The Hercules Text Read online

  A battered green pickup roared past, doing about seventy-five.

  “So someone removed the metals? Why?”

  “That’s the wrong question. Listen, Harry, nobody’s going to go to the trouble of draining metal from a star. There’d be no point. I mean, my God, it doesn’t improve the star, it’s not as if it works better. And surely they weren’t mining.” His face twisted slightly, as though the sun were in his eyes, but it was off behind his shoulder. Harry decided that a decision was being made as to whether he could be trusted. “I’m not entirely sure how this will sound, but I’ll tell you what I believe, the only thing I can think of that does make sense.

  “Gamma is probably not a natural sun. I think it was built. Assembled.”

  “My God,” gasped Harry.

  “The metal serves no purpose, so they left it out.”

  “Ed, how the hell could anybody make a sun?”

  “There’s no physical law that precludes it. Obviously, or nature wouldn’t be able to do it. All that’s required is energy, and a lot of gas. Out where they are, there’s a hell of a lot of free hydrogen and helium. All they’d have to do is get it together somewhere, and gravity would take care of the rest.”

  They crossed South Capitol Street. A long freight train was moving east on the Penn Central tracks, boxes and hoppers mostly, with a few empty flats. “And that,” he continued, “raises another interesting possibility.

  “X-ray pulsars are notoriously short-lived. They are the mayflies of the cosmos: they blink on, last perhaps thirty thousand years or so, and blink off. The odds against finding one in the only free-floating system we’ve yet seen are extremely long.” He winked at Harry. “Unless it’s always there.”

  Harry watched the car’s shadow racing along the guard rail. “You’re suggesting,” he said, “that they built the pulsar, too.”

  “Yes.” Gambini’s face was radiant. “I think they did.”

  The flight was almost an hour late. Normally, the delay would have angered Ed Gambini, but on that morning, no mundane frustration could reach him. He was meeting a giant, and because of the nature of the discovery at Goddard, Gambini realized that he, too, was on the threshold of joining the immortals. It was an exhilarating feeling.

  Harry sensed all this. And he recognized the importance of the meeting with Rimford. The California cosmologist might well see other possibilities, suggest alternative explanations. If, however, he could not, Gambini’s hand, and probably his confidence, would be greatly strengthened.

  They waited at the cocktail lounge in the main terminal. Gambini sat nervously, toying with a drink, totally absorbed in his thoughts. Harry recalled the obsession of a year and a half earlier. He wondered whether Gambini might be another Percival Lowell, seeing canals that were visible to no one else.

  They met Rimford, finally, in the security area. He was a man of ordinary appearance: his hair was whiter than it appeared on TV, and he dressed like a mildly successful mid-western businessman. Harry almost expected him to produce a card. But, like Leslie, he had eyes of compelling quality. They were subdued during those early moments of that first meeting; but Harry would later see them come to life. At such times, there was no confusing Baines Rimford with a hardware salesman. When Gambini solemnly introduced him, Harry caught the amused flicker of a smile in those eyes. Rimford’s handshake was warm. “Nice of you to invite me, Ed,” he said. “If you’ve really got something, I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  They walked down to the baggage pickup, while Gambini outlined the evidence to date.

  “Marvelous,” said Rimford when he’d finished, and, turning to Harry, he remarked that it was a wonderful time to be alive. “If you’re right about this, Ed,” he said, “nothing is ever again going to be the same.” Despite the words, however, he looked perplexed.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Gambini, whose nerves were close to the surface.

  “I was just thinking how unfortunate it is: they’re so very far away. I think we all assumed that, when it came, if it came, there’d be at least some possibility of a two-way conversation.” He threw his bags into the trunk and climbed into the front seat beside Gambini. Harry rode in back.

  The visitor had a lot of questions. He asked about the various orbital periods of the Althean system’s components, the characteristics of the pulsar, and the quality and nature of the incoming signal. Harry could not follow much of it, but his interest soared when they settled on the physical peculiarities of Alpha and Gamma. Gambini very carefully did not advance his thesis, but Rimford blinked at the spectrogram. From that moment, though he continued his questioning, he did not appear to be listening to the answers. For the most part, he sat staring pensively through the windshield, his eyes hooded.

  By the time they reached Kenilworth Avenue, everyone had lapsed into silence.

  Harry had never before paid much attention to the men and women who habitually ate alone at the Red Limit, Carioca’s, or the William Tell. But now, installed in a dimly lit booth trying to read a newspaper, he was painfully aware of the blank expressions and drawn countenances that marked so many of them. Solitude is seldom voluntary, at least among the young. Yet here they were, the same people night after night, well-heeled derelicts, alone with their flickering candles and pressed linen napkins.

  Harry was glad to see Pete Wheeler come in. He’d decided to eat at the Red Limit on the probability that somebody from the office, or from Operations, would appear. (He’d avoided coming right out and asking someone to join him for dinner, since that would have entailed explanations, and he did not feel capable of admitting to those who knew him that he’d lost his wife. Harry had been giving serious thought to how he would break the news around the office. They’d agreed it wasn’t working anymore, that would be the approach to take. After all, there was some truth to it. Somewhere.) Wheeler saw him right away and came over.

  “Well,” he said, “I think we’ve impressed the Great Man.”

  “He came in impressed,” said Harry.

  “Gambini’s making plans to take him out to his condo for the weekend. I’m not sure he isn’t more excited at having Rimford call him by his first name than by all the rest of this business.” He smiled. “You ever been there, Harry?”

  “Once.” Gambini had a place just off the Atlantic near Snow Hill, Maryland. He retired to it most weekends, and even occasionally for extended periods when the mood struck him and he felt his physical presence at Goddard was not necessary. The condo was tied in with the Space Center’s communications and computer network, though his access to various systems was necessarily restricted. “Anything new with Hercules?”

  “No,” said Wheeler. “The signal just keeps repeating.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m not sure. Leslie, probably. Gambini’s notion that we can bring in a psychologist to put the aliens on a couch. And he always derided the attempts of Drake and Sagan and the SETI people to create a statistical basis for estimating the possibilities of advanced civilizations in the galaxy, on the grounds that we were working from a single sample. He’s not very consistent.”

  They ordered drinks and steaks, and Harry settled back comfortably, his fingers entwined behind his head. “Are they out there, Pete? Aliens, I mean. You looked convinced the other day.”

  “By the spectrograms? Actually, Harry, if it had been anybody but Gambini, I think I’d have been persuaded right from the beginning. The evidence is hard to argue against. It’s the concept that’s difficult to buy. Especially when you consider that Gambini wanted so badly to find something like this. That alone makes everything suspicious. He makes himself extremely difficult to agree with.”

  “But despite all that, you think we do have some sort of civilization in the Althean system?”

  “Yes. I think we do. And I suspect Rimford is telling Gambini that right about now. We’re all headed for the history books, Harry.”

  “All of us?” Harry laughed. “Who was Columbus’
s first mate?” He felt a sudden surge of elation and noticed that some nearby people were watching him curiously. It didn’t matter, though. He refilled his wineglass and poured the rest of the wine into Wheeler’s empty goblet.

  Wheeler drank up and leaned toward Harry, still smiling.

  “I can’t help thinking,” he said, “that we’re bound to get some surprises out of this. Gambini thinks he has everything under control, but there are too many unknowns here.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We keep assuming they’re like us. For example, everybody’s waiting for the follow-up message. But the Altheans have announced their presence. They may not see any reason to go further. After all, what have they to gain?”

  “Jesus,” said Harry. “I never thought about that.”

  Pete’s eyes were bright with mischief. “It could happen. It’s really a pretty funny picture, in which our people get old waiting for the rest of a transmission that’s already complete. Can you imagine what that would do to Ed and Majeski?”

  “You’re vindictive, Pete,” Harry said in a light tone, though he was nevertheless uncomfortable at Wheeler’s reaction. “It would kill Gambini.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would. And I think that says a great deal about what Ed’s done to himself.” He looked at the glass. “The wine’s good,” he observed. “There are other possibilities. We tend to assume that any transmission will contain a lot of technological material. They’re going to tell us how to capture one hundred percent of the sun’s energy. Stuff like that. I was listening to a conversation between Ed and Rimford this afternoon. They’re talking in terms of Grand Unified Theories. But this is a species that has had technology of a high order for a long time. They may take it pretty much for granted that everybody already knows the technical stuff; or they may think it’s too trivial to bother with. If we do get a textual transmission, a second message, I’d be surprised if they don’t send us something entirely different from what we expect. Something they’re proud of, but which might not amuse Gambini.”

  “For example?”

  Wheeler’s dark eyes glittered in the candlelight. More than the others, for whom cosmology and astronomy were primarily mathematical disciplines, he had the appearance of a man who understood what a light-year really was. “How about a novel?” he suggested. “A clash on a cosmic stage between creatures of advanced philosophies and alien emotions. Perhaps they would consider it their ultimate achievement and wish to share it with the universe at large. Can you imagine NASA’s reaction to that?

  “Or maybe it will be a symphony.”

  Harry emptied his glass. “As long as it doesn’t sound like ‘Chopsticks.’ But you don’t really believe anything like that’s going to happen?”

  “Hell, Harry. Anything’s possible in this kind of situation. We have no previous experience; and the senders can expect nothing in return save the satisfaction of having put out a signal. You mentioned the plaques on the Pioneers and Voyagers. We didn’t, of course, have room to say much, but even if we had, I’m sure it would never have occurred to anyone to put in the instructions for, say, splitting the atom, in case some fossil-powered civilization happened on it. No. It may well be that we’ve already received the only significant message that will be coming: that they’re there. If there’s more, I hope we have the sense to recognize it for what it is, and extract whatever profit is to be had, without reviling the sender.”

  The steaks were good, and the plates were heaped with wedge fries and toasted rolls. “There’s too much,” Harry said over his coffee.

  “Are you working late tonight?” asked Wheeler, probably wondering why Harry wasn’t eating at home.

  “No.” The word trailed off uncomfortably. Harry had known Pete Wheeler longer than he’d known Gambini, but the relationship had always been at long range. Now he looked across the table, tempted again to take advantage of the opening and say something to someone about Julie. But how many pathetic stories had Wheeler been forced to digest over the years simply because he was a priest? “I gave the cook the night off,” he said.

  But Wheeler must have read the truth in his tone. He gazed carefully at Harry. Harry moved his dinner around. “You can do me a favor,” the priest said, finally. “I’m going out to Carthage for the evening. I’ll be back tomorrow about noon.” He wrote, down a number and passed it across the table. “Call me if anything changes. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  They got the check, split it, and walked outside. “How’s Julie?” Wheeler asked casually.

  Harry was surprised. “I didn’t think you’d ever met her.”

  “She was at one of the Director’s brunches a couple of years ago.” Wheeler looked toward the west and checked his watch. The moon had begun its drift toward the horizon. “The comet’s gone.”

  Harry grunted something; neither of them was sure what.

  “She’s a hard woman to forget,” Wheeler added.

  “Thanks,” mumbled Harry. They crunched through the gravel toward Wheeler’s car, a late-model beige Saxon. “We’re having a little trouble right now.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  Harry shrugged.

  Wheeler looked around. “I don’t see your car.”

  “It’s at the front gate. I walked over.”

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you back.”

  They pulled out of the parking area, crossed Greenbelt Road, and swung onto the lot at the main entrance beside Harry’s Chrysler. “You got a few minutes to listen?” Harry asked.

  “If you want to talk,” said Wheeler.

  He described the dinner with Julie, with its melancholy result and her subsequent departure. He concealed (or attempted to) his indignation, but made no effort to hide his inability to understand her actions. When he’d finished, he folded his arms defensively. “You must have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, Pete. What’s the chance that it’ll blow over?”

  “I’m not sure how experienced I am,” said Wheeler. “As a rule, Norbertines don’t do much parish work, which is, of course, where you run into domestic problems. I haven’t done any. But I can recommend a good counselor, if you like. You’re not a Catholic, are you, Harry?”

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I can do that, or I can tell you what the consensus is on this sort of problem, how it happens, and the course of action that’s usually prescribed.”

  “Go ahead,” said Harry.

  “From what you’ve told me, there’s no second man, there’s no strain over money, no heavy drinking, and no one’s being assaulted regularly. Usually, when there’s no obvious cause in a marriage that’s been going reasonably well for a number of years, what’s happened is that the two people have stopped sharing a single life; each has slipped into an orbit of his own, and the two probably don’t converge much, except at meals and bedtime. The people involved may not even be aware of it, but the marriage becomes a bore, for one or both.

  “You’re near the top of your profession, Harry. How many nights a week do you work?”

  “Two or three,” said Harry, uncomfortable at the turn things had taken.

  “How about weekends?”

  “About one a month.”

  “Only one?”

  “Well, actually I work part of almost every weekend.” Harry squirmed. “But my job demands it. It’s not a nine-to-five kind of thing.”

  “Chances are,” continued the priest, unruffled, “that, when you are home, you don’t have much time for her either.”

  Harry thought about it. “No,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true. We go out on a fairly regular basis, to movies and the theater and occasionally to local clubs.”

  “You’d know better than I,” said Wheeler.

  “This kind of thing happens often? I mean, between people who’ve been married awhile? I thought once you got past the first couple of years you were reasonably safe.”

  “It happens all the time.”


  “What can I do?” asked Harry. “I don’t think she’s going to be open to small talk just now.”

  Wheeler nodded. “Harry, marriages are hard to salvage once they go bad. I’m sorry to tell you that. I only met your wife once, but she struck me as a woman who doesn’t act hastily. If that’s true, she’ll be hard to recover. But I think you can make the effort.

  “I’d try to get her away from all the old associations, take her somewhere for a couple of days just to talk things over. Make it as nonthreatening as you can, but get her to a location where there are no distractions and where neither of you has ever been before. And then talk with her. Not about the marriage or your job or your other problems. Just try to take it from the start. You and her.”

  “It would never work,” said Harry quietly. “Not now.”

  “That’s certainly true, if you’ve decided it’s true. Still, you’ve nothing to lose. I can even offer you the ideal location.”

  “The Norbertines are in the motel business?” offered Harry.

  “As it happens,” said Wheeler, “we have a novitiate near Basil Point on Chesapeake Bay. It was donated to us a few years ago, but the truth is that it’s of no practical use. It’s too big. The property’s in a magnificent location, with a lovely view of the bay. I usually make it a point to go out there when I’m in the Washington area. There are only about half a dozen of our people there now. One of them, by the way, is Rene Sunderland, who’s probably the best bridge player in the state.

  “It has a couple of big houses that we’ve turned into an abbey and a seminary. But the seminary only has two students. Back in the fifties, the owners added a lodge. We keep it available for visiting dignitaries, but we just don’t see many of those. The only ones we ever get are the abbott and the director of the National Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, both of whom like to play bridge with Rene. That means they stay in the main building, and the lodge has been unused for about four years. I’m sure I could have it made available for a good cause.”