Starplex

Rissa’s tastes were more adventurous than Keith’s. She was eating gaz torad—“blood mussels,” Waldahud bivalves that lived in the slurry layer at the bottom of many lakes. Keith found the bright purple-red color disgusting as did most Waldahudin, for that matter, since it was a precise match for the hue of their own blood. But Rissa had mastered the trick of bringing the shell to her mouth, popping it open, and slurping out the morsel within, all without letting the soft mass be seen either by herself or anyone sitting across from her.

Keith and Rissa ate in silence, and Keith wondered if that was good or bad. They’d run out of idle chitchat ages ago. Oh, if there was something on either of their minds, they’d talk at length, but it seemed that they just enjoyed being in each other’s company, even if they said barely a word. At least that’s the way Keith felt, and he hoped Rissa shared that feeling.

Keith was using a katook (Waldahud cutlery, like duck-billed pliers) to bring some starg to his mouth when a comm panel popped up from the table’s surface, showing the face of Hek, the Waldahud alien-communications specialist.

“Rissa,” he barked in a voice somewhat more Brooklynish than Jag’s; from the way the comm panel was angled, the Waldahud couldn’t see Keith. “I have been analyzing the radio noise we’ve been detecting near the twenty-one-centimeter band. You won’t believe what I’ve found. Come to my office at once.”

Keith put down his eating utensil, and looked across the table at his wife. “I’ll join you,” he said, and stood up to leave. As they made their way across the room, he realized it was the only thing he’d said to her during the entire meal.

* * *

Keith and Rissa got into an elevator. As always, a monitor on the cab’s wall showed the current deck number and floor plan: “26,” and a cross shape with long arms. As they rode up, and the deck numbers counted down, the arms of the cross grew shorter and shorter. By the time they reached deck one, the arms had almost completely retracted. The two humans got out and entered the radio-astronomy listening room. Hek, a small Waldahud with a hide much redder in color than Jag’s, was leaning against a desk. “Rissa, your presence is welcome”—the standard deference shown females. A tilt of the head: “Lansing.” The rude indifference reserved for males, even if they were your boss.

“Hek,” said Keith, nodding in greeting.

The Waldahud looked at Rissa. “You know the radio noise we’ve been picking up?” His barking echoed in the tiny room.

Rissa nodded.

“Well, my initial analysis showed no repetition in it.” He swiveled a pair of eyes to look at Keith. “When a signal is a deliberate beacon, it usually has a repeating pattern over a course of several minutes or hours. There’s nothing like that at work here. Indeed, I’ve found no evidence of any overall pattern. But when I started analyzing the noise more minutely, patterns of one-second duration or less kept cropping up. So far, I’ve cataloged six thousand and seventeen sequences. Some have only been repeated once or twice, but others have been repeated many times. Over ten thousand times, for a few of them.”

“My God,” said Rissa.

“What?” said Keith.

She turned to him. “It means that there might be information in the noise—it might be radio communications.”

Hek lifted his upper shoulders. “Exactly. Each of the patterns could be a separate word. Those that occur most frequently could be common terms, maybe the equivalent of pronouns or prepositions.”

“And where are these transmissions coming from?” asked Keith.

“Somewhere in or just behind the dark-matter field,” said Hek.

“And you’re sure they’re intelligent signals?” asked Keith, his heart pounding.

Hek’s lower shoulders moved this time. “No, I’m not sure. For one thing, the transmissions are very weak. They wouldn’t be discernible from background noise over any great distance. But if I’m right that they’re words, then there does appear to be some discernible syntax. No word is ever doubled. Certain words only appear at the beginning or end of transmissions. Some words only appear after certain other words. The former are possibly adjectives and adverbs, and the latter the nouns or verbs they are modifying, or vice versa.” Hek paused. “Of course, I haven’t analyzed all the signals, although I am recording them for future study. It’s a constant bombardment, on over two hundred frequencies that are very close to each other.” He paused, letting this sink in. “I’d say there’s a good possibility that there’s a fleet of craft hiding inside or just past the dark-matter field.”

Keith was about to speak again when Hek’s desk intercom bleeped. “Keith, Lianne here.”

“Open. Yes?”

“I think you’ll want to come to the bridge. A watson has arrived with word that the boomerang has returned from shortcut Rehbollo 376A.”