Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

step-ladder. There was another door. Bekuv walked across the room to close it but before he did so, I caught a glimpse of the gleaming grey racks of radio equipment that amplified the signals from the radio telescopes.

Bekuv sat down. 'So you have read everything.'

'Some of it was too technical for me.'

'Last night I received signals from Tau Ceti.'

'What kind of signals?'

Bekuv smiled. 'Well, I don't mean a news bulletin or a sports report. Contact would be a more scientific description. I always said that the first interplanetary exchange would be some clear suggestion of number and order ex-, pressed in electrical activity close to 1,420 megacycles.'

'Yes, I remember,' I said. 'The hydrogen atom spinning round its nucleus vibrates at 1,420,405,752 times a second. The idea of those immense clouds of hydrogen, floating through the galaxy and humming at that same wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum… that captured my imagination, Professor. If I'd met someone like you when I was young, I might have chosen science.'

Bekuv was pleased with me. 'And remember, I said near to 1,420 megacycles. On that exact wavelength you can hear nothing but the hum.'

'And you sent a reply?'

'A series of binary digits — pulses and silences to represent ones and zeros — which are schematic representations of the atomic form of carbon and oxygen. At worst it will be interpreted as a sign that there is some intelligence here. At best it will tell them the environment in which we live.'

'Brilliant.'

Bekuv looked at his watch. He was excited to the point of agitation. 'We are preparing for tonight. Both telescopes will be working. One will be aimed at Tau Ceti, and the other at the open sky near to it. Both telescopes feed their reception back into the computer next door. That compares both streams of material, and cancels everything that is arriving from both telescopes. That's how I get rid of all the background crackle and the cosmic mess. Only Tau Ceti's signals are delivered to the output.' He picked up a long paper roll of computer read-out. It was a maze of incomprehensible symbols. 'This was processed only three hours ago. No matter what anyone might say, there is a regular pattern to the pulses from Tau Ceti.'

'Quite a dream, Professor.'

'Don't deny any man his dream, my friend.'

'You deserve an honest reply, Professor,' I told him.

'You don't seem to understand the dangerous position you're in. You're an embarrassment to the U.S. Government and a threat to one of the most audacious pieces of Soviet electronic eavesdropping I've ever heard of. You've helped Moscow set up this place to tap the U.S. communications satellites stationed over the Atlantic. Getting material from the commercial and government satellites and, unless I'm guessing wrongly, from FEDSAT, the one that carries all the secret diplomatic material and the C.I.A. priority data between the U.S.A. and Europe. You must have given Moscow everything from Presidential phone-calls to the Daily Yellows that Langley sends to London, Bonn and Paris.'

'It was a compromise,' said Bekuv. 'All scientists compromise with power… ask Leonardo da Vinci, ask Einstein. I wanted the electronic silence of the Sahara — it's the 'coldest' place in the world, to use the jargon of electronics. And the only way I could sell the idea to the Ministry was by telling them that here we could get far enough west to 'see' your satellites.'

I went to the window. The sun was blood-red and plunging to earth, and there came the breath of wind that so often comes with sunset. It stirred the sand, and made clouds of dust that rolled across the desert like tumble- weed. 'The party's over, Professor,' I said. 'The hijacking of the airliner, the killing of a U.S. Senator, the treachery and death of his assistant — what kind of priority do you think this is getting in Washington… it's just a matter of time before they find this place. Moscow's triumph suddenly becomes a liability, and Moscow will want to snap their fingers and have this place disappear. And have you disappear with it.'

'Well, not even Moscow can snap its fingers and make a place like this disappear overnight.'

'I wouldn't be too sure of that, Professor Bekuv.'

'What do you mean?' he said. I waited a long time, watching the sun sink. The desert sky was as clear as crystal and the stars were packed together like spilled sugar. It was possible to believe him. On a night like this it was possible to believe anything. 'I mean the radio signals might be faked,' I said brutally. 'Experts — scientific experts, ready to concede their own little compromise, like Leonardo da Vinci — might have designed a series of signals that are the sort you'd like to hear. One of the Soviet Air Force's flying electronic laboratories could probably maintain the right altitude, and circle the place that would be on your direct line of sight to Mars or Tau Ceti or Shangri-La.'

'No.'

'And out there in the desert, Professor, there are a couple of big desert buses. When they stop, they put up little tents and mark them ladies' toilet, but there are no ladies to be seen anywhere. The passengers are all fighting-fit men in their middle twenties. And there is the address of a German travel agency on the side of the bus, and if you know Berlin street addresses you know it's on that side of the wall without the advertising or the voting booths. They just might be waiting to come in here and sweep up the debris.'

'What exactly are you saying?'

'I'm saying get out of here, Professor.'

'And go to America or to Britain with you?'

'For the time being, just get out of here.'

'You mean well,' said Bekuv. 'I must thank you for that… warning.' '

'And for God's sake, don't transmit any kind of signal that an aircraft could home on.'

He wiped his nose again. He had one of those viral infections that are common in the desert; the mucous membrane is inflamed by the sand and dust in the air, and once it starts it's difficult to shake off. That is where I have to be, and this is what I have to do,' he said. His voice was hoarse now and his nose clogged. 'All my life has been leading up to this moment, I realize that now.'

'You have a life of achievement ahead of you,' I coaxed him.

'I have nothing ahead of me. My own people want only that part of my expertise that they can use for the military. I am only interested in pure science — I'm not interested in politics — but in my country to be apolitical is considered only one step away from being a fascist. No man, woman or child is permitted to live their life without political activity… and for a real scientist that is not possible. Your people were no better… I trusted you, and you humiliated me with the forged papers appointing me to a non-existent chair in a university that had never heard of me, and didn't wish to hear of me. My son wants to be a jazz singer and my wife has betrayed me.' He sneezed. 'Betrayed me with another woman. It's comical, isn't it? It is the true tragedy of my life that my tragedies are comical.'

'Life is a comedy for those who think — and a tragedy for those who feel,' I said.

'Who said that?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'Bob Hope or Voltaire or Eichmann; does it make a difference who said it?'

'I must send the signals tonight. Even if there were a million to one chance of communicating with some other worlds, it would still be a crime — a crime against science — to let it go.'

'Other worlds have waited a million million years,' I said. 'They can wait one more night. Men who want to kill you will be tuned to 1,420 megacycles tonight.'

'Yours is the voice of ignorance and suspicion. Those same thoughts and fears drag civilization back into the Dark Ages. No scientist worthy of the name can put his personal safety before the pursuit of knowledge.'

'I wasn't putting your personal safety before the pursuit of knowledge,' I said. 'I was putting my personal safety before it. If you want to stay here and talk to Tau Ceti and prove me wrong — O.K. But why not allow the rest of us to move off into the desert?'

'Because you will make for the Trans-Saharan Highway, and from there you will go north and get away. Don't pretend you won't.'

'I can't speak for the others,' I said. 'But speaking personally, I'll try to do exactly that.'

Bekuv frowned, got to his feet and pretended to look at his shelves of books. The daylight was fading rapidly, and the dim yellow lights in the courtyard glowed more brightly as the generators started and made the floor vibrate with a very low rumbling noise.