“I go to school – I will be going – during the day. Can we audition performers at night? I would expect so. We have to fit the job in around my school schedule.”
“You don’t want much,” I said, a little nettled.
“I’ve got to go to school again; I lost so much time while I was sick.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling guilty now.
“Sometimes,” Sadassa said, “I get the feeling that the government gave me cancer. Gave me a carcinogen to deliberately make me sick. It’s only by a miracle that I survived.”
“Good God,” I said, jolted; I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it was so, everything considered. With her background. With what she knew, what she was. “Why would they want to do that?”
“I don’t know; why would they? I’m paranoid, I realize that. But strange things happen these days. Two of my friends have disappeared. I think they’re sticking “em in those camps.”
My phone rang. I picked it up and found myself talking to Rachel. Her voice shook with excitement. “Nick – “
Tm with a client,” I said.
“Have you seen today’s LA TimesT
“No,” I said.
“Go get it. You have to read it. Page three, the right-hand column.”
Tell me what it says,” I said.
“You’ve got to read it. It explains the experiences you’ve been having. Please Nick; go look at it. It really does!”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I hung up. “Excuse me,” I said to Sadassa. “I have to go out front to the newspaper thing.” I left my office, went down the hall to the big outside glass doors.
A moment later I had a copy of the Times and was carrying it back, reading it as I walked.
On page three in the right-hand column I found this article:
SOVIET ASTROPHYSICIST REPORTS RADIO SIGNALS FROM INTELLIGENT LIFE
Not from outer space as expected but emanating close to Earth.
Standing there in the hall, I read the article. The foremost Soviet astrophysicist, Georgi Moyashka, using a collection of interlinked radio telescopes, had picked up what he believed to be deliberate signals from a sentient life form, these signals containing the characteristics that Moyashka had anticipated finding. The big surprise, however, was their point of origin: within our solar system, which no one, including Moyashka himself, had anticipated. The US space people had already gone on record as saying that the signal undoubtedly emanated from old satellites put into space and then forgotten, but Moyashka was certain that the signals were of alien origin. So far he and his team had been unable to decode them.
The signals came in short bursts from a moving source that seemed to be circling Earth, perhaps six thousand miles away; they came on an unexpected ultrahigh frequency, rather than as short-wave emissions with greater carrying distance. The transmitter appeared to be powerful. One odd point that Moyashka had noted which he could not account for was the fact that the radio signals came only when the source was above Earth’s dark or night side; during the day the signals ceased. Moyashka conjectured that the so-called Heaviside layer might be involved.
The signals, although short in duration, seemed “highly information rich” because of their sophistication and complexity. Curiously, the frequency changed periodically, a phenomenon found in transmissions seeking to avoid jamming, Moyashka stated. Further, his team had discovered, entirely by accident, that animals in their Pul-kovo laboratory underwent slight but regular physical changes during the time of signal transmission. Their blood volume altered and their blood pressure readings increased. Provisionally, Moyashka conjectured that radiation accompanying the radio signals might account for it. The Soviets (the article finished) planned to launch a satellite of their own to intercept the orbit of this Earth-rotating transmitter to confirm their theory that it was a satellite not of terrestrial origin. They hoped to photograph it.
From the pay phone in the hall I called Rachel back. “I read it,” I said. “But Phil and I already have a theory.”
Bitingly, Rachel said, “This isn’t a theory; this is a fact. I heard it on the noon news, too. It’s real, even if we deny it, the US denies it. I looked up Dr Moyashka in your Britannica; there’s an article on him. He discovered volcanic activity on the moon and some kind of thing on Mercury; I didn’t understand it, but every time, people said he was wrong or crazy. Stalin had him in a forced labor camp for years. He’s highly esteemed; he’s a big wheel in the Russian space program, and the radio today says he heads their CETI Project – „Contacting Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.“ They’re using telepathy and everything; they’re really wild.”
“Did the radio say how long they think the satellite’s been transmitting?”
“The Russians just picked it up recently. They don’t know anything about before that. But listen – short intense high-frequency bursts, always at night. Don’t you receive your pictures and words around three A.M.? It fits, Nick! It does! You and Phil were thinking anyhow maybe it’s a satellite orbiting Earth! I remember both of you talking about that!”
“Our new theory -” I began
“The hell with your new theory,” Rachel said. “This is the biggest news in the history of the world! I’d think you’d be out of your mind with excitement!”
“I am,” I said. “Catch you later.” I hung up and returned to my office, where Sadassa Silvia sat, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said to her.
“The phone rang while you were out of the office,” Sadassa said. “I didn’t think I should answer it.”
“It’ll ring again,” I said.
The phone rang. I picked it up and said hello. It was Phil; he had heard the news on the radio. Like Rachel, he was highly excited.
“I read about it in the Times,” I informed him.
“Did the Times article mention that it broadcasts on the same frequencies our FM and TV sound travels on?” Phil said. The scientist I heard commenting, from some US space laboratory, says that virtually rules out the possibility that it’s one of our own satellites since ours don’t broadcast on commercial frequencies. Listen, Nick; he said its signals would interfere with FM and TV reception so we might have to destroy it. But what I was thinking -remember when you heard that weird shit on your radio at night, as if it were talking to you? And we conjectured about a satellite override? Nick, this may be it! This thing when it transmits might very well override. And the scientist said, the one I heard commenting, that it doesn’t broadcast in the strict sense of the word, that it’s narrow tight beams, directed; „broadcast“ means in all directions, everywhere equally. This satellite’s signals don’t propagate in all -”
“Phil,” I broke in, “I’ve got somebody with me right now. Can I get back to you tonight?”
“Sure,” Phil said, mollified. “But you know, Nick, this could explain it; it really could. You’re transducing these unusual alien signals.”
“Catch you later, Phil,” I said, and hung up. I did not want to discuss it in front of Sadassa Silvia. Or anyone else, for that matter. Although, I thought, I may be discussing it with Ms Silvia one of these days, when the time is right; when I’ve sounded her out sufficiently beforehand.
Sadassa said, “Was it the article in the Times about „prisons are a source of wealth“? That pitch for slave labor under the guise of psychological rehabilitation? „Convicts need not be indoors, wasting years of their lives in idleness, rather, th^y could – „ Let’s see, how did they put it? „Convicts could work out under the warm sun in labor groups rebuilding slums, contributing to urban renewal, and hippies could make their contribution to society, side by side with them and also the youth who can’t get jobs. …“ I felt like writing in to say, „And when they die of overwork and starvation they can contribute their bodies in giant ovens, and we can melt them down into useful bars of soap.““
“No,” I said, “it wasn’t that article.” The alien satellite, then?” Presently I nodded. Sadassa said, “It’s a fake. Or rather, it’s one of ours and we won’t admit it. It’s a propaganda satellite we use to beam down subliminal material to the Soviet people. That’s why it broadcasts on commercial FM and TV frequencies and alters its transmission frequency at random intervals. The Soviet people get eighth-of-a-second stills of happy Americans eating all the food they want, shit like that. The Russians know it and we know it. They beam down to us from unauthorized satellites and we do the same to them. They’re going to shoot it down; that’s what they’re up to. I don’t blame them.”
It sounded convincing, except that it scarcely explained why the Soviet Union’s foremost astrophysicist would make the announcement he had made – Moyashka had put his vast reputation on the line again, claiming the satellite to be extraterrestrial in origin. It seemed doubtful that a man of his probity would become embroiled in a strictly political matter.