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

not know what they are; we do not even have a name for them. Or, rather, we have too many names….
    Yes, gentlemen, there is something, after all, in the old wives’ tales about telepathy, ESP, or whatever you care to call it. But it is no wonder that the study of such phenomena never made any progress here on Earth, where there is the continuous background roar of a billion minds to swamp all signals. Even the pitiably limited progress that was made before the Space Age seems a miracle—like discovering the laws of music in a boiler factory. It was not until we could get away from our planet’s mental tumult that there was any hope of establishing a real science of parapsychology.
    And even then we had to move to the other side of the Earth’s orbit, where the noise was not only diminished by a hundred and eighty million miles of distance, but also shielded by the unimaginable bulk of the Sun itself. Only there, on our artificial planetoid Antigeos, could we detect and measure the feeble radiations of mentality, and uncover their laws of propagation.
    In many respects, those laws are still baffling. However, we have established the basic facts. As had long been suspected by the few who believed in these phenomena, they are triggered by emotional states—not by pure will-power or deliberate, conscious thought. It is not surprising, therefore, that so many reports of paranormal events in the past were associated with moments of death or disaster. Fear is a powerful generator; on rare occasions it can manifest itself above the surrounding noise.
    Once this fact was recognised, we began to make progress. We induced artificial emotional states, first in single individuals, then in groups. We were able to measure how the signals attenuated with distance. Now, we have a reliable, quantitative theory that has been checked out as far as Saturn. We believe that our calculations can be extended even to the stars. If this is correct, we can produce a… a shout that will be heard instantly over the whole galaxy. And surely there will be someone who will respond!
    Now there is only one way in which a signal of the required intensity can be produced. I said that fear was a powerful generator—but it is not powerful enough. Even if we could strike all humanity with a simultaneous moment of terror, the impulse could not be detected more than two thousand light-years away. We need at least four times this range. And we can achieve it— by using the only emotion that is more powerful than fear .
    However, we also need the co-operation of not fewer than a billion individuals, at a moment of time that must be synchronized to the second. My colleagues have solved all the purely technical problems, which are really quite trivial. The simple electrostimulation devices required have been used in medical research since the early twentieth century, and the necessary timing pulse can be sent out over the planetary communications networks. All the units needed can be mass-produced within a month, and instruction in their use requires only a few minutes. It is the psychological preparation for—let us call it O Day—that will take a little longer….
    And that , gentlemen, is your problem; naturally, we scientists will give you all possible help. We realise that there will be protests, cries of outrage, refusals to co-operate. But when one looks at the matter logically, is the idea really so offensive? Many of us think that, on the contrary, it has a certain appropriateness—even a poetic justice.
    Mankind now faces its ultimate emergency. In such a moment of crisis, is it not right for us to call upon the instinct that has always ensured our survival in the past? A poet in an earlier, almost equally troubled age put it better than I can ever hope to do:
    W E MUST LOVE ONE ANOTHER OR DIE .

Dog Star
    First published in Galaxy , April 1962, as ‘Moondog’
    Collected in Tales of Ten Worlds

    I can no longer bear to read this story, now that