Read Online The Long Cosmos by Terry Pratchett - Free Book Online Page B

at her. ‘Of course. What could be more important than that? For one thing, has it occurred to you to wonder why it should be now that they attempt to contact us? Somehow they must know that we, or something like us, are here: a technological civilization, I mean. This despite the fact that our own radio signals cannot have travelled more than one per cent or so of the distance to the galactic core.’
    â€˜We also know the Invitation is being picked up across the Long Earth,’ Dev mused. And, so the unscientific outernet rumours went, it had been detected in ways that had nothing to do with radio telescopes – such as, directly by the roomy heads of those enigmatic humanoids, trolls. He kept his mouth shut about this; he’d learned that his Next overlords didn’t want to hear such lurid speculation. But on the other hand there seemed another coincidence of timing here, to him. ‘Maybe,’ he said cautiously, ‘they sensed we’ve started to move out stepwise. And that was why they reacted now . . .’
    Stella ignored him. ‘Of course we must exract all the information we can from the Invitation – all of it, if we’re to make an informed decision on how to react.’
    Lee said, ‘You mean how to respond.’
    Roberta said calmly, ‘Not necessarily. We have received an invitation; we don’t have to accept it. Not until we’re sure it’s in our best interest.’
    Lee snorted. ‘The best interest of the Next?’
    â€˜In the interest of all of us, all the inhabitants of the Long Earth.’
    Dev smiled. ‘It’s an old debate – goes back to Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. Contact optimists versus the pessimists.’
    Roberta nodded gravely. ‘It is an authentic dilemma. We too debate these issues. First things first: we must learn what we are dealing with.’
    Stella said, ‘Well, certainly listening can’t do any harm. As for the telescopes, we have a new design that will soon surpass the capabilities of the Cyclops.’ She swiped her tablet over the bubble’s consoles, and the big display screens on the walls filled with new images.
    Dev saw a graphic of a sphere suspended in space, from which towers extended in all directions, like spines, dwarfing the central mass. It looked oddly like a sea urchin.
    Lee asked, ‘What is this?’
    Roberta said, ‘Tell me what you see.’
    Lee shrugged. ‘It looks like an asteroid with towers sticking out of it.’
    â€˜It is an asteroid,’ Roberta said evenly, ‘with towers sticking out of it.’
    â€˜This is your Clarke Project?’
    â€˜Named after a writer of the last century who proposed—’
    Dev swallowed. ‘Those spines must be hundreds of miles long.’
    â€˜Thousands, actually.’
    â€˜And where are you going to get your asteroid?’
    Roberta glanced out of the window. ‘We will use the object you have already harvested. Your “Lump”.’
    â€˜That’s intended for other purposes. More O’Neill s—’
    â€˜We can pay,’ Roberta said dismissively.
    Lee said, ‘I guess I can see the purpose. With a thing that scale you’d be able to pick up very long wavelength radiation – well beyond the usual radio lengths, tens of kilometres, even. Gravity waves too?’
    â€˜That’s the idea. We’ve no reason to think the Invitation is restricted to the wavelengths at which we’ve detected it so far. We want it all .’
    Dev’s engineering chops began to tingle. ‘It’s one hell of a construction project. The O’Neill took us a decade to build. How long do you estimate it will take you to build that behemoth?’
    Roberta said blandly, ‘Two months.’
    Now it was Dev’s turn to laugh. Lee just looked blank. Even Stella seemed surprised.
    Dev asked, ‘How can you possibly do it so quickly? Given the