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had time to disbelieve him. “There’s something happening. I know how strange it sounds, but I’ve been seeing things, there’s a kind of countdown…”
How could he explain the countdown? It wasn’t like numbers, there wasn’t an obvious point he could say marked its end. There was just a faint pulse that came with the signal in his brain, getting steadily, almost imperceptibly faster as it worked its way toward something that Kevin couldn’t guess at.
“Why don’t you tell me about it while we take a look around?” Dr. Levin suggested. “I’ll show you some of what we do here.”
She led Kevin and his mother through the institute’s corridors, and to be honest, Kevin had thought that it would be more exciting. He’d thought it would look less like an office block.
“I thought there would be big telescopes here, or labs full of equipment for testing things from space,” Kevin said.
Dr. Levin shrugged. “We have some laboratories, and we do test materials occasionally, but we don’t have any telescopes. We are working with Berkeley to build a dedicated radio telescope array though.”
“Then how do you look for aliens?” Kevin’s mother said. It seemed that she was as surprised by the lack of giant telescopes and listening equipment as Kevin was.
“We work with other people,” Dr. Levin said. “We ask for, or hire, time on telescopes and sensor arrays. We work with data from NASA. We put in suggestions to them about places they might want to look, or kinds of data they might want to try to gather. I’m sorry, I know it isn’t as exciting as people sometimes think. Here, come with me.”
She led the way to an office that at least looked a bit more interesting than some of the other spaces. It held a couple of computers, a lot of posters relating to the solar system, a few magazines that had mentioned SETI’s work, and some furniture that looked as though it had been especially designed to be ergonomic, stylish, and about as comfortable as a brick.
“Let me show you some of the things we’ve been working on,” Dr. Levin said, calling up images of large telescope arrays in the process of being built. “We’re looking at developing radio telescope arrays that might be powerful enough to pick up ambient radio frequencies rather than just waiting for someone to target us with a signal.”
“But I think someone is signaling to us,” Kevin said. He needed to get her to understand.
Dr. Levin paused. “I was going to ask if you’re referring to the theory that what some people think are high-frequency radio bursts from a pulsar might be intelligible signals, but you’re not, are you?”
“I’ve been seeing things,” Kevin said. He tried to explain about the visions. He told her about the landscape he’d seen, and about the countdown.
“I see,” Dr. Levin said. “But I have to ask something, Kevin. You understand that SETI is about exploring this issue with science, seeking real proof? It’s the only way that we can do this and know that anything we find is real. So, I have to ask you, Kevin, how do you know what you’re seeing is real?”
Kevin had already managed to answer that with Luna. “I saw some numbers. When I looked them up, it turned out that they were the location for something called the Trappist 1 system.”
“One of the more promising candidates for alien life,” Dr. Levin said. “Even so, Kevin, do you understand my problem now? You say you saw these numbers, and I believe you, but maybe you saw them because you’d read them somewhere. I can’t redirect SETI’s resources based on that, and in any case, I’m not sure what else we could do when it comes to the Trappist 1 system. For something like that, I would need something new. Something you couldn’t have gotten another way.”
Kevin could tell that she was trying to let him down as gently as possible, but even so, it hurt. How could he provide them with that? Then he thought about what he’d seen in the lobby. He had to have seen that for a reason, didn’t he?
“I think…” He wasn’t sure whether to say it or not, but he knew he had to. “I think you’re going to get a signal from something called Pioneer 11.”
Dr. Levin looked at him for a couple of seconds. “I’m sorry, Kevin, but that doesn’t seem very likely.”
Kevin saw his mother frown. “What’s Pioneer 11?”
“It’s one of the deep space probes NASA has sent out,” Dr. Levin explained. “It flew through our solar system, sending back data, and had enough velocity to send it out past the limits of the solar system. Unfortunately, the last contact that we had with it was in 1995, so I really don’t think that—”
She stopped as her phone started to ring, taking it out as if to ignore the call. Kevin saw the moment when she stopped and stared.
“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” she said. “Yes, hello, what is it? Can it wait a moment, I’m in the middle of… okay, if it’s that urgent. A signal? You’re calling me because NASA has data coming in? But NASA always has…” She paused again, looking over at Kevin, the disbelief obvious on her face. Even so, she said it. “Can I take a guess?” she said into the phone. “You’ve just had a signal of some kind from Pioneer 11? You have? No, I can’t tell you. I’m not sure you would believe me if I did.”
She put the phone down, staring at Kevin as if seeing him for the first time in that moment.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
Kevin shrugged. “I saw it when I was waiting in the lobby.”
“You saw it? The same way that you ‘saw’ this alien landscape?” Dr. Levin stared at him, and Kevin had the sense she was trying to work something out. Probably trying to work out any way he could have cheated this, or made it happen.
It was almost a minute before she came to a decision.
“I think,” Dr. Levin said, in the careful tones of someone trying to make sure she hadn’t gone crazy, “that you had better come with me.”
CHAPTER SIX
Kevin and his mother followed Dr. Levin from SETI’s facility to a car that seemed far too small to belong to someone in her position.
“It’s very environmentally friendly,” she said, in a tone that suggested she had faced that question a lot. “Come on, it will be easier if I drive you both over. They’re quite strict about security.”
“Who is?” Kevin’s mother asked.
“NASA.”
Kevin’s breath caught at that. They were going to talk to NASA? When it came to aliens, that was even better than SETI.
The drive across Mountain View was only a short one, a few minutes at most. Even so, it was long enough for Kevin to stare out the windows at the high-tech companies spread around the area, obviously drawn there by NASA and Berkeley, the presence of so many clever people in one place pulling them in.
“We’re really going to NASA?” Kevin said. He couldn’t quite believe it, which made no sense, given all the things he’d had to believe in the last few days.
The NASA campus was everything that the SETI building hadn’t been. It was large, spread across several buildings and set in a space that managed to have views of both the surrounding hills and the bay. There was a visitors center that was essentially a tent built on a scale that seemed hard to believe, bright white and painted with the NASA logo. They drove past that, though, to a space that was closed off to the public, behind a chain-link fence and a barrier where Dr. Levin had to show ID to get them in.
“I’m expected,” she said.
“And who are they, ma’am?” the guard asked.
“This is Kevin McKenzie and his mother,” Dr. Levin said. “They’re with me.”
“They’re not on the—”
“They’re with me,” Dr. Levin said again, and for the first time, Kevin had a sense of the kind of toughness involved in