Contact - Carl Sagan [82]
"My specialty is government. So I know that the nations are also alike. Every nation is cautious. Every nation is suspicious. None of us would give an advantage to a potential adversary if we could prevent it. And so there have been two opinions-perhaps more, but at least two-one that counsels exchange of all the data, and another that counsels each nation to seek advantage over the others. `You can be sure the other side is seeking some advantage,' they say. It is the same in most countries.
"The scientists have won this debate. So, for example, most of the data-although, I wish to point out, not all-acquired by the United States and the Soviet Union have been exchanged. Most of the data from all other countries have been exchanged worldwide. We are happy we have made this decision."
Ellie whispered to Kitz, "This doesn't sound like `hardball' to me."
"Stay tuned," he whispered back. "But there are other kinds of dangers. We would like now to raise one of them for the Consortium to consider." Baruda's tone reminded her of Vaygay's at lunch the other day. What was the bee in the Soviet bonnet?
"We have heard Academician Lunacharsky, Dr. Arroway, and other scientists agree that we are receiving the instructions for building a complex machine. Suppose that, as everyone seems to expect, the end of the Message comes; the Message recycles to the beginning; and we receive the introduction or-the English word is `primer'?-primer which lets us read the Message. Suppose also that we continue to cooperate fully, all of us. We exchange all the data, all the fantasies, all the dreams.
"Now the beings on Vega, they are not sending us these instructions for their amusement. They want us to build a machine. Perhaps they will tell us what the machine is supposed to do. Perhaps not. But even if they do, why should we believe them? So I raise my own fantasy, my own dream. It is not a happy one. What if this machine is a Trojan Horse? We build the machine at great expense, turn it on, and suddenly an invading army pours out of it. Or what if it is a Doomsday Machine? We build it, turn it on, and the Earth blows up. Perhaps this is their way to suppress civilizations just emerging into the cosmos. It would not cost much; they pay only for a telegram, and the upstart civilization obediently destroys itself.
"What I am about to ask is only a suggestion, a talking point. I raise it for your consideration. I mean it to be constructive. On this issue, we all share the same planet, we all have the same interests. No doubt I will put it too bluntly. Here is my question: Would it be better to burn the data and destroy the radio telescopes?"
A commotion ensued. Many delegations asked simultaneously to be recognized. Instead, the conference co-chairmen seemed mainly motivated to remind the delegates that sessions were not to be recorded or videotaped. No interviews were to be granted to the press. There would be daily press releases, agreed upon by the conference co-chairmen and the leaders of delegations. Even the integuments of the present discussion were to remain in this conference chamber.
Several delegates asked for clarification from the Chair. "If Baruda is right about a Trojan Horse or a Doomsday Machine," shouted out a Dutch delegate, "isn't it our duty to inform the public?" But he had not been recognized and his microphone had not been activated. They went on to other, more urgent, matters. Ellie had quickly punched into the institutional computer terminal before her for an early position in the queue. She discovered that she was scheduled second, after Sukhavati and before one of the Chinese delegates.
Ellie knew Devi Sukhavati slightly. A stately woman in her mid-forties, she was wearing a Western coiffure, high heeled sling-back pumps, and an exquisite silk sari. Originally trained as a physician, she had become one of the leading Indian experts in molecular biology and now shared her time between King's College, Cambridge, and the Tata Institute in Bombay. She was one of a handful of Indian Fellows of the Royal Society of London,