They waited, impatiently, for his insight.

“Why use a code at all?” Harry asked.

“Why use a code?” Norman said.

“Sure. If you are trying to communicate with someone, you don’t use a code. Codes are ways of hiding communication. So perhaps this intelligence thinks he is communicating directly, but is actually making some kind of logical mistake in talking to us. He is making a code without ever intending to do so. That suggested the unintentional code was probably a substitution code, with numbers for letters. When I got the word breaks, I began to try and match numbers to letters by frequency analysis. In frequency analysis you break down codes by using the fact that the most common letter in English is ‘e,’ and the second most common letter is ‘t,’ and so on. So I looked for the most common numbers. But I was impeded by the fact that even a short number sequence, such as two-three-two, might represent many code possibilities: two and three and two, twenty-three and two, two and thirtytwo, or two hundred and thirty-two. Longer code sequences had many more possibilities.”

Then, he said, he was sitting in front of the computer thinking about the spiral messages, and he suddenly looked at the keyboard. “I began to wonder what an alien intelligence would make of our keyboard, those rows of symbols on a device made to be pressed. How confusing it must look to another kind of creature! Look here,” he said. “The letters on a regular keyboard go like this.” He held up his pad.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

tab Q W E R T Y U I O P

caps A S D F G H J K L;

shift Z X C V B N M,.?

“And then I imagined what the keyboard would look like as a spiral, since our creature seems to prefer spirals. And I started numbering the keys in concentric circles.

“It took a little experimentation, since the keys don’t line up exactly, but finally I got it,” he said. “Look here: the numbers spiral out from the center. G is one, B is two, H is three, Y is four, and so on. See? It’s like this.” He quickly penciled in numbers.

 1 2 3 4 5 612 711 9 9 0

tab Q W E R13 T5 Y4 U10 1 O P

caps A S D14 F6 G1 H3 J9 K L,

shift Z X C15 V7 B2 N8 M,.?

“They just keep spiraling outward-M is sixteen, K is seventeen, and so forth. So finally I understood the message.”

“What is the message, Harry?”

Harry hesitated. “I have to tell you. It’s strange.”

“How do you mean, strange?”

Harry tore another sheet off his yellow pad and handed it to them. Norman read the short message, printed in neat block letters:

 HELLO. HOW ARE YOU? I AM FINE. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? MY NAME IS JERRY.

THE FIRST EXCHANGE

“Well,” Ted said finally. “this is not what I expected at all.”

“It looks childish,” Beth said. “Like something out of those old ‘See Spot run’ readers for kids.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like.”

“Maybe you translated it wrong,” Barnes said.

“Certainly not,” Harry said.

“Well, this alien sounds like an idiot,” Barnes said.

“I doubt very much that he is,” Ted said.

“You would doubt it,” Barnes said. “A stupid alien would blow your whole theory. But it’s something to consider, isn’t it? A stupid alien. They must have them.”

“I doubt,” Ted said, “that anyone in command of such high technology as that sphere is stupid.”

“Then you haven’t noticed all the ninnies driving cars back home,” Barnes said. “Jesus, after all this effort: ‘How are you? I am fine.’ Jesus.”

Norman said, “I don’t feel that this message implies a lack of intelligence, Hal.”

“On the contrary,” Harry said. “I think the message is very smart.”

“I’m listening,” Barnes said.

“The content certainly appears childish,” Harry said. “But when you think about it, it’s highly logical. A simple message is unambiguous, friendly, and not frightening. It makes a lot of sense to send such a message. I think he’s approaching us in the simple way that we might approach a dog. You know, hold out your hand, let it sniff, get used to you.”

“You’re saying he’s treating us like dogs?” Barnes said.

Norman thought: Barnes is in over his head. He’s irritable because he’s frightened; he feels inadequate. Or perhaps he feels he’s exceeding his authority.

“No, Hal,” Ted said. “He’s just starting at a simple level.”

“Well, it’s simple, all right,” Barnes said. “Jesus Christ, we contact an alien from outer space, and he says his name is Jerry.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, Hal.”

“Maybe he has a last name,” Barnes said hopefully. “I mean, my report to CincComPac is going to say one person died on a deepsat expedition to meet an alien named Jerry? It could sound better. Anything but Jerry,” Barnes said. “Can we ask him?”

“Ask him what?” Harry said.

“His full name.”

Ted said, “I personally feel we should have much more substantive conversations-”

“-I’d like the full name,” Barnes said. “For the report.”

“Right,” Ted said. “Full name, rank, and serial number.”

“I would remind you, Dr. Fielding, that I am in charge here.”

Harry said, “The first thing we have to do is to see if he’ll talk at all. Let’s give him the first number grouping.”

He typed:

 00032125252632

There was a pause, then the answer came back:

  00032125252632

“Okay,” Harry said. “Jerry’s listening.”

He made some notes on his pad and typed another string of numbers:

 00029213013210613182108142232

“What did you say?” Beth said.

“ ‘We are friends,’ ” Harry said.

“Forget friends. Ask his damn name,” Barnes said.

“Just a minute. One thing at a time.”

Ted said, “He may not have a last name, you know.”

“You can be damn sure,” Barnes said, “that his real name isn’t Jerry.”

The response came back:

 0004212232

“He said, ‘Yes.’ ”

“Yes, what?” Barnes said.

“Just ‘yes.’ Let’s see if we can get him to switch over to English characters. It’ll be easier if he uses letters and not his number codes.”

“How’re you going to get him to use letters?”

“We’ll show him they’re the same,” Harry said.

He typed:

 00032125252632 = HELLO.

After a short pause, the screen blinked:

 00032125252632 = HELLO.

“He doesn’t get it,” Ted said.

“No, doesn’t look like it. Let’s try another pairing.”

He typed:

 0004212232 = YES.

The reply came back:

 0004212232 = YES.

“He’s definitely not getting it,” Ted said.

“I thought he was so smart,” Barnes said.

“Give him a chance,” Ted said. “After all, he’s speaking our language, not the other way around.”

“The other way around,” Harry said. “Good idea. Let’s try the other way around, see if he’ll deduce the equation that way.”

Harry typed:

 0004212232 = YES. YES. = 0004212232

There was a long pause, while they watched the screen. Nothing happened.