The Foundations of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke [29]
The whole spectrum of possibilities was argued, ad nauseam, in all the media of communications, all the parliaments of man. Every plot that had ever been used in science fiction, from the arrival of benevolent gods to an invasion of bloodsucking vampires, was disinterred and solemnly analyzed. Lloyds of London collected substantial premiums from people insuring against every possible future—including some in which there would have been little chance of collecting a penny.
Then, as the alien passed the orbit of Jupiter, man’s instruments began to learn something about it. The first discovery created a short-lived panic. The object was five hundred kilometers in diameter—the size of a small moon. Perhaps, after all, it was a mobile world, carrying an invading army. . . .
This fear vanished when more precise observations showed that the solid body of the intruder was only a few meters across. The five-hundred-kilometer halo around it was something familiar—a flimsy, slowly revolving parabolic reflector, the exact equivalent of the astronomers’ orbiting radio telescopes. Presumably this was the antenna through which the visitor kept in touch with its distant base. And through which, even now, it was doubtless beaming back its discoveries as it scanned the solar system and eavesdropped upon the radio, television, and data broadcasts of mankind.
Then came yet another surprise. That asteroid-sized antenna was not pointed in the direction of Alpha Centauri, but toward a totally different part of the sky. It began to look as if the Centaurus system was merely the vehicle’s last port of call, not its origin.
The astronomers were still brooding over this when they had a remarkable stroke of luck. A solar weather probe on routine patrol beyond Mars became suddenly dumb, but recovered its radio voice a minute later. When the records were examined, it was found that the instruments had been momentarily paralyzed by intense radiation. The probe had cut right across the visitor’s beam—and it was then a simple matter to calculate precisely where it was aimed.
There was nothing in that direction for fifty-two light-years, except a very faint—and presumably very old—red dwarf star, one of those abstemious little suns that would still be shining peacefully billions of years after the galaxy’s splendid giants had burned themselves out. No radio telescope had ever examined it closely; now all those that could be spared from the approaching visitor were focused upon its suspected origin.
And there it was, beaming a sharply tuned signal in the one-centimeter band. The makers were still in contact with the vehicle they had launched, thousands of years ago; but the messages it must be receiving now were from only half a century in the past.
As it came within the orbit of Mars, the visitor showed its first awareness of mankind, in the most dramatic and unmistakable way that could be imagined. It started transmitting standard 3075-line television pictures, interleaved with video text in fluent though stilted English and Mandarin. The first cosmic conversation had begun—and not, as had always been imagined, with a delay of decades, but only minutes.
13
Shadow at Dawn
Morgan had left his hotel in Ranapura at 4:00 A.M. on a clear, moonless night. He was not too happy about the choice of time, but Professor Sarath, who had made all the arrangements, had promised him that it would be well worth while. “You won’t understand anything about Sri Kanda,” he had