The Complete Short Stories

Powers strolled on absently without listening. Over in the corner were what appeared to be three ticker-tape machines, lengths of tape hanging from their mouths. He wondered whether Kaldren was misguided enough to be playing the stock market, which had been declining slowly for twenty years.

‘Powers,’ he heard Kaldren say. ‘I was telling you about the Mercury Seven.’ He pointed to a collection of typewritten sheets tacked to a screen. ‘These are transcripts of their final signals radioed back from the recording monitors.’

Powers examined the sheets cursorily, read a line at random.

‘…BLUE… PEOPLE… RE-CYCLE… ORION… TELEMETERS…’

Powers nodded noncommittally. ‘Interesting. What are the ticker tapes for over there?’

Kaldren grinned. ‘I’ve been waiting for months for you to ask me that. Have a look.’

Powers went over and picked up one of the tapes. The machine was labelled: ‘Auriga 225-G. Interval: 69 hours.’

The tape read:

96,688,365,498,695,96,688,365,498,694 96,688,365,498,693 96,688,365,498,692

Powers dropped the tape. ‘Looks rather familiar. What does the sequence represent?’

Kaldren shrugged. ‘No one knows.’

‘What do you mean? It must replicate something.’

‘Yes, it does. A diminishing mathematical progression. A countdown, if you like.’

Powers picked up the tape on the right, tabbed: ‘Aries 44R95 1. Interval: 49 days.’

Here the sequence ran:

876,567,988,347,779,877,654,434 876,567,988,347,779,877,654,433 876,567,988,347,779,877,654,432

Powers looked round. ‘How long does it take each signal to come through?’

‘Only a few seconds. They’re tremendously compressed laterally, of course. A computer at the observatory breaks them down. They were first picked up at Jodrell Bank about twenty years ago. Nobody bothers to listen to them now.’

Powers turned to the last tape.

6,554

6,553 6,552 6,551

‘Nearing the end of its run,’ he commented. He glanced at the label on the hood, which read: ‘Unidentified radio source, Canes Venatici. Interval: 97 weeks.’

He showed the tape to Kaldren. ‘Soon be over.’

Kaldren shook his head. He lifted a heavy directory-sized volume off a table, cradled it in his hands. His face had suddenly become sombre and haunted. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘Those are only the last four digits. The whole number contains over 50 million.’

He handed the volume to Powers, who turned to the title page. ‘Master Sequence of Serial Signal received by Jodrell Bank Radio-Observatory, University of Manchester, England, 0012-59 hours, 21-5-72. Source: NGC 9743, Canes Venatici.’ He thumbed the thick stack of closely printed pages, millions of numerals, as Kaidren had said, running up and down across a thousand consecutive pages.

Powers shook his head, picked up the tape again and stared at it thoughtfully.

‘The computer only breaks down the last four digits,’ Kaldren explained. ‘The whole series comes over in each 15second-long package, but it took IBM more than two years to unscramble one of them.’

‘Amazing,’ Powers commented. ‘But what is it?’

‘A countdown, as you can see. NGC 9743, somewhere in Canes Venatici. The big spirals there are breaking up, and they’re saying goodbye. God knows who they think we are but they’re letting us know all the same, beaming it out on the hydrogen line for everyone in the universe to hear.’ He paused. ‘Some people have put other interpretations on them, but there’s one piece of evidence that rules out everything else.’

‘Which is?’

Kaldren pointed to the last tape from Canes Venatici. ‘Simply that it’s been estimated that by the time this series reaches zero the universe will have just ended.’

Powers fingered the tape reflectively. ‘Thoughtful of them to let us know what the real time is,’ he remarked.

‘I agree, it is,’ Kaldren said quietly. ‘Applying the inverse square law that signal source is broadcasting at a strength of about three million megawatts raised to the hundredth power. About the size of the entire Local Group. Thoughtful is the word.’

Suddenly he gripped Powers’ arm, held it tightly and peered into his eyes closely, his throat working with emotion.

‘You’re not alone, Powers, don’t think you are. These are the voices of time, and they’re all saying goodbye to you. Think of yourself in a wider context. Every particle in your body, every grain of sand, every galaxy carries the same signature. As you’ve just said, you know what the time is now, so what does the rest matter? There’s no need to go on looking at the clock.’