“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was trying to be helpful.”
“Let’s try a change of orbit,” said Alex.
“Have you any specifications?”
“Just angle it by about twenty degrees above and below the equator. Let’s get a good look at the areas where the temperature is most conducive—” He didn’t finish.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know, Chase. I don’t know what I’m thinking. Did that city, those towns, look old to you?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, nobody’s been taking care of them, but they didn’t look ancient.”
Belle broke into the gloom: “We’re picking up a radio signal.”
THIRTY-ONE
Fear the assassin who waits in the lonely passages of the heart.
—Teri Kilborn, Broken Fences
She played the transmission for us. A voice with a remarkably high pitch. “It is an unknown language, Alex.”
It was almost a series of squeals. Not at all like a normal voice pattern. We listened in silence for several minutes. “That can’t be human,” I said.
“Belle, how many voices are there?”
“Only one.”
“So nobody is responding to the transmission.”
“Not that I can determine.”
“It never pauses,” said Alex.
It went on and on. “It seems more like a general broadcast,” I said, “than a two-way transmission.”
“Belle, what’s the point of origin?”
She showed us on the display. It was coming out of a string of islands in the middle of an ocean, at about thirty degrees south latitude.
“What time is it there?”
“Approaching midnight.”
“What can you see?” Alex asked.
“I’m running a scan now. There seems to be a town. A group of buildings. They’re all single-story. Small houses, apparently. But one of them seems to be illuminated.”
She showed us, and I caught my breath. There were about twenty houses in the town. With lights on in the ground floor of one.
Lights!
If they were humans, they’d been cut off a long time. But the voice certainly didn’t sound human.
When I pumped a fist and made some noise, Alex kept watching the displays. I knew what he was thinking. But I was inclined to enjoy the moment. How many people, how many Sunset Tuttles, had lived and died over the past nine thousand years, hoping for a moment like this? A glimmer of light? A radio transmission from an unknown source. A voice that was almost certainly not human. Please, God, let it be so.
“Don’t get too excited,” he said. In fact, he was having problems following his own advice. His voice sounded uneven. “We don’t know what we have yet.”
“Hey, I’m calm. You know me.”
“Absolutely.” He was staring at the house with the light.
“You think that’s where the signal’s coming from?”
“There’s an antenna. Belle, do you see any others?”
“Antennas? No, Alex.”
“That’s strange. Anything moving anywhere?”
“Other than what appears to be windblown, no.”
“The town looks run-down,” I said. We were approaching it from the east. “We going down?”
“You bet.”
“We can do it on the next pass.”
He nodded. “Let’s get ready.”
“Maybe we should radio them first? Say hello?”
“What language would you use?”
“Standard. Friendly voice. See what happens.”
Alex looked uncertain. Finally, he said okay. “You talk to them, Chase. You’d be less threatening.”
“Belle,” I said, “open a channel.”
A momentary pause. Then: “Done.”
“Hello,” I said. “This is Chase Kolpath aboard the Belle-Marie. Do you read?”
The voice stopped. Then, it answered. We had no idea what it was saying, of course, but it sounded excited.
I told it we were visitors, that we wanted to meet whoever it was, and that we were friendly. When I finished, it replied again.
I would at that moment have given anything to have been able to understand it. I explained how we’d come from Rimway, how we were curious who was speaking with us, and explained that we were going to come down to meet him, or her, and we hoped that wouldn’t be an imposition.
“It understands,” I told Alex. “It knows what’s going on.”
Alex remained cautious.
While all this was happening, we were getting into our pressure suits and preparing to leave the ship. Alex buckled on a holster and slipped his scrambler into it. “You know,” he said, “it would kill me if we actually found an alien and had to shoot him.” He leaned over the control panel. “Belle?”
“Yes, Alex?”
“Are there any other artificial structures on the island? Other than the town?”
“There are two piers. Something that is probably a boathouse. Nothing else shows any activity, however.”
“That means there’s no vehicle of any kind, either?”
“That is correct.”
“Is there a possibility there could be a lander down there, and you missed it?”
“If it’s hidden in a cave. Or buried. Otherwise, the possibility is remote.”
“Okay.” His face scrunched up the way it does when he’s trying to make up his mind. “There’s an outside possibility that after we’re on the ground, I’ll send you a message that I will want you to ignore.”
“Then why would you send it, Alex?”
“Only out of necessity.”
“And how shall I know this bogus transmission?”
“I’ll start by saying, ‘We have a problem.’”
“ ‘We have a problem’?”
“Yes. If you hear that sentence, play along. Okay?” I must have been looking at him funny. “It’s just a precaution, Chase. Until we find out who’s down there.”
We went below and climbed into the lander. I was talking to the voice the whole time. We are leaving now. Will be on the ground in an hour or so. I’m looking forward to meeting you.
When the Belle-Marie was in position, I started the engine, the launch doors opened, and we were on our way. The smaller moon was overhead, a pale, diminutive orb barely visible in the crowded sky. The bright definition of the night sky at Rimway had given way to a kind of misty blur. Too many stars out there in the Veiled Lady, too much loose gas.
Alex remained quiet on the way down. When I offered to put him on with the voice, he shook his head no. “You’re doing fine,” he said.
The rim of the second moon, the big moon, was just visible over the horizon. As we descended, it disappeared into the ocean.
“The air is breathable,” Belle said. “And there is no evidence of dangerous bioorganisms. However, I suggest you exercise due caution.”
She meant wear the pressure suit. No surprise there.
We began to pick up a bit of wind. Then the wind went away, and we drifted down through occasional clouds, and finally we emerged in clear weather above the island.
It was the largest in a chain of five or six, about eight kilometers across at its widest point. It was mostly covered by forest. There was a natural harbor. And it was generally flat save for a pair of low hills on the north side. The town was located near the hills, along the shoreline.