A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke Read Free Book Online

soul—and that soon the whole world would be listening to an accusing voice from beyond the grave, branding him more irrevocably than any man since Cain.

Love that Universe
    First published in Escapade , 1961
    Collected in The Wind from the Sun
    Mr President, National Administrator, Planetary Delegates, it is both an honour and a grave responsibility to address you at this moment of crisis. I am aware—I can very well understand—that many of you are shocked and dismayed by some of the rumours that you have heard. But I must beg you to forget your natural prejudices at a time when the very existence of the human race— of the Earth itself —is at stake.
    Some time ago I came across a century-old phrase: ‘thinking the unthinkable’. This is exactly what we have to do now. We must face the facts without flinching; we must not let our emotions sway our logic Indeed, we must do the precise opposite: we must let our logic sway our emotions !
    The situation is desperate, but it is not hopeless, thanks to the astonishing discoveries my colleagues have made at the Antigean Station. For the reports are indeed true; we can establish contact with the supercivilisations at the Galactic Core. At least we can let them know of our existence—and if we can do that, it should be possible for us to appeal to them for help.
    There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that we can do by our own efforts in the brief time available. It is only ten years since the search for trans-Plutonian planets revealed the presence of the Black Dwarf. Only ninety years from now, it will make its perihelion passage and swing around the Sun as it heads once more into the depths of space—leaving a shattered solar system behind it. All our resources, all our much-vaunted control over the forces of nature, cannot alter its orbit by a fraction of an inch.
    But ever since the first of the so called ‘beacon stars’ was discovered, at the end of the twentieth century, we have known that there were civilisations with access to energy sources incomparably greater than ours. Some of you will doubtless recall the incredulity of the astronomers—and later of the whole human race—when the first examples of cosmic engineering were detected in the Magellanic Clouds. Here were stellar structures obeying no natural laws; even now, we do not know their purpose—but we know their awesome implications. We share a universe with creatures who can juggle with the very stars. If they choose to help, it would be child’s play for them to deflect a body like the Black Dwarf, only a few thousand times the mass of Earth…. Child’s play, did I call it? Yes, that may be literally true!
    You will all, I am certain, remember the great debate that followed the discovery of the supercivilisations. Should we attempt to communicate with them, or would it be best to remain inconspicuous? There was the possibility, of course, that they already knew everything about us, or might be annoyed by our presumption, or might react in any number of unpleasant ways. Though the benefits from such contacts could be enormous, the risks were terrifying. But now we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain….
    And until now, there was another fact that made the matter of no more than long-term philosophical interest. Though we could—at great expense—build radio transmitters capable of sending signals to these creatures, the nearest supercivilisation is seven thousand light-years away. Even if it bothered to reply, it would be fourteen thousand years before we could get an answer. In these circumstances, it seemed that our superiors could be neither a help to us nor a threat.
    But now all this has changed. We can send signals to the stars at a speed that cannot yet be measured, and that may well be infinite. And we know that they are using such techniques—for we have detected their impulses, though we cannot begin to interpret them.
    These impulses are not electromagnetic, of course. We do