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Authors: Gregory Benford
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field-stripping a rifle, each part in its place and as necessary as any other. He was good and he was careful, but he hadn't the experience to go for the throat of a problem, Gordon saw, to give only the essentials. Well, that was why Cooper was a student and Lakin a full professor.
Lakin flipped a switch, studied the dancing face of an oscilloscope, and said, "Something's out of alignment."
Cooper scurried into action. He tracked down the snag, setting it right in a few moments. Lakin nodded in approval. Gordon felt a curious tightness in his chest ease, as though it had been himself being tested, not Cooper.
"Very well, then," Lakin said finally. "Your results?"
Now it was Gordon's turn to perform. He chalk-talked his way through their ideas, followed them up with the data displays. He gave Cooper credit for guessing there was a coded message in the noise. He picked up a recorder sheet and showed it to Lakin, pointing out the spacings and how they were always close to either one centimeter or 0.5 centimeters, never anything else.
Lakin studied the jittery lines with their occasional sharp points, like towers jutting up through a fog-shrouded cityscape. Impassively he said,
"Nonsense."
Gordon paused. "I thought so, too, at first. Then we decoded the thing, assigning the 0.5 centimeter intervals as 'short' and one centimeter as
'long' in Morse code."
"This is pointless. There is no physical effect which could produce data like these." Lakin glanced around at Cooper, clearly exasperated.
"But look at a translation from the Morse," Gordon said, scribbling on the blackboard. ENZYME INHIBITED B.
Lakin squinted at the letters. "This is from one sheet of recorder paper?"
"Well, no. Three together."
"Where were the breaks?"
"ENZYM on the first, E INHIB on the second, ITED B on the third."
"So you haven't got a complete word at all."
"Well, they are serial. I took them one after the other, with just a quick pause to change paper."
"How long?"
"Oh ... twenty seconds."
"Time enough for several of your 'letters' to go by undetected."
"Well, maybe. But the structure—"
"There is no structure here, merely guesswork."
Gordon frowned. "The chances of getting a set of words out of random noise, arranged this way–"
"How do you space the words?" Lakin said. "Even in Morse code there's an interval, to tell you where one word stops and another begins."
"Doctor Lakin, that's just what we've found. There are two-centimeter intervals on the recordings between each word. That fits–"
"I see." Lakin took all this stoically. "Quite convenient. Are there other
... messages?"
"Some," Gordon said evenly. "They don't make a great deal of sense."
"I suspected as much."
"Oh, there are words. 'This' and 'saturate'–what are the odds against getting an eight-letter word like that, offset on each side with two-centimeter spacings?"
"Ummm," Lakin said, shrugging. Gordon always had the feeling that at such moments Lakin had some expression in his native language, Hungarian, but couldn't translate it into English. "I still believe it to be ...
nonsense. There is no physical effect such as this. Interference from outside, yes. I can believe that. But this, this James Bond Morse code–no."
With that Lakin shook his head quickly, as though erasing the matter, and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I think you have wasted your time here."
"I don't really–"
"My advice to you is to focus on your true problem. That is to find the source of noise in your electronics. I fail to understand why you cannot seek it out." Lakin turned, nodded to Cooper curtly, and was gone.
An hour after Lakin had left, after the equipment was turned off or cycled down, the data collected, the lab books compiled and details filled in, Gordon waved goodbye to Cooper and walked out into the long corridor leading to the outside. He was surprised; the glass doors showed gathering gloom, and Venus rising. Gordon had assumed it was still late afternoon.
Lakin flipped a switch, studied the dancing face of an oscilloscope, and said, "Something's out of alignment."
Cooper scurried into action. He tracked down the snag, setting it right in a few moments. Lakin nodded in approval. Gordon felt a curious tightness in his chest ease, as though it had been himself being tested, not Cooper.
"Very well, then," Lakin said finally. "Your results?"
Now it was Gordon's turn to perform. He chalk-talked his way through their ideas, followed them up with the data displays. He gave Cooper credit for guessing there was a coded message in the noise. He picked up a recorder sheet and showed it to Lakin, pointing out the spacings and how they were always close to either one centimeter or 0.5 centimeters, never anything else.
Lakin studied the jittery lines with their occasional sharp points, like towers jutting up through a fog-shrouded cityscape. Impassively he said,
"Nonsense."
Gordon paused. "I thought so, too, at first. Then we decoded the thing, assigning the 0.5 centimeter intervals as 'short' and one centimeter as
'long' in Morse code."
"This is pointless. There is no physical effect which could produce data like these." Lakin glanced around at Cooper, clearly exasperated.
"But look at a translation from the Morse," Gordon said, scribbling on the blackboard. ENZYME INHIBITED B.
Lakin squinted at the letters. "This is from one sheet of recorder paper?"
"Well, no. Three together."
"Where were the breaks?"
"ENZYM on the first, E INHIB on the second, ITED B on the third."
"So you haven't got a complete word at all."
"Well, they are serial. I took them one after the other, with just a quick pause to change paper."
"How long?"
"Oh ... twenty seconds."
"Time enough for several of your 'letters' to go by undetected."
"Well, maybe. But the structure—"
"There is no structure here, merely guesswork."
Gordon frowned. "The chances of getting a set of words out of random noise, arranged this way–"
"How do you space the words?" Lakin said. "Even in Morse code there's an interval, to tell you where one word stops and another begins."
"Doctor Lakin, that's just what we've found. There are two-centimeter intervals on the recordings between each word. That fits–"
"I see." Lakin took all this stoically. "Quite convenient. Are there other
... messages?"
"Some," Gordon said evenly. "They don't make a great deal of sense."
"I suspected as much."
"Oh, there are words. 'This' and 'saturate'–what are the odds against getting an eight-letter word like that, offset on each side with two-centimeter spacings?"
"Ummm," Lakin said, shrugging. Gordon always had the feeling that at such moments Lakin had some expression in his native language, Hungarian, but couldn't translate it into English. "I still believe it to be ...
nonsense. There is no physical effect such as this. Interference from outside, yes. I can believe that. But this, this James Bond Morse code–no."
With that Lakin shook his head quickly, as though erasing the matter, and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I think you have wasted your time here."
"I don't really–"
"My advice to you is to focus on your true problem. That is to find the source of noise in your electronics. I fail to understand why you cannot seek it out." Lakin turned, nodded to Cooper curtly, and was gone.
An hour after Lakin had left, after the equipment was turned off or cycled down, the data collected, the lab books compiled and details filled in, Gordon waved goodbye to Cooper and walked out into the long corridor leading to the outside. He was surprised; the glass doors showed gathering gloom, and Venus rising. Gordon had assumed it was still late afternoon.
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