Factoring Humanity

“Oh, come on. If you’d asked me to factor a number whose length fell within a range — between five hundred and six hundred digits, say — and if you hadn’t shown up with your number all picked out, I might have believed you. But it’s pretty damned obvious you’re trying to crack somebody’s code.”

Kyle went to hand back the wafer, but now its other side was facing up. As he looked down at it, he saw its label, with a single word written on it in pen: Huneker.

“Huneker!” said Kyle. “Not Joshua Huneker?”

Chikamatsu reached out to retrieve the wafer. “Who?” she said, sounding innocent but looking visibly flustered.

Kyle clenched his fist, covering the wafer. “What the hell are you playing at?” he said. “What’s this got to do with Huneker?”

Chikamatsu lowered her gaze. “I did not think you would know the name.”

“My wife was involved with him when she and I met.”

Chikamatsu’s almond-shaped eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Now, tell me what the hell this is all about.”

The woman considered. “I — ah, I must consult with my partners first.”

“Be my guest. Do you need a phone?”

She extracted one from her funky purse. “No.” She rose, crossed the room, and began a hushed conversation that bounced between Japanese and what sounded like Russian, with only a few recognizable words — “Toronto,” “Graves,” “Huneker,” and “quantum” among them. She winced several times; apparently she was getting a royal chewing-out.

After a few moments, she folded up the phone and returned it to her purse.

“My colleagues are not pleased,” she said, “but we do need your help, and our purpose is not illegal.”

“You’ll have to convince me of that.”

She tightened her lips and let air escape loudly through her nose. Then: “Do you know how Josh Huneker died?”

“Suicide, my wife said.”

Chikamatsu nodded. “Do you have a Web terminal here?”

“Of course.”

“May I?”

Kyle indicated the unit with a motion of his hand.

Chikamatsu sat down in front of it and spoke into the microphone. “The Toronto Star,” she said. Then: “Search back issues. Words in article text: Huneker and Algonquin. H-U-N-E-K-E-R and A-L-G-O-N-Q-U-I-N.”

“Searching,” said the terminal in an androgynous voice. Then: “Found.”

There was only one hit. The article appeared on the monitor screen.

Chikamatsu stood up. “Have a look,” she said.

Kyle took the seat she’d vacated. The article was dated February 28, 1994. The words “Algonquin” and “Huneker” were highlighted everywhere they appeared in red and green respectively. He read the whole thing, telling the screen once to page down as he did so:

ASTRONOMER TAKES OWN LIFE

Joshua Huneker, 24, was found dead yesterday at the National Research Council of Canada’s radio telescope in Algonquin Park, a provincial park in northern Ontario. He had committed suicide by eating an apple coated with arsenic.

Huneker, who was studying for a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, had been snowed in alone at the radio telescope for six days.

He had been working in Algonquin Park on the international Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, scanning the sky for radio messages from alien worlds. Because Algonquin is so far from any city, it receives little radio interference and is therefore ideally suited for such delicate listening.

Huneker’s body was found by Donald Cheung, 39, another radio astronomer, who was arriving at the telescope facility to relieve Huneker.

“It’s a great tragedy,” said NRC spokesperson Allison Northcott, in Ottawa. “Josh was one of our most promising young researchers and he was also a real humanitarian, very active with Greenpeace and other causes. However, judging by his suicide note, he apparently had personal problems related to his romantic involvement with another man. We will all miss him.”

When he was finished, Kyle swiveled the chair around to face the woman. He hadn’t know the details of Josh’s death before; the whole thing seemed rather sad.

“His story remind you of anyone’s?” asked Chikamatsu.

“Sure. Alan Turing’s.” Turing, the father of modern computing, had committed suicide in 1954 in the same way, and for the same reason.

She nodded grimly. “Exactly. Turing was Huneker’s idol. But what the spokesperson did not mention was that Josh left two notes, not one. The first was indeed about his personal problems, but the second…”

“Yes?”

“The second had to do with what he had detected.”

“Pardon?”

“Over the radio telescope.” Chikamatsu closed her eyes, as if wrestling for one final moment about whether to go on. Then she opened them and said softly, “The Centaurs were not the first aliens we made contact with; they were the second.”

Kyle creased his forehead skeptically. “Oh, come on!”