50 in 50

"No, just very slow. Earth must be halfway around the galaxy from where we are now. If I remember correctly, it takes about four hundred years for a round-trip communication. Abbicciology is a study that can only grow at the outer fringes; we deal with a hard core of unalterable fact. The old Earth alphabets are part of history and cannot be changed. I have studied them all, every character and every detail, and I have observed their mutations through the millennia. It can be observed that no matter how alphabets are modified and changed they will retain elements of their progenitors. That is the letter L as it has been adapted for computer input." She scratched it into the rock with the tip of her knife, then incised a wavy character next to it. "And this is the Hebrew lamedh, in which you can see the same basic shape. Hebrew is a proto-alphabet, so ancient as to be almost unbelievable. Yet there is the same right-angle bend. But these characters — there is nothing there that I have ever seen before."

The silence stretched on while Hautamaki looked at her, studied her as if the truth or falsity of her words might be written somehow on her face. Then he smiled.

"I'll take your word for it. I'm sure you know your field very well." He walked back to his pack and began taking out more test instruments.

''Did you see that?" Tjond whispered in her husband's ear. "He smiled at me."

"Nonsense. It is probably the first rictus of advanced frostbite."

Hautamaki had hung a weight from the barrel of the telescope and was timing its motion over the ground. "Gulyas," he asked, "do you remember this planet's period of rotation?"

"Roughly eighteen standard hours. The computation wasn't exact. Why?"

"That's close enough. We are at about eighty-five degrees north latitude here, which conforms to the angle of those rigid arms, while the motion of these scope—"

"Counteracts the planet's rotation, moving at the same speed in the opposite direction. Of course! I should have seen it."

"What are you two talking about?" Tjond asked.

"They all point to the same spot in the sky all the time," Gulyas said. "To a star."

"It could be another planet in this system," Hautamaki said, then shook his head. "No, there is no reason for that. It is something outside. We will tell after dark."

They were comfortable in their atmosphere suits and had enough food and water. The machine was photographed and studied from every angle and they theorized on its possible power source. In spite of this the hours dragged by until dusk. There were some clouds, but they cleared away before sunset. When the first star appeared in the darkening sky Hautamaki bent to the ocular of the telescope.

“Just sky. Too light yet. But there is some sort of glowing grid appearing in the field, five thin lines radiating in from the circumference. Instead of crossing they fade as they come to the center."

"But they'll point out whatever star is in the center of the field— without obscuring it?"

"Yes. The stars are appearing now."

It was a seventh-magnitude star, isolated near the galactic rim. It appeared commonplace in every way except for its location with no nearby neighbors even in stellar terms. They took turns looking at it, marking it so they could not possibly mistake it for any other.

"Are we going there?" Tjond asked, though it was more of a statement than a question that sought an answer.

"Of course," Hautamaki said.

III

As soon as their ship had cleared atmosphere, Hautamaki sent a message to the nearest relay station. While they waited for an answer they analyzed the material they had.

With each result their enthusiasm grew. The metal was no harder than some of the resistant alloys they used, but its composition was completely different and some unknown process of fabrication had been used that had compacted the surface molecules to a greater density. The characters bore no resemblance to any human alphabet. And the star towards which the instruments had been pointed was far beyond the limits of galactic exploration.

When the message arrived, signal recorded, they jumped the ship at once on the carefully computed and waiting course. Their standing instructions were to investigate anything, report everything, and this they were doing. With their planned movements recorded they were free. They, they, were going to make a first contact with an alien race — had already made contact with one of its artifacts. No matter what happened now, the honor was irrevocably theirs. The next meal turned naturally into a celebration, and Hautamaki unbent enough to allow other intoxicants as well as wine. The results were almost disastrous.

"A toast!" Tjond shouted, standing and wobbling just a bit.

"To Earth and mankind — no longer alone!"

"No longer alone!" they repeated, and Hautamaki's face lost some of the party gaiety that it had reluctantly gained.

"I ask you to join me in a toast," he said, "to someone you never knew, who should have been here to share this with us."