Ben Bova - Voyagers 1 - Voyagers

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2024-12-07 0 0 573.84KB 303 页 5.9玖币
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Ben Bova
Voyagers
BOOK ONE
When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which
yon set in place, What is man that you should be mindful of him?
THE EIGHTH PSALM
CHAPTER 1
Professor Ramsey McDermott leaned back in his creaking old leather chair and
idly looked out his office window. The Yard was the same as it had been since
the first day he had seen it, almost half a century ago. Trees bright in their
October colors, students hurrying along the cement paths toward their
classrooms, or dawdling on the grass in little groups of two or three, deep in
earnest conversations.
A soft knock on his door snapped him out of his comfortable reverie. It's her,
he thought
As gruffly as he could, he called, "Come in!"
Jo Camerata stepped into the musty little office. I didn't realize she'd be so
attractive, McDermott mused to himself. No wonder she's getting away with
murder.
Jo was tall, with the dark, lustrous hair and ripe figure of a Mediterranean
beauty. She wore the student's inevitable jeans and sweater, but they clung to
her in a way that sent a surge through McDermott's blood. Her eyes were deep
and midnight black, but wary, uncertain, like a trapped animal's.
McDermott smiled to himself.
"Put your books down and take a seat," he commanded. There! That'll convince
her she's in for a long, tough grilling.
Jo sat in the straight-backed chair in front of his desk and held the books on
her lap, as if they could defend her. Looking at her, so young, so luscious,
McDermott realized that his office was gray with dust, littered with piles of
old papers and stacks of books, heavy with decades worth of stale pipe smoke.
He leaned forward slightly in his chair. "I hear you've become quite a
stranger to your classes these days."
Her eyes widened. "Dr. Thompson said it was all right. . ."
"He did, did he?"
"I've been helping him at the observatory -- with the new signals they've
picked up."
"And flunking out of every class you're in," McDermott groused.
"I can't be in two places at the same time," she pleaded. "Dr. Thompson asked
me to help him."
"I'm sure he did." McDermott picked a pipe from the rack, toyed with it,
enjoyed the way her frightened eyes followed every move his hands made.
"You've been helping Dr. Stoner, too, haven't you?"
"Dr. Stoner?" She looked away from him, toward the window. "No . . . not
really. I'm working for Dr. Thompson."
McDermott felt a flush of heat go through him at the way the sweater pulled
across her breasts, the helpless look in her eyes.
"You did some typing for Stoner. Don't try to deny it"
"Oh ... yes, I did."
"What was it?" he demanded. "What's he written?"
"I don't know. I just typed it, I didn't read it. Not in detail."
Jabbing the pipe at her, "Don't try to play games with me, young lady. You're
on the verge of being thrown out of this university. What did Stoner want
typed?"
"It's . . . it's a paper. A scientific paper. For publication in a journal."
"Which journal?"
"I don't know. He didn't say."
McDermott leaned back, and the old leather chair groaned under his weight. "A
paper about the radio signals?"
She nodded.
"And this object he's discovered?"
"That was in the paper, yes."
For a long moment McDermott said nothing. He sat back in the old leather
chair, calmly stripping Jo with his eyes. Enjoying the fact that she obviously
knew what he was thinking, but there was nothing she could do about it.
Finally he asked, "And what else have you done for Stoner?"
"Nothing!"
"Nothing? Really?"
"No . . ."
He pulled his face into its most threatening frown and growled, "Didn't you
ask one of the secretaries in this department about making a hotel reservation
in Washington?"
Jo shook her head. "That was only for Dr. Stoner. Himself. Not for me."
Then you have done something else for Stoner, haven't you?"
"I thought you meant typing. . . mailing. . ."
"What about this Washington trip?"
"I don't understand what that's got to do with my status as a student,
Professor."
He snarled back, "You don't have to understand, Miss Camerata. All you need to
know is that I can, toss you out on your pretty little rump if you don't
answer my questions completely and honestly. Instead of getting your degree
next June you'll be waiting on tables in some greasy spoon restaurant" He
hesitated, leaned back, smiling. "Or maybe dancing at a topless joint You'd be
better qualified for that"
She glared at him, but answered sullenly, "Dr. Stoner is going down to
Washington Sunday night He has an appointment to see his former boss at NASA
Headquarters on Monday morning. He wants to take his paper about the new
discovery with him."
"He does, does he?" McDermott rumbled. It was just what he'd feared: Stoner
was trying an end run. The ungrateful bastard. "Well, we shall see about
that!"
He reached for the phone, picked the receiver off its cradle. "You can go," he
said to Jo.
She blinked, surprised. "Am I still . . . you're not going to flunk me out?"
"I ought to," he growled. "But as long as Thompson vouches for you, I'll be
lenient. Providing you can pass the finals."
She nodded and quickly got to her feet. As she headed for the door, McDermott
added, "But you just keep away 'from that man Stoner."
"Yes, sir," she said obediently.
As soon as the door closed behind her, McDermott started dialing the special
number in Washington that he kept taped under the phone's receiver.
. . . when we do acquire the message ... it will be unmistakable ...
PHILIP MORRISON
Life Beyond Earth & The Mind of Man
Edited by Richard Berendzen
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
NASA SP-328
1973
CHAPTER 2
Jo drove straight to the observatory. Out through the narrow, traffic-clogged
streets of Cambridge, past Lexington's Battle Green, past the bridge at
Concord, out into the apple valleys and rolling hills bursting with colorful
autumn foliage, her mind seething:
That slimy old bastard is going to hurt Dr. Stoner. I've got to warn him. I've
got to warn him now;.
But Stoner was not in his office when Jo got to the observatory. The little
cubicle on the second floor of the observatory building was as neat and
precisely arranged as an equation, but he wasn't in it.
Jo saw a stack of photographs carefully placed in the center of Stoner's
otherwise bare desk. They were face down, and the back of the topmost photo
bore the blue-stamped legend: PROPERTY OF NATIONAL AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE
AGENCY -- NOT TO BE RELEASED WITHOUT OFFICIAL WRITTEN APPROVAL.
She turned the pictures over, one after another. The paper was stiff, heavy,
very expensive. The photographs showed views of a fat, flattened ball striped
by gaudy bandy of color: red, yellow, ocher, white. An oblong oval of brick
red glowed down in the lower quadrant of the sphere. The planet Jupiter.
Jo thumbed through all two dozen photographs. All of Jupiter. On some, two or
three of the giant planet's moons could be seen: tiny specks compared to
Jupiter's immense bulk.
She glanced at her Timex wristwatch. No way to get back in time for her first
afternoon class. With a resigned shrug, she went to the window and separated
the blinds enough to look out.
He was on the back parking lot, doing his karate exercises. Jo watched as he
stood rigidly straight, his dark face somber and tight-lipped, his big hands
bunched into fists just below the black belt that he was so proud of. For a
moment he did nothing, merely stared blankly ahead, a tall, powerful man with
jet black hair and brooding gray eyes, flat midsection and long, slim,
athlete's legs.
Then he was all motion and fury, arms slashing and legs kicking in an
intricate deadly pattern. It was like ballet almost, but violent, powerful,
urgent
Not a sound came from him as he swirled down the length of the blacktopped lot
Then he stopped just as suddenly as he had started, arms upraised and knees
flexed in an alert defensive posture. He straightened slowly, let his arms
drop to his sides.
She was afraid for a moment that he would glance up and see her at his office
window, watching him. But he turned his back to the building, drew himself
together and began another series of violent karate actions, kicking,
slashing, punching the empty air all the way back to the far end of the
parking lot
Jo pulled herself away from the window. If she hurried, she knew she could
make the last class of the afternoon. But she had to talk to him, tell him
about Professor McDermott's strange interest in his trip to Washington. That
was more important than the class.
Briefly she thought about putting a note atop the pile of photos on his desk.
But she decided against it. She would wait for him, wait while he showered and
changed back into his regular clothes and came back to his office. She would
miss the late class, but that didn't matter. Seeing him was more important.
Not that he cared. She was just another one of the anonymous students who
fetched and carried for the famous Dr. Stoner, the former astronaut who now
worked at the observatory, alone, aloof, handsome and mysterious. But he will
care, Jo promised herself. He'll notice me. I'll make him notice me.
Keith Stoner let his shoulders slump and his arms hang wearily at his sides.
He was covered with a fine sheen of sweat; it beaded along his brows and
dripped, stinging, into his eyes. But the cool afternoon breeze would soon
chill him, he knew, if he didn't get indoors quickly.
It hadn't worked. Nothing works anymore, he thought bitterly. Tae kwon do is a
mental discipline even more than a physical one. It should help him to reach
inner calm and self-control. But all Stoner felt was a burning anger, a hot,
unrelenting rage that smoldered in his guts.
It's all finished, he told himself for the thousandth time. Everything's gone.
He pulled himself together, took the "ready" stance and heard his old Korean
instructor hissing at him, "Focus. Focus! Speed you have. Strength you have.
But you must learn to focus your concentration. Focus!"
He tried to blank out bis mind, but in the darkness behind his closed eyes he
saw the orbiting telescope gleaming, glittering in the harsh sunlight of
space, a fantastic jewelwork of shining metal and sparkling mirrors floating
against the eternal black of infinity. And scattered around it, like acolytes
serving some giant silver idol, were tiny men in space suits.
Stoner had been one of those men.
Ex-astronaut, he thought grimly. Ex-astrophysicist. With an ex-marriage and an
ex-family. Part of the team that had designed and built Big Eye, the orbiting
telescope. Stuck now in a backwater radio observatory, alone, getting a
paycheck that's more charity than salary.
But I'll show them. I'll show them all! He knew he was onto something big. So
big that it would have frightened him if he weren't so determined to startle
the whole world with his discovery.
But he was startled himself when the big antenna started to move. The
grinding, squealing noise made him look across the empty lot to the sixty-foot
"dish" of the radio telescope. It was turning slowly, painfully, like an
arthritic old man trying to turn his head, to point itself toward the distant
wooded hills. They should have scrapped this antique long ago, Stoner thought
as he watched the radio telescope antenna inch groan-ingly along. Just like
they've scrapped me.
The antenna was a big spiderwork of steel frame and metal mesh, a thin shallow
circular bowl, like a giant's soap dish. It had been pointing high up in the
sky overhead, drinking in the radio waves emitted by untbinkably distant star
clouds.
Stoner frowned at the radio dish. Somehow, it bothered him to realize that the
radio telescope worked just as well in daylight as at night. It worked in rain
or fog. The only thing that bothered the radio telescope was an accumulation
of snow across its broad, shallow bowl. The bigger, more modem telescopes were
housed in neat geodesic domes that protected them from snow. This old-timer
wasn't worth the cost of a protective dome. The staff technicians went out and
swept the snow off with brooms.
But this old dish has picked up something that none of the newer telescopes
has found, Stoner said to himself. When the rest of them find out, they'll
hock their left testicles to get in on the game.
He looked up into the bright, cloudless October sky. Autumn was being kind to
Massachusetts. No hurricanes so far. The trees were in splendid color --
blazing reds, glowing oranges, browns and golden yellows, with clumps of dark
green pine and spruce scattered across the gentle hills.
But above the crest of the wooded ridge, invisible to human eyes in the crisp
blue afternoon sky, the planet Jupiter was rising.
And the radio telescope was pointing straight at it.
Stoner shuddered and headed back inside the observatory. He did not notice the
unmarked black Plymouth sitting in the tiny visitors' parking section out in
front of the building. Nor the two grim-faced men in conservative gray
business suits sitting inside die car.
Showered and back in his open-neck shirt, slacks and sweater, Stoner looked
over the main room of the observatory, a slight frown of distaste on his face.
An astronomical observatory should look shadowy, sepulchral, like a domed
cathedral with a huge optical telescope slanting upward toward the heavens.
Men should speak in awed whispers. There ought to be echoes and worshipful
footsteps clicking on a solid cement floor.
The radio observatory looked like the bargain basement of an electronics hobby
shop and bustled like an old-fashioned newspaper city room. Desks were jammed
together in the middle of the room. Papers scattered everywhere, even across
the floor. Electronics consoles tall as refrigerators lined all the walls,
humming and whirring to themselves. Men and women, all younger than Stoner,
yelled back and forth. The room vibrated at sixty cycles per second and
smelled faintly of solder and machine oil.
They were almost all students, Stoner knew. Graduate students, even some post-
docs. But the regular staff itself was little more than thirty years old. Old
McDermott was the nominal head of the observatory, chairman of the department
and all that. The real day-to-day boss was Jeff Thompson, who was waving to
Stoner from the far side of the island of desks set in the sea of paper.
"Want to hear it?" Thompson called.
Stoner nodded and started around the desks.
"Dr. Stoner," one of the women students said to him, reaching for his arm.
"Can I talk to you for a minute? Professor . . ."
"Not now," Stoner said, hardly glancing at her.
Thompson was a sandy-haired middleweight with the pleasant, undistinguished
features of the kid next door. An assistant professor at the university, he
was nearly Stoner's age, the "grand old man" of the regular observatory staff.
"It's coming through loud and clear," Thompson said as Stoner approached him.
With a relaxed grin he reached across the nearest desk and pulled a battered
old set of earphones from under a heap of papers.
"We hardly ever use these," he said. "But I thought you'd like to actually
listen to what we're getting."
Stoner accepted the headphones from Thompson and walked with him to the
humming consoles along the wall. Thompson held the wires leading from the
earphones in one hand. We must look like a man walking his dog, Stoner
thought.
Thompson plugged the wire lead into a jack on the console and nodded to
Stoner, who slipped the earphones over his head. They were thick with heavy
padding. All the noise of the bustling room was cut off. Thompson's mouth
moved but Stoner couldn't hear what he was saving.
"Nothing," Stoner told him, hearing his own voice inside his head, as if he
were stuffed up with a sinus cold. "Nothing's coming through."
Thompson nodded and clicked a few switches on the console. Stoner heard a
whirring screech that quickly rose in pitch until it soared beyond the range
of human hearing. Then the low hissing, scratching electronic static of the
steady sky background noise -- the sound of endless billions of stars and
clouds of interstellar gases all mingled together.
He began to shake his head when it finally came through: a deep rumbling bass
note, barely a whisper but unmistakably different from the background noise.
Stoner nodded and Thompson turned a dial on the console ever so slightly.
The heavy sound grew slightly louder, then faded away. In a split second it
returned, then faded again. Stoner stood in the middle of the silenced hubbub
of the busy room, listening to the pulses of energy throbbing in his ears like
the deep, slow breath-ing of a slumbering giant
He closed his eyes and saw the giant -- the planet Jupiter.
The radio telescope was picking up pulses of radio energy streaming out from
Jupiter. Pulses that were timed more precisely than a metronome, timed as
accurately as the clicks of a quartz watch. Pulses that had no natural
explanation.
Slowly he pulled the heavy earphones off.
"That's it," he said to Thompson over the bustle of the room.
Thompson bobbed his head up and down. "That's it." He took the headset from
Stoner and held it up to his ear. "Yep, that's what it sounds like. Regular as
clockwork."
"And nobody's ever heard it before?"
"No, nothing like it Not from Jupiter or any other planet" Thompson unplugged
the earphones and tossed them back onto his desk, scattering papers in every
direction. "It's not on the same frequency as the pulsars, or the same
periodicity. It's something brand new."
Stoner scratched his thick, dark hair. "What do you think is causing it?"
Grinning, Thompson answered, "That's why we brought you here. You tell me."
With a slow nod, Stoner said, "You know what I think, Jeff."
"Intelligent life."
"Right."
Thompson puffed his cheeks and blew out a breath. "That's a big one."
"Yeah."
He left Thompson standing there, lost in his own thoughts, and headed for the
stairs that led up to his second-floor office. The same young student fell in
step alongside him.
"Dr. Stoner, can I speak with you for a minute?"
He glanced at her. "Sure, Ms. . . . ?"
"Camerata. Jo Camerata."
He started up the steps without a second look at her. Jo dogged along behind
him.
"It's about Professor McDermott," she said.
"Big Mac? What's he want?"
"I think it's better if we talk in your office, with the door closed."
"Well, that's where I'm heading."
"You were out there, weren't you?" Jo asked, to his back. "You helped build
Big Eye, out there in orbit."
They reached the top of the stairs and he turned around to take a good look at
her. She was young, tall, with the classic kind of face you might find on a
Greek vase. Black short-cropped hai" curled thickly to frame her strong
cheekbones and jawline. Her jeans clung to her full hips, her sweater
accentuated her bosom.
An astronaut groupie? Stoner asked himself as he replied, "Yes, I was part of
the design and construction team for the orbital telescope. That's why Big Mac
invited me here, because I can sweet-talk my old buddies into sneaking some
shots of Jupiter to us."
It was quieter up on the second floor, although the floor still hummed with
electric vibrations. Stoner stalked down the narrow hallway, Jo trailing half
a step behind him. He opened the door to the tiny office they had given him.
Two men were inside: one by the window where Jo had been standing earlier; the
other beside the door.
"Dr. Keith Stoner?" asked the one by the window. He was the smaller of the
two. Stoner's desk, with the photographs of Jupiter scattered across it, stood
between them.
Stoner nodded. The man by the window was inches shorter than Stoner, but
solidly built. The one beside him, at the door, hulked like a football
lineman. Professional football. They were both conservatively dressed in gray
business suits. Both had taut, clean-shaven faces.
"Naval Intelligence," said the man by the window. He fished a wallet from his
inside jacket pocket and dangled it over the desk. It held an official-looking
identification card.
"Will you come with us, please?"
"What do you mean? Where . . . ?"
"Please, Dr. Stoner. It's very important."
The big agent by the door gripped Stoner's arm around the biceps. Lightly but
firmly. The smaller man came around the desk and the three of them started
down the hallway in step.
Jo Camerata stood by Stoner's office door, gaping at them. The expression on
her face was not shock or even anger. It was guilt.
. . . Jansky had unexpectedly recorded radio waves from the Galaxy while
investigating . . . crackles and noises that interfere with radio
communication. Jansky's discovery in 1932 marked the first successful
observation in radio astronomy. It is indeed strange that it took so long to
recognise that radio waves were reaching us from celestial sources.
The Evolution of Radio Astronomy
Science History Publications
1973
CHAPTER 3
In Moscow it was nearly 11 P.M. A gentle snow was sifting out of the heavy,
leaden sky, covering the oldest monuments and newest apartment blocks alike
with a fine white powder. By dawn, old men and women would be at their posts
along every street, methodically sweeping the snow off the sidewalks for the
lumbering mechanical plows to scoop up.
Kirill Markov glanced at the clock on the bed stand.
"That tickles," said the girl.
He looked down at her. For a moment he could not recall her name. It was hard
to make out her face in the darkness, but the golden luster of her long
sweeping hair caught the faint light of the streetlamp outside the window.
Nadia, he remembered at last. Sad, a part of his mind reflected, that when you
pursue a woman you can think of nothing else, but once you've got her she
becomes so forgettable.
Woman! he snorted to himself. She's only a girl.
"You're tickling me!"
Markov saw that his beard was the culprit and, moving his chin in a tiny
circle, ran the end of the whiskers around the nipple of her right breast.
She giggled and clutched him around the neck.
"Can you do it again?" she asked.
"In English," Markov said to her in a gentle whisper. "Our bargain was that
all our lovemaking will be done in English. It is the best way to learn a
foreign language."
She pressed her lips together and frowned with concentration. Her face is
really quite ordinary, Markov thought. Vapid, even.
Still frowning, she said slowly in English, "Are you able to fork me another
time?" Her accent was atrocious.
Suppressing a laugh, Markov said, "Fuck . . . not fork."
She nodded. "Are you able to fuck me another time?"
"That word is considered to be in bad taste by the English and the Americans.
Not so by the Australians."
"Fork?"
"No. Fuck. They usually employ a euphemism for the word."
"Euphemism?"
Markov's eyes rolled heavenward. She'll never pass the exams, no matter whose
bed she flops into. As he explained in Russian the meaning of the word, he
mentally added, Unless she can fuck the computer.
"Now I understand," Nadia said in English.
"Good," he said.
"Well, can you?"
"Can I what?"
"You know . . ."
"Ah!" Realizing that her mind had not deviated from its carnal goal, he
replied, "Make love to you once again? Gladly! With white-hot passion. But not
now. It is time for you to get back to your dormitory."
In Russian she bleated, "Must I? It's so cozy and warm here." Her fingers
traced lines down his shoulder and back.
摘要：

BenBovaVoyagersBOOKONEWhenIbeholdyourheavens,theworkofyourfingers,themoonandstarswhichyonsetinplace,Whatismanthatyoushouldbemindfulofhim?THEEIGHTHPSALMCHAPTER1ProfessorRamseyMcDermottleanedbackinhiscreakingoldleatherchairandidlylookedouthisofficewindow.TheYardwasthesameasithadbeensincethefirstdayheh...

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