Contact - Carl Sagan [85]
Xi Qiaomu was a tall, broad shouldered man around sixty. The wrinkles on his face made him seem older, but his posture and physique gave him an almost youthful appearance. He wore his tunic buttoned at the collar in the fashion that was as obligatory for Chinese political leaders as three piece suits were for American governmental leaders, the President, of course, excepted. The vitagraphics now came through on her console, and she could remember having read a long article about Xi Qiaomu in one of the video newsmagazines.
"If we are frightened," he was saying, "we will do nothing. That will delay them a little. But remember, they know we are here. Our television arrives at their planet. Every day they are reminded of us. Have you looked at our television programs? They will not forget us. If we do nothing and if they are worried about us, they will come to us, machine or no machine. We cannot hide from them. If we had kept quiet, we would not face this problem. If we had cable television only and no big military radar, then maybe they would not know about us. But now it is too late. We cannot go back. Our course is set.
"If you are seriously frightened about this machine destroying the Earth, do not build it on the Earth. Build it somewhere else. Then if it is a Doomsday Machine and blows up a world…it will not be our world. But this will be very expensive. Probably too expensive. Or if we are not so frightened, build it in some isolated desert. You could have a very big explosion in the Takopi Wasteland in Xinjing Province and still kill nobody. And if we are not frightened at all, we can build it in Washington. Or Moscow. Or Beijing. Or in this beautiful city.
"In Ancient China, Vega and two nearby stars were called Chih Neu. It means the young woman with the spinning wheel. It is an auspicious symbol, a machine to make new clothes for the people of the Earth. "We have received an invitation. A very unusual invitation. Maybe it is to go to a banquet. The Earth has never been invited to a banquet before. It would be impolite to refuse."
CHAPTER 12
The One-Delta Isomer
Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?
-VINCENT VAN GOGH
IT WAS a splendid autumn afternoon, so unseasonably warm that Devi Sukhavati had left her coat behind. She and Ellie walked along the crowded Champs Elysйes toward the Place de la Concorde. The ethnic diversity was rivaled by London, Manhattan, and only a few other cities on the planet. Two women walking together, one in a skirt and sweater, the other in a sari, were in no way unusual.
Outside a tobacconist's there was a long, orderly, and polyglot line of people attracted by the first week of legalized sale of cured cannabis cigarettes from the United States. By French law they could not be sold to or consumed by those under eighteen years of age. Many in line were middle-aged and older. Some might have been naturalized Algerians or Moroccans. Especially potent varieties of cannabis were grown, mainly in California and Oregon, for the export trade. Featured here was a new and admired strain, which had in addition been grown in ultraviolet light, converting some of the inert cannabinoids into the 1 Delta isomer. It was called "Sun-Kissed." The package, illustrated in a window display a meter and a half high, bore in French the slogan `This will be deducted from your share in Paradise.'
The shop windows along the boulevard were a riot of color. The two women bought chestnuts from a street vendor and reveled in the taste and texture.