“SETI” Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — Chapter 27
27
The second storm had moved onshore. It was not as strong as the previous one. The rain was steadier, not as violent, but there was still an occasional burst of natural fireworks.
Late at night, a small figure was outlined against the wall of Sam’s garage. The figure began to ascend the slippery staircase, its steps interrupted only by a distant boom of thunder. The figure continued to the top of the staircase and the unlocked door to Sam’s room.
Sam was sound asleep. A bit of rearranging had cleaned up the room sufficiently for Sam to walk from his bed to the workbench or bathroom without crashing over a piece of radio hardware or a pile of papers. There were no pilot lights to illuminate Sam’s completed prototype META box. It was unpainted and rough-looking. It was labeled like his stolen, neatly designed META box, covered with decals and carefully placed input/output plugs. The new box was on the floor next to his leather backpack.
Sam’s chest was moving up and down gently and evenly. His arm was wrapped around his foam pillow. He had been asleep for only a short while.
The slight figure pushed open the door. It squeaked, but Sam didn’t move. The rain pounded on the landing. The figure closed the door and stepped lightly to Sam’s bed. With each step, the swish of rain gear and the squeak of boots were audible. The hood came off, and Lisa looked down at Sam. The light from the streetlight in front of the Alexander house was just strong enough to illuminate Sam’s room.
Lisa sat on the edge of the bed and watched Sam sleep. She thought he looked young and helpless, sleeping with his arm clutching his pillow as if he were trying not to fall off the bed. She listened to him inhale and exhale. The steady, deep breaths indicated to Lisa that he was out completely. She leaned over, touched his shoulder softly, and kissed him on the cheek. He stirred, mumbled some incoherent words, and settled back down. She shook him.
“Hey, Sam. C’mon. We gotta take a ride,” Lisa whispered. He didn’t move, but his breathing became shallower and somewhat erratic. She knew he was starting to wake. She shook him again, this time a bit harder.
“Sam. C’mon, sleepyhead. I wanna take you someplace.”
Sam turned over on his back and swallowed hard. He mumbled again, then slowly opened his eyes.
It took at least thirty seconds for him to become fully conscious and for his eyes to focus. He looked up and saw Lisa. He could sense that she was there but didn’t fully comprehend. But once he saw the broad smile, the wet bright-red hair, and the beautiful piercing green eyes, he knew. The clincher was the smell of her perfume. He wondered whether he was dreaming. He verbalized his thoughts.
“If this is a dream, I hope I never wake up,” Sam said softly. He rose slightly, putting his weight on both elbows. “What is going on?”
Sam yawned and looked at the digital clock, next to the picture of his parents, on the nightstand. “Good Lord, it’s twelve-thirty.”
Lisa stood and looked around the room. She spotted what she was looking for — Sam’s pants, draped over a nearby chair. She picked them up and returned to her seat next to the still-groggy Sam.
“I know, Sam. I can read a clock, too, ya know.”
She handed him his pants. “Here. Put your jeans on. We’re going for a ride.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just put your pants on and we’ll talk as we ride.”
“What are you doing here and what are you talking about?”
She folded her arms. “You weren’t in school today, but I covered for you..again. So the least you can do is get dressed and come with me. You’ll need the new box and your laptop computer.”
“Why?”
She stood and looked around for a shirt, a sweater, anything to keep him warm and dry. She found a sweater dangling out of his dresser, moved toward Sam, and threw it on the bed.
Sam sat up and started to get out of bed. Then he stopped and quickly pulled the blanket and sheet over himself.
Lisa tilted her head and smiled. “Not bad, Sam Alexander. Not bad at all.”
Even in the near-darkness of Sam’s room, illuminated by a flash of lightning or two, Lisa could see that Sam was turning a deep shade of red from embarrassment. She sat on the edge of the bed again.
“Where the hell are we going with my gear in the middle of the friggin’ night?”
Lisa moved toward him and put her warm soft hand on his arm. Sam was beginning to get excited. At that moment, he would believe anything that she was about to tell him. With the rhythmic beat of the rain, the smell of her perfume, and the gentleness of her touch, Sam was having difficulty keeping himself from grabbing her and taking her under the covers.
“ ‘Member how you were carrying on and on earlier tonight on the phone about how your equipment and antennas were wasted, and wondering how you could give. . .whoever they are that we heard the other night a password to prevent that dude from JPL from impersonating you with your META thing, or whatever you call it?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Soooo, it just so happens that my father is a director of technical operations and installs for the phone company. My interest in what you’re doing, Sam, is because I’ve been exposed to that type of technical stuff all my life. I’m interested in that sorta thing, and I just began to think about how I can help you.”
Sam grinned from ear to ear. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t believe that for all this time, seeing Lisa in the hall, admiring her from afar, he didn’t know that her interests were so similar to his. He was now truly falling in love with her. If there was such a thing as soul mates, males, and females that are meant for only each other, this beauty sitting in front of him must be the match that was ordained for him.
“I never knew all that. Why didn’t you tell me when we went out before?”
“Because I was interested in hearing what you had to say, I wanted to know more about you. I didn’t want to talk about myself.”
Sam listened raptly as Lisa continued. “Anyway, Daddy’s been talking about this new, modern transmission site they’re finishing up in Ramone Valley, just over the hill from here.”
“I know that place. But you have to go down this private road to get there. I’ve seen the Pacific Bell signs, but I never knew what was down there.”
“Sam, will your other META box, and your laptop computer work? And that portable hand-held transmitter you were converting tonight — is it finished? You could . . .”
He finished the sentence for her. “. . . use the hand-held transmitter; hook it up to the input of the dish; go through its high-gain amplifiers; point the dish with the right coordinates, if they will rotate that far; and transmit the password code. I hope I’ll have enough power to . . .”
Sam slapped his forehead. “Lisa, this is crazy. The Tau Ceti system is eleven-point-seven years away. It’ll be twenty-four years until I get a reply. Wait a minute. Maybe they’ve figured out a way to beat the speed of light. But that’s impossible.”
Sam’s mind raced. Two-way conversations with a planet that far away would take twenty-three and a quarter years. The search for extraterrestrial civilizations’ stray signals, then, was necessarily a one-way proposition. He considered the possibility that maybe the aliens had found some means of overcoming the rule of nature that nothing, absolutely nothing, travels faster than light.
For a man in the latter half of the twentieth century, that was an immutable law. But Sam did not rule out any possibility. If it could be imagined, it just might be possible. Sam shook his head.
“Crazy. But at least they will know in eleven-point-seven years that it was me who received their message. And if they want to send me a reply when I’m an old fart at twenty-seven or twenty-eight, they’ll know I’m still here. They’ll know I got their message and sent the password they can use to reestablish contact.”
Sam turned serious as he looked at Lisa. “But it has to be me they contact again, Lisa, not Richard Redden.” He was rejuvenated. “Let’s do it. What the hell? Let’s give ‘er a shot.”
“But there is one very important thing you gotta do first.”
“What’s that?”
“Put your pants on.”
Sam stared through the rain pounding on the windshield. With only partial success, the wipers of Lisa’s Honda Civic tried to poke a hole through the steady stream of water. The streets were deserted, and Lisa was nudging the speed limit with gusto.
Sam adjusted the hood of his raincoat. He suddenly thought of, and asked, a simple but pertinent question that to that point had not been raised.
“How we gonna get in?”
Lisa looked over to Sam and smiled. “Get my purse. It’s in the back seat.”
Sam obeyed.
“Hand me the yellow wallet in there,” she said.
While struggling with the wheel and the narrow, hilly road, Lisa reached for the wallet and pulled out a plastic card with a magnetic strip on one side.
“Card key.” Lisa began to sing an old Eddie Money song. “ ‘I got two tickets to paradise. Pack your bag, we’ll leave tonight.’ ”
Sam looked at her with a half-smile.
“OK, smarty-pants. Those places usually have some type of Gestapo or gendarmes.”
“Guards? Don’t worry. They’re rent-a-cops. Give ’em a dry guard shack and a space heater, let ’em ear on the job and bring a portable TV, and they’re happy.”
“And occupied.” Sam chuckled.
The rain started to ease as Lisa and Sam drove out from a mountain pass and onto a fairly flat terrain. A distant flash of lightning was just bright enough to illuminate three forty-foot satellite dishes straight ahead.
Sam was usually intrigued by these facilities, but now he looked at the looming installation with twinges of foreboding. He certainly did not relish the idea of breaking and entering or having his name and picture in a police record, but this would probably be his only opportunity to receive the signal again and transmit a reply.
His fear was ameliorated by the fact that Lisa was sitting next to him. She seemed fearless and looked upon the adventure as a challenge, an exciting diversion. In fact, he felt somewhat inferior to her courage. She could get into even more trouble than he could. It was her father who worked for Pacific Bell, and she and her father would have some difficult questions to answer if she and Sam got caught or somehow damaged the equipment. But with what was at stake, and not knowing what Redden might do with his original META box, Sam had to take the chance, regardless of the ramifications for all concerned. He had to become crafty, cunning and daring because now he was desperate.
He looked at her soft profile. She noticed him staring and stared back. Almost too long. She swerved around a downed palm found in the narrow country road that led to the satellite transmission/reception facility. It was no more than one mile away.
“What?” Lisa asked quietly.
“Nothing. I was just looking.”
“You like what you see?” Lisa asked coyly.
“Oh, yeah.”
“That’s good.”
Lisa strained to see the outer gate. She slowed her car and turned off her headlights. She looked in the rearview mirror and around the car for other traffic, there was none. She made a quick, quiet left turn to the swing-arm barrier and the card-entry island. She pushed the card into the receptacle. A moment later, the barrier was raised.
She drove slowly over the treadle that closed the gate, toward the far side of the main facility-control building. In the distance, she could see the single guard gate underneath one of the large dishes, near the employees’ and visitors’ entrance. She parked behind a large emergency generator. The car was hidden from the view of the guard at the brightly-lighted gate. Through slow, steady drizzle, they could see an elderly guard moving from one side of the small building to the other. He was eating a sandwich and watching television. Lisa was correct. He had all the comforts of home and was as comfortable as if he were at home. After all, the guard must have thought, who would try to vandalize this remote transmission site in a pouring rain in the middle of the night? Who in their right mind would be out in weather like this?
Sam and Lisa emerged from the car as silently as possible and walked half a dozen steps toward a service entrance in a heavy chain-link fence. They were now within view of the guard, about two hundred yards away, but the light of the guard shack coupled with the steady sheet of light rain, made it difficult for him to detect Lisa and Sam. Lisa removed the plastic card key from her purse again and inserted it in the control lockbox. There was a loud click and a soft buzz as the catch released the door.
Lisa stepped in quickly but stopped short as she saw Sam staring at the gleaming white disks. The brilliantly lighted bowls and the large low-noise amplifiers that hovered over the satellite dishes transfixed him.
“Sam, c’mon. This way,” Lisa whispered.
Sam continued to stare at the three dishes. He considered the fact that these monster antennas did not exist forty years ago. Their capability to receive and transmit information reached far beyond the Earth’s surface. “If I could control just one of those mammoth dishes someday,” Sam thought, “or the 205-foot monster at Goldstone, or the multiple dishes at the Very Large Array, what wonders I could discover!”
To Sam, his signal search and exploration was no less exciting than Magellan’s journey around the world, no less daring than the Viking expeditions to North America, no less triumphant than the journey to the Moon in 1969, when Neil Armstrong took the first human step on a nonterrestrial object floating in free space.
He heard but didn’t respond to Lisa until he realized the danger of his mission. He could be easily spotted. He had to move on. But what beauties those dishes were! Brand-new, with the latest state-of-the-art equipment online and in the loop. Sam sighed and turned back toward his friend. He looked into her eyes. He was back from his journey, reaching for the stars. He was in the here and now.
Sam said, determinedly, “Let’s do it.”
The building also had a card-key lock system. Not only did the key have to be inserted, but also the correct four numbers had to be entered on an attached touch-tone pad. The four tones echoed down the dark, empty hallway. The two adventurers stepped inside that hallway and closed the door.
Lisa and Sam stood in silence as they looked down the hall. Light trickled toward them from the end of the hall, barely lighting the long, wide corridor. The light originated from their goal: the main control room for the entire satellite facility.
Lisa grabbed Sam’s arm and whispered, “Did you bring a flashlight?”
“Not here. I don’t wasn’t to be caught flashing a beam of light around the place.”
As they walked down the hall, Sam looked straight ahead. Then Sam gasped and stopped short.
“What?” Lisa asked.
Sam was staring at the joint between the ceiling and the wall at a small box with a semicircular plastic probe pointed down at the hallway. Sam nodded toward the device.
“Motion-detection alarm.”
Sam looked around, then looked carefully at the device and its inoperative red LED warning light.
“Did it go off?” Lisa looked frightened.
Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t think it was activated.”
Lisa gave a sigh of relief. “Sam, you scared me.” She put her head on his shoulder and squeezed his arm. He looked down at her and flashed a warm, reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry. We’re OK so far.”
When they finally reached the glass wall of the control room, they could see that some large component equipment had not been installed. The large, unlighted room had several rows of low consoles that faced the high windows, which presented an unobstructed view of the three gleaming satellite dishes, the scrub-brush hills, and the well-lighted guard gate. The island of light glowed brightly through the steady drizzle.
Much of the smaller control panel equipment seemed to be installed. Pilot lights cast an eerie red, green, and yellow glow. On either side of the room were nineteen-inch equipment racks covered with sheets of heavy plastic. Cables, some with connectors and others bare, dangled from the ceiling and snaked along the floor. Tools, soldering guns, and test equipment were scattered throughout the room just below the exposed high ceiling.
Sam approached the double glass doors. He checked to see whether the door was locked. It wasn’t.
“Lisa, this is it. We gotta stay low so the guard doesn’t spot us. He’s got a perfect view into this room.” She nodded.
“Let’s hope there aren’t any magnetic or infrared alarms on this door,” he added.
Sam carefully pushed open the door, and they entered the room, crouching below the level of the window ledges approximately twenty-five feet away. Sam duckwalked around a cart of tools. As Lisa followed, the tip of a cold soldering gun hooked her coat. As she moved forward, it hit the floor with a crash. They both abruptly halted.
“Sorry.”
“That’s OK,” Sam replied softly, patting her back. “Help me find the dish-movement control panel.”
Sam and Lisa squatted around the first, and then the second row of connected control stations. Not until they went to the third row, nearest the window, did they find the panel of switches that Sam wanted. Lisa peered over the edge of the desk, and then grabbed Sam’s wet raincoat.
“Is that it?”
Sam turned, stood slightly higher, and looked down at a series of switches, levers, and cable connection inputs. He nodded and studied the panel for several seconds, then crouched back down to Lisa’s level.
“I don’t believe what they did,” he said, smiling. “Everything can be coupled from right here. The connections between the transmitter and receivers are connected from this room directly to the dishes out there.”
He looked at the freestanding equipment racks.
“Look at what these nice, smartphone people did.”
He pulled Lisa up and over the counter ledge and pointed to several protruding connectors. “They installed remote nipples so they can plug other components directly into the cable that runs out to the dishes. Wasn’t that thoughtful?”
Lisa was excited for Sam. She sensed that his happiness meant that the job he had to do would be much easier and that both of them could take care of business and get out fast.
Sam began pulling his equipment out from under his raincoat. First, the computer, a small laptop computer; then connecting cables and connectors, his hand-held radio, and finally the new META box. Sam grabbed the radio and showed it to Lisa.
“Lisa this is my one-point-two-gigahertz hand-held radio. It only puts out two-and-a-half watts, but its frequency is close to the one-point-four-two-five-gigs I’ve been receiving the signal on.”
“Is it going to be powerful enough to talk to them?”
Sam looked over the console and at the dishes. He took a long breath, letting it out slowly.
“With the size and the amplification of those babies, I hope so.” Sam looked over her shoulder at an embedded equipment box of some kind on the far wall. The box was plainly marked, “Main Power.”
Sam instructed Lisa to throw the main switch, if she could determine the proper switch. Lisa scooted to the panel, quickly found the largest switch in the box, and flipped it.
Bright-blue fluorescent satellite-dish position numbers popped on. The several rows of marked panel switches also came to life. Lisa crawled back next to Sam as he continued to stare at the panel.
“Sam, do you know what to do here?”
“I guess I can figure out what is happening. I gotta connect everything up, ’cause once I initiate the dish move, the noise may alert the guard.”
Sam concentrated again on his equipment on the floor. He attached the patch cords between the computer and radio and finally to his new META box. Then he attached a twelve-foot antenna cable to the box. After another quick glance at the antenna input nipple, he found the proper connector among the connectors in one of his raincoat pockets and attached it.
A flash of lightning and a report of thunder made both of them jump. Their nerves were on edge, but they managed smiles that recognized that anxiety.
Sam attached the antenna connection to the input connector on the panel. He threw three switches marked “LNA,” “AMP,” and “POWER.”
“I don’t know how those dishes are numbered, so I’m gonna fire up all three,” he said.
Sam stood over the control panel, pulled out a notebook, and looked at his watch. Then he bent down to his computer and turned it on. He tapped a few keys.
“OK, I’ve got the position readings.”
He stood again and turned the thumbwheel knobs next to the display. Sam put his index finger on the “INITIATE” switch. He looked out at the satellite dishes and the guard shack, then at Lisa.
“Here we go. This is gonna make some noise out there, and I hope the guard’s TV and the storm will mask it. Let’s move the dish,” Sam whispered.
Erwin Frankmeyer always used to tell his security officer friends that Midwesterners make the best guards. Living out in the plains attuned them to unnatural noises and events. They could tell immediately when something was amiss or awry. They knew when things just weren’t right.
Officer Frankmeyer was in his late fifties and had a paunch that at times made his belt disappear into his uniform. He could see his shoes, but not his belt, and he had to trust his hands when it came to finding his fly. He loved to eat. That night, his wife had fixed a ham on white with a little mustard and mayonnaise, topped with a slice of Monterey jack cheese. She also gave him a bag of Fritos and an orange crush. Frankmeyer was in heaven.
He leaned back on his stool, engrossed in a Jean Harlow classic, an early drawing-room comedy. It was perfect to cut through the loneliness of a dark, stormy night. Behind the television and counter it rested on were sliding glass windows. Beyond the windows were the three satellite dishes.
Frankmeyer was staring at the television set and munching on his sandwich when he thought he heard a grinding noise. He put down his sandwich and turned the television volume down, then off. He looked out at the empty parking lot, then back at the satellite dishes. He was still chewing his food when he noticed that the number-three dish, directly overhead, was moving, turning very slowly on its base.
He bolted out of the guard shack, tipped his head back, and craned his neck to view the top of the huge dish, moving slowly in the rain. Then he whipped his head around and looked toward the control building, into a large window. He saw something — a shadow, a form, a movement. He wasn’t sure what.
The guard grabbed his yellow rain slicker and a large black aluminum flashlight and walked toward the Technical Control Facility Building.
Sam released the dish-movement action switch and checked the program readout position setting numbers to ensure that they matched. He glanced at the dish and the guard shack. Then he took a closer look at the shack. He grabbed Lisa’s arm.
“Quick-kill the master switch and get back here fast, “ Sam said.
Frankmeyer’s master key opened the gate in the chain-link fence and the door to the building. He slammed the door behind him and flashed the 17,500-candlepower beam down the hall and toward master control. He crept down the hall with the flashlight in one hand and a nightstick in the other.
Sam and Lisa squeezed through the back panel-opening underneath the second control counter. Sam finally swung his right leg inside the cramped space as he reached for his computer, META box, and hand-held radio. He could see the beam of light dancing in the hallway and onto the control room. He moved quickly. He knew that he had only seconds. He splayed the connecting cable flat on the floor and carefully replaced the panel cover. The light was now just outside the room. He put his finger to his lips.
“He’s coming in,” Sam whispered to Lisa.
He tried to show no fear, only determination and resolve. Lisa held his arm so tight that she almost cut off his circulation. He grabbed her hand and loosened her grip. “It’s OK.”
He could hear footsteps just outside the room. Cables were swinging from the control panel under which Lisa and Sam sat, smacking both of them in the face. Sam paid no attention. His fingers flew over the keyboard of his computer as he emerged a seemingly endless stream of simple data lines.
As Sam hit the last key, Frankmeyer stepped inside the master control room.
Lisa stared at Sam, then down at Sam’s forefinger, which was resting on the return key. The guard’s steps were coming closer to their hiding place. Frankmeyer was moving down the first row on control consoles.
Sam and Lisa looked into each other’s eyes, their fear mixed with excitement. Then Sam pressed the return key.
Silently, the red “transmit” LED light on the hand-held transceiver, through the META box, through the coaxial cable, through the satellite transmission line from the Tech Facility Building to the satellite dish. It finally hurtled toward Tau Ceti at 186,282 miles per second.
The guard was five feet away from their cramped hiding place. Closer and closer, brighter and brighter, the beam of light edged toward Lisa and Sam. The intensity of the light made them grimace.
Sam’s jubilation at getting his message out quickly turned to fear. He and Lisa held their breath and each other’s hand. The guard was three steps away. Two steps away.
Through the ventilation holes in the panel cover, Sam could see Frankmeyer’s yellow rain slicker. He could hear the drops of rain hitting the carpeted computer floor tiles. He heard the guard’s heavy breathing.
Sam and Lisa stared at each other. Immobile with fear, they looked as though they were frozen. Their heartbeats pounded in their ears. Sam thought he could hear the blood rushing through his veins.
Frankmeyer was next to the panel. He stopped. Sam closed his eyes. Lisa could see Frankmeyer’s foot resting on the connecting cable.
Frankmeyer also froze. He listened but heard nothing. He had no idea that just two feet away, two humans were sending a message that would eventually be replayed and retransmitted by unknown means to a highly technological society more than eleven light years from Earth.
Time stood still. Lisa and Sam remained motionless. Frankmeyer remained motionless. Lisa prayed that the guard would disappear. She prayed as she never had in her life. She even promised God that she would never leave her room dirty again.
Sam opened his eyes and looked out through the ventilation holes. He saw Frankmeyer lift his foot off of the cable. He heard the guard step quickly around the end of the console. The room became dark as the flashlight pointed out into the hallway. Several seconds more, and they heard the exterior door slam shut.
A minute passed. Sam slid off the panel cover and peered around the corner. He saw and heard nothing. He stood and looked out the large window toward the guard shack. He saw Erwin Frankmeyer. Midwestern guard extraordinaire, hangs up his yellow rain slicker and sits down again to his sandwich and the Jean Harlow movie. The shack became harder to see as heavy rain engulfed the valley.
Sam looked at the still-frightened Lisa huddled in the corner, her big green eyes staring at him. He glanced down at his computer. It was scrolling the same message over and over. He looked at his transceiver and saw the tiny, glowing transmission light.
He leaned down toward Lisa, pulled her close, and kissed her gently on the lips. Her frightened eyes closed. The fear melted, replaced by love, longing, and peace.
Sam pushed her away slowly, “Ya know, I think I love you.”
Lisa nodded, “I think I love you.”
Sam whispered, “Good. We have something in common. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
