“Maximum, seventy-two hours,” Barnes said.

“You sure about that?”

“It’s Navy regs,” Barnes said.

“Why?” Norman asked, puzzled.

Barnes shook his head. “Never,” he said, “never ask a reason for Navy regulations.”

The intercom clicked, and Tina Chan said, “Captain Barnes, we have a signal from the divers. They are mounting the airlock now. Another few minutes to open.”

The feeling in the room changed immediately; the excitement was palpable. Ted rubbed his hands together. “You realize, of course, that even without opening that spacecraft, we have already made a major discovery of profound importance.”

“What’s that?” Norman said.

“We’ve shot the unique event hypothesis to hell,” Ted said, glancing at Beth.

“The unique event hypothesis?” Barnes said.

“He’s referring,” Beth said, “to the fact that physicists and chemists tend to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life, while biologists tend not to. Many biologists feel the development of intelligent life on Earth required so many peculiar steps that it represents a unique event in the universe, that may never have occurred elsewhere.”

“Wouldn’t intelligence arise again and again?” Barnes said.

“Well, it barely arose on the Earth,” Beth said. “The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and single-celled life appeared 3.9 billion years ago-almost immediately, geologically speaking. But life remained single-celled for the next three billion years. Then in the Cambrian period, around six hundred million years ago, there was an explosion of sophisticated life forms. Within a hundred million years, the ocean was full of fish. Then the land became populated: Then the air. But nobody knows why the explosion occurred in the first place. And since it didn’t occur for three billion years, there’s the possibility that on some other planet, it might never occur at all.

“And even after the Cambrian, the chain of events leading to man appears to be so special, so chancy, that biologists worry it might never have happened. Just consider the fact that if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out sixty-five million years ago-by a comet or whatever-then reptiles might still be the dominant form on Earth, and mammals would never have had a chance to take over. No mammals, no primates. No primates, no apes. No apes, no man… There are a lot of random factors in evolution, a lot of luck. That’s why biologists think intelligent life might be a unique event in the universe, only occurring here.”

“Except now,” Ted said, “we know it’s not a unique event. Because there is a damn big spacecraft out there.”

“Personally,” Beth said, “I couldn’t be more pleased.” She bit her lip.

“You don’t look pleased,” Norman said.

“I’ll tell you,” Beth said. “I can’t help being nervous. Ten years ago, Bill Jackson at Stanford ran a series of weekend seminars on extraterrestrial life. This was right after he won the Nobel prize in chemistry. He split us into two groups. One group designed the alien life form, and worked it all out scientifically. The other group tried to figure out the life form, and communicate with it. Jackson presided over the whole thing as a hard scientist, not letting anybody get carried away. One time we brought in a sketch of a proposed creature and he said, very tough, ‘Okay, where’s the anus?’ That was his criticism. But many animals on Earth have no anus. There are all kinds of excretory mechanisms that don’t require a special orifice. Jackson assumed an anus was necessary, but it isn’t. And now…” She shrugged. “Who knows what we’ll find?”

“We’ll know, soon enough,” Ted said.

The intercom clicked. “Captain Barnes, the divers have the airlock mounted in place. The robot is now ready to enter the spacecraft.”

Ted said, “What robot?”

THE DOOR

“I don’t think it’s appropriate at all,” Ted said angrily. “We came down here to make a manned entry into this alien spacecraft. I think we should do what we came here to do-make a manned entry.”

“Absolutely not,” Barnes said. “We can’t risk it.”

“You must think of this,” Ted said, “as an archaeological site. Greater than Chichen Itza, greater than Troy, greater than Tutankhamen’s tomb. Unquestionably the most important archaeological site in the history of mankind. Do you really intend to have a damned robot open that site? Where’s your sense of human destiny?”

“Where’s your sense of self-preservation?” Barnes said.

“I strongly object, Captain Barnes.”

“Duly noted,” Barnes said, turning away. “Now let’s get on with it. Tina, give us the video feed.”

Ted sputtered, but he fell silent as two large monitors in front of them clicked on. On the left screen, they saw the complex tubular metal scaffolding of the robot, with exposed motors and gears. The robot was positioned before the curved gray metal wall of the spacecraft.

Within that wall was a door that looked rather like an airliner door. The second screen gave a closer view of the door, taken by the video camera mounted on the robot itself. “It’s rather similar to an airplane door,” Ted said.

Norman glanced at Harry, who smiled enigmatically. Then he looked at Barnes. Barnes did not appear surprised. Barnes already knew about the door, he realized.

“I wonder how we can account for such parallelism in door design,” Ted said. “The likelihood of its occurring by chance is astronomically small. Why, this door is the perfect size and shape for a human being!”

“That’s right,” Harry said.

“It’s incredible,” Ted said. “Quite incredible.” Harry smiled, said nothing.

Barnes said, “Let’s find control surfaces.”

The robot video scanner moved left and right across the spacecraft hull. It stopped on the image of a rectangular panel mounted to the left of the door.

“Can you open that panel?”

“Working on it now, sir.”

Whirring, the robot claw extended out toward the panel. But the claw was clumsy; it scraped against the metal, leaving a series of gleaming scratches. But the panel remained closed.

“Ridiculous,” Ted said. “It’s like watching a baby.”

The claw continued to scratch at the panel.

“We should be doing this ourselves,” Ted said.

“Use suction,” Barnes said.

Another arm extended out, with a rubber sucker. “Ah, the plumber’s friend,” Ted said disdainfully.

As they watched, the sucker attached to the panel, flattened. Then, with a click, the panel lifted open.

“At last!”

“I can’t see…”

The view inside the panel was blurred, out of focus. They could distinguish what appeared to be a series of colored round metal protrusions, red, yellow, and blue. There were also intricate black-and-white symbols above the knobs.

“Look,” Ted said, “red, blue, yellow. Primary colors. This is a very big break.”

“Why?” Norman said.

“Because it suggests that the aliens have the same sensory equipment that we do-they may see the universe the same way, visually, in the same colors, utilizing the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum. That’s going to help immeasurably in making contact with them. And those black-and-white markings… that must be some of their writing! Can you imagine! Alien writing!” He smiled enthusiastically. “This is a great moment,” he said. “I feel truly privileged to be here.”

“Focus,” Barnes called. “Focusing now, sir.”

The image became even more blurred. “No, the other way.”

“Yes Sir. Focusing now.”

The image changed, slowly resolved into sharp focus. “Uh-oh,” Ted said, staring at the screen.

They now saw that the blurred knobs were actually three colored buttons: yellow, red, and blue. The buttons were each an inch in diameter and had knurled or machined edges. The symbols above the buttons resolved sharply into a series of neatly stenciled labels.