The last vid monitor-reading was fifteen years old. Since then direct contact via teleportation gear had made such ancient hardware obsolete. And hence the original unmanned monitors, in orbit around Fomalhaut—
Had what? Been abandoned, according to author Purdy. Their batteries turned off by remote instruct; they still, presumably, circled the sun within the orbit of Whale’s Mouth.
They were still there.
And their batteries, having been off all these years, had conserved, not expended, energy. And they were of the advanced liquid-helium III type.
Was this what Matson had wanted him to know?
Returning to the reference spool he ran it, ran it, again and again, until he had the datum at last. The most sophisticated vid monitor belonged to Vidphone Corporation of Wes-Dem. They would know if it, called Prince Albert B-y, was still in orbit around Fomalhaut.
He started toward his vidphone, then stopped. After all, it was tapped. So instead he left his conapt, left the huge building entirely, joined a ped-runnel until he spied a public phonebooth.
There, he called the Vidphone Corporation, its central offices in Detroit, open on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis.
“Give me your archives,” he instructed the robot switchboard.
Presently a human, wizened but efficient-looking, gnome-like official in a gray jacket, like a bookkeeper, appeared. “Yeah?”
“I’m inquiring,” Rachmael said, “as to the Prince Albert B-y mon-sat put in orb around Fomalhaut seventeen years ago. I’d like you to check as to whether it’s still in orb and if it is, how it can be activated so—”
The signal went dead. At the other end the Vidphone Corporation official had hung up. He waited. The Vidphone switchboard did not come onto the wire, nor did the regular, local robot.
I’ll be darned, Rachmael thought. Shaken, he left the phonebooth.
He continued on aboard the runnel until at last he reached a second public phonebooth.
Entering he this time dialed Matson Glazer-Holliday’s satellite. Presently he had the owner of Lies Incorporated again facing him from the screen.
Carefully, Rachmael said, “Sorry to bother you. But I’ve been running info spools on the original unmanned monitors of the Fomalhaut system.”
“Learn anything?”
“I asked,” Rachmael said, “the Vidphone Corporation of Wes-Dem if its Prince Albert B-y—”
“And they said?”
Rachmael said, “They immediately cut the con.”
“It,” Matson said, “is still up. Still in orb.”
“And sending out signals?”
“Not for fifteen years. At hyper-see it takes its signals one week to cross the twenty-four light-year gap to the Sol system. Rather shorter than it would require for the Omphalos to reach the Fomalhaut system.”
“Is there any way to once more activate the satellite?”
“Vidphone Corp could contact it direct, through a Telpor,” Matson said. “If they wanted to.”
“Do they?”
After a pause Matson said, “Did they cut you off just now?”
Pondering, Rachmael said, “Can someone else give the impulse to the satellite?”
“No. Only the Vidphone Corp knows the sequence which would cause it to respond.”
“Is this what you wanted me to find out?” Rachmael asked.
Smiling, Matson Glazer-Holliday said, “Goodbye, Mr. ben Applebaum. And good luck, as you continue your research.” He then hung up, and once more Rachmael faced a dead screen.
At his villa, Matson turned away from the vidset to Freya Holm, who perched on the couch, legs tucked under her, wearing a high-fashion transparent spidersilk blue blouse and meter-reader’s pants. “He found it,” Matson said. “Right away. That about the P.A. B-y sat.” Pacing, Matson scowled. “All right.” He had decided. “Our rep, under the cover-name Bergen Phillips, will be sent to Whale’s Mouth six hours from now. By way of the THL outlet at Paris. As soon as he’s at Whale’s Mouth he’ll transmit to us, through the Telpor, an encoded document describing the true conditions.” But probably THL’s people would have nabbed “Bergen Phillips” by then, and, through techniques well-known in the trade, have learned all that the Lies Incorporated veteran knew; they would then send a faked encoded message, assuring Matson that all was well—and he would never know, on receipt of such a message, whether it truly emanated from “Bergen Phillips” or from THL. However—
Freya saw it, too. “Have this rep, once he’s across, give the activating sequence to the P.A. B-y sat. So it’ll start transmitting data to the Sol system direct, once again.”
“If,” Matson said, “If it still will function after fifteen years. And if the Vidphone Corp does not countermand the instruct the moment data starts to flow in.” However, he could tap the Vidphone Corp’s lines and pick up even that initial meager data. What he might obtain before the flow ceased coming in might be a graphic pan-shot of Whale’s Mouth—and then so what if the sat was shut off once more.
As naturally it would be, since THL controlled the Vidphone Corp.
“Just one good vid shot,” Matson said. “And we’ll know.”
“Know what?” She reached to set down her drink glass on the nearby antique genuine glass-topped coffee table.
Matson said, “I’ll tell you that, dear, when I see the shot.” He went to the comboard, sent out the already implemented request for the field rep who was to cross over to Whale’s Mouth to be brought to his satellite. These instructs had to be given orally and not over lines; to line it was to howl it broadcast.
In fact perhaps he had already communicated too much to Rachmael. But—in such a business one took risks. And he could assume that Rachmael’s callback had emanated from a public booth; the man, although an amateur, was at least cautious. And these days such caution was not paranoid; it was practical.
On the TV screen in 3-D color with olfactory track the round, jovial features of President Omar Jones of Newcolonizedland said, “You folks there on good old overcrowded Terra”—and, behind him, faded in a scene of miles of open veldt-like park—”you amaze us. We hear you’re going to send a ship here, by hyper-see, and it’ll arrive in . . . let’s see.” He pretended to be contemplating.
Before the set (not quite paid for) Jack McElhatten, a hard-working, easy-going, good-natured guy, said to his wife, “Chrissakes, look at that open land.” It reminded him of his sweet, fragile childhood, of years ago and now gone, the Oregon Trail part of Wyoming west of Cheyenne. And the desire, the yearning, grew in him. “We have to emigrate,” he said to Ruth then. “We owe it to our kids. They can grow up as—”
“Shh,” Ruth said.
On the screen President Omar Jones of Newcolonizedland said, “In just about eighteen years, folks, that ship will arrive this way and park down. So here’s what we’ve done; we’ve set aside November 24, 2032, as Flying Dutchman Day. The day that ship reaches us.” He chuckled. “I’ll be, um, ninety-four and, sorry to say, probably not here to participate in Flying Dutchman Day. But maybe posterity, including some of you young folks—”
“You hear that?” McElhatten said to his wife, incredulous. “Some nut is going to go the old way. Eighteen years in ‘tween space! When all you have to do—”
“BE QUIET,” Ruth said, furiously, trying to listen.
“—be here to greet this Mr. Applebaum,” President Omar Jones intoned in clowning solemnity. “Banners, vox-pop streamers . . . we should have a population of between, well, say, one billion, then, but still plenty of land. We can take up to two billion, you know, and still leave plenty of room. So come on and join us; cross over and be here to celebrate Flying Dutchman Day, folks.” He waved, and, it seemed to Jack McElhatten, this man at Whale’s Mouth was waving directly to him. And, within him, the yearning grew.
The frontier, he thought. Their neighbors in the tiny cramped conapt with which they shared a bathroom . . . or had, up until last month, at which point the Pattersons had emigrated to Whale’s Mouth. The vid-sig letters from Jerome Patterson; god, they had raved about conditions across on the other side. If anything, the info spots—ads, to be exact—had understated the beauty of the real-sit over there. The beauty—and the opportunity.
“We need men,” President Omar Jones was declaring. “Good strong men who can do any kind of work. Are you that man? Able, willing, with get-up-and-go, over eighteen years of age? Willing to start a new life, using your mind and your hands, the skills God gave you? Think about it. What are you doing with those hands, those skills, right now?”
Doing quality-control on an autofac line, McElhatten thought to himself bitterly; a job which a pigeon could do better; fact was, a pigeon did do so, to check his work.
“Can you imagine,” he said to his wife, “holding down a job where a pigeon has a better eye than you for mis-tolerances?” And that was exactly his situation; he ejected parts which were not properly aligned, and, when he missed, the pigeon noted the miss, the defective part allowed to pass: it picked out the misaligned part, pecked a reject-button which kicked the part from the moving belt. And, as they quit and emigrated, the quality control men at Krino Associates were, one by one, replaced by pigeons.