"James E. Gunn - The Listeners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

for the rest of the week, and the week before that, and the months and the
years before that. No significant correlations. Noise. There were a few peaks
of reception -- at the twenty-one-centimeter line, for instance -- but these
were merely concentrated noise. Radiating clouds of hydrogen, as the Little
Ear functioned like an ordinary radio telescope.
At least the Project showed some results. It was feeding star survey
data tapes into the international pool. Fallout. Of a process that had no
other product except negatives.
Maybe the equipment wasn't sensitive enough. Maybe. They could beef it
up some more. At least it might be a successful ploy with the Committee, some
progress to present, if only in the hardware. You don't stand still. You spend
more money or they cut you back -- or off.
_Note: Saunders -- plans to increase sensitivity._
Maybe the equipment wasn't discriminating enough. But they had used up
a generation of ingenuity canceling out background noise, and in its
occasional checks the Big Ear indicated that they were doing adequately on
terrestrial noise, at least.
_Note: Adams -- new discrimination gimmick._
Maybe the computer wasn't recognizing a signal when it had one fed into
it. Perhaps it wasn't sophisticated enough to perceive certain subtle
relationships.... And yet sophisticated codes had been broken in seconds. And
the Project was asking it to distinguish only where a signal existed, whether
the reception was random noise or had some element of the unrandom. At this
level it wasn't even being asked to note the influence of consciousness.
_Note: ask computer -- is it missing something? Ridiculous? Ask Olsen._
Maybe they shouldn't be searching the radio spectrum at all. Maybe
radio was a peculiarity of man's civilization. Maybe others had never had it
or had passed it by and now had more sophisticated means of communication.
Lasers, for instance. Telepathy, or what might pass for it with man. Maybe
gamma rays, as Morrison suggested years before Ozma.
Well, maybe. But if it were so, somebody else would have to listen for
those. He had neither the equipment nor the background nor the working
lifetime left to tackle something new.
And maybe Adams was right.
He buzzed Lily. "Have you reached Mrs. MacDonald?"
"The telephone hasn't answered -- -"
Unreasoned panic...
" -- Oh, here she is now, Mr. MacDonald, Mrs. MacDonald."
"Hello, darling, I was alarmed when you didn't answer." That had been
foolish, he thought, and even more foolish to mention it.
Her voice was sleepy. "I must have been dozing." Even drowsy, it was an
exciting voice, gentle, a little husky, that speeded MacDonald's pulse. "What
did you want?"
"You called me," MacDonald said.
"Did I? I've forgotten."
"Glad you're resting. You didn't sleep well last night."
"I took some pills."
"How many?"
"Just the two you left out."
"Good girl. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Go back to sleep. Sorry