Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [89]
The message was contained in a sealed lead wafer that was two inches square and three-eighths of an inch thick. The water itself was contained in a gold mesh reticule which was hung on a stainless steel band clamped to the shaft that might be called Salo’s neck.
Salo had orders not to open the reticule and wafer until he arrived at his destination. His destination was not Titan. His destination was in a galaxy that began eighteen million light-years beyond Titan. The planners of the ceremonies in which Salo had participated did not know what Salo was going to find in the galaxy. His instructions were to find creatures in it somewhere, to master their language, to open the message, and to translate it for them.
Salo did not question the good sense of his errand, since he was, like all Tralfamadorians, a machine. As a machine, he had to do what he was supposed to do.
Of all the orders Salo received before taking off from Tralfamadore, the one that was given the most importance was that he was not, under any circumstances, to open the message along the way.
This order was so emphasized that it became the very core of the little Tralfamadorian messenger’s being.
In the Earthling year 203,117 B.C., Salo was forced down in the Solar System by mechanical difficulties. He was forced down by a complete disintegration of a small part in his ship’s power plant, a part about the size of an Earthling beer-can opener. Salo was not mechanically inclined, and so had only a hazy idea as to what the missing part looked like or was supposed to do. Since Salo’s ship was powered by UWTB, the Universal Will to Become, its power plant was nothing for a mechanical dilettante to tinker with.
Salo’s ship wasn’t entirely out of commission. It would still run—but limpingly, at only about sixty-eight thousand miles an hour. It was adequate for short hops around the Solar System, even in its crippled condition, and copies of the crippled ship did yeoman service for the Martian war effort. But the crippled ship was impossibly slow for the purposes of Salo’s intergalactic errand.
So old Salo holed up on Titan and he sent home to Tralfamadore word of his plight. He sent the message home with the speed of light, which meant that it would take one hundred and fifty thousand Earthling years to get to Tralfamadore.
He developed several hobbies that helped him to pass the time. Chief among these were sculpture, the breeding of Titanic daisies, and watching the various activities on Earth. He could watch the activities on Earth by means of a viewer on the dash panel of his ship. The viewer was sufficiently powerful to let Salo follow the activities of Earthling ants, if he so wished.
It was through this viewer that he got his first reply from Tralfamadore. The reply was written on Earth in huge stones on a plain in what is now England. The ruins of the reply still stand, and are known as Stonehenge. The meaning of Stonehenge in Tralfamadorian, when viewed from above, is: "Replacement part being rushed with all possible speed."
Stonehenge wasn’t the only message old Salo had received.
There had been four others, all of them written on Earth.
The Great Wall of China means in Tralfamadorian, when viewed from above: "Be patient. We haven’t forgotten about you."
The Golden House of the Roman Emperor Nero meant: "We are doing the best we can."
The meaning of the Moscow Kremlin when it was first walled was: "You will be on your way before you know it. "
The meaning of the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, is: "Pack up your things and be ready to leave on short notice."
Simple arithmetic will reveal that these messages all arrived with speeds considerably in excess of the speed of light. Salo had sent his message of distress home with the speed of light, and it had taken one hundred and fifty thousand years to reach Tralfamadore. He had received a reply from Tralfamadore in less than fifty thousand years.
It is grotesque for anyone