Erma Kruskal went on, “Moreover, any natural process that generated such a signal would have to be, in most senses of the word, most unnatural. The entropy rises and falls, exactly as one would expect if a high-entropy repeated message were separated by long low-entropy start and stop pointers. Of course, this tells us nothing concerning verification and interpretation.”
Everyone was showing the same caution, bending over backwards to avoid too much optimism. Milly told herself that was the right way to do it — you mustn’t get too excited or too hopeful. All the same, she could feel her knees trembling. She pressed them tightly together.
Beston turned to the second man in the group. Arnold Rudolph was frail and tiny and looked older than God. Milly wasn’t sure of his actual age — neither Hannah nor anyone else seemed to know it — but there were rumors that he had been present at the closing of the great radio dish at Arecibo, and had been a major force in producing the first spaceborne SETI interferometric arrays.
Rudolph nodded amiably to Jack Beston, but he seemed in no hurry to begin. After a wait that brought Milly to the edge of her seat, he said, “The history of SETI goes back long before human space colonization, or even the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite. It is, of course, a history filled with false positives, which urges upon us extreme caution.” He didn’t look at Milly, which she read as a bad sign.
He went on, “The human mind has an incredible ability to detect patterns, or to impose patterns where none is present. Thousands of years ago, our earliest ancestors named the constellations because they saw patterns in the stars. More than two hundred years ago, Schiaparelli believed that he saw linear features on the surface of Mars, channels which Percival Lowell in turn interpreted as ‘canals’ and as evidence of intelligent life. With better images, channels and canals both vanished. Seventy years ago, the Hobart hoax fooled every SETI worker for more than a year.”
He paused. Milly wanted to scream, to shout at Arnold Rudolph, “Get on with it, we know all that.” No one moved or spoke, and Milly literally held her water.
“However.” Rudolph paused again, and stared around the little room that represented an antechamber to Jack Beston’s personal quarters. This time his look included Milly. “However, I do not believe that this anomaly is an example of spurious pattern recognition. Something is there. It would be premature to speculate on what that something might be, or even whether it will survive the necessary verification process. But something is there. The anomaly is real. It would be foolish of me to try to contain my own excitement at the possible significance of this discovery.”
His apparent lack of excitement was so obvious that Milly had to think twice before she realized what Rudolph was saying.
It was real! It was a signal! Jack Beston’s top assistants were convinced that this was a genuine discovery.
Jack himself, as calm as Arnold Rudolph, was nodding. “I think that takes us as far as we can go on detection. Let’s move on to verification. First, however, I have something else to report. Earlier today I prepared a message. On the basis of what I have heard, I propose to send it ciphered tight-beam to the Ganymede Office of Records, to be sealed there until we approve its release. The message announces the discovery of a signal, believed to be from an extra-solar source and of artificial rather than natural origin. It establishes our claim to precedence. The same message will be sent tight-beam to the Odin Project at Jovian L-5. Now, let’s get on to the preliminary stages of verification.” He turned to Zetter. “Your analysis?”
“The direction of origin of the potential signal is known to within five arc minutes.” Zetter spoke like a zombie, her voice a flat monotone. Milly wondered, nature or practice?
Zetter went on, “I have examined every possible signal source of human origin, past or present, to see if any lie within a cone of angle five arc minutes. The potential signal has been operating for at most three months. I allowed for our own motion during that period, adjusting for receiver parallax effects. My conclusion is that no known ship, with or without crew, can be the source of the potential signal. However.” At last, a word with some slight stress on it. “This does not rule out all possibilities. We could be receiving a signal from a residue.”
While the others nodded, Milly struggled to recall the briefing manuals. Was a residue the same as a remnant, some form of artifact left over from the Great War?
“To take one example,” Zetter continued, “consider a blinded Seeker, flying outward at maximum thrust until its fuel ran out and then coasting. In a third of a century it could be as much as half a light-year from Sol. No test made using data from this station’s receivers alone can distinguish such a source from one at true stellar distances.”
“Which is what I thought. We need extra-solar verification. That’s why I’m sending word to the Bastard. All right, everybody, meeting’s over.” Jack swung around to face Milly. “And you, get ready to travel. The two of us leave for Jovian L-5 and the Odin Station later today. Shall we say, two hours from now?” He turned away, to leave the antechamber and head for his own private quarters, then added casually over his shoulder, “By the way, the signal is identified in our announcements as the Wu-Beston anomaly.”
It took Milly a moment for that to sink in. The Wu-Beston anomaly. She was not only named, she was named first. In any major scientific discovery, it was traditional for the senior researcher or group to be listed before anyone else. The most famous case was the discovery of pulsars, the centuries-old case that had already reverberated in Milly’s mind during her earlier work looking for SETI signals. It was Jocelyn Bell, as a graduate student, who had noticed the telltale oddities of print-out that told of the existence of rotating neutron stars; however, it was Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish, the senior members of the research team, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for that work.
Jack Beston, in naming the anomaly in the way that he had, was guaranteeing that no such miscarriage of justice would occur in this case.
She gasped, “Thank you.” All the stress and nervousness and nausea of the past hour magically vanished. Her stomach and bladder felt fine.
“Thank you,” she said again. Those were the only words she seemed able to find. But Jack had already vanished and the door was closed.
The others stared at her. It was Pat Tankard who finally spoke. “Two thank-yous for the Ogre, that’s a record. But congratulations and a thank-you to you. You’ve made everything I’ve been doing for the past ten years worthwhile.” She flexed her arm, and the blonde on her biceps grinned. “And good luck. You’ll understand why I say that when you meet Philip the Bastard.”
One hour more, and they would be on their way. Jack Beston had given Milly two hours to get ready, but she had no idea where the first one had gone. She had wandered the Argus Station in a happy stupor, until Hannah Krauss tracked her down.
“Congratulations, Milly. The Wu-Beston anomaly. How about that?” The touch of envy in Hannah’s voice couldn’t be repressed, but it was only a touch. “Are you all ready to go? You certainly don’t look ready.”
“I haven’t even thought about it. What should I take?”
“Just personal stuff. Maybe a stiletto to keep Jack at a distance while you’re traveling? Relax, my dear, I’m just joking. But don’t bother to take any of your signal data, because we’ll send everything you need to Odin Station on tight secure beam.”
Maybe Hannah had been joking about keeping Jack at bay; but Milly, arriving at The Witch of Agnesi carrying just one light travel bag, was not so sure. She made it a point to be there well before Jack Beston, so that she could take a good look around before their departure from Argus Station. This ship was Jack Beston’s personal space-yacht, and she hoped it would tell her something about the man.