As the currents find their way through metallic corridors, wandering, the EMs tap into an outcropping of the seam and drink of the rushing river of electrons, sucking in to charge their capacitor banks, feasting, spilling it into radio waves as they celebrate this renewal of themselves. They soak from the land itself the high-quality energy, without having to undergo the slow and painstaking process of finding chemical foods, digesting them, transferring molecular binding energy into stored electrical potentials.
A joyful strumming life swells and pours into the EMs. Nigel sees in the jagged leaping orange sparks the last link, sees how Isis swings around Ra, the long ellipse taking it now closer, now farther from its star, so that the tidal force first stretches and then compresses Isis, kneading and heating the planetary core like a thick pastry. The energy coming from the orbital angular momentum of the Isis-Ra system, an eternal energy source, endlessly churning the crust of Isis, subducting metals in the soil and then in turn thrusting them, molten, from the mouths of the mountains, the iron-rich rivers snaking and seeking the center of the planet again, driving currents, stripping electrons from the iron, a vast and perpetual generator changing gravitational energy to useful electrical forms, an energy which no other creature than the EMs can tap, giving them the edge they need on this sluggish rust-world, making possible their radio eye and with it a steady survey of the sky, searching for an answering strum of electromagnetic song, a vigil that had gone on now for aeons without machines or computers or the army of mindless servants men have made to help them. Here these creatures had harnessed the grinding workings of the planets themselves, all to survive, all to call a plaintive note into a still and silent sky.
Nigel moves softly away from them, lingering to see the solemn chorusing shapes, singing, bathed in bright sparking bonfires of electrowealth burning through the dusty murk, like rockets straining to lift off, where forever three or more shall gather together a syllable will be cast out into the night, and smiling, Nigel knows that the time has finally come to answer.
Eight
Ted Landon was pulling the meeting toward a reluctant conclusion. Nigel watched him, reflecting. Ted called up reports from the exploration teams, from planetary survey, from the subsection on Ra, from inboard systems. A flat wallscreen displayed alternatives; Ted went through the suggested missions, assigning weighted returns-versus-risks factors. Each time a section leader digressed into detail, or shifted the topic, Ted brought him back into line. The staccato cadences by which he disciplined came from his nervous system, immutable.
“Well, the big sweep we tried two days back—following on the Walmsley-Daffler discoveries—doesn’t seem to have paid off. Am I right?” Raised eyebrows, inquiring looks around the table. Nods. Nigel nodded, too, for indeed the men and women who swarmed over that volcanic zone had not learned anything more of importance. The EM “villages” were simple shelters and little more. Some of the caves held piles of artfully worked rock; others were bare, with only alcoves clogged with EM droppings to mark their use. In a few, elaborate designs were scratched into the walls and filled with scraps of superconducting stuff. To the EMs these might be art; just as easily, the complex spirals and jagged lines might be history, literature, or graffiti.
Ted segued smoothly into a summary of other missions on Isis surface. They were tracing the outline of a complex ecology, but there were still large holes to fill in. What happened to the ancient EM cities? Why were there no other semiconductor-type nervous systems in the Isis ecology?
“All very interesting,” Ted said mildly. “But to many of us”—his eyes swept the length of the table—“the standout puzzle is the two satellites. How did they get there? Are they all that is left of the EM technology? Why—”
“Look,” Nigel interrupted, “it’s clear where you’re headed. You want to pay a visit.”
“Well, you’re jumping the gun again, Nigel, but yes. We do.”
“That’s too flaming dangerous.”
“They’re ancient, Nigel. Spectrophotometry shows the artificial component of those satellites—the metals, any-way—were smelted and formed well over a million years ago.”
“Old doesn’t mean dead.”
“Nigel, I know what you’re angling for.” Ted smiled sympathetically, his manner becoming milder. Nigel wondered how much of it was a controlled response. “You want first contact. The EMs still don’t know we’re here, if our tricks have functioned adequately—I’m pretty sure your radio blanket notion has worked out, Bob—and I want to keep it that way. Our directives, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone here, are to stay invisible until we fully understand the situation.”
“Pretty clear,” Bob said laconically.
“Until you inquire into the definition of ‘fully understand,’ perhaps so,” Nigel retorted. “But we’ve seen the EMs. They’ve tried to catch our attention already. And we don’t know bugger all about the satellites.”
Ted laced his fingers and turned his palms up, a diffuse gesture Nigel recognized as meaning What are you trying to say? with a hint of irritation, a sign all at the table would get, while simultaneously Ted said calmly, completely without any irked tone in his voice, “Surely a well-preserved artifact will tell us more about the high period of this civilization—”
“If it’s from here, yes.”
Ted’s eyes widened theatrically. “You think the Snark came from here? Or the Marginis wreck?”
“Of course not. However, in the absence of knowledge—”
“That absence is precisely why I feel—as does the majority of this panel, I take it—that we should keep our distance from the EMs for a while.” The section leaders around the table agreed with silent nods.
“They aren’t nearly as potentially dangerous to this mission,” Nigel said. “And they’re native life-forms. We have things in common, we must. Any opportunity for our kind of life to communicate—”
“Our kind?”
“The machine civilizations are out here somewhere, too.”
“Ummm.” Ted made a show of considering the point. “How prevalent do you think life is, Nigel?”
A sticky point. Isis was the sole source of artificial transmissions that astronomers had found in over half a century of cupping an ear to every conceivable part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Nigel paused a moment and then said, “Reasonably.”
“Oh? Why the radio silence, then? Except for Isis?”
“Ever been to a cocktail party where the person who’s unsure of himself babbles away? And everyone else keeps quiet?”
Ted smiled. “Lord protect me from analogies. The galaxy isn’t a cocktail party.”
Nigel smiled, too. He had no way of reversing the decision here, but he could show the flag. “Probably. But I think it’s not an open house, either.”
“Well, let’s knock on a door and see,” Ted replied.
Nigel found Nikka and Carlotta cooking an elaborate concoction at the apartment. They were peppering slivers of white meat and rolling them in scented oils. There were savories to fold in and each woman worked solemnly, deftly, the myriad small decisions provoking a phrase here, an extended deliberation there, all weaving a bond he knew well. Not the right moment to break in.