possible to cross-check a lot of what’s here with items from other sources. This is the kind of thing that maybe we ought to be a little more open-minded about. You say Charlie comes from Earth; I say he might. You say this is not a calendar; I say it might be. In my estimation, an attitude like yours is too inflexible to permit an unbiased appraisal of the problem. You’ve already made up your mind what you want the answers to be.'
'Hear, hear!' a voice at the end of the table called.
Danchekker colored visibly, but Caldwell spoke before he could reply.
'You’ve analyzed the numbers-right?'
'Right.'
'Okay, supposing for now it’s a calendar-what more can you tell us?'
Hunt leaned forward across the table and pointed at the sheet with his pen.
'First, two assumptions. One: the natural unit of time on any world is the day-that is, the time it takes the planet to rotate on its axis…'
'Assuming it rotates,' somebody tossed in.
'That was my second assumption. But the only cases we know of where there’s no rotation-or where the orbital period equals the axial period, which amounts to the same thing-occur when a small body orbits close to a far more massive one and is swamped by gravitational tidal effects, like our Moon. For that to happen to a body the size of a planet, the planet would have to orbit very close to its parent star-too close for it to support any life comparable to our own.'
'Seems reasonable,' Caldwell said, looking around the table. Various heads were nodding assent. 'Where do we go from there?'
'Okay,' Hunt resumed. 'Assuming it rotates and the day is its natural unit of time-if this complete table represents one full orbit around its sun, there are seventeen hundred days in its year, one entry for each.'
'Pretty long,' someone hazarded.
'To us, yes: at least, the year-to-day ratio is big. It could mean the orbit is large, the rotational period short, or perhaps a bit of both. Now look at the major number groups-the ones tagged with the heavy alphabetic labels. There are forty-seven of them. Most contain thirty-six numbers, but nine of them have thirty-seven-the first, sixth, twelfth, eighteenth, twenty-fourth, thirtieth, thirty-sixth, forty-second, and forty-seventh. That seems a bit odd at first sight, but so would our system to someone unfamiliar with it. It suggests that maybe somebody had to do a bit of fiddling with it to make it work.'
'Mmm… like with our months.'
'Exactly. This is just the sort of juggling you have to do to get a sensible fit of our months into our year. It happens because there’s no simple relationship between the orbital periods of planet and satellite; there’s no reason why there should be. I’m guessing that if this is a calendar that relates to some other planet, then the reason for this odd mix of thirty-sixes and thirty-sevens is the same as the one that causes problems with our calendar: That planet had a moon.'
'So these groups are months,' Caldwell stated.
'If it’s a calendar-yes. Each group is divided into three subgroups-weeks, if you like. Normally there are twelve days in each, but there are nine long months, in which the middle week has thirteen days.'
Danchekker looked for a long time at the sheet of paper, an expression of pained disbelief spreading slowly across his face.
'Are you proposing this as a serious scientific theory?' he queried in a strained voice.
'Of course not,' Hunt replied. 'This is all pure speculation. But it does indicate some of the avenues that could be explored. These alphabetic groups, for example, might correspond to references that the language people might dig from other sources-such as dates on documents, or date stamps on pieces of clothing or other equipment. Also, you might be able to find some independent way of arriving at the number of days in the year; if it turned out to be seventeen hundred, that would be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it?'
'Anything else?' Caldwell asked.
'Yes. Computer correlation analysis of this number pattern may show hidden superposed periodicities; for all we know, there could have been more than one moon. Also, it should be possible to compute families of curves giving possible relationships between planet-to-satellite mass ratios against mean orbital radii. Later on you might know enough more to be able to isolate one of the curves. It might describe the Earth-Luna system; then again, it might not.'
'Preposterous!' Danchekker exploded.
'Unbiased?' Hunt suggested.
'There is something else that may be worth trying,' Schorn interrupted. 'Your calendar, if that’s what it is, has so far been described in relative terms only-days per month, months per year, and so on. There is nothing that gives us any absolute values. Now-and this is a long shot-from detailed chemical analysis we are making some progress in building a quantitative model of Charlie’s cell-metabolism cycles and enzyme processes. We may be able to calculate the rate of accumulation of waste materials and toxins in the blood and tissues, and from these results form an estimate of his natural periods of sleep and wakefulness. If, in this way, I could provide a figure for the length of the day, the other quantities would follow immediately.'
'If we knew that, then we’d know the planet’s orbital period,' said somebody else. 'But could we get an estimate of its mass?'
'One way might be by doing a structural analysis of Charlie’s bone and muscle formations and then working out the power-weight ratios,' another chipped in.
'That would give us the planet’s mean distance from its sun,' said a third.
'Only if it was like our Sun.'
'You could get a check on the planet’s mass from the glass and other crystalline materials in his equipment. From the crystal structure, we should be able to figure out the strength of the gravitational field they cooled in.'
'How could we get a figure for density?'
'You still need to know the planetary radius.'
'He’s like us, so the surface gravity will be Earthlike.'
'Very probable, but let’s prove it.'
'Prove that’s a calendar first.'
Remarks began pouring in from all sides. Hunt reflected with some satisfaction that at least he had managed to inject some spirit and enthusiasm into the proceedings.
Danchekker remained unimpressed. As the noise abated, he rose again to his feet and pointed pityingly to the single sheet of paper, still lying in the center of the table.
'All balderdash!' he spat. 'There is the sum total of your evidence. There'-he slid his voluminous file, bulging with notes and papers, across beside it-'is mine, backed by libraries, data banks, and archives the world over. Charlie comes from Earth!'
'Where’s his civilization, then?' Hunt demanded. 'Removed in an enormous celestial garbage truck?'
Laughter from around the table greeted the return of Danchekker’s own gibe. The professor darkened and seemed about to say something obscene. Caldwell held up a restraining hand, but Schorn saved the situation by interrupting in his calm, unruffled tone. 'It would seem, ladies and gentlemen, that for the moment we must compromise by agreeing to a purely hypothetical situation. To keep Professor Danchekker happy, we must accept that the Lunarians evolved from the same ancestors as ourselves. To keep Dr. Hunt happy, we must assume they did it somewhere else. How we are to reconcile these two irreconcilables, I would not for one moment attempt to predict.'
Chapter Nine
Hunt saw less and less of the Trimagniscope during the weeks that followed the progress meeting. Caldwell seemed to go out of his way to encourage the Englishman to visit the various UNSA labs and establishments nearby, to 'see what’s going on first-hand,' or the offices in Navcomms HQ to 'meet someone you might find interesting.' Hunt was naturally curious about the Lunarian investigations, so these developments suited him
