Patrick sat alone in his room back at the boarding house. The light from the window was fading, leaving him working almost oblivious to the darkness taking hold around him. The room itself was not small. A bed, nightstand and bureau signified the room was a domestic space. Otherwise, it was dominated by a long sideboard table and shelving unit that were piled high with a mystifying array of electrical equipment. The faint light emitted by the various vacuum tubes and readout screens were on their way to becoming the sole source of light for the room. At the centre of the collection of equipment was a shortwave radio that Patrick had built himself. It started out from a fairly simple kit Patrick had been given as a Christmas present years ago, but had undergone an almost steady transformation over the more recent years, as to look like something from the set of a Frankenstein movie. A long antenna stretched out from the window and attached to a tree at the far end of the yard. He could adjust the length of the antenna, reeling it in or out, and thus better allow him to tune the signal, which was useful if he was trying to pull in distant locations, such as Africa or Europe. An array of electrical adjuncts, the most recognizable being an oscilloscope, cluttered the workspace. The radio was currently emitting a series of electrical noises, similar to the one they had heard when they tuned in the Sputnik frequency in Orleans. This was a controlled test signal, emitted from the transmitter at nearby Camp Fortune. A precise-looking clock swept out the passing minutes with its persistent second hand. Besides the oscilloscope lay a notepad, Patrick finally had to turn on his reading lamp in order to complete the notes he had been making, beginning with the date and an observation of the weather: 39oF – high thin ice clouds, light ground-level haze. Underneath, a series of time entries and numbers read off the dials of the oscilloscope, with thin lines etched across its glass face. The rhythm of his movements was slow; he seemed comfortably enveloped in the otherwise silent room.
A quiet knock on the door pulled him from his train of thought. He looked at the door with an impatient annoyance, not only because he was hoping not to be disturbed, but also because this had not been the first knock this evening. He rose from the chair, moved towards the door and drew it open as if he knew what he was going to see. And in fact, his expectations were correct: the hallway and stairs were empty. If his door had led to the outside, he would suspect it was a prank by some of the neighbourhood boys. But Patrick’s door led only to interior hallways and the big old house was always properly secured, especially at this time of night. He looked across the hallway to Alison’s room. She was normally a very quiet and unobtrusive tenant of the dorm, but it could only be her that was knocking. Listening more closely, he heard the sound of her radio playing music.
He walked across the hallway, listening momentarily at the door. He could hear two voices whispering quietly. He knocked. After a few seconds, Alison opened the door; feigning surprise, she said “Patrice, you’ve come for a visit?” She was in her candy-striped satin pajamas and hair wound up in curlers. They had lived together so many years, she had long ago lost any qualms at being seen by Patrick this way. She had in her hand a martini glass; Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog, which had been in heavy rotation that summer, played from the radio. Behind her, Tracy, one of her associates from the University, sat more discreetly, similarly in a nightgown and curlers, trying to keep herself hidden from Patrick’s line of gaze. “Hey Tracy, it’s Patrice.”
“Hi Patrick,” Tracy waved sheepishly with the hand that was not holding the martini glass.
“We’re drinking martinis,” Alison said with a slight slur, lifting the glass more closely for him to inspect.
“Did you knock on my door just now?” Patrick felt a little guilty at the mother-hen tone that came out in his voice, easily recognized as something he picked up from Aunt Rose.
“Mais non.” She tried to say that with an earnest tone, but traces of a titter first from Alison, then from Tracy quickly betrayed that. “We have the radio on, I hope it’s not on too loud. Can you hear it from your room?”
“No, the music is fine. But someone knocked.” Again, the suppressed titters pushed aside the shroud of that little mystery.
“Why don’t you come in and have a martini with us? There’s some nice dance music playing tonight.” Her frame still barred the door, as if the invitation to pass was not so straightforward. “Only thing is, we’re out of olives.” She raised the empty glass for him to inspect. Rolled it around, as if to show him the invisible olive that should be at the bottom. “Martinis are really not very good, unless you have nice fresh olives. Isn’t that right, Tracy?”
“Absolutely.”
Alison worked up her patented little-girl, pouty, pleading look. He knew it well. She knew he knew it well. She knew he was no match to resist its power. His shoulders slumped, thinking of the hours of radio observations still ahead of him. Pleased, now that she sensed his acquiescence, “There’s a late-night vegetable market on Clarence Street. Owned by Greeks. Do you know it? They’ll have olives. In a bottle, green, stuffed with pimento peppers. Do you know the kind I mean?” Patrick nodded dutifully. “Oh, and Patrice,” she said almost as an afterthought before he turned to get his coat, “If they have some fresh bread. And cheese: Camembert or Brie.”
Patrick fastened his coat tightly around his neck, still wearing the lightweight fall coat he wore making the rounds of the ministry offices. Tonight his winter coat would have been more appropriate, not to mention a hat and gloves. He visited the little shop, now quiet, as was the rest of the market area. The only other establishments open at this time were a few taverns, spilling light out onto the darkened sidewalk as he passed. If you looked closely enough into the shadows and doorways, you might catch the silhouette of the area’s ladies of the evening, waiting patiently for their trade to spill out from the tavern doors. Living in the market area, you became accustomed to sharing the space with life’s flotsam and jetsam at this time of night.
Back at the rooming house, Alison again propped herself against the door frame, looking approvingly at the contents of the small bag. She squeezed the tip of the baguette, testing its crispness. “Baked freshly today. Wanna come in and have a martini with us?”
Goodnight Sweetheart filled the background with languid tones. Tracy’s body was still swaying, as if they had been dancing when Patrick knocked. She moved closer to the door, less shy now. “We could turn down the lights and play spin the bottle.”
Alison looked at her cousin with a sisterly concern. “Look, he’s shy. Someone should tell him he really shouldn’t be so shy around girls. Isn’t that correct, Tracy?”
“Definitely, a guy like him should be a lot less shy around girls.”
Patrick squared his shoulders with resolve. “As tempting as the offer is, ladies, you may not believe this, but I still have hours of radio measurements to make tonight.”
“Oh, top-secret hush, hush,” Alison raised her fingered and tried to shush Tracy, which only bought on a chorus of snickering.
“Hey, Patrice should show us his equipment, shouldn’t he, Tracy? Hey Patrice, take us over and show Tracy your geeky radio stuff.”
Patrick looked apologetically at his cousin, he was normally proud to show off his equipment – there was nothing special, or actually secret in his room. But tonight he had to be alone and focused. He squared his shoulders as if to forefend any further pleas. “Some other time. Right now, I have everything calibrated and geared up for some experiments. But another time, I promise.”
Alison mercifully let him off the hook. “Oh well. At least we’ll see Patrice at the faculty fête next week, won’t we Patrice?”
“I got the invitation.”
“Keen!” Tracy chimed in. “You’ll have to promise to dance with me then. You won’t leave me to the wolves all night, will you Patrick?” He wasn’t going to be allowed to leave the door frame until he promised to attend the party, and dance with Tracy. They remained in the open door, watching him cross the hall and fumble self-consciously with his keys, as if he were a spectacle for their amusement. Kisses were waved across the space, until he resolved to end the scene by moving into his apartment and closing the door behind him. An audible round of giggles was the last sound he heard from outside his room.
He took off his coat, filled the kettle from his small sink and prepared a cup of instant coffee, before settling back in front of his equipment. His head still filled with the spectacle of the two figures across the hall, he thought to turn the radio on beside his bed. The jazz station would broadcast for a few more hours, and was marking the transition into late evening with more sleepy tunes of Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole. He looked at his watch, checked it against the clock face on his workbench. A few more minutes to check his calibrations, then Sputnik was scheduled to make its regular 90-minute appearance overhead. Against the control signal from Camp Fortune, Patrick settled in to make a series of measurements of the satellite’s signal, this time looking for the tell-tale signs of atmospheric interference.
He looked outside the window. A faint ring around the moon signalled that high ice clouds were still present – they forecast rain 24- to 48-hours out. The thermometer had dropped to almost exactly 32oF and the night was promising to be cold with a heavy frost in the morning. He turned back and sipped at his coffee, still hot against the cold air wafting in through the open window. He lowered the old wooden window frame with a creak until it was almost closed. Turning back to the room, his mind moved momentarily in the direction of the bottle of scotch he had hidden at the top of his clothes closet. He put the thought aside, but took comfort that it would later be a help to get him through the long 90-minute intervals between the satellite’s passing, its brief 120-second arrival the only respite from his lonely vigil that would last until sunrise.
Patrick awoke, groggy and barely able to focus his eyes, to a knock on the door. Not the playful taps from the night before, but more insistent, despite his slowness to rouse himself from the warm, enveloping covers. Fumbling around for his slippers, he made his way to the door of his room and opened it, this time to see Andrei. Patrick looked balefully at the clock as he passed, which read almost noon. He had been half-expecting Andrei, and not expecting himself to sleep in so soundly. “Oh, how did you get in?”
“Your landlady let me in. I hope that’s copacetic?”
“You didn’t bring any coffee, I guess?” Patrick turned aside, to let his colleague through the door.
“Nothing is open in the Market yet.”
“No, ‘tis Sunday. There wouldn’t be.”
“Did you have any success?” Andrei looked for a place to sit, but couldn’t find anywhere other than the workstation and the unmade bed. Deferring honour of place to Patrick, he opted to sit on the edge of the bed, which he quickly realized was still warm. Patrick handed him a notepad from the workbench. Andrei nodded with approval the methodical columns of figures. “Do you know what we’re going to say in our report, yet?”
Patrick was busy at the sink, filling the kettle, rinsing two cups and searching for a spoon. “It beats me. I have only the raw numbers. My head is still a blur.”
“Did you try to graph them?” Patrick shook his head that he hadn’t. “Well, let’s see if we get anything interesting.” Andrei moved across to the workbench, placed the notebook down and looked around for graph paper and a sharp pencil. He quickly set to work marking out the two axes and plotting points from the previous night.
Patrick came to the workbench, setting down a cup of coffee. “I only have powdered milk. Will that do?”
“Yes, thank you,” Andrei said, only half aware of Patrick’s presence. He finished the first set of plots and looked for a pencil with different colour. Patrick sipped away at his coffee for a moment, excused himself from the room, returning to see the finished graph.
“Anything interesting?”
Andrei studied the graph pensively, as if trying to probe some deeper mystery. He shook his head with an air of dejection. His finger traced the graph. “It’s unfortunately predictable. There’s the rise and fall when the satellite is over the horizon.” The graph had a table shape, with sloping sides. “There’s variation in the straight portion, but nothing that wouldn’t be predicted by atmospheric interference. The top one is your control plot.”
“We need to be able to report something more interesting. There’ll be highly placed scientists and bureaucrats tomorrow.”
“If there was an information signal folded into the modulation, you’d see a much wider swing and stronger pattern. Here, let me try these plots again, with a more exaggerated range.” He traced his finger across the flat top portion of the graph. Taking a second piece of graph paper, he began to map the plots against the second range. “A log scale would help. But that would take me a few hours.” Once finished, the plot didn’t look like much more than a scatter diagram. The two looked in dismay for some meaning. Somewhat in despair, Andrei connected the four series with lines. “They just criss-cross almost at random. I see nothing like a pattern.” He brought the first graph back into place and looked at it again. His finger traced the upward arc of the left-hand side of the first graph, before the satellite had appeared over the horizon. “That’s the most interesting part. You can probably tease some information from that by looking for atmospheric patterns.” He pushed the two graphs aside, as if there was nothing mathematically interesting in what he was seeing, and his analysis was complete. He went back to the side of the bed, nursing his coffee for a few moments in silence. “I see only three pieces of encoded information there. The carrier signal of 200 megahertz. The on-and-off signal from the solenoid. And finally, what looks like familiar interference patterns from the atmosphere, particularly when it was below the horizon. Make whatever you like out of that.”
“Well, give me a minute to wash up and get changed. There’s a breakfast place not far from here. I’m famished.”
“What can I do you gents for?” the old codger quipped behind the counter, delivered with the same finesse as Milton Berle and the old vaudevillians that went before him. The small lunch café did not have nearly the character of the ones off Sherbrooke in Montreal that had been the old haunts of Patrick and Andrei between classes. This one had the same nineteen twenties features: luncheon counter with a few stools, booths on the opposite wall. A short-order kitchen wrapped in stainless metal backsplashes. Just less artfully arranged and less polished. Still, it was almost the only choice on the cold Sunday afternoon, with a low bank of clouds moving over the market, threatening to obliterate the last of the warmth the sun had promised. “Bacon, toast and eggs sunny side up,” “Same,” “coffees,” was the order placed at the counter before going to the most private booth at the back of the café. In Montreal, the two used to occupy prominent places on the stools, mostly so they could watch and comment on the steady parade of shop girls on their break from Eaton’s and Ogilvy’s. But now that secrecy was their stock and trade, the two had to find more private confines for any conversation that might involve work.
After the breakfast had been placed in front of him, and the clerk had taken his station behind the counter, the two became more relaxed. Andrei buttered his toast, cutting it methodically into fingers for dipping into the egg yolk, serviette at the ready. “What else do you hear?” in a tone that indicated they were continuing their conversation from Patrick’s room.
Patrick hesitated, carefully apportioning strawberry jam evenly onto his four slices of toast. He was aware that Andrei was not currently on direct contract to the ministry, and consequently had lower clearance – although still bound by the secrecy oaths he had signed. Still, as collaborators, their careers were linked and he didn’t want his friend to be completely outside the loop. They moved in close circles. “I did hear that the satellite sails right past the radar without registering a blip.” He looked with dismay at the toast, forgetting that he wanted to make a bacon sandwich with two of the slices. Too late now. He picked the bacon apart with his fingers and raised some to his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a while. “Also, the first NORAD heard of it was from an announcement on Radio Moscow. They hated that.” He weighed what he had said as whether it had news value, or was simply idle office gossip. He gave his friend a pleading look, reminding him that he shouldn’t be asking probing questions.
“Do you have anything to write a report for tomorrow?”
Patrick now flashed a look of discouragement. “Not really. What am I supposed to do without a frequency sweep?”
“You could increase the frequency range by mapping the sidebands.”
Patrick looks even more dejected at the prospect. “That’s weeks of work; and access to better equipment. Why would they send a dime-store solenoid into orbit?”
Andrei had a way of gesturing as if life was a chess game and the board and pieces were arranged between you at all times. His hand instinctively moved a piece forward. “In chess, your opening move never gives away your strategy. It merely invites a response from the opponent. Pawn to king four. Nothing interesting there, other than the fact that the game has begun. The Russians are tricky that way. You have to know your opponent.”
“What about you? How are you making out with your grant applications?”
Andrei shook his head in a similar bafflement. “Who knows? The process is very slow. This certainly raises the level of interest in outer space research. I had written a grant a while back. I did it almost as a joke after giving a paper at a conference. It was on communicating with intelligent, extra-terrestrial beings.”
“Don’t you think it smacks too much of Martians? Or Triffids?”
“It was a well-attended talk. The mathematics behind the paper is sound. Given the sheer number of stars inside our own galaxy, the probability of life is more than statistically significant.”
“Maybe. But life intelligent enough to communicate by radio signal?”
“Our first signals have already reached Alpha Centauri and at least twenty other stars. If they can hear us, we should be able to hear them.”
“But what will they hear? The Green Hornet? Lucy?”
“If that’s what we choose to broadcast. Yes. But the kicker is, that someone in NORAD recently picked up my grant proposal, and seems to be serious about extending me funding.”
“Talking to extraterrestrials?” Patrick asked, with an air of stretched credulity. He signalled for more coffee and looked around for the bowl of sugar cubes. Patrick placed a hand over one ear. “Uh oh, I’m picking up the planet Mongo. Quick, charge your ray guns!”
“Please be serious. I’m not the one planning to fund the research. It’s all to be seen what they have in mind.” Andrei, annoyed, set to work dividing and eating the egg whites that were the last thing on his plate. When the coffee arrived, and sugar cubes dissolved, Andrei let the topic drop. He had something else on his mind. “I want to thank you for introducing me to your cousin. She is very nice.” Opening move. Then after some hesitation. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
Patrick saw where this was leading. He had ambivalent feelings about them getting together. But Alison was old enough, and headstrong enough, to make her own decisions. “Not that I know of. She’s just back from Vancouver.”
“You wouldn’t mind if I called her sometime? It would be nice to see her again.”
Patrick looked past Andrei, noticing the foot traffic had picked up outside the plate glass window. He tried not to sigh audibly. “I should warn you, you might find her a cool cucumber. She was a debutante before she went to Vancouver. She spent a season in Ottawa with an aunt; I remember a few suitors nosing around – one of them successful. I think she fled to Vancouver in a panic. Don’t quote me.”
