Part 6 (1/2)
”No individual could pay well enough,” Vandro said, ”not even if his gang financed him. It would only be a drop in the bucket. Have you any idea-” He paused, a strange look on his face.
”What is it, Vandro?” his a.s.sistant demanded.
”I have an idea.”
”Thank goodness. From the way you looked, I thought you had an attack of stomach- pain.”
”No, seriously, I have what might be quite an idea,” Vandro said. He turned to the old man. ”And it's your idea, Zalgo.”
”My idea?”
”That's right. Chance, you said. Well, that's it! Chance! We'll have a lottery!”
Vandro was right. The idea caught the popular imagination. It was understood, of course, that the winner would be required to meet certain physical and mental standards; but it was also realized that if the individual failed, he or she would have no trouble selling the winning ticket for many times its original cost. Gangs of speculators bought blocks of tickets, intending to do just that. Vandro began to worry, as the money poured in, that there was something he hadn't thought of, something that was going to go wrong, causing the whole idea to blow up in their-his-face. He could, for example, imagine the outburst of murderous fury which would rock the planet at the slightest suspicion offraud. He had a recurrent dream, in which the numbering machine on the press had jammed, turning out thousands of tickets with the same number, which then happened to win.
The drawing was held at the headquarters of the Trading Combine, at Timber Lake, with the entire board of advisers watching over it. The winning number was flashed by telephone and radio around the world, which then held its collective breath to see who held the ticket.
It was three sleep-periods before the winner, a girl named Lylla Rovodorro, called in to claim her prize. A member of a small ranching gang on the plains, Lylla had been up- country at the time of the drawing, and had taken three sleep-periods to get back to somewhere with a telephone. Her arrival at Storm Valley Rendezvous, two sleep-periods later, was televised and relayed everywhere.
It was almost three years before the rocket was ready, during which time Lylla became a proficient pilot. A huge crowd, some coming all the way from the Outer Hemisphere, began gathering near the firing-point a few sleep-periods before the launch time. The rocket was hauled up onto the launching-track; the crew entered, closing the airlock behind them, and strapped in. They did a quick pre-flight check, and signalled ready. In the firing bunker, Vandro closed the switch. The roar of the rockets could be heard for five thousand lances in all directions. Slowly at first, and then with ever-increasing speed, the rocket made its run along the launch-track, and then majestically rose into the atmosphere, and away.
Tov-Varsov was no longer Successor-Controller. Krav-Torov, the Controller of Spiritual and Political Orthodoxy, had eliminated him in a lightning coup twelve years before, along with his designated successor, Lev-Lonov. The body-cells and lower brain- cells were satisfied with the official explanation that Lev-Lonov had murdered the Citizen Successor-Controller, and then had been amputated by the patriotic and loyal Krav-Torov, who had saved the Organic State from criminal usurpation. It was noted that Krav-Torov never appointed a successor to his own previous position, but kept the machinery of the temporal and spiritual secret police tightly in his own hand.
Like everybody else on the upper policy level, he had been thoroughly familiarized with the case of the mysterious radio signals believed to originate from the Horizon Object, and with the possible dangers of allowing radio to be used on the Outward Islands. However, radio was too useful a tool, both for communication and for the continuous propaganda with which the brain-cells bar-raged the body-cells, to just give it up. On the continents safely shadowed from the neighboring planet, the broadcasting and relay stations multiplied. Every Temple of Tisse reared its antenna-spire; every village and town and agricultural center had its tower. Every citizen had a cheap, fixed- frequency receiver. The Creed of Puzza and the doctrines of Dov-Soglov, and the will of Successor-Controller Krav-Torov, were reiterated incessantly.
On the twelfth anniversary of the Martyrdom of Tov-Varsov and the frustration of the Treason of Lev-Lonov, every radio was turned on, all the variable-frequency radios of the higher brain-cells were tuned to the same wavelength. Priests intoned thanks to Vran for the deliverance of the True Faith and the scientifically organized State. An official historian read the carefully edited account of the courage and patriotism of the Citizen Successor-Controller.Then, in the midst of the festivities, a strange signal intruded: a bar of music, a voice in an alien tongue, and a second bar of music. The reaction was clear and swift, but due to the complications of the day, it was some time before the rebroadcast stations could be ordered off the air. Even then, it was found that the mysterious signal, repeated over and over, and occasionally varied by what sounded like more unintelligible language, was being received by public radio in one sector after another across the face of the planet.
The detection stations, maintained against possible subversive use of the radio, quickly swung into action. At first their readings did not appear to make any sense; but the technicians quickly figured out how to interpret them. What they were listening to was a signal being broadcast from a moving body, travelling considerably faster than the speed of sound, and about a thousand leagues straight up. Its path, they soon established, was a great loop inward from the Horizon Zone, around the planet, and then back out again.
Orv-Gorov, the Dean of Archpriests, met with Karv-Torov and the top deputies of the State on the upper terrace of the huge building which had been constructed by Rav- Razkov around the Shop of the Cobbler. The Citizen Successor-Controller drummed on the table-top with his long middle fingers.
”You all heard this thing,” he said, ”either directly or in recordings. It would seem to be identical with the signals heard in the time of the late Citizen Tov-Varsov, and, for that matter, those received during the war against the Zaithuan heretics.”
”It would seem so,” Yorrov-Voppov, the Deputy for Technological Conformity said.
”And what are we to conclude from this?” Karv-Torov asked, using a formula from the Questions of Faith section in The Books of Tisse.
”Well, Citizen,” Yorrov-Voppov said, ”the present signals are clearly coming from an upper-atmosphere vehicle which is circ.u.mnavigating the planet. The question is, undoubtedly, where did this vehicle come from?
”As I see it, there are only two possibilities; either it came from somewhere on this planet, or it came from somewhere out there.” He gestured in a vaguely upward direction.
”Continue,” Karv-Torov said, not visibly impressed by the a.n.a.lysis so far.
”If it came from somewhere on this planet, then we have to a.s.sume that there are secret laboratories and workshops of some group unknown to us, and that they have a higher level of technology than we, ourselves. This presents two questions to which there are no rational answers: first, if this group exists, why does it choose now to reveal itself, and why by this means; and second, if it is as superior technologically as one would have to a.s.sume from this s.h.i.+p circling the planet, why bother hiding itself at all? Unless someone can come up with an answer to these two questions, then I think we must a.s.sume the vehicle, and thus the transmissions, to be extra-planet in origin. This hypothesis is supported by the evidence of the earlier transmissions, which seemed to originate on the Horizon Object. This would seem to establish beyond conjecture that the Horizon Object is a planet like our own, and is inhabited by some form of intelligent life.”
”But it's all absurd!” the Dean of Archpriests declared. ”There are clear statements in The Books as to what the heavens are like, and nowhere is there mentioned other planets like onto this one. And then to a.s.sume that, not only is the Horizon Object a planet with living beings on it, but that these beings can build a vehicle which can carry them across hundreds of thousands of leagues of empty s.p.a.ce, something which, as I understand, we ourselves cannot do-””Citizen-Priest Orv-Gorov, it is you who speak absurdities,” Krav-Torov rebuked.
”We have the evidence of observations based on the best scientific instruments. You, on the other hand, are calling something absurd merely because you do not wish to believe in it. It goes against something you read in a book. One of The Books, perhaps, but still only a book. On the other hand, balanced against your book, is the presence of a very real object circling our planet, sending radio-signals to everything it pa.s.ses over. Music! No, Citizen-Priest; despite The Books, the Horizon Object is a world like our own. And its people would seem to have been trying to communicate with us for years, and they now have built a machine enabling them to cross s.p.a.ce and drop in.
”This is the situation which confronts us, whatever The Books say. Now let us consider realistically what we are going to do about it.”
”We must consider the effect on the body-cells,” one of the deputies said. ”This thing is going to destroy their faith in The Books, which is fundamental to everything else.”
”Not necessarily,” Krav-Torov said. ”Not if it's handled right. After all, the body-cells are not encouraged to read The Books of Tisse for themselves, even those few who can read by themselves. We must now begin to prepare them. Discover, for the greater glory of Vran, that there is a possibility that the Horizon Object is a world like our own, and that those signals that everybody is talking about must have come from there. The Citizen-Priest can find an appropriate chapter in The Books of Tisse that predicts that such a discovery will be made at this time. Can't you. Priest?”
Orv-Gorov bent his head. ”Unfathomable are the ways of Vran,” he said.
”There's a great mission and a great opportunity for you, Dean of Archpriests,” Krav- Torov said. ”Consider: the inhabitants of other worlds, now that we admit to the existence of other worlds, may well be ignorant of the sacred truths of The Books of Tisse, and all else concerning Vran. It will be our duty to instruct them. You must start preparing brain- cells for this function.”
”That is so,” Orv-Gorov said, thoughtfully.
”And we must make plans to acquaint them with the advantages of the scientific structure of the Organic State.”
”I wonder if these people-things-whatever they are-in the circling vessel have landed anywhere,” Tav-Frakov, the Deputy Controller of Food Production said. ”Perhaps, if they have, we could find them and amputate them. Then we could take their s.h.i.+p for study, and get rid of all other signs of their presence, and pa.s.s the whole thing off as a miracle. Within a few years the event will be forgotten.”
Several of the others murmured agreement. Krav-Torov grimaced and slammed both hands down on the table-top. ”Great Vran, pity me, who am advised by imbeciles!” he cried. ”Do you think those who circle our world are the only inhabitants of their world, or that their vehicle of s.p.a.ce is unique?”
”No, Citizen Successor-Controller. That is why I advised amputating those who may have landed here.”
”Yes? And have you thought beyond your nose? Have you considered what would happen then? Has it occurred to you that those who sent this s.p.a.ce-vehicle will miss it when it fails to return? That they -will send further vehicles to find out what happened?
That if they discover that their representatives have been amputated, they might not be pleased?” He glared at all those around him. ”Have we the technology to build such a machine? No! Therefore it is clear that the residents of the Horizon Object arescientifically and technically in advance of us. What sort of weapons do you suppose such people would have, knives and clubs?”
”But then, if they are our technological superiors, they may conquer us if we allow them a foothold here.”
Krav-Torov shook his head. ”If they don't hear from this expedition, then they'll only send a bigger expedition-one big enough to land in force and start operations against us.
But if we receive the first party in friends.h.i.+p, we may postpone hostilities at least long enough to learn just what we have to deal with. If we're careful and clever, we can keep them off guard. They will be able to tell, without much dispute, that they are our technological superiors. This may lull them into thinking that they are also our superiors in other ways. They will not feel threatened, and will remain friendly. It will be to their advantage to be friendly at first. Although our technological superiors, they will be vastly outnumbered.”
”That is so,” someone agreed.
”We will, therefore, keep them friendly as long as possible, and at least long enough to learn their science before a war starts. And, Citizens, I have enough faith in the holy religion of Tisse and the Organic State to believe that, given time, we will outstrip them.
Then we shall see whose planet is conquered by whom!”
Vandro Hannaro, waiting at Storm Valley Rendezvous, watched the disc of s.h.i.+ning Sister grow in his television screen, as the camera in the nose of the rocket sped toward it.
The voices of Dantro Fanzagarro, the pilot, and Karnna La.s.santro, the instrumenter, and Lylla Rovorrido, came through, describing the effects of the acceleration they had endured-much less serious than had been predicted-and laughing about their misadventures in the unfamiliar weightlessness.
Time pa.s.sed. The watchers worked in s.h.i.+fts, staring at the screen and discussing the problems that came up with the crew. The Horizon Islands grew larger and plainer, and many of the smaller islands of the Central Sea became visible. Then the s.p.a.cecraft skipped by the rim of the planet, and pa.s.sed it, and the gravity of s.h.i.+ning Sister checked it in its arrow-straight path, reached out and pulled it into a parabolic orbit. For the first time the watchers saw the seven continents of s.h.i.+ning Sister surrounding the Central Sea, and the great, shallow expanse of ocean that was the invisible side.
”We have picked up radio signals from below,” Karnna reported. ”I don't know what it means, but every radio transmitter on the planet is sending the same thing-voices speaking, and what sounds like chanting in regular poetic meter.”
”Maybe they have picked you up on radar, if they have radar, and are welcoming you,” Vandro suggested.
”That could be. At any rate, we have started broadcasting our friends.h.i.+p message on the same wave-length; so they'll certainly pick it up. We're going to be pa.s.sing behind the planet in a few seconds, so it will be a while before you hear from us again. Think good thoughts.”