message in the polarization?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just a few hours ago, Dave finished a rough statistical study of the polarization. He’s represented the Stokes parameters by Poin-caré spheres; there’s a nice movie of them varying in time.”
Der Heer looked at her blankly. Don’t biologists use polarized light in their microscopes? she asked herself.
“When a wave of light comes at you–visible light, radio light, any kind of light–it’s vibrating at right angles to your line of sight. If that vibration rotates, the wave is said to be elliptically polarized. If it rotates clockwise, the polarization is called right-handed; counterclockwise, it’s left-handed. I know it’s a dumb designation. Anyway, by varying between the two kinds of polarization, you could transmit information. A little right polarization and that’s a zero; a little left and it’s a one. Follow? It’s perfectly possible. We have amplitude modulation and frequency modulation, but our civilization, by convention, ordinarily just doesn’t do polarization modulation.
“Well, the Vega signal looks as if it has polarization modulating. We’re busy checking it out right now. But Dave found that there wasn’t an equal amount of the two sorts of polarization. It wasn’t left polarized as much as it was right polarized. It’s just possible that there’s another message in the polarization that we’ve missed so far. That’s why I’m suspicious about your friend. Kitz isn’t just giving me general gratuitous advice. He knows we may be onto something else.”
“Ellie, take it easy. You’ve hardly slept for four days. You’ve been juggling the science, the administration, and the press. You’ve already made one of the major discoveries of the century, and if I understand you right, you might be on the verge of something even more important. You’ve got every right to be a little on edge. And threatening to militarize the project was clumsy of Kitz. I don’t have any trouble understanding why you’re suspicious of him. But there’s some sense to what he says.”