VIII
(View of the machine seen from afar, a thousand-kilometer length like a needle afloat in space, dwarfed by the Milky Way.)
NARRATOR
-unmanned probes reported indications of something curious, orbiting the sun on the same track as Earth but a hundred and eighty degrees off, so that it was always on the opposite side. A flyby confirmed that it was strange indeed. No asteroid could have a perfectly cylindrical shape. Most certainly, none could be so massive, nor spin so fast. .
(An astrophysicist, famous at the time, speaks from his desk, occasionally screening an animated diagram for illustration.)
IONESCU
-should not be possible. That thing is as dense as a collapsar, barely short of the black hole condition. Its atoms must have been compressed down to where they are no longer true atoms but nearly continuous nuclear matter, the stuff we call neutronium. Only the gravitational field of a larger star than Sol, falling in on itself after its fires are extinct, can bring them to that condition. The cylinder cannot. Gigantic though it is, its mass is far too small-in fact, not enough to perturb the planets identifiably. Besides, a natural body would form a spheroid.
Yet there the thing is. Forces of a kind we know nothing about shaped it, gave it its unbelievable rotational energy, and hold it together. I have no doubt whatsoever that here is the product of a technology farther advanced from ours than ours is from the Stone Age.
(Scenes of excitement, speeches, crowds, demonstrations, sermons, prayer meetings everywhere on Earth and in the satellites. Excerpt from a press conference held by Manuel FernЗndez DЗvila, Donald Napier, and Saburo Tonari, the three men who are to go, the most nearly international team that chaos throughout much of the world has left it possible to assemble. Liftoff of the shuttle, blast vivid against an austere cordillera. Rendezvous with Discoverer, the ship, and transfer to her.
(Scenes during the flight, which at that time took weeks, mostly in free fall. Shots through the ports: the cylinder waxing in view until its enormousness begins to be apparent and the glowing attendants are visible. Spacesuited men go outside, at the ends of tethers, to take pictures and instrumental readings. They speak to Earth via a relay which has been orbited especially for them. The words are usually dry, but shaken by awe.)
FERNANDEZ-DAVILA
-they are not satellites. They don't go around the cylinder, they stay in place relative to the sun and each other. God knows how that is done, but we guess they're held by some of the power that keeps the main body in one piece. We've counted ten. They appear featureless except for the different wavelengths they emit. They're spaced around the spin axis of the cylinder-which is exactly normal to the ecliptic-at various distances and orientations, the farthest about a million kilometers out, the closest about a thousand. When we watch the whole system through our main telescope, it's a pretty sight. Well, anything astronomical is. .
(At a later date, when the goal is looming.)
TONARI
-glowing attendants are definitely spheres, diameter estimated at ten kilometers. They don't seem to be material. More like balls of energy, nexuses in a force-field. We have confirmed that they are not absolutely stationary. The configuration changes, extremely slowly but continuously, according to a plan we cannot decipher.
(Outside view taken by Tonari in EVA: a glimpse of the ship, a straight look at the cylinder, whose length now fills the screen, and a pair of its moons which are not moons, and behind and around everything, the stars.)
NAPIER
(meanwhile, aboard)
-satisfactory approach curve. We'll swing around it at a distance of ninety-five hundred kilometers, recede to one hundred thousand, establish ourselves in a circular orbit, and -Name of God! What's that?
VOICE
(melodious, androgynous, speaking Spanish like an educated
denizen of Lima)
Your attention, please. Your attention, please. This is a message to you from the builders of the device you are seeking. You are welcome here. But you must change your course. Your present path is dangerous to you. Prepare for acceleration and stand by for instructions. Please record. You will need the information you are about to receive. Please record. In five minutes, these words will repeat for that purpose, followed by the necessary data. They are words of welcome, of joy that you have finally reached this far. Thank you.
(Interior scene. FernЗndez-DЗvila has started the movie cameras for the sake of the history books.)
NAPIER
How in Christ's name-?
FERNANDEZ-DAVILA
Probably sonic vibrations set up in the hull. No trick at all for them-Saburo! Saburo, get your ass back in the airlock!
(No repeat of the greeting; this documentary has used the replay that was promised, since the original was captured only at the end of a radio beam two hundred and ten kilometers long, after which it was passed an equal distance to Earth, losing quality along the whole way.)
