Part 5 (2/2)

The s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, relatively dormant after the excitement of a hundred and forty years before, became the center of public attention again. Fresh contributions poured in. The Skystabber Observatory bubbled with activity.

The first message to be beamed toward s.h.i.+ning Sister went out several sleep-periods later, after Brando Lanorgo, the head adviser of s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, landed in his vertical-horizontal aircraft outside the observatory. It was cobbled together, a compromise between several conflicting notions, and consisted of a bar of music, followed by the words: ”Sister's Children, we send you our love. Can you hear us?” and then a second bar of music. For the equivalent of thirty sleep-periods it was repeated.

There was nothing that could be considered an answer, even by the most enthusiastic, although other messages were picked up from time to time. Then there came an unbroken radio silence from s.h.i.+ning Sister.

There had been some air and sea fighting in the Outward Islands during the earlier phases of the Conquest of Dudak, and some of the aircraft, equipped with radio, had reported hearing mysterious signals, of unknown origin, consisting of what sounded like harp-music mixed with unintelligible gibberish. The origin-point must have been somewhere along the line-of-sight, because of the well-known behavior of radio waves on a planet with no effective ionosphere. But no possible origin-point could be found.

Eventually, after prolonged enquiry, the thick report folder was relegated to the inactive files. An archival clerk with a pa.s.sion for the odd and inexplicable saved it .when the seat of government was moved from Karkasha to Urava in 2080.

In the years of peace which followed the conquest of Dudak and Gvarda and the political victory in Zabash, the technique of sea-monster hunting was improved by the introduction of aircraft-carrying hunter-s.h.i.+ps and the use of tethered-balloons and radio for spotting and directing. Consequently, considerable radio-communication was goingon among the islands and on the Ocean Sea beyond. There were scattered reports, only gradually consolidated, of mysterious signals being picked up. The brain-cell in the Fish- Oil Production Bureau who first noted the relations.h.i.+p between the reports did some checking first on his own. Then he flew directly to Urava from Valkor Island, where he was in charge of the refinery complex, and requested an immediate audience with the Successor-Controller, Torv-Varsov.

”I am Skalv-Dalkov, Citizen Successor-Controller,” he announced, when led into the simple, austere workroom from which Torv-Varsov controlled the affairs of the planet.

Torv-Varsov put down the report, which he had read before admitting the brain-cell.

”Fascinating,” he said, ”fascinating! You are sure about all of this, I suppose?”

”We made cross-checks from two killer-boats, twelve degrees of the planet's circ.u.mference apart. Citizen Successor-Controller,” the fish-oil brain-cell said. ”There can be no question about it. The signals come from the Horizon Object.”

”Which, of course, means that the Horizon Object must be a world like our own, inhabited by intelligent creatures who have attained a high degree of civilization.” Tov- Varsov frowned. ”You appreciate the implications of this, Citizen Skalv-Dalkov?”

”I have tried not to. Citizen Successor-Controller,” the other replied. ”I am familiar with the position taken by The Books of Tisse on this issue. This world is the center of the Mind of Vran; the objects in the sky are all trivial, and of small size.”

”Yet now we have the direct evidence of instruments far less fallible than the senses,”

Tov-Varsov replied. ”Come now, Citizen, you have been trained as a brainL cell. You should know that, for all He was inspired by Vran, the Blessed Tisse was a scientifically illiterate, semi-skilled body-cell in the anarchic State of his time. Furthermore, his writing, for all that it is the Revealed Word of Vran, was written to be understood by ignorant semi-barbarians.”

”But the centricity of this world in the Mind of Vran is a fundamental-” Skalv- Dalkov suddenly remembered just whom he was starting to lecture on theology, and abruptly stopped and closed his mouth, hoping he didn't look as foolish as he felt.

”My son, you are suffering from a lack of faith,” Tov-Varsov said, a.s.suming his religious mantle, ”coupled with a lack of imagination. Because science has now discovered that the Horizon Object, based upon irrefutable evidence, must be a world like our own, and is probably inhabited with people more or less like ourselves, you feel that the religious doctrine of centricity is somehow threatened. Is that not so?”

Skalv-Dalkov nodded humbly. ”That was my thought, Successor-Controller,” he admitted.

”Do you not think that Vran can hold all objects, of whatever size, in his mind?”

”Yes, of course.”

”Then size is, clearly, irrelevant in this context. The distinction is clear. Religion is of the spirit, therefore non-physical. Physical measurements, such as size, weight, or distance, are of no relevance. Science is of the body, therefore physical. There can be no possible conflict; each represents truth of a different category.”

”I see that now, Successor-Controller.”

Tov-Varsov picked up a phone and ordered all his deputies to a.s.semble at once in the conference chamber, and then turned back to Skalv-Dalkov. ”This, of course, is a matter to be kept inside the Brain. The body-cells can function only as long as they do not question the doctrines of the Citizen-Originator, or The Books of Tisse. We mustsuppress any report of this, and amputate any body-cells who may have learned the origin of these signals. We must prepare to gradually change perceptions to coincide with the facts. From now on, there must be no more use of radio in or beyond the Outward Islands.”

Chapter Eleven

The radio signals detected on s.h.i.+ning Sister ceased suddenly. For what would have been twenty sleep periods, if anyone had done much sleeping, the giant transmitter beamed its message across s.p.a.ce without response. Finally, everyone gave up hope and the effort was halted.

”It's the same thing that happened back in 556,” Arlla Hannaro, the head adviser of the s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, said wearily. ”We pick up their signals, and we get very excited over them; we transmit a carefully-designed response back, and then they all stop broadcasting.”

They must not know it's coming from us,” Karlo Sankangro, the Newspaper Gangs'

Combine representative, said. ”Although you'd think they'd almost have to. Don't you suppose they have any sort of direction-finders?”

”Yes, I do,” Arlla told him. ”And I think that's precisely why they go off the air as soon as they pick up our signals. I think they know where the signals are coming from, and I think they're frightened.”

”Frightened? In the name of reason, why would anybody be frightened by a radio message from another planet, a hundred and twenty-five thousand kilo-lances away?” one of the representatives of a big, independent newspaper gang demanded.

Arlla shrugged. ”What do any of us know about their mental processes? All we know is that there are people of some kind there, and they've invented radio recently, so that they are somewhere around our own cultural level. But we know nothing of what they call culture. We don't know what they're interested in, what they think of the universe, what they think of the large object that's always in their sky. We don't even know what they look like. They might have three heads, or be covered with scales like a pterinnal, instead of fur. And as far as their not returning our signal-Frasko Kanganno, the head observer at Skystabber, has a theory that s.h.i.+ning Sister may be surrounded by some sort of an electrified atmosphere-layer, as a result of all that water, which would have the effect of increasing the frequency of radio waves pa.s.sing through it. Which would mean that they can't receive a message sent on the same apparent wave-length as the messages we receive. And if they did receive it, by some fluke, we wouldn't be listening for the response on the wavelength they'd send it.”

”What do you think about that?” one of the reporters asked.

”I'm not much impressed with this theory, as a theory, and to tell the truth, neither is Frasko. Don't quote me as saying this, but I think he's merely offering it as an alternative to my own theory because he is emotionally repelled by the idea that Our Sister's Children are afraid to talk to us.

But you can quote me on this-and Frasko, too, he agrees with me: The only way we're going to find out what s.h.i.+ning Sister is really like, and what sort of people our cousins really are, will be to build ourselves a rocket and go there!”

The s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, at the Storm Valley Rendezvous, was already experimenting in that direction. They had developed a liquid-fuel rocket engine that would burn liquid oxygen and alcohol, and had used it to send a test rocket to an alt.i.tude of over fifty thousand lances. One of their scientists had done a workup to demonstratethat a two-stage rocket with that as the first stage could easily put a substantial payload in a low orbit around the planet. A two-stage rocket with that as the second stage could achieve escape velocity with a reasonable payload. By multiplexing the engines, and using a common fuel supply, they could create a ma.s.sive enough first-stage to be able to lift a manned rocket completely clear of Hetaira, and land a specially designed pod on the surface (or in the water) of s.h.i.+ning Sister.

But n.o.body could think of a way to carry enough fuel to allow a return flight.

The Balkadranna Gang, at Fall River Rendezvous, inadvertently opened the door to s.p.a.ce-travel-among many other things. They were a scientific-research gang, specializing in Physics. Two of their researchers, Voldro and Yanna Balkadranna, had isolated microscopic amounts of the 235-weight isotope of uranium, and established that it could be fissioned, with considerable energy release. They published their findings, and tried to get the necessary mathematical a.s.sistance to design a controllable-fission device.

It was clear that uncontrolled fission would not be a desirable effect unless one wanted to remove a mountain.

There was a brief flurry of public excitement about this, due to prematurely optimistic statements in the public press. It soon became clear that the harnessing of atomic energy was going to be a long, and expensive, process; it would be a good while before the state of the art would permit of atomic rocket engines. And so interest began to wane in s.h.i.+ning Sister again.

Arlla Hannaro, considering the chemical-fuel rocket problem, decided that it might be feasible to send a manned rocket to s.h.i.+ning Sister which would orbit around it and return and land on her own world. If such a rocket were sent out and returned, with even the poorest high-alt.i.tude photographs of the hidden side of the planet, the scientific gain would be enormous, and the public enthusiasm would be incalculably great. With only the slightest urging, the people of Hetaira could develop the sort of mania for s.h.i.+ning Sister that is, in other places, reserved for wars or sporting events. The board of advisers of the Combine decided to allocate funds to make the attempt. There were a series of sedate news-releases, emphasizing the fact that success in this venture would be years coming. Nonetheless the trickle of contributions increased, and kept at a slightly higher level.

The years pa.s.sed. The Balkadranna Gang, at Fall River Rendezvous, succeeded in separating enough U-235 to build a graphite-moderated reactor which would not only sustain a chain reaction, but would generate enough steam to heat the Rendezvous's buildings and run its power plant. Seeing commercial possibilities in the new power- source, a gang in the Horizon Zone began mining uranite and floated a loan from the Trading Combine to build an extraction and isotope-separation plant.

Arlla Hannaro was killed, in 610, in an explosion at the rocket-engine testing site; her son, Vandro Hannaro, took her place as adviser of advisers. In 614, after an extensive testing program, a multi-step rocket was launched from a firing stand on the north side of Skystabber, aimed to land in the middle of s.h.i.+ning Sister's vast ocean. It was radar tracked as it lofted out of the atmosphere, circled the planet twice, and then headed across the void separating the sister worlds. Unfortunately, a component failure caused the small rocket motor in the last stage to fire its mid-course correction at the wrong time, and to expend its fuel entirely in that one shot. The radar-trackers then had the pleasure ofwatching the s.p.a.cecraft miss s.h.i.+ning Sister and pa.s.s out of contact, going in the direction of the Star-Cl.u.s.ter.

The contributions to support the work of the Combine dwindled off after that. Most of the loose money was being invested in nuclear-power projects. Vandro Hannaro and his a.s.sociates were not particularly displeased about this last; they had long felt that the development of nuclear power and the necessary improvement in nuclear technology that it would foster would be of great utility in the eventual conquest of s.p.a.ce. Less pleasant was the outburst of uranium wars, reminiscent of the oil-wars of the previous century.

Finally a three-stage, unmanned rocket was launched that successfully dumped the final stage into the great ocean of s.h.i.+ning Sister's near side. Two years later the rocket that was to circle s.h.i.+ning Sister and photograph the hidden side was built; it left the treasury of the Combine empty, and a staggering total of unpaid debts hanging over the advisers' heads. The excitement that was generated by the project, however, was tremendous; it was impossible to hear anything else talked of.

”A lot of public interest, yes,” Vandro said, rubbing the fur of his head nervously, as though he had fleas. ”But everybody thinks the job is just about done, now, and there's no need for further contributions. If we had some way of raising a little more money-”

”A lot more money,” his chief a.s.sistant said.

”Look, Vandro,” an old man who had been one of Arlla's a.s.sistants, and who might, for all either of them knew, have been Vandro's father, said. ”The rocket is designed to carry three: pilot, instrumenter, and relief. Well, the first two have to be well trained professionals, so they will be able to react correctly in case anything, no matter how unlikely, goes wrong. But couldn't you send a relief up with just perfunctory training- say, half a year-if you had to?”

”We could, I suppose,” Vandro agreed, ”but what would be the point?”

”Look, suppose we sell the third place on the rocket. There must be thousands of people who'd pay well for a chance to go on that trip!”

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