"So?" Kurtzman asked, arching his eyebrows. "Do you see science making
any great strides around here? We're in over our heads. Intuition is
the only thing that can save us."
"If we're that bad off, we might as well quit," the first one said. "In
fact, that might be the best idea of all. Forget it and go home. Let
the damned machine run for another million years, if it wants to."
Lee could not keep quiet any longer. "That would be fine, wouldn't
it?" he said, turning on the surprised engineer. "Give it up and forget
about it, without knowing where it came from, or what it's doing, or
why."
"I didn't mean...."
"Listen to me. It's not just that the thing could be a weapon. It may
not be. But we don't know. And as long as we don't know, we've got to
keep trying to find out. Understand?"
"Yes, but...."
"And there's more at stake here than just an intellectual puzzle,"
Lee insisted. "If we turn our backs on this machine, we've turned our
backs on a basic premise of all scientific thought. If we admit that we
can't understand this machine, then we admit that there's an absolute
limit to our ability to understand the universe. We give in to the old
witch-doctor's claim that there are some things in the world that man
must not tamper with. Taboo!
"The basic nature of man and science is at stake here! We've got to
understand that machine. Our claim to the stars is tied up in it."
Lee looked up and saw that everyone in the dining hall was watching
him. He stood up.
"Sorry; I didn't mean to get so vehement," he mumbled to the engineer.
"Guess I'm a bit edgy today."
He walked quickly out of the dining area and returned to his office.
* * * * *
Slowly, quietly, the work went on. Dr. Petchkovich spent six weeks on
Mercury, supervising at first hand the investigation of the area where
the machine's antennas were focused. He returned to Titan in high
excitement.
"We have definitely proved that there is a disturbance in the
interplanetary magnetic field at the focal point of the machine's
antennas," he announced to the department heads, when they convened in
the conference room to hear his report.
"How strong a disturbance?" Dr. Kulaki asked.
Petchkovich hesitated a moment. "Well, it's only one part in a hundred
thousand...."
The excitement died quickly. It was a discovery, yes. But it did not
bring them any closer to understanding the machine and its purpose.
* * * * *
Lee was sitting at his desk, staring moodily at a graph that Dr. Childe
had left with him: the results of the Orbital Computing Center's
extrapolation of the wave patterns broadcast by the machine.
The phone buzzer sounded. Without taking his eyes from the graph, Lee
flicked the phone on.
"Are you busy right now?"
He looked up and saw Elaine's face on the screen. "No, not really," he
answered. "Come on in."
"I'll be there in a few minutes."
As soon as she came through the door he knew that something was wrong.
She was trying too hard not to look concerned.
"What's up?" he asked her.
She shrugged and sat down in front of the desk. "I just thought we
might talk for a while."
"In my office?"
"It concerns official business."
"I see."