Ben Bova

“ The humans on those planets did not evolve there; they are a billion years ahead of the natural evolution of their worlds."
Bennett spoke up. "In other words, they were originally a colony from Earth."
"Exactly."
"That's a lot to swallow in one sitting," Patrick said, quietly.
"I know," Lee answered. "But it fits in with what we've found here. Elaine, I'm certain that if you knew where to look, you could find on Earth the remains of a human civilization that is more than a million years old...." ”

“ Lee said. "But remember, it's only an automatic machine. Those who made it, the Others, they're still out there among the stars somewhere. They're going to be mighty upset when they find out that we're not dead."
"It's ... terrifying ... in a way."
"The important thing is that we understand. Now we can face them, wherever they are. They're no more intelligent than we are. We've proved that by learning what the machine is all about. They may be older, and they certainly know more tricks, but they're not on a completely higher plain of mental development."
Elaine leaned back in her seat. ”

“ Lee said. "But the line of attack isn't so different. For instance: Dr. Childe, suppose you send your wave patterns to the Orbital Computation Center at Earth and have the Big Brain work them over. Do you think it might come up with something useful?"
Childe shrugged elaborately. "Maybe. If we try to extrapolate the sample patterns we have now over a million years, maybe something will show up."
"It'll take months to get the Big Brain's time," Elaine said. "They're waiting in line all the way back to Mars for it."
"What are months compared to the time we've already spent?" Bennett countered. ”

“ Lee insisted. "If we turn our backs on this machine, we've turned our backs on a basic premise of all scientific thought. If we admit that we can't understand this machine, then we admit that there's an absolute limit to our ability to understand the universe. We give in to the old witch-doctor's claim that there are some things in the world that man must not tamper with. ”

“ It took close to three billion years for life to make its first appearance on Earth. Another two billion years of evolution were necessary before man arose.
"If the planets circling Sirius and Vega are less than one billion years old," Lee stated, "then the human populations of those planets—no matter how primitive they are—could not have originated there. They must have come from another planetary system. The closest system that could have born life on its own is our Solar System."
Second, the ruins on Tau Ceti and on Mars were both definitely built by human beings. ”

“ Kurtzman asked, arching his eyebrows. "Do you see science making any great strides around here? We're in over our heads. Intuition is the only thing that can save us."
"If we're that bad off, we might as well quit," the first one said. "In fact, that might be the best idea of all. Forget it and go home. Let the damned machine run for another million years, if it wants to."
Lee could not keep quiet any longer. ”

“ Lee said, drumming his fingers on the desktop in a restless tattoo. "The machine beams gravity waves into the interplanetary plasma between the Sun and Mercury. The effect is infinitesimal, by our short-term standards, but over a hundred thousand years or so, the cumulative effect must be enough to block off a small fraction of the Sun's radiation. The Earth goes into a deep freeze for a few millennia!"
"But why?" Elaine asked. "Why did the Others build it?"
Lee paced nervously across the room. "Think a minute. They had beaten the Earthmen in a bitter interstellar war. ”

“ The excitement died quickly. It was a discovery, yes. But it did not bring them any closer to understanding the machine and its purpose.
Lee was sitting at his desk, staring moodily at a graph that Dr. Childe had left with him: the results of the Orbital Computing Center's extrapolation of the wave patterns broadcast by the machine.
The phone buzzer sounded. Without taking his eyes from the graph, Lee flicked the phone on.
"Are you busy right now?"
He looked up and saw Elaine's face on the screen. "No, not really," he answered. "Come on in." ”

“ First, both Sirius and Vega have both been long known to be comparatively young stars. Astrophysical evidence compiled from the Twentieth Century onward, and finally geophysical data from the planets themselves, showed that Sirius and Vega—and their planets—were considerably less than a billion years old. By contrast, the Solar System was known to be at least five billion years old.
Now, the development of life takes time. ”

“ Let's admit to ourselves that what we see today is only a very small slice of the whole picture. Dr. Petchkovich, you're an astronomer; you're accustomed to studying a star for a few months and coming up with a story that covers perhaps billions of years. ”

“ And, carefully tucked into the top drawer of his desk was a nasty yellow sheet that bore a querulous message from Earth: What is the status of the project? Why are expenditures constantly climbing? Is a ninety-three-man staff really needed? When can some solid results be expected?
Lee picked an unoccupied table and sat down. As he started to eat, a quartet of young engineers, headed by Dr. Kurtzman, came in and sat at the next table.
"I still don't see why they keep digging," one of them was saying. "They'll never find anything outside the buildings." ”

“ Elaine said as they trudged back to the center.
"We're on the outside looking in," Lee said. "If we could only determine the purpose of the machinery, then the rest of it would come pretty easily."
They returned to the surface bubble and took off their pressure suits.
"Nearly dinner time," Elaine said, as they descended to the living area. "How about eating in my quarters?" she asked.
"Can you cook?"
"You'll find out."
A few hours later, he had decided that she definitely could cook, and that she had somehow managed to bring to Titan some of the best wine he had tasted in years. ”

“ Dr. Childe, a short, sharp-voiced mathematician, gave his report on his department's analysis of the wave patterns that were being sent out by the antennas. The patterns had been deduced from the fluctuations in energy consumption by the antenna equipment. Childe reported another blank. The patterns were completely random.
"It's foolish to call them patterns at all," Childe complained. "They look more like the ramblings of an idiot than anything produced by intelligence."
Finally, Petchkovich reported on the latest astronomical studies. ”

“ As soon as its discovery was made known, the machine was visited by a steady stream of Earthmen—physicists, archeologists, engineers of a thousand different specialties, and soldiers, politicians, men who were now forced to believe the inevitable. ”

“ They headed for the buildings, under the double shadows cast by the distant Sun and the ever-present, overpowering Saturn. The buildings loomed straight up from the dark plain, gaunt gloomy specters from a bygone age haunting this shadow world. There were five low, square featureless structures ringed around a central pentagonally-shaped tower that swept upward to a series of spires and antennas. Several doors had been cut into the outer buildings' walls by the inquiring Earthmen. Originally, the walls had been perfectly blank.
"Did you bring a torch?" Lee asked.
Elaine shook her head. ”

“ The Vegan and Sirian peoples are hardly human, by our standards. In addition to slight physiological differences, they live in caves and eat shellfish and giant insects. They do not hunt meat-bearing animals, simply because there are not yet any meat-bearing animals on their planets. ”

“ Dr. Petchkovich spent six weeks on Mercury, supervising at first hand the investigation of the area where the machine's antennas were focused. He returned to Titan in high excitement.
"We have definitely proved that there is a disturbance in the interplanetary magnetic field at the focal point of the machine's antennas," he announced to the department heads, when they convened in the conference room to hear his report.
"How strong a disturbance?" Dr. Kulaki asked. ”

“ They had to scavenge equipment from the center's grav screen machinery, and the whole underground community was without its Earth-normal grav field for two and a half days, but when the field was returned to normal (and people stopped hopping and bouncing all through the center) Kurtzman and Kulaki had proved that the antennas were indeed beaming out gravity waves.
It's all here, Lee thought, as he read their combined report. Now we know what the machine is doing. But to what purpose? What influence does this have on Earth? ”

“ Bennett wordlessly extended his arms over the desk. His hands were trembling, almost imperceptibly, but trembling.
Lee stared at the hands. "You too?"
Bennett placed his hands palms down on the desk. "Do you think you're the only one who worries about an alien race who can build a machine that we can't understand after ten years of investigation and study?"
The official transfer took place the following day, shortly after breakfast. Bennett called a meeting of the six department heads and announced that he would leave Titan on the next ship. It came as no surprise. ”

“ A week ago they had all been agog with the gravity-waves discovery. Now it had become apparent that the discovery had not opened the door they were trying to get through. We're like children, Lee thought, trying to put together a stereo transceiver from an assembly kit; all the pieces are there, but we can't get them together in the proper way. ”

“ Lee, this is something we've been working on for more than a year. The power unit is buried in the sublevel of the main building out there, and it's damned difficult to get to it without tearing out other machines. We finally wormed a man down there about a month ago."
Richards turned back to the rest of the group. "This chart shows what we've been able to learn about the power unit. Which isn't much. There's no input to it. No batteries, no solar cells, nothing. There's a fuel tank—at least, we think it's a fuel tank—that's sunk inside a cryogenic magnetic coil."
Elaine spoke up. ”

“ Driving, constantly driving at their unknown tasks. Along catwalks that snaked through the maze of machines, automatic maintenance vehicles scurried along, stopping here for a quick adjustment, there for replacement of a faulty part. ”