Hutch came off the bridge, poured herself a cup of coffee, and sat down. She sipped it, made a face, and let her head drift back. “We’ll recharge the Locarno. Then jump in closer.” Where they’d be able to rendezvous with the McAdams.
“Very good.” Antonio frowned at the coffee. “Time like this,” he said, “we should do better.” He got up, went back to his compartment, brought out a bottle of wine, pulled the cork, and filled three glasses.
Rudy accepted his with a not-quite-congenial smile. “It might be a bit premature,” he said.
“Hutch.” Phyl’s voice.
“What have you got, Phyllis?”
“Radio signals.”
“Matt?”
“Negative. But they are artificial. They appear to be coming from our destination.”
“Makai 4417.”
“Yes. It would appear that whoever sent out the chindi is still functioning.”
DURING THE THIRTY-ONE years that had elapsed since the discovery of the chindi, fourteen of its stealth satellites had been found orbiting inhabited worlds or places of other scientific interest, like the Retreat, the odd shelter found near the Twins and since moved to the banks of the Potomac. The satellites formed an intricate communications web, recording significant events or features at each location and relaying them from site to site until finally they arrived out here at Makai 4417.
The civilizations under observation had long since passed out of existence. Whatever cultures they had nurtured had collapsed, and the current natives in every case had vanished into jungles and forests or disappeared altogether. The disintegration had, in several cases, been induced, or helped along, by the omegas. But the experts had concluded that civilization was a fragile construct at best, and that with or without external pressure, it seldom lasted more than a few thousand years.
Terrestrial history had witnessed several such cycles. And, sadly, humans seemed not to be learning the lessons of the fallen worlds.
BY LATE AFTERNOON, ship time, they had arrived insystem. Makai 4417 was a class-K orange star, about the same size and age as Sol.
Their immediate objective was to see whether they could pick up the incoming chindi relay transmission, which would confirm this was indeed the target system.
“I am not getting any results,” said Phyl. “But the transmission is probably not continuous.”
Probably not. In all likelihood, traffic would pick up only when something was happening somewhere.
Antonio wondered aloud how many worlds had been visited by the giant spacecraft. Or, for that matter, how many giant spacecraft there might be.
They’d emerged from their second jump at a range of two hundred million klicks. Not bad. Hutch commented it was closer than she’d probably have gotten with a Hazeltine. She immediately began a search for the McAdams, and also initiated a sweep of the system. They picked up a gas giant within the first few minutes. It had rings and in excess of twenty moons. “It’s 220 million kilometers out from the sun,” Hutch said. “It’s on the cold edge of the biozone.”
“Not the source of the artificial signals?” said Rudy.
Hutch shook her head. “They’re coming from a different direction. Anyhow, it doesn’t look as if any of the moons has an atmosphere.”
“I have it,” said Phyl. “The source is on the other side of the sun.”
“Okay.”
“Can you make any of it out?” asked Antonio. “What are they saying?”
“There are voice transmissions. A multitude of them. The entire planet must be alive with radio communications.”
“Wonderful.” Antonio raised both fists. Dr. Science at his proudest moment. “At last.”
“It’s like Earth.”
Rudy was holding his cheeks clamped between his palms, a kid at Christmas. “Are you picking up any pictures?”
“Negative. It’s strictly audio.”
“Okay. Can you understand any of it, Phyl?”
“No. Nada. But I can hear music.”
Hutch broke into a mile-wide grin. “Put it on the speaker.”
“What do you want to hear? I have several hundred to choose from.”
“Just pick one.”
The ship filled with twitching screechy spasms. They looked at one another and broke out in uncontrolled laughter. Antonio had never heard anything like it. “Try again,” said Rudy. “Something softer.”
Phyl gave them a melody that sounded like piano music, except that it was pitched a register too high, pure alto, fingertips clinking madly across a keyboard.
Antonio grumbled his displeasure. “A civilization this old,” he said. “The least they can do is try not to sound like philistines.”
Phyl laughed this time and replaced the broadcast with something closer to home, a slow, pulsing rhythm created with strings and horns and God knew what other instruments, while a soft voice made sounds that Antonio would never have been able to duplicate.
“Beautiful,” said Rudy. “Lovely.”
“THERE’S ANOTHER WORLDin close. No atmosphere. Orbit is sixty million.”
Hutch looked at the image Phyl put on-screen. “That’ll be pretty warm,” she said.
“The planetary system has a seventy-degree declination from the galactic plane.”
Antonio was seated on the bridge beside Hutch. Rudy stood in the hatchway.
The living world, the world with the music, was in fact the third planet from the sun. “Breathable atmosphere,” Phyl said. “Slightly higher oxygen mix than we’re used to, but not enough to create a problem.” Experience dictated that, if they went groundside, they’d be safe from local microorganisms. Diseases did not seem to spill over into alien biological systems. Nonetheless, Antonio knew they wouldn’t consider making a landing unprotected.
“Gravity is .77 gee.”
“Okay,” said Rudy. “Sounds comfortable.”
“Hutch,” the AI continued, “I have contact with the McAdams.”
“Good. Give me a channel.”
“You have it.”
“Matt,” she said, “hello.”
“Hi, Hutch. You been listening?”
“Yes. I think we’ve struck gold.”
PHYL FOUND, ALTOGETHER, eleven planets, including the one that was doing the broadcasting. Understandably, nobody cared about the others. The radio world was a terrestrial, orbiting at 130 million klicks. “It’s green,” said Matt, who had emerged considerably closer. “We can see oceans and ice caps.”
The Preston jumped a third time, across 200 million kilometers, and emerged within rock-throwing distance of the new world. It floated peacefully ahead in a sea of clouds. She put the terrestrial on-screen and magnified it. Continents, broad oceans, island chains, mountain ranges. Save for the shape of the continents, it could have been Earth.
It even had a single, oversized crater-ridden moon.
Magnificent.
“McAdams dead ahead,” said Phyllis.
“Anything artificial in orbit?” Rudy asked.
“Negative,” said Phyl. “If I locate anything I will let you know, but there seems to be nothing.”
“How about on the moon? Any sign they’ve been there?”
The lunar surface appeared on the auxiliary screen. Gray, cratered, a few peaks. Bleak, unbroken landscapes. “No indication visible.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” said Antonio. “We know they had space travel in an earlier era.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Rudy. “Anything could have happened.”
The lunar images vanished and were replaced by telescopic views of the planet. Cities glittered in the sunlight. Hutch climbed out of her seat, raised both fists over her head, and embraced Rudy. Antonio lined up, and she hugged him, too. “At last,” she said. “I’d given up believing it would ever happen.”
They were majestic structures, with towers and bridges and wide highways. “Got aircraft,” said Phyl. An airship appeared. A propeller-driven dirigible, it might have come directly out of the early twentieth century. And a jet. “Big one,” said Phyl. “Probably carrying two hundred passengers.”