Looking Forward by Kenneth Jr. (snow like ashes .txt) 📗

train and converges on the base of the launching site. A hydraulic lift raises the compartment and inserts it in the poised spacecraft. The entrance is sealed. The negative-G accelerators are turned on. The craft appears to fall away from the earth. Scott notices that the takeoff is comfortable—quite an improvement over the noisy blast-off of the previous times.

As Scott begins talking with his fellow passengers, he realizes that they, too, feel something big is coming up. But no one has any information about it. Is there trouble on the expedition setting up a station on Saturn? Are they still kicking around that proposal to oxygenate the moon’s atmosphere? Are any major asteroids headed for earth on an orbit that would create a collision emergency? Is some new step in space exploration being planned? Not even a hint is available.

The craft is now in orbit, and the space station, although a thousand miles away, can easily be seen with the eye. Scott watches with interest as the spherical city grows larger and larger on their teleprojection screen. This island in space is 800 feet in diameter and has a rotating staff of about 100 technicians. Almost all of the voyages back and forth to the planets begin and end at this floating spaceport. There are ample storage areas containing supplies of all the fuels used in space. It has a fusion power plant of the size that is used on earth to supply a million inhabitants. It contains the most advanced receiving and recording equipment, which for many decades has been scanning the sky for signals from intelligence in outer space. It is a master weather station, a center for space medicine, and a relay station for telecommunication signals. In earlier times it was used for astronomical research, but the thrust of spacecraft coming and going made it more desirable to create another specialized city in the sky for this purpose.

Scott’s ship couples to the orbiting spaceport, and he finds himself conveyed through a tube that connects the craft to the pressurized compartments of the satellite city. People are weightless in space, but this satellite city has an artificial “G” field that gives a gravity effect similar to that on earth.

Since neither Scott nor his companions carry baggage, there is no need for them to “get settled” in their compartments. The meeting is scheduled to begin within fifteen minutes after arrival. As Scott enters a circular auditorium, he realizes that his group must have been among the last to get there. The Director of Space Research walks to the center and opens the meeting.

“The occasion today reminds me of a story about a craft from outer space that landed on earth,” the Director begins in a toastmaster style obviously inherited from previous centuries. “The door to the unusual craft opened and two strange creatures crawled out. After several weeks the earth scientists learned to communicate with them. Various tests showed that they had great intelligence—with an I.Q. of over 500. One of the earth scientists finally asked the strange creatures, ‘How did you manage to develop such great intelligence?’

“We’re not so very intelligent,” one of the creatures replied. “We’re just their monkeys.”

After the laughter dies down, a very serious and thoughtful expression comes over the Director’s face. Scott shifts restlessly—“Here it comes.”

“As you know, for many decades we’ve been filtering signals from the galactic noise of interstellar space. For years antennas have been directed toward the areas that give the strongest signals. We have recorded millions of hours of signals that we felt must have come from other intelligent beings. Our greatest attention has been given to an unusually strong signal source that emanates from a point near Lyra.”

A star map appears on a large telescreen, and the voice controlled electronic pointer touches the constellation of Lyra.

“During the last ten years the signals from this area have increased enormously in clarity so that we suspect that these ‘people’ must have picked up our radio transmissions and are making a special effort to break through to us. As you know, our computers have been attempting to decipher these transmissions, but it has been fruitless because they are using a language that is alien to ours. They are also transmitting signals with a scanning system that is structurally different from ours. Until last week these blockages have kept us from interpreting their signals.

“A week ago this changed. The computers we developed five years ago were instructed to start systematically a random checkout of every conceivable system that could be used for the transmission of two or three dimensional images. The breakthrough occurred last Wednesday when our computers were able to decipher both the audio and video parts of the transmission. The mathematical portions of the language were the first to be interpreted. With the help of the three-dimensional video as a ‘Rosetta Stone,’ only three hours later the computer was able to produce a comprehensive dictionary that was adequate for the interpretation of signals that had been recorded from this source.”

The audience listens intently. Scott thinks of a parallel time in history when Columbus made his appearance at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella to report his discoveries in the new world. The Spanish courtiers must have had feelings at that time of how great their civilization was to have made such enormous progress in rolling back the frontiers of the unknown.

“Practically no one on our staff has slept for the past seven days,” says the Director. “Although we have deciphered only a very small amount of the recorded material, we have scanned enough of it to have a sketchy picture at this time of what’s going on out there, or perhaps I should say what went on twenty-six years ago. These signals we are now receiving took twenty-six years to reach us. We have stepped up our communication program and have beamed several of our transmitting antennas toward this point source, but it will take them many years to receive the