devastated world. “Because they overextended their resources?” he asked, requiring no answer. “Would not limit themselves until Nature had to do it for them?” He shook his head. “How long ago?”
“Fifteen thousand years.”
“All right,” Ivo said defensively. “That’s two. Any other technological species on tap?”
“One more.” Brad adjusted again, and a landscape of ruins came into view. After a time a grotesque four-legged creature shambled along a pathway between two overgrown mounds of rubble. Matted hair concealed its sensory organs, and it walked with its toes curled under — like a gorilla, Ivo thought. It looked sick and hungry.
“As we make it, civilization collapsed here less than five hundred years before this picture,” Brad said. “Population reduced from about ten billion individuals to no more than a million, and is declining. There
still
isn’t enough to eat, you see, and naturally no medicine. Most surviving plants are diseased themselves…”
Ivo did not bother to inquire whether the hunched creature was a descendant of the dominant species. Obviously it had once been bipedal.
Of course three samples did not make a conclusive case. They could be three freaks. But, unwillingly, he was coming to accept the notion that Man might well be a fourth such freak. Overpopulation, pollution of environment, savagery — he refused to believe that it
had
to proceed to species extinction, but certainly it
could
.
Yet the sample
was
atypical, for there were no neolithic-era cultures. Chance would place many more species in this stage.
“It was from the probs I got the heat-shielding technique,” Brad said, allowing the subject to shift. He had brought the picture back to Sung, their planet. “We’re still working on their books and equipment, and we’re learning a great deal. And if we’re lucky, one day we’ll discover a
really
advanced civilization, one that has licked this problem of overbreed, and learn how to undo the damage we have done to our own planet. The macroscope has the potential to jump our science ahead more in days than it has progressed in centuries hitherto.”
“I yield the point. This is major. But—”
“But why am I wasting time on you, instead of researching for the solutions to the problems of mankind? Because something has come up.”
“I gathered as much,” Ivo replied with gentle irony. “
What
has come up?”
“We’re receiving what amounts to commercial broadcasts.”
Ivo choked over the letdown. “You can’t even tune out local interference? I thought you operated on a different wavelength, or whatever.”
“Alien broadcasts. Artificial signals in the prime macroscopic band.”
Ivo digested this. “So you
have
made real contact.”
“A one-way contact. We can’t send, we can only receive. We know of no way to tame a macron, but obviously some species does.”
“So some stellar civilization is sending out free entertainment?” His words sounded ridiculous as he said them, but he could think of no better immediate remark.
“It isn’t entertainment. Instructional series. Coded information.”
“And you can’t decode it? That’s why you need Schön?”
“We comprehend it. It is designed for ready assimilation, though not in quite the manner we anticipated.”
“You mean, not a dit-dot building up from 2 ÷ 2 or forming a picture of their stellar system? No, don’t go into the specifics; it was rhetorical. Is it from a nearby planet? A surrender ultimatum?”
“It originates about fifteen thousand light-years away, from the direction of the constellation Scorpio. No invasion, no ultimatum.”
“But we weren’t civilized fifteen thousand years ago. How could they send us a message?”
“It is spherical radiation. That’s another surprise. We assumed that any long-reaching artificial signal would be focused, for economy of power. This has to be a Type II technology.”
“I don’t—”
“Type I would be
“Fifteen thousand years.”
“All right,” Ivo said defensively. “That’s two. Any other technological species on tap?”
“One more.” Brad adjusted again, and a landscape of ruins came into view. After a time a grotesque four-legged creature shambled along a pathway between two overgrown mounds of rubble. Matted hair concealed its sensory organs, and it walked with its toes curled under — like a gorilla, Ivo thought. It looked sick and hungry.
“As we make it, civilization collapsed here less than five hundred years before this picture,” Brad said. “Population reduced from about ten billion individuals to no more than a million, and is declining. There
still
isn’t enough to eat, you see, and naturally no medicine. Most surviving plants are diseased themselves…”
Ivo did not bother to inquire whether the hunched creature was a descendant of the dominant species. Obviously it had once been bipedal.
Of course three samples did not make a conclusive case. They could be three freaks. But, unwillingly, he was coming to accept the notion that Man might well be a fourth such freak. Overpopulation, pollution of environment, savagery — he refused to believe that it
had
to proceed to species extinction, but certainly it
could
.
Yet the sample
was
atypical, for there were no neolithic-era cultures. Chance would place many more species in this stage.
“It was from the probs I got the heat-shielding technique,” Brad said, allowing the subject to shift. He had brought the picture back to Sung, their planet. “We’re still working on their books and equipment, and we’re learning a great deal. And if we’re lucky, one day we’ll discover a
really
advanced civilization, one that has licked this problem of overbreed, and learn how to undo the damage we have done to our own planet. The macroscope has the potential to jump our science ahead more in days than it has progressed in centuries hitherto.”
“I yield the point. This is major. But—”
“But why am I wasting time on you, instead of researching for the solutions to the problems of mankind? Because something has come up.”
“I gathered as much,” Ivo replied with gentle irony. “
What
has come up?”
“We’re receiving what amounts to commercial broadcasts.”
Ivo choked over the letdown. “You can’t even tune out local interference? I thought you operated on a different wavelength, or whatever.”
“Alien broadcasts. Artificial signals in the prime macroscopic band.”
Ivo digested this. “So you
have
made real contact.”
“A one-way contact. We can’t send, we can only receive. We know of no way to tame a macron, but obviously some species does.”
“So some stellar civilization is sending out free entertainment?” His words sounded ridiculous as he said them, but he could think of no better immediate remark.
“It isn’t entertainment. Instructional series. Coded information.”
“And you can’t decode it? That’s why you need Schön?”
“We comprehend it. It is designed for ready assimilation, though not in quite the manner we anticipated.”
“You mean, not a dit-dot building up from 2 ÷ 2 or forming a picture of their stellar system? No, don’t go into the specifics; it was rhetorical. Is it from a nearby planet? A surrender ultimatum?”
“It originates about fifteen thousand light-years away, from the direction of the constellation Scorpio. No invasion, no ultimatum.”
“But we weren’t civilized fifteen thousand years ago. How could they send us a message?”
“It is spherical radiation. That’s another surprise. We assumed that any long-reaching artificial signal would be focused, for economy of power. This has to be a Type II technology.”
“I don’t—”
“Type I would be
Similar Books
