“Perhaps we are all wayfarers on the road to truth,” Joss replied.
On this hopeful note, der Heer stepped in deftly, and amidst strained civilities they prepared to leave. She wondered whether anything useful had been accomplished. Valerian would have been much more effective and much less provocative, Ellie thought. She wished she had kept herself in better check.
“It’s been a most interesting day, Dr. Arroway, and I thank you for it.” Joss seemed a little remote again, courtly but distracted. He shook her hand warmly, though. On the way out to the waiting government car, past a lavishly rendered three-dimensional exhibit on “The Fallacy of the Expanding Universe,” a sign read, “Our God Is Alive and Well. Sorry About Yours.”
She whispered to der Heer, “I’m sorry if I made your job more difficult.”
“Oh no, Ellie. You were fine.”
“That Palmer Joss is a very attractive man. I don’t think I did much to convert him. But I’ll tell you, he almost converted me.”
She was joking of course.
CHAPTER 11
The World Message Consortium
The world is nearly all parceled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered, and colonized. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.
-CECIL RHODES Last Will and Testament (1902)
From their table by the window she could see the downpour spattering the street outside. A soaked pedestrian, his collar up, gamely hurried by. The proprietor had cranked the striped awning over the tubs of oysters, segregated according to size and quality and providing a kind of street advertisement for the specialty of the house. She felt warm and snug inside the restaurant, the famous theatrical gathering place, Chez Dieux. Since fair weather had been predicted, she was without raincoat or umbrella.
Likewise unencumbered, Vaygay introduced a new subject: “My friend, Meera,” he announced, “is an ecdysiast–that is the right word, yes? When she works in your country she performs for groups of professionals, at meetings and conventions. Meera says that when she takes off her clothes for working-class men–at trade union conventions, that sort of thing–they become wild, shout out improper suggestions, and try to join her on the stage. But when she gives exactly the same performance for doctors or lawyers, they sit there motionless. Actually, she says, some of them lick their lips. My question is: Are the lawyers healthier than the steelworkers?”
That Vaygay had diverse female acquaintances had always been apparent. His approaches to women were so direct and extravagant–herself, for some reason that both pleased and annoyed her, excluded–that they could always say no without embarrassment. Many said yes. But the news about Meera was a little unexpected.
They had spent the morning in a last minute comparison of notes and interpretations of the new data. The continuing Message transmission had reached an important new stage. Diagrams were being transmitted from Vega the way newspaper wire photos are transmitted. Each picture was an array raster. The number of tiny black and white dots that made up the picture was the product of two prime numbers. Again prime numbers were part of the transmission. There was a large set of such diagrams, on following the other, and not at all interleaved with the text. It was like a section of glossy illustrations inserted in the back of a book. Following transmission of the long sequence of diagrams, the unintelligible text continued. From at least some of the diagrams it seemed obvious that Vaygay and Arkhangelsky had been right, that the Message was in part at least the instructions, the blueprints, for building a machine. Its purpose was unknown. At the plenary session of the World Message Consortium, to be held tomorrow at the Elysée Palace, she and Vaygay would present for the first time some of the details to representatives of the other Consortium nations. But word had quietly been passed about the machine hypothesis.
Over lunch, she had summarized her encounter with Rankin and Joss. Vaygay had been attentive, but asked no questions. It was as if she had been confessing some unseemly personal predilection and perhaps that had triggered his train of association.
“You have a friend named Meera who’s a striptease artist? With international venue?”
“Since Wolfgang Pauli discovered the Exclusion Principle while watching the Folies-Bergère, I have felt it my professional duty as a physicist to visit Paris as much as possible. I think of it as my homage to Pauli. But somehow I can never persuade the officials in my country to approve trips solely for this purpose. Usually I must do some pedestrian physics as well. But in such establishments–that’s where I met Meera–I am a student of nature, waiting for insight to strike.”
Abruptly his tone of voice shifted from expansive to matter-of-face. “Meera says American professional men are sexually repressed and have gnawing doubts and guilt.”
“Really. And what does Meera say about Russian professional men?”
“Ah, in that category she knows only me. So, of course, she has a good opinion. I think I’d rather be with Meera tomorrow.” “But all your friends will be at the Consortium meeting,” she said lightly. “Yes, I’m glad you’ll be there,” he replied morosely. “What’s worrying you, Vaygay?” He took a long time before answering, and began with a slight but uncharacteristic hesitation.
“Perhaps not worries. Maybe only concerns….What if the Message really is the design drawings of a machine? Do we build the machine? Who builds it? Everybody together? The Consortium? The United Nations? A few nations in competition? What if it’s enormously expensive to build? Who pays? Why should hey want to? What if it doesn’t work? Could building the machine injure some nations economically? Could it injure them in some other way?”
Without interrupting the torrent of questions, Lunacharsky emptied the last of the wine into their glasses. “Even if the message cycles back and even if we completely decrypt it, how good could the translation be? You know the opinion of Cervantes? He said that reading a translation is like examining the back of a piece of tapestry. Maybe it’s not possible to translate the Message perfectly. Then we wouldn’t build the machine perfectly. Also, are we really confident we have all the data? Maybe there’s essential information at some other frequency that we haven’t discovered yet.
“You know, Ellie, I though people would be very cautious about building this machine. But there may be some coming tomorrow who will urge immediate construction–I mean, immediately after we receive the primer and decrypt the Message, assuming that we do. What is the American delegation going to propose?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. But she remembered that soon after the diagrammatic material had been received der Heer began asking whether it was likely that the machine was within reach of the Earth’s economy and technology. She could offer him little reassurance on either score. She recalled again how preoccupied Ken had seemed in the last few weeks, sometimes even jittery. His responsibilities in this matter were, of course–
“And Dr. der Heer and Mr. Kitz staying at the same hotel as you?”
“No, they’re staying at the Embassy.”
It was always the case. Because of the nature of the Soviet economy and the perceived necessity of buying military technology instead of consumer goods with their limited hard currency, Russians had little walking around money when visiting the West. They were obliged to stay in second- or third-rate hotels, even rooming houses, while their Western colleagues lived in comparative luxury. It was a continuing source of embarrassment for scientists of both countries. Picking up the bill for this relatively simple meal would be effortless for Ellie but a burden for Vaygay, despite his comparatively exalted status in the Soviet scientific hierarchy. Now, what was Vaygay…
“Vaygay, be straight with me. What are you saying? You think Ken and Mike are jumping the gun?”
“`Straight.’ And interesting word; not right, not left, but progressively forward. I’m concerned that in the next few days we will see premature discussion about building something that we have no right to build. The politicians think we know everything. In fact, we know almost nothing. Such a situation could be dangerous.”
It finally dawned on her that Vaygay was taking a personal responsibility for figuring out the nature of the Message. If it led to some catastrophe, he was worried it might be his fault. He had less personal motives as well, of course.
“You want me to talk to Ken?”
“If you think it’s appropriate. You have frequent opportunities to talk to him?” He said this casually.
“Vaygay, you’re not jealous, are you? I think you picked up on my feelings for Ken before I did. When you were back at Argus. Ken and I’ve been more or less together for the last two months. Do you have some reservations?”