table, so it responded with lithium, the third distinct element.”
“So it's tit-for-tat,” said Mason, trying to get his head around the concept.
“Essentially, yes,” said Teller. “What's the next element? Isn't it one of the noble gases?”
“No,” replied one of the scientists standing by them. “It's a while before we start hitting the nobles. The next element would be beryllium. If we respond to lithium with beryllium the anomaly should respond with boron.”
“Ah, yes,” said Teller, scratching his head as he tried to remember the early sequence in the periodic table.
“So you don't think this thing is alive?” asked Mason, repeating his earlier question in a different manner. “Why not?”
“Well, robotic probes are capable of going so much further than a manned space craft. They're much simpler and lighter, so they can reach further. And, really, there's not that much need for physically being present, not with advanced machinery like this, especially given the phenomenal distances and the amount of time involved in traveling from one star system to the next, not to mention the risks associated with that. So they'd avoid a lot of headaches by sending a probe, something like an advanced version of Pioneer or Voyager.”
“Makes sense to me,” added Bates. Anderson nodded in agreement.
“You're getting all this, right?” Mason asked, looking at Finch.
“Oh, yeah.”
“So that,” said Mason, pointing behind himself at the soft glowing sphere at the center of the anomaly, “that's not something to be worried about?”
“Not at all,” replied Dr Anderson. “It's just the lithium reacting with the moisture in the air, and it's small, it's contained. It's roughly the size of a basketball.”
“We've got to get more elements together,” said Dr Bates.
“I'm on it,” one of the NASA scientists said, disappearing into the trailer and jumping on the phone.
“You said it was a probe?” added Mason, turning back toward Teller.
“Yes, sir.”
“So what is it probing? What does it want?”
“I don't know,” replied Teller.
“Guess,” said Mason. It was an order, not a question.
“Well, at a guess, it's going to start off by establishing a baseline with us. It's going to keep working up the periodic table until we can no longer reply.”
“Why can't we reply?” asked Mason.
“Well, once you get into the heavy elements there are gaps. We can produce most elements in a reactor core or a particle accelerator, but some of them have such short half-lives we'd never be able to stabilize them long enough to get them to the anomaly in any kind of reasonable volume. And then there's a whole bunch of elements we've never seen. They're theoretically possible, but we haven't been able to produce them. So the probe will pretty quickly come to understand our limitations, which makes sense, from its point of view.”
“How?” asked Mason.
He was asking a lot of open-ended questions, thought Teller, but this was good. Even if it was still largely speculative, at least they were starting to make some progress, exploring the possibilities.
“Probes like this are probably sent everywhere,” added Bates, expanding on the principle of a Von Neumann probe. “Their makers would understand that they would inevitably intersect with other civilizations at various stages of their development. This could have arrived during the Iron Age, or the Bronze Age, or during the Age of Enlightenment, before we had reached a level of technical innovation where we could interact with it.”
“Yeah,” added Anderson, seeing where Bates was going with this. “So it would have to have a lot of patience. It would probably be content to stay in its initial turn-your-world-upside-down novelty stage for several millennia as it waited for the inhabitants to reach the point where they stopped worshiping it as some kind of deity and started talking with it. The anomaly is probably programmed to wait
“So it's tit-for-tat,” said Mason, trying to get his head around the concept.
“Essentially, yes,” said Teller. “What's the next element? Isn't it one of the noble gases?”
“No,” replied one of the scientists standing by them. “It's a while before we start hitting the nobles. The next element would be beryllium. If we respond to lithium with beryllium the anomaly should respond with boron.”
“Ah, yes,” said Teller, scratching his head as he tried to remember the early sequence in the periodic table.
“So you don't think this thing is alive?” asked Mason, repeating his earlier question in a different manner. “Why not?”
“Well, robotic probes are capable of going so much further than a manned space craft. They're much simpler and lighter, so they can reach further. And, really, there's not that much need for physically being present, not with advanced machinery like this, especially given the phenomenal distances and the amount of time involved in traveling from one star system to the next, not to mention the risks associated with that. So they'd avoid a lot of headaches by sending a probe, something like an advanced version of Pioneer or Voyager.”
“Makes sense to me,” added Bates. Anderson nodded in agreement.
“You're getting all this, right?” Mason asked, looking at Finch.
“Oh, yeah.”
“So that,” said Mason, pointing behind himself at the soft glowing sphere at the center of the anomaly, “that's not something to be worried about?”
“Not at all,” replied Dr Anderson. “It's just the lithium reacting with the moisture in the air, and it's small, it's contained. It's roughly the size of a basketball.”
“We've got to get more elements together,” said Dr Bates.
“I'm on it,” one of the NASA scientists said, disappearing into the trailer and jumping on the phone.
“You said it was a probe?” added Mason, turning back toward Teller.
“Yes, sir.”
“So what is it probing? What does it want?”
“I don't know,” replied Teller.
“Guess,” said Mason. It was an order, not a question.
“Well, at a guess, it's going to start off by establishing a baseline with us. It's going to keep working up the periodic table until we can no longer reply.”
“Why can't we reply?” asked Mason.
“Well, once you get into the heavy elements there are gaps. We can produce most elements in a reactor core or a particle accelerator, but some of them have such short half-lives we'd never be able to stabilize them long enough to get them to the anomaly in any kind of reasonable volume. And then there's a whole bunch of elements we've never seen. They're theoretically possible, but we haven't been able to produce them. So the probe will pretty quickly come to understand our limitations, which makes sense, from its point of view.”
“How?” asked Mason.
He was asking a lot of open-ended questions, thought Teller, but this was good. Even if it was still largely speculative, at least they were starting to make some progress, exploring the possibilities.
“Probes like this are probably sent everywhere,” added Bates, expanding on the principle of a Von Neumann probe. “Their makers would understand that they would inevitably intersect with other civilizations at various stages of their development. This could have arrived during the Iron Age, or the Bronze Age, or during the Age of Enlightenment, before we had reached a level of technical innovation where we could interact with it.”
“Yeah,” added Anderson, seeing where Bates was going with this. “So it would have to have a lot of patience. It would probably be content to stay in its initial turn-your-world-upside-down novelty stage for several millennia as it waited for the inhabitants to reach the point where they stopped worshiping it as some kind of deity and started talking with it. The anomaly is probably programmed to wait
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