Haldeman, Joe - SS - Tricentennial.pdf

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Tricentennial -- JOE HALDEMAN
Joe Haldeman is a. public relations department's dream. Handsome, with
a dashing beard, and in his early thirties, he is not only a world
traveler, a teacher, a lecturer, a former senior editor of ASTRONOMY
magazine, guitar player, and skin diver, but in addition to his science
fiction he has written adventure novels, nonfiction books, short
stories, articles, poems, and songs. In 1976 he won a Nebula Award for
his novel THE FOREVER WAR, which also that year won a Hugo, the award
given out by the World Science Fiction Convention annually. This year
he is nominated in two categories for the Hugo-both his novel
MINDBRIDGE and "Tricentennial," the short story that follows.
You would think that this would be enough for anyone. Add, however, the
fact that Joe Haldeman's university degree is in astrophysics, with
postgraduate work in mathematics, computer science, statistics, and
art, and the further fact that he is a decorated Vietnam War veteran
who was severely wounded in combat, and you have, as I said, a package
that a public relations department even one that deals with authors
year in and year out-tends to find almost embarrassingly rich in
interesting details.
Nonetheless, all these things are as true and real as Joe Haldeman
himself is real. And you will see as you read "Tricentennial," on the
pages that follow, that this is one of his geniuses as a writer-his
writing also has a rare element of reality within it.
December 1975
Scientists pointed out that the Sun could be part of a double star
system. For its companion to have gone undetected, of course, it would
have to be small and dim, and thousands of astronomical units distant.
They would find it eventually; "it" would turn out to be "them";
they would come in handy.
January 2075
The office was opulent even by the extravagant standards of twenty-
first-century Washington. Senator Connors had a passion for antiques.
One wall was lined with leather-bound books; a large brass telescope
symbolized his role as Liaison to the Science Guild. An intricately
woven Navajo rug from his home state covered most of the parquet floor.
A grandfather clock. Paintings, old maps.
The computer terminal was discreetly hidden in the top drawer of
his heavy teak desk. On the desk: a
A1
blotter, a precisely centered fountain pen set, and a century-old
sound-only black Bell telephone. It chimed.
His secretary said that Dr. Leventhal was waiting to see him. "Keep
answering me for thirty seconds," the Senator said. "Then hang it and
send him right in."
He cradled the phone and went to a wall mirror. Straightened his tie
and cape; then with a fingernail evened out the bottom line of his lip
pomade. Ran a hand through long, thinning white hair and returned to
stand by the desk, one hand on the phone.
The heavy door whispered open. A short thin man bowed slightly. "Sire."
The Senator crossed to him with both hands out. "Oh, blow that,
Charlie. Give ten." The man took both his hands, only for an instant.
"When was I ever `Sire' to you, he fool?"
"Since last week," Leventhal said, "Guild members have been calling you
worse names than 'Sire."'
The Senator bobbed his head twice. "True, and true. And I sympathize.
Will of the people, though."
"Sure." Leventhal pronounced it as one word: "Willathapeeble."
Connors went to the bookcase and opened a chased panel. "Drink?" .
"Yeah, Bo." Charlie sighed and lowered himself into a deep sofa. "Hit
me. Sherry or something."
The Senator brought the drinks and sat down beside Charlie. "You should
of listened to me. Shoulda got the Ad Guild to write your proposal."
"We have good writers."
"Begging to differ. Less than two percent of the electorate bothered to
vote: most of them for the administration advocate. Now you take the
Engineering Guild-"
"You take the engineers. And-"
"They used the Ad Guild." Connors shrugged. "They got their budget."
"It's easy to sell bridges and power plants and shuttles. Hard to sell
pure science."
"The more reason for you to-"
"Yeah, sure. Ask for double and give half to the Ad
boys. Maybe next year. That's-not what I came to talk about."
"That radio stuff?"
"Right. Did you read the report?"
Connors looked into his glass. "Charlie, you know I don't have time to-
"
"Somebody read it, though."
"Oh, nighty-o. Good astronomy boy on my staff: he gave me a boil-down.
Mighty interesting, that."
"There's an intelligent civilization eleven light-years away-that's
`mighty interesting'?"
"Sure. Real breakthrough." Uncomfortable silence. V "Uh, what are you
going to do about it?"
"Two things. First, we're trying to figure out what they're saying.
That's hard. Second, we want to send a message back. That's easy. And
that's where you come in."
The Senator nodded and looked somewhat wary.
"Let me explain. We've sent messages to this star, 61 Cygni, before.
It's a double star, actually, with a dark companion."
"Like us."
"Sort of. Anyhow, they never answered. They aren't listening,
evidently: they aren't sending."
"But we got-"
"What we're picking up is about what you'd pick up eleven light-years
from Earth. A confused jumble of broadcasts, eleven years old. Very
faint. But obviously not generated by any sort of natural source."
"Then we're already sending a message back. The same kind they're
sending us."
"That's right, but---21
"So what does all this have to do with me?"
"Bo, we don't want to whisper at them-we want to shout! Get their
attention." Leventhal sipped his wine and leaned back. "For that, we'll
need one hell of a lot ` of power."
"Uh, nighty-o. Charlie, power's money. How much are you talking about?"
"The whole show. I want to shut down Death Valley for twelve hours."
The Senator's mouth made a silent O. "Charlie, you've been working too
hard. Another Blackout? On purpose?"
"There won't be any Blackout. Death Valley has emergency storage for
fourteen hours."
"At half capacity." He drained his glass and walked back to the bar,
shaking his head. "First you say you want power. Then you say you want
to turn off the power." He came back with the burlap-covered bottle.
"You aren't making sense, boy."
"Not turn it off, really. Turn it around."
"Is that a riddle?"
"No, look. You know the power doesn't really come from the Death Valley
grid; it's just a way station and accumulator. Power comes from the
orbital-"
"I know all that, Charlie. I've got a Science Certificate." .
"Sure. So what we've got is a big microwave laser in orbit, that shoots
down a tight beam of power. Enough to keep North America running.
Enough-"
"That's what I mean. You can't just-"
"So we turn it around and shoot it at a power grid on the Moon. Relay
the power around to the big radio dish at Farside. Turn it into radio
waves and point it at 61 Cygni. Give 'em a blast that'll fry their
fillings."
"Doesn't sound neighborly."
"It wouldn't actually be that powerful-but it would be a hell of a lot
more powerful than any natural 21 centimeter source."
"I don't know, boy." He rubbed his eyes and grimaced. "I could maybe do
it on the sly, only tell a few people what's on. But that'd only work
for a few minutes . . . what do you need twelve hours for, anyway?"
"Well, the thing won't aim itself at the Moon automatically, the way it
does at Death Valley. Figure as much as an hour to get the thing turned
around and aimed.
"Then, we don't want to just send a blast of radio waves at them. We've
got a five-hour program, that first builds up a mutual language, then
tells them about us,
and finally asks them some questions. We want to send it twice."
Connors refilled both glasses. "How old were you in '47, Charlie?" ,
"I was born in '45."
"You don't remember the Blackout. Ten thousand people died . . . and
you want me to suggest-"
"Come on, Bo, it's not the same thing. We know the accumulators work
now-besides, the ones who died, most of them had faulty fail-safes on
their cars. If we warn them the power's going to drop, they'll check
their fail-safes or damn well stay out of the air."
"And the media? They'd have to take turns broadcasting. Are you going
to tell the People what they can watch?"
"Fuzz the media. They'll be getting the biggest story since the
Crucifixion."
"Maybe." Connors took a cigarette and pushed the box toward Charlie.
"You don't remember what happened to the Senators from California in
'47, do you?"
"Nothing good, I suppose." -
"No, indeed. They were impeached. Lucky they weren't lynched. Even
though the real trouble was 'way up in orbit.
"Like you say: people pay a grid tax to California. They think the
power comes from California. If something fuzzes up, they get pissed at
California. I'm the Lib Senator from California, Charlie; ask me for
the Moon, maybe I can do something. Don't ask me to fuzz around with
Death Valley."
"All right, all right. It's not like I was asking you to wire it for
me, Bo. Just get it on the ballot. We'll do everything we can to
educate-"
"Won't work. You barely got the Scylla probe voted in-and that was no
skin off nobody, not with L-5 picking up the tab."
"Just get it on the ballot."
"We'll see. I've got a quota, you know that. And the
Tricentennial coming up, hell, everybody wants on the ..
ballot"
"Please, Bo. This is bigger than that. This is bigger than anything.
Get it on the ballot." "Maybe as a rider. No promises."
March 1992:
From Fax & Pix, 12 March 1992:
ANTIQUE SPACEPROBE
ZAPPED BY NEW STARS
1. Pioneer 10 sent first Jupiter pix Earthward in 1973 (see pix upleft,
upright).
2. Left solar system 1987. First man-made thing to leave solar system.
,3. Yesterday, reports NSA, Pioneer 10 begins AM to pick up heavy
radiation. Gets more and more to max about 3 PM. Then goes back down.
Radiation has to come from outside solar system.
4. NSA and Hawaii scientists say Pioneer 10 went through disk of
synchrotron (sin kro tron) radiation that comes from two stars we
didn't know about before.
A. The stars are small "black dwarfs."
B. They are going round each other once every 40 seconds, and take
350,000 years to go around the Sun.
C. One of the stars is made of antimatter. This is stuff that blows
up if it touches real matter. What the Hawaii scientists saw was a dim
circle of invisible (infrared) light, that blinks on and off every
twenty seconds. This light comes from where the atmospheres of the two
stars touch (see pic downleft).
D. The stars have a big magnetic field. Radiation comes from stuff
spinning off the stars and trying to get through the field.

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