"James P. Hogan - Giants 3 - Giant's Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

"They're talking in English now, but it's not coming from London," Hunt replied.
"But they are talking from Gistar," Danchekker retorted. "And isn't that where, from
independently derived evidence, we deduced that the Ganymeans went?"
"We don't know that those signals are coming from Gistar," Hunt pointed out. "They say
they are, but they've been saying all kinds of other strange things as well. Our beams are being
aimed in the direction of Gistar, but we've no idea what's out there past the edge of the solar
system picking them up. It could be some kind of Ganymean relay that transforms signals that our
physics
knows nothing about into electromagnetic waves, but then again it might not."
"Surely it's obvious," Danchekker said, sounding a trifle disdainful. "The Ganymeans left
some kind of monitoring device behind when they migrated to Gistar, probably to detect and alert
them to any signs of intelligent activity."
Hunt shook his head. "If that were the case, it would have been triggered by early radio
over a hundred years ago. We'd have known about it long before now."
Danchekker thought about it for a moment, then showed his teeth. "Which proves my point.
It responded only to Ganymean codes. We've never sent anything out encoded in Ganymean before,
have we? Therefore it must be of Ganymean origin."
"And now it's talking English. Does that mean it was made by Boeing?"
"Obviously the language was acquired via their surveillance operation."
"And maybe they learned Ganymean the same way."
"You're being absurd."
Hunt threw out his arms in appeal. "For Christ's sake, Chris, all I'm saying is let's be
open-minded for now and accept that we might be letting ourselves in for something we didn't
expect. You're saying they have to be Ganymeans, and you're probably right; I'm saying there's a
chance they might not be. That's all I'm saying." --
"You said yourself that Ganymeans don't play cloak-and-dagger games and twist facts
around, Professor," Lyn injected in a tone that she hoped would calm things a little. "But whoever
it is seems to have some funny ideas about how to open up interplanetary relations...And they've
got some pretty weird ideas on how Earth is coming along these days, so somebody hasn't been
talking straight to somebody somewhere. That hardly sounds like Ganymeans, does it?"
Danchekker snorted but seemed hard-pressed for a reply. The terminal on a side table by
the desk saved him by emitting a calltone. "Excuse me," he muttered, leaning past Hunt to accept.
"Yes?" Danchekker inquired.
It was Ginny, calling from Navcomms HO. "Hello, Professor Danchekker. I believe Dr. Hunt
is with you. I have an urgent mes
sage for him. Gregg Caidwell said to find him and let him know right away."
Danchekker moved back a pace, and Hunt rolled his chair forward in front of the screen.
"Hi, Ginny," he acknowledged. "What's new?"
"A message has come in for you from Jupiter Five." She looked down to read something below
the edge of the screen. "It's from the Mission Director-Joseph B. Shannon. It reads, 'The lab
tests worked out just as you hoped. Complete ifie of results being assembled for transmission now.
Good luck." Ginny looked up again. "Is that what you wanted to know?"
Hunt's face was radiating jubilation. "It sure is, Ginny!" he said. "Thanks...a lot."
Ginny nodded and tossed him a quick smile; the screen blanked out.
Hunt swiveled his chair around to find two awed faces confronting him. "I guess we can
stop arguing about it," he told them. "It looks as if we'll know for sure before very much
longer."

Chapter six