InterstellarNet: Origins (7 page)

“Food…for thought.”

“Only five kilometers. You would not survive a real run.” Vladimir pointed across Fifth Avenue to a coffee shop. “Come, we will get some real food.”

“The University of California at Berkeley announced the discovery at the end of the ET message of a deadline for Earth’s response. Dr. Enriqué Ramirez, of the Department of Computer Science, stated that ET has requested that Earth begin its reply ninety-seven days from today.

“A UN spokesman confirmed that its task force had been seeking an independent validation of a similar translation. The spokesman would not comment regarding what answer the task force might recommend, or even whether a response is under consideration.”

—GlobalNet Evening News

With the clock running out before a pre-reply COPUOS review—and the authorization vote Alex Klein predicted the task force would lose—Dean broadened his search for inspiration.

After much fruitless surfing and chat-room lurking, he encountered
A note on amplifiers in the Lalande 21185 transmitter design
by a Joachim Frisch. Dean clicked the URL and began scanning. An aura of professionalism emerged and his reading slowed. Googling yielded nine papers by Frisch in refereed engineering journals, although the most recent was ten years old.

Dean’s second read-through was very slow and deliberate. He was reminded of, and thought deeply about, Vladimir Antinov’s comments about
Mir
.

It was early evening in Frankfurt. Hoping that Herr Frisch was not out enjoying the Oktoberfest, Dean reached for the phone.

From the SETI Conspiracy chat room:

Suspect_Everyone:
So now there’s a pressing deadline to answer ET. Who else smells a six-legged, bug-eyed rat?

42_is_true:
How convenient! ET spies on us for 30+ years and we get a few months to reply. What’s the rush?

Suspect_Everyone:
The rush, my naive friend, is to stampede us. Remember that the UN already pushed through a treaty allowing only *them* to answer ET. The vote to reply will be one more pretense why we “need” world government.

Remember_Seattle:
They’ve made a losing gamble. Once we delay them past the deadline, the whole pretense lapses. Join Earth First at the barricades in NYC.

10

The limo was twenty minutes late. Traffic crawled, snarled by picketing Earth Firsters. Despite the unruly crowds, Dean guessed he could make it to the UN Building faster on foot.

He had not expected to find Alex Klein in the limo. An open briefcase brimming with papers and manila folders sat on the seat beside the diplomat.

Klein said, “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice. I appreciate your flexibility, since my calendar doesn’t offer much.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Ambassador. What can I do for you?”

“Please, we’re alone. It’s just Alex. I wanted to advise you of an issue in regard to your recent inquiry.”

Dean didn’t speak diplomatese, but in his experience an issue was never a good thing.

ET’s shopping list and catalogue, when decoded, had been much alike. All sixteen entries on the shopping list were related to chemical reactions and materials science. The catalogue hinted at fifteen catalysts and materials; the sixteenth entry promised a superior optical telescope design.

It was commonly interpreted that ET would swap, one for one, any item from his catalogue for any item on the shopping list. Alas, ET’s wares and the new solutions he sought were equally unfamiliar to the task force’s engineers. Lots to ask for; nothing to offer in trade.

ET’s shopping list included catalysts for fuel cells. There had been a long-shot chance that the federal labs had related unpublished work. Alex’s office had agreed to pull strings for Dean to find out.

“Any luck?” Dean asked.

“Not at the national labs. I’m told, in fact, that the example ET used to define ‘fuel cell’ is potentially better than anything we have.

“On the other hand…my good friend, the Secretary of Commerce, was contacted discreetly by two key constituents, if you know what I mean. The corporations they represent may each have one of the catalysts sought by ET. The research is not yet ready for patent application.”

Key constituents, presumably, were big fund raisers for the president’s party. “Will these constituents share information with ET? Do they understand the impracticality of obtaining monetary payment from him? That it would take years to—”

The limo stopped suddenly, its brakes squealing, and Dean grabbed an armrest. Three protesters had darted in front of the car. They wore bug-eyed-monster masks with Devil’s horns, and their waving placards asked,
Do I
look
trustworthy?

“Ah, street theater.” Alex did not look like a fan. “Barter is awkward, as is the delay. Sixteen years round trip? That’s not the real issue, however.

“Sending technology to ET means turning it over to the task force for encoding and transmission. Neither company trusts the UN to keep secrets here on Earth.

“Federal purchase of this proprietary technology has been mentioned, but we’re talking billions and getting an appropriation bill through Congress. A purchase probably can’t happen in time, even if it were the right thing to do.”

If? Dean peered glumly through blackened, one-way limo glass. More and more demonstrators streamed past the trapped limo toward the United Nations Building. “Look at this crowd. Can they spell Luddite?”

“Let’s be realistic.” Alex sighed. “The major economic powers want ET technologies. We’ve all been working hard to declare COPUOS membership frozen until after the natural milestone of an authorization to reply—and I expect we’ll lose today’s procedural vote on that freeze. Our prickly friend Charise Ganes is leading the opposition. God’s honest truth—I think she’s pissed you were invited onto the Steering Committee and she wasn’t.” As Alex snapped shut his briefcase, his voice rose an octave. “Another slap in the face of developing countries.”

In his own voice Alex went on unhappily, “We have nothing to trade, the long odds of getting a reply authorized are about to get worse, and time is running out. Mere Luddites are the least of our problems.”

“I’m stumped,” Dean admitted. “If you ask me, the whole task force is. We need new ideas. I’m going overseas to meet someone with a fresh take on ET’s message. Wish me luck.”

■□■

“Where shall I begin?” Joachim Frisch wondered aloud. He was a frail, gray-haired gentleman of seventy-three years, wheelchair-bound.

“How did you become interested?’ Dean asked.

On the flight to Germany Dean had done his homework. Frisch, until his retirement, had been a customer-support engineer at Siemens, the big German electronics firm. He freelanced occasionally, troubleshooting electronic systems. Sadly, he had never fully recovered from a car crash two years earlier.

“In a report from the Analysis group.” Frisch looked around his cluttered dining room for something—the report?—and shrugged. “As many have noted, there are obvious subassemblies for signal modulation and amplification. There is an impressive design for focusing and steering a beam using a phased-array antenna, like we use for radars. It is elegant work.” He tapped the printout spread across his dining room table. The schematic was easily two meters by three. Bits had been printed on A4-sized stationery and taped together. “And then, my young friend, we have
this
complicated mess.

“Forty years moving from customer to customer, application to application, builds a skill set. I had thought that mastering yet one more transmitter design, even an alien one, would be easy. I have seen
many
radio circuits in my time.”

Dean nibbled on one of the biscuits set out by the bespectacled and
apfel
-cheeked Frau Frisch.
Honigkuchen
? “Your web posting suggests that you had more success than the task force.”

“Ah, but I cheated. I have my hobby to help.” Frisch rolled into the adjoining living room and opened a cabinet. A rack-mounted set of ancient stereo components filled the cabinet.

To a crisp, metronome-like performance of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, Dean reconsidered his mental dating of the equipment. The sound quality was exquisite, at least as good as that of his own “modern” stereo. The orange glow of vacuum tubes had clouded his judgment.

“I admit it, Joachim, I’m a transistor chauvinist. These tubes produce a better, truer sound. How long did this take to build?”

Frisch laughed. “I began in college and I am not done. In these times I must make many of my own tubes. Later, if you wish, I will show you my workshop.”

“So what do you find most interesting about ET’s radio design?”

“Our symbols for electronic components of course differ from ET’s. We learned ET’s symbols early in the message, in the physics tutorial. Do you agree?”

“I think so,” Dean said. “I am not an expert in that part of the message.”

“ET drew a wet-cell battery and showed it with a new icon. This is how we know his symbol for a voltage source. He made an animation of electrons moving, and another symbol, and we know how he shows current.

“Then ET drew the simplest possible circuit, the voltage symbol in series with one new symbol. The drawing is above the most familiar of electrical equations.”

Ohm’s law,
recalled Matthews.
Junior-high physics
.

“Obviously, the new symbol was for a resistor,” Frisch continued. “There was also a graph. It was not drawn as we would, but from context it is recognizable: current versus voltage in the new device. The graph described a resistor, so the plot is a straight line.”

Dean nodded. “We don’t know how ET builds a resistor, but the circuit and equation are so simple we were sure to recognize the new element. The real purpose of the chart was to introduce voltage/current plots, transfer functions.”

“Indeed.”

“And does ET use transfer-function graphs to describe all his other circuit elements?”

Frisch nodded briskly. “Exactly! Later in the message such graphs define many new electrical devices. They behave like diodes, capacitors, inductors, and other familiar parts.”

“Leaving it to us to decide how the component is actually constructed.” Fascinating. “Almost any electrical engineer, seeing a three-terminal amplifying device would assume it was a transistor. He would consider the associated transfer-function drawing as a cartoon and dismiss any subtle differences from what is expected of a transistor.”

“And only a stubborn fossil would consider that it could be a vacuum tube, a triode.” Frisch once more tapped the tablecloth-sized printout. Despite his obvious excitement, the old engineer seemed weary. “But the way ET built his very high powered amplifier section…it is not like a transistor design. Not like a solid-state design.”

“We should take a break,” Dean said. “Would you mind one more question first?”

“Please.”

“For a large radio transmitter, are there reasons to prefer tube technology over solid state?”

“None.” Frisch rubbed his temples pensively. “ET has many parallel antennas in his phased array, so this task could easily be done with transistors. I have given the matter serious thought.”

That fit. There was plenty of stress among the engineers assigned to boosting the power of some Earth transmitters, just in case a reply was authorized, but Dean had heard not one word of worry about semiconductor inadequacies.

Mir
, thought Dean. Antinov’s advice never to underestimate what could be accomplished using only basics and brute force. “Unless ET doesn’t have solid-state technology.”

Transistors and integrated circuits had revolutionized electronics on Earth, had made such sweeping changes that no one had considered the seemingly advanced ET might lack them.

How valuable to ET would transistors be?

“The streets of Manhattan were brought to a standstill today, in a limited demonstration of Earth First’s resolve.

“Earth First has united the many communities committed to protecting our world’s interests. Our voices include people of faith, supporters of national sovereignty, defenders of our planetary resources, and guardians against extraterrestrial duplicity. We come from every class, country, and continent.

“Members of COPUOS, disband the Lalande task force or face our wrath.”

—Earth First communiqué