Second Contact, page 9
part #2 of Not Alone Series
“I will waste no more of your time on introductions, ladies and gentlemen, and I will be as brief as I can. I have gathered you here today to document my announcement of nothing less than a privately funded but publicly minded space program. Our program is ambitious and intergenerational in scope. Through a not-for-profit umbrella organisation to be known as Fiore Frontiere, distinct divisions will research, fund and develop tangible technologies to both expand humanity’s reach in the universe and safeguard our planet.”
Excited murmurs began to spread among the reporters.
“The Global Space Commission, regardless of the good intentions surrounding its formation, has proven unfit for purpose. The list of tangible achievements that the GSC has made in the last year is not just indefensibly short, it is practically non-existent. The GSC has centralised a lot of funding and united a lot of smart people under one banner, but it is without doubt the most bloated institution I have ever seen. Take RS-1, the research station Chairman Godfrey announced in the wake of the third plaque’s discovery. Here we are, a year later… yet here we are, no further ahead. And the same goes for DS-2.
“For operational reasons, I am limited in what I can divulge right now in terms of Fiore Frontiere’s specific initial focuses. But I can, in no particular order, touch on three of our planned projects. One such project will see tremendous resources devoted to the development and construction of an intergenerational ark capable of transporting a viable human population to a distant planet.
“The second project I can currently reveal, which will be physically realised in years rather than decades, is our Tinia telescope. Named after the Etruscan god of the sky, Tinia will become the cornerstone of an extensive orbital observation platform.
“Tinia has been designed and its construction will begin imminently. However, both the name and the final design of the larger orbital observation platform are open to suggestions and will be the subjects of a global contest with a generous prize for the chosen winner in each category.
“But while only two winners will emerge from that contest…” Timo continued, rising to his feet and walking towards the large flag-covered object, “the third project I can announce today is participatory in nature and is, to my mind, the most immediately exciting of the three. Aside from the utility of this third project, it will also serve as something for humanity to unite around at a time when good news is at a premium. There will be cynics and there will be naysayers, as always, but I haven’t cared about them so far and I’m not about to start doing so now.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press; citizens of the world; without further ado, I give you… Reciprocity.”
Timo whisked away the mosaic banner of national flags to reveal a full-scale model of a capsule-like space probe. As reporters oohed and aahed while positioning themselves to capture the best images, Timo crouched to the floor and lifted two large plaques from underneath the Reciprocity probe.
“Like Voyager before it,” he said, walking back to his desk with the plaques in his hands, “Reciprocity will traverse the solar system and continue forth carrying messages from humanity. The difference this time, of course, is that we know we are not alone. This time, we will send messages based on those we have already received. The content of our messages, engraved on plaques compositionally similar to those we have received, will not build upon humanity’s previous outgoing messages. Instead, we will build upon the incoming messages which have come to light in recent times.”
Timo carefully stood the two large plaques on his desk, revealing their example engravings of various detailed shapes, symbols, and text. The mundanity of the placeholder content momentarily disappointed the attendant reporters, but their level of intrigue over the broader project was more than sufficient to ensure that these feelings didn’t last for long.
“Symbols and scales for representing distance and time have already been established by the Messengers, and we will compose our reply with that in mind,” Timo continued. “Another core difference from previous active SETI efforts is that rather than sending masses of information about ourselves and our planet, we will be focusing squarely on facilitating future radio contact with the Messengers. If I want someone to contact me, I don’t draw them a picture of every room in my house and tell them all about my hobbies and my family. No… I give them my phone number.
“And I should add something: this is a long-term project. We cannot be certain when Reciprocity will reach its recipients. Indeed, we cannot be certain who those recipients will be! Little over a year ago, we did not know of the existence of any intelligent extraterrestrial races. We now know of at least one. At least one. For this reason, we will be consulting with experts in several disciplines to make our messages as universally clear as possible, including mathematicians and linguists.
“On the subject of language, the written messages we include will be in one language only. I am a man who cares about languages and speaks five of them. But whenever I want to communicate with someone who only speaks a sixth… which of mine do you think I try first? English, of course. Cultural dominance by no means indicates cultural superiority, but it is my view that previous active SETI efforts using small snippets of various languages have been ill-advised and motivated more by a desire to be seen as inclusive than by a desire to communicate effectively.
“In other areas, we are going to invite suggestions via our website as to what non-essential information should be represented in the limited space available for that purpose. Civilisational and technological progress — our move from mud huts and igloos to cities full of skyscrapers in the course of a few thousand years — is the kind of thing I am looking for. Nothing negative will be included; no mushroom clouds, no famines, no flattened rainforests. For those who would rather introduce humanity to an extraterrestrial race by putting our worst foot forward, I politely suggest that you fund and develop your own probe.”
Derision dripped from Timo’s words during this part of his announcement, as though he had already had these kinds of discussions behind the scenes.
“The inclusion process will not be democratic for the simple reason that I do not want it to turn into a childish popularity contest,” he went on. “There will be ways to highlight and support other people’s ideas, but I will make the final decisions based on merit rather than popularity.
“For those at home asking the obvious question, the answer is no: we do not yet have a set target destination. But as with our highly ambitious intergenerational ark, we see little sense in postponing preparations until the precise destination is known. This is more crucial for the ark, since the propulsion technologies and physical development of such a craft are admittedly beyond the realms of current science, but it is also true of Reciprocity. We will act as if we know where we are heading; that way, when we do know, we will be ready. Needless to say, Tinia and her sister telescopes will tirelessly search for signs of the planet many already speak of as New Kerguelen, and our search for that planet will be exponentially deeper and better-funded than any comparable endeavour of the past.
“And speaking of the past… in the recent past, the chief obstacles for our space-related ambitions have been political rather than technical. Today, I will no longer allow political challenges to prevent scientific progress. My message to our many supporters around the world is a simple one: the petty squabbles of self-interested and power-addicted politicians will no longer be allowed to stand in humanity’s way.
“Details relating to the location of our production bases and launch facilities will be forthcoming, but my final announcement of the day is that Fiore Frontiere will be headquartered at the old IDA building in Colorado Springs. Securing the building wasn’t cheap, but we considered the investment worthwhile given the historic symbolism of the location. In a building where one man worked for so long to suppress evidence of the Messengers’ existence, we will work twice as hard to usher in a harmonious future of active engagement and cooperation with those very same Messengers.
“I will now end with the immortal words of my good friend, Dan McCarthy,” Timo said. He rose to his feet.
“‘From truth comes hope, so here’s to the truth.’”
C minus 78
GSC Headquarters
Buenos Aires, Argentina
In the administrative headquarters of the Global Space Commission, the building where he now spent almost all of his time, GSC Chairman William Godfrey sat at the head of a long glass table in the company of his bloated inner circle of scientific and media advisors.
None of them had previously known a mood like it, with compounding difficulties continuing to pile up and Godfrey deciding that maintaining what he deemed a dignified public silence was the best way forward for now.
The Kerguelen bolide alone presented a significant challenge, raising as it did many troubling questions about the GSC’s current abilities to detect and defend against incoming planetary threats.
Since then, a regrettable flare-up between international tourists and the GSC Security Corps officers stationed at Lake Namtso had piled on even more pressure. This posed a very different but no less difficult challenge than did the bolide, particularly with Ding Ziyang having already expressed his strong displeasure that the GSC employees in question were being widely reported as “Chinese guards” following Godfrey’s clumsy description of them as such before he had been fully briefed on the incident.
But Timo Fiore’s recent statement of his intent to launch several space-based projects took the biscuit, posing nothing less than an existential threat to the GSC. As several members of Godfrey’s inner circle were insistently telling him, they simply couldn’t be seen to let Timo get away with it; no one was legally entitled to launch anything into space without explicit approval, and an announcement of plans to disregard that cornerstone of the GSC’s charter was an overt challenge to the Commission itself.
“I’ll deal with Timo personally in New York on Sunday,” Godfrey said, referring to his own as yet unannounced appearance on Focus 20/20 in three days’ time. “Namtso will have blown over by then, and he’s not going to do or say anything else beforehand.”
Ever since Jack Neal had scampered off to John Cole’s side like the little rat he was, Godfrey had given up listening to too much of what any single media advisor told him. Trust was an issue, of course, but more generally Godfrey had come to detest his own increasing dependence on Jack prior to cutting him out. In one particular moment of clarity, Godfrey realised that he had been succeeding in politics for long enough without a PR-focused nobody at his side, and that such nobodies were better suited to working with weak role-fillers like Cole and President Slater or accidental celebrities like Dan McCarthy.
For all of the old man’s flaws, Godfrey had never seen Richard Walker — weak in no one’s eyes — walking around with a manicured yes man on his arm. He likewise had no memories of any of the bygone British politicians he admired so much ever changing their minds based on news cycles or media analysis. They were strong enough to stand on their own two feet. They didn’t need Jack Neals or Emma Fords, and neither did he.
“You have to be strong on this,” said one of the faces in his crowd. The young woman was English, like most of the media advisors.
“It takes strength to take your time,” Godfrey replied.
“Silence is weakness!” she insisted.
Godfrey pointed to the door. “Get out.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Out!” he bellowed, slamming his fist against the desk firmly enough to elicit physical recoils from most of the people sitting around it. “And that goes for anyone else who wants to question me!”
None of the young media advisor’s colleagues joined her as she sulked out of the room with her tail between her legs. Nor did any of them ask why they were there if Godfrey didn’t want their input, even if they couldn’t help but wonder.
The science advisors, meanwhile, sat just as uncomfortably.
“Now, if we can forget about the side issues and get back to the bolide?” he said, almost petulantly and with one eye on the tablet computer in his hand. “In fact, all of the media people… out. This isn’t for you.”
They looked around at each other, as though unsure whether he was serious.
Godfrey answered this question by walking to the door and holding it open. “Hurry up. You’re not all fired — only her. The rest of you, I just need you to get out. Go and work on something to take the shine off our friend Timo’s little Reciprocity shenanigans. One of you mentioned the cultural insensitivity of what he said about civilisational progress, I believe? Latch onto that. Get an outrage campaign up and running with some over-the-top clickbait. If all goes well, we might even snare Cole by working him into siding with Timo… and there we have it, all of our enemies lined up in a row.”
Thirty seconds later, Godfrey closed the door and returned to his seat. The room was now sparsely populated by six of the GSC’s science advisors, who acted as go-betweens to ensure that Godfrey was always up to speed on important developments at any of the Commission’s worldwide facilities.
“Okay, so the latest data was not what I expected and it raised some new questions,” Godfrey said. “Do we have any new answers?”
“Yes, sir,” said a middle-aged Argentine. “An hour ago, I reported that analysis of the meteor’s initial entry showed it to be ‘highly irregular’, in the collective words of our senior analysis team. They wrote this in an official memorandum which also stated that they were awaiting comparative data from elsewhere which would either strengthen or challenge their assumptions regarding these apparent irregularities.”
“Your expression says it strengthened them,” Godfrey observed.
The man nodded, an extremely uneasy look on his face. “Sir, in the last few minutes, their description of the event at Kerguelen has changed from ‘highly irregular’ to ‘observably unnatural.’”
C minus 77
Ford Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
After a long day apart due to Emma and Clark’s respective work obligations, Emma brought the trio back together by inviting both of the McCarthy brothers over as soon as she was home.
It made sense for them to talk at her house, as she explained; she wasn’t very comfortable in the enclosed basement, for starters, and they couldn’t risk speaking elsewhere in the McCarthys’ house in case Henry overheard anything.
Henry himself had spent the day like he spent most others — doing bits and pieces of administrative work for the fire department. He had taken to the desk job easily enough; and certainly far better than Clark had taken to his, back when a respiratory problem ruled him out of active military duty and ultimately led to his move into high-risk but highly-paid private security work with everyone’s understanding and best wishes.
Since being gravely injured in the act of saving a child from a collision with an oncoming car, Henry had tried to remain philosophical by thinking himself blessed to be doing any kind of work at all after the near-fatal crash left him in a coma for eighteen days. “I’d rather be sitting on my ass in this wheelchair than lying on my back in a casket,” he sometimes said, “and those are the only choices I’ve got.”
At Emma’s, the obvious and immediate topic of conversation was Timo Fiore’s remarkable and brazen announcement that he intended to launch his own space program based at the old IDA building in Colorado Springs. His proposed Reciprocity probe had garnered most of the resulting headlines, partly because the presence of a full-scale model made it feel more real than his future plans for an orbital observation platform and even an intergenerational ark.
Dan, despite knowing that much of what everyone else believed to be true was in fact part of a hoax devised by Richard Walker and Hans Kloster, couldn’t help but feel excited about the Reciprocity probe. He couldn’t help but imagine the inhabitants of an alien planet discovering the probe and wondrously examining its contents, largely because he couldn’t help but agree with Timo’s comment that there might well be multiple intelligent races scattered through the vastness of space. And just because the Messengers’ race was already aware of humanity, Dan figured, that didn’t mean they all were.
As well as generating excitement and interest, Reciprocity also reignited the dormant debate over the wisdom — or otherwise — of actively trying to communicate with anyone. As the news media’s reaction to the Kerguelen bolide underlined, some still feared aliens even in a post-Disclosure and post-Salzburg world. Timo’s optimistically spoken point about the possibility of there being multiple alien races was turned on its head, with critics arguing that sending instructions on how to reach Earth was foolish and would likely prove fatal if those directions ever fell into the hands of a hostile race.
Ever since the existence of one alien race came to light, many had considered it likely that others would follow. And to this day, many still feared that those others could well turn out to be conquest-driven beasts rather than information-sharing allies. The argument was as familiar as it was simple: “Just because we know that some aliens are friendly, that doesn’t mean they all are.”
Though Dan had no one to argue with, he quietly understood that the distances involved, particularly relative to the small probe’s likely speed of travel, meant that it would take thousands of years for Reciprocity to reach another star system. Like the Voyager Golden Records, the real value in the discussions over the messages to be included on Reciprocity’s plaques was the value of such discussions as a frame for useful thought experiments and as a means of bringing people together.
