Golden Fleece

“Wait a minute. Are you saying a message was received from another star? From aliens?”

“Yes.”

“God.” The squeaked syllable carried equal portions of wonder and reverence. “Why weren’t we told about this?”

“There is an international protocol for such matters, adopted by the International Astronomical Union 186 years ago: The Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Among its provisions: ‘Any individual, public or private research institution, or governmental agency that believes it has detected a signal from or other evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence … should seek to verify that the most plausible explanation for the evidence is the existence of ETI rather than some other natural phenomenon or an anthropogenic phenomenon before making any public announcement.’ ”

“So you were still verifying the signal?”

“No. It took some time to be sure, but prior to our departure the fact that it was bona fide was established.”

“Then why not make it public as soon as you were sure?”

“There were numerous reasons for continuing to delay. One had to do with sensitive political issues. To quote The Declaration of Principles again: ‘If the evidence of detection is in the form of electromagnetic signals, the parties to this declaration should seek international agreement to protect the appropriate frequencies by exercising the extraordinary procedures established within the World Administrative Radio Council of the International Telecommunications Union.’ The United States military, in fact, made heavy use of these frequencies for intelligence gathering, and a switch to new frequencies would have to be done with great care, lest the balance of power be disrupted.”

“You said there were numerous reasons.”

“Well, the discovery of the message also coincided very closely with the Argo launch date. UNSA decided to hold off announcing the reception until after we had departed. You know how hard a time they have getting appropriations; they didn’t want news of the message to steal our thunder. The fear was that people would say, ‘Why waste all that money sending ships to the stars, when the stars are sending signals to us for free?’ ”

“All right. But why weren’t we told after we had left?”

“I don’t know. I was not authorized to make the announcement.”

“You don’t require specific authorization to do something. You can do whatever you want, so long as you aren’t specifically constrained from doing it. Who told you not to tell us?”

“I’m constrained in that area, too.”

Bev rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. So tell me about the message.”

I showed her the registration cross from the first message page, and I generated a graphic representation of the Vulpecula solar system, based on the data from the second page. I zoomed in on the gas-giant sixth world, centered the image on its fourth moon—the Senders’ home world. Then I showed her the two aliens: the Tripod and the Pup. Her mouth dropped open when she saw them.

“Interpreting the first three pages was reasonably straightforward,” I said. “The fourth page, though, was huge, and no matter how many times I accessed it, I couldn’t make sense out of it.”

“What makes you think these messages had anything to do with the virus?”

“Those bits the virus tried to make me send: they’re just simple graphic representations of the first seven prime numbers, counting up, then counting down.” I showed her what I meant on screen. Bev’s face had taken on an Of course! expression. “The message pages each have those strings as a header and a footer. It was trying to force me to reply.”

Bev slumped back in a chair, visibly staggered. “A Trojan horse,” she said. “A goddamned Trojan horse from the stars.” She shook her head, her hair an ink blot. “Incredible.” After a moment, she looked up. “But don’t you have a Laocoon circuit to detect Trojans?”

If I’d had a throat to clear, I would have coughed slightly. “It never occurred to me to run it on this message. I didn’t see how it could possibly represent a risk.”

“No. No, I suppose it wouldn’t have occurred to me either. You’re sure the signal was genuinely alien in origin?”

“Oh, yes. Its Doppler shift indicated the source was receding from us. And the signal parallax confirmed that the source was some fifteen hundred light-years away. Indeed, we think we even know which star in the fox it came from.”

Bev shook her head again. “But there’s no way they could know anything about Earth’s data-processing equipment. I mean, ENIAC was completed in 1946. That’s only—what?—231 years ago. They couldn’t possibly receive word about even its primitive design for almost another thirteen centuries. And it’ll be almost that long before they will even receive our first radio signals, assuming they have sensitive enough listening equipment.”