Chapter 19

Dr. John Dawson parked his car in front of a small brick house on a nice shady street in Bexley. He got out and walked quickly to the door. It was 8:00 on a Saturday morning. He rang the doorbell.

Inside Ruth was sitting on her couch eating cereal and reading some news articles on her computer. She got up and looked out the window. A man in a light jacket was standing there impatiently clutching a laptop to his chest. She went to the door and opened it.

“John?”

“Ruth, we got something.”

She let him in.

“Got something?”

“Let’s sit down,” he said and headed toward the couch. He put his laptop on the coffee table there and opened it up.

“Can I get you something, John? Coffee? Juice?”

“No. No, thanks. Well, yes, some coffee.”

When she came back with the coffee he already had a chart up on his screen.

“You no doubt recognize this,” he said.

Ruth sat down next to him and looked at the screen. It was a standard radio frequency clickplot. Across the bottom was from 1490 to 1510 MHz. On the left side was time. Most of the plot was a mixture of red and black dots, but at exactly 1500 MHz was a white line going for about 20 hours. It stopped and exactly at that time a yellow line started at 1505 MHz. That signal she knew would continue for several days. Then it would go back to 1500 MHz and repeat itself. Then eventually stop for good.

“That’s my signal from eight years ago, right?”

“Yes,” he said and smiled.

“Well, what’s happened?” she asked, starting to get excited.

“You know I maintain some informal contacts in the signal intelligence community?”

“Yes, but …”

He held up a hand.

“A high power signal of terrestrial origin at 1505 MHz was sent for 5 minutes, 5 times over two days last week.”

“So …”

He held up a hand again.

“Look,” he said and brought up two frequency charts. “This is your signal. This is the signal from last week. Notice anything?”

“The first two minutes look pretty close.”

“They are the reverse of each other.”

“What?”

“They are, and let me emphasize, identical, but in reverse order. Like one is coming and one is going.”

Ruth sat back, astonished.

“You remember we had to give up on that old signal,” she said softly.

He nodded.

“Identical … but reversed. And …”

“The rest of the signal seems to be a similar code, but you never did figure out that code, none of us did. But this … is too much.”

They both just sat there looking at the charts for a few minutes.

“What’s been done?” Ruth asked.

“We want to locate that signal, obviously. Hopefully, it will show itself again. We got some quiet interest from the NSA, to compare notes, etc. Can you come to a meeting?”

“Definitely. Definitely. When?”

“Next Wednesday, here in Columbus.”

She looked at the charts some more.

She switched back to the clickplot and said, “Funny. The 1505 MHz, but not the 1500 MHz.”

“So?”

“Why would the incoming have the initial signal. Let’s assume they are related signals. Why the different frequencies?”

“Assuming intelligence, different purposes?”

“You know something about what I have been up to?” she asked.

“Exobiology here on Earth, I’ve heard,” he said with a slight trace of wry skepticism in his voice. “Tracking down some odd plants.”

“You’d be surprised, but let’s think about the plants. These plants were found after the signal eight years ago. No more plant sightings since then. I don’t know why I didn’t make that connection before. This new signal …”

“Yes?”

“Let’s engage in some brainstorming, shall we?”

“You know I am always game for a little fantasy role playing.”

She let that pass with a slight grimace.

“OK. Let’s suppose that the old signal is related to the plant. I’m going to let you in on something. Please don’t spread it around.”

“You can trust me,” he said, smiling.

“Those plants were mutated. They had what appeared to be animal nerve cells in them.”

He raised an eyebrow and stop smiling.

She nodded and said, “Yes.”

“Let’s really take a leap,” he said. “Are you suggesting that the signal had something to do with it?”

“You know about the research on mutations from cell phone signals.”

“Yes, nothing very definite.”

“But radio signals at those frequencies could cause mutations.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not going to tell you the whole story right now, but those plants did something remarkable. First they mutated and grew a lot of nerve cells, then they performed some task, no matter what, then they deliberately dissolved away.”

“Deliberately?”

“Well, let’s continue the thought experiment.”

“OK. One signal causes a mutation in the plant. The next signal tells the mutated plant what to do.”

She smiled. “You always were bright.”

“A genius, lamentably unrecognized.”

“Here is my leap. The first signal created the computer. The second signal sent the programming. The return signal does not have to create a computer. That is already … out there.”

She waved her hand dramatically.

“We’ve had this discussion before. Assume no faster than light travel, no wormholes, at least nothing a biological organism could survive.”

“Reasonable assumptions, although they do put a damper on things.”

“A multigenerational ship would have to be huge. The shielding from radiation alone would require a lot of air or a lot of water around the living quarters. Then a self-sustaining ecosystem with no life sustaining star for energy in the long journey. Barely possible, but not likely.”

“So UFOs are?”

“Experimental government aircraft, optical illusions, intrusions from the goblin universe. Who knows what they all are.”

“So no friendly visitors?”

“I think we have just stumbled on a way.”

“Don’t send them here, just manufacture them by remote control?”

“Grow them. Send signals everywhere and hope your mutation signal happens on some receptive genes. You could test it out plenty back home, mutate plants left and right, take into account the weakening signals, all that. Why couldn’t it work?”

“They would have to know a lot more about biochemistry than we do and have some brilliant guess work on how life might evolve on planets they can’t go to in person.”

“But our SETI counterparts can receive signals. We’ve been inadvertently sending signals for some time, visual signals for fifty years. They could be a little less random in their approach. Give them a little time to figure out our signals. Then let’s say a radius of 10 light years. Or further out if they are a quick study. Or even further out if they are just good guessers.”

“It seems like a long shot at best, but I don’t have a reason to say it couldn’t be done. I don’t know enough. But I see one problem.”

“What?”

“No time to grow the brain. The second signal begins immediately after the first one.”

“This particular alternating pattern wasn’t established until several days in. Then it repeated itself over several months. The later signals could be for mutations caused by earlier patterns. It was all pretty amazing at the time, but it just died out when we couldn’t figure out any information content.”

“So maybe it could have happened as you say. Like I said, I really don’t know enough. But now what?”

“On the signals from last week, do you know more?”

“They were very high power signals. That’s what really made them stand out and get some attention. When I heard 1505 MHz something clicked and I remembered your old signal. Then when I compared the signals and saw that start marker, I couldn’t believe it. Then NSA got wind of it.”

“Did they locate the signal?”

“All they have is Midwest United States. They need more signal to really hone in. They are interested in us just because of the similarities in our signals. I’m sure they won’t be interested in our little thought experiments.”

“No, we’ll keep those to ourselves. Do you mind if I bring in the people I am working with?”

“I don’t mind. I know I can’t put many resources on this. What do you plan to do?”

“You and I will go to the meeting and see if we can work with the NSA to find the signal. And in parallel I plan to mutate me some plants.”