“Perhaps the Yonderfolk think that far ahead,” Yu said low.
Nansen’s gaze brooded on the image. “All that time, all that effort,” he murmured, “when they have zero-zero — or did — and could go find new worlds. Why this?”
“We’ll learn, skipper,” Kilbirnie said.
“And learn how they’re doing it.” Zeyd’s enthusiasm drove off the momentary chill.
Brent’s eyes smoldered at the burning moonlets. “The power,” he said, deep in his throat. “The power.”
Envoy took orbit around the world of her quest.
It glowed as beautiful as expected, royal blue with a tinge of purple, wreathed and swirled with white. To adaptable human vision, the sun disk seemed well-nigh homelike.
Differences abounded. The planet was darker than Earth, of lower albedo, for only half was under water, there were no polar caps, and the vegetation covering most of the land ranged from red-brown to almost black. A single moon, small but close, showed a disk one-seventh the familiar width of Luna, like a tiny gold coin; scars had been smoothed over, and magnification revealed curious shapes scattered across the surface.
The humans’ attention was wholly on the planet. Rapt at their instruments and screens, they beheld forests, fields that clearly were tended, buildings that curved and soared, vehicles that skimmed and floated and flew, creatures walking about who must be the dwellers. Settlement was dispersed, with few concentrations, none comparable to a terrestrial metropolis. Much seemed to be underground, including fusion power plants, though most energy was evidently generated on the moon and beamed down via half a dozen artificial satellites.
“A clean nuclear cycle,” Dayan said when the neutrino spectrum had identified it for her. “Extremely high transmission efficiency. But nothing like the gigawattage at home. The population must be much less.”
“And less greedy?” wondered Sundaram.
The ship’s exocommunicators rolled through band after band, visible, infrared, radio, calling, calling.
No more than three breathless hours had passed when Nansen’s command rang through the wheel: “All hands to emergency stations. A spacecraft is approaching.”
His hands poised over the control console of the weapons. He expected no hostility, he prayed for none, but who could tell? After the robots in the star cluster, who could tell?
The vessel converged at a fractional g. It must have risen from the ground, for nothing like it had been in ambient space when Envoy arrived. Torpedo-shaped, coppery-hued, some fifty meters in length, it maneuvered as smoothly as an aircraft into the same orbit. There it took station, three kilometers ahead.
“N-n-no jets.” His crew had never before heard Nansen stammer. “Dios todopodcroso, how does it boost?”
“We’ll learn,” Kilbirnie called once more.
Silence stretched.
“They are probably scanning us,” Nansen said.
“Wouldn’t we do the same with surprise visitors?” Zeyd replied. “I think we can safely go back to our proper work, and be more useful.”
Nansen hesitated a bare second. “Yes. Engineers and boat pilots, stand by. The rest may leave their stations.”
“No, let me go outside,” Ruszek proposed. “Give them a look at one of us.”
Nansen considered. “That may be a good idea. Proceed.”
“Damn you, Lajos, you spoke first,” Kilbirnie lamented.
Before the mate had his spacesuit on, receivers awoke — visual flickers, audio clicks and glissandos; response from the Yonderfolk.
The quickness was not overly astonishing. Although it could not be expected that equipment would be compatible, scientists(?) should soon analyze what was coming in and devise means to send back the same kind of signals. Thereafter the humans could explain how to make audiovisual sets that would work together with their own. Best do it thus; the Yonderfolk undoubtedly had more resources, on a whole planet vis-a-vis a single spaceship from five thousand years ago.
Envoy’s database contained the work of many bright minds who had dreamed about exchanges with aliens. Programs were ready to go. After the simple initial flashes, messages became binary, describing diagrams on a grid defined by two prime numbers. By showing such easily recognizable things as the black-body curve of the sun and the orbiting of its planets, they established units of basic physical quantities, mass, length, time, temperature. The Yonderfolk replied similarly, with refinements — for instance, the quantum states of the hydrogen atom. Not everything was immediately comprehensible on either side, but computers sifted, tested, eliminated, deciphered, electronically fast. Nature herself was providing a common language.