“They’re not going to shoot at us,” said Tripley. “Why would they bother? They don’t even know us.”
Kane’s voice was unemotional. “Think about our relative sizes. We’re what, several hundred times as big as they are. If there’s really something alive over there, I’d expect them to be nervous. If our situations were reversed, I sure as hell would be.”
“So what are you suggesting?” asked Emily.
“That we be prepared to back off on short notice. Which means if I say we’re leaving, I’ll want everyone to belt down quickly, and to do it without argument. I doubt that the occasion will arise, but I won’t want to get into a discussion if it does.”
“Okay,” Emily said, without bothering to conceal her amusement. “If they shoot, we run. I don’t think anybody’s going to argue with that.”
“So what’s next?” asked Yoshi. “They don’t seem to have their radio turned on. What else can we do?”
“Blink the running lights,” said Emily.
Tripley nodded. “Okay.”
Kane turned them off and then on again. Waited a few seconds. Turned them off. Turned them on.
They kept it up for a while. After a few minutes Tripley asked whether anyone else had an idea.
“Yes,” said Yoshi. “Why don’t we back away so they don’t think we’re pushy? Let them make a move, if they’re inclined. They have to be as curious as we are.”
They agreed it was worth trying, and Kane withdrew to a range of five kilometers and assumed a parallel orbit.
They spent the next few hours in a long, generally pointless and often circular discussion. The turtle-shell seemed unlikely to be a warship under any circumstances because the Alnitak region was a no-man’s-land, a place that could not conceivably be of strategic value. It was also probably not a trader or commercial vessel for the same reason. And that left only survey and research, the vessel was not completely automated, and if it was in fact a vessel, then it should be staffed by scientists. But if that were so, why hadn’t they responded?
Tripley suggested they try the radio again. They changed the transmission to one-three-five-seven and put it on automatic. It ran for two hours before they gave up and shut it down.
“We need to start talking,” said Emily, “about what we do when they don’t answer.”
“That’s easy,” said Kane.
Everyone looked at him, surprised. Kane customarily avoided making policy suggestions that concerned the mission, as opposed to technical matters or the operation of the ship. “We take a lot of pictures and go home.”
“No,” said Tripley. “It’s out of the question.”
“Even if there were no other considerations,” Yoshi said, “they seem to be adrift and in a decaying orbit. If there’s anybody in there, and we leave them, they’ll die.”
“If we go back with nothing more than pictures,” said Tripley, “the scientific community would excoriate us.”
“I can think of three possible reasons why they aren’t responding,” said Kane. “One, it is automated. Two, they’re all dead. Three, they’re playing possum. Floating out here in a decaying orbit suggests they’re damaged. They can’t run and they probably can’t put up a fight. They’re looking at a vessel of monumental dimensions, probably by far the biggest they’ve ever seen. So they’re hoping we’ll go away. Or—”
“Or—?”
“That help will arrive.”
“You think they’ve been sending out a distress call?”
“Sure. If they can.”
“Do we have any way of intercepting it?”
“We don’t know enough about their equipment. If it’s hypercomm, which it probably would be, we’d have to be astronomically lucky to pick it up.”
Emily suggested they try the radio again.
“Why would it be any more likely to work this time?” asked Tripley.
“They’ve had time to see we mean no harm. They may feel more willing to take a chance now.”
Kane directed the AI to begin sending, counting to four.
“I never considered the possibility,” said Tripley, “that anything like this could happen. We always assumed that, in the event of contact with celestials, they’d be just like us, curious, anxious to communicate, amicable.”
A new tone sounded in the speaker.
A blip.
And then a pair of blips.
And then three.
“Coming from the turtle,” said Kane.
Four.
Analyze.
Tripley banged a big hand down on the console.
They continued counting through to eight.
Joy reigned. They pumped fists, embraced, shook hands. And there were a few tears.
“My God, they’re really there,” said Tripley.
“Are we getting this?” Emily asked Kane. “For the log?”
The captain looked directly at the imager. “Yes,” he said. “They’ll be watching this in classrooms a thousand years from now.”
Tripley broke out four glasses and a bottle of wine.
And they got another blip.
Then a pair.
“They’re counting again,” said Tripley.
Three. Five.
Eight.
They looked at one another, waiting.
“Eight,” said Tripley. “What comes after eight? They’re waiting for an answer.”
Emily shrugged. “Thirteen,” she said.
“How do you figure?”
“Each number is the total of the two preceding.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Tripley. He switched the transmitter to manual and tapped out the response.
The signals came again: One, two, three, five, seven.
“Primes,” said Emily.
Tripley grinned, enjoying the game immensely. “Eleven,” he said.
Emily stood near the window, looking out at the tiny craft. “I think it’s time for a visual.”
Tripley agreed. “Good. But what do we show them?”
“What are they most curious about?”
“Us,” saidYoshi.
“Yes.” Tripley was beaming. “Let’s have someone say hello. One of the women—”
“Why one of the women?” asked Emily. “I think everybody should get on the circuit. Let them see what we’ve got.”
“Okay. Let’s do it this way, though. Emily, you’ve been looking for these people a long time. You go first.”
Emily looked genuinely moved. “Sure,” she said. “I can live with that. All right.” She was already jotting down notes.
Kane was obviously vastly pleased. “Their language skills might not be a good fit.”