The Swarm by Frank Schätzing Read Free Book Online

come?’
    â€˜The residents are here, but they’re just a minority.’
    â€˜And the humpbacks?’
    â€˜Same story.’
    â€˜You said you were writing a paper on beluga whales.?’
    â€˜Isn’t it time you told me something about yourself?’ Anawak asked.
    â€˜You already know the most important stuff - that I’m an old busybody who asks too many questions,’ she said.
    The waiter appeared with their main course: grilled king prawns on saffron risotto.
    â€˜OK, but what kind of questions, to whom and why?’
    Crowe started peeling a garlicky prawn. ‘It’s simple, really. I ask, “Is anybody out there?”’
    â€˜And what’s the response?’
    â€˜I’ve never had one.’
    â€˜Maybe you should ask a bit louder,’ said Anawak.
    â€˜I’d love to,’ said Crowe, between mouthfuls, ‘but right now our technological capacity limits me to a period of about two hundred light years. It didn’t stop us analysing sixty billion signals during the mid-1990s. We narrowed them down to just thirty-seven that couldn’t be matched with any natural phenomenon. Thirty-seven signals that might have been someone saying hello.’
    Anawak stared at her. ‘You work for SETI,’ he said.
    â€˜Yep. The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence. Project Phoenix , to be exact.’
    â€˜And you’re listening to signals from space?’
    â€˜We target stars similar to our sun - a thousand of them, each more than three billion years old. There are other projects like it, but ours is the crucial one.’
    â€˜Well, I’ll be damned.’
    â€˜It’s not that amazing. You analyse whalesong and try to figure out what they’re telling each other. We listen to noises from space because we’re convinced that the universe is packed with civilizations. I expect you’re having more luck with your whales.’
    â€˜I’m dealing with a few oceans. You’ve got the universe.’
    â€˜It’s on a different scale, but I’m always being told that we know less about the oceans than we do about space.’
    â€˜And you’ve intercepted signals that indicate the presence of intelligent life?’
    She shook her head. ‘No. We’ve found signals we can’t place. The chance of making contact is remote, almost beyond all probability. So, I should really throw myself off the next bridge in frustration. But the signals are my obsession. Like you and your whales.’
    â€˜At least I know they exist.’
    â€˜Not right now you don’t.’ Crowe smiled.
    Anawak had always been interested in SETI. The institute’s research had begun in the early 1990s when NASA had funded a targeted search for extra-terrestrial life on nearby stars - timed to coincide with the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. As a result, the world’s largest radio telescope, in the Puerto Rican town of Arecibo, had embarked on a new kind of observation programme. Thanks to generous private sponsorship, SETI had since been able to set up other projects across the globe, but Phoenix was probably the best known.
    â€˜Are you the woman Jodie Foster plays in Contact? ’
    â€˜I’m the woman who’d like to take a ride in her spaceship and meet the aliens. You know what, Leon? I don’t usually tell this stuff to anyone - I want to run away screaming when people ask me what I do. I can’t bear having to explain myself.’
    â€˜I know the feeling.’
    â€˜Anyway, you told me what you do, so now it’s my turn. What do you want to know?’
    Anawak didn’t take long to consider. ‘Why hasn’t it worked?’
    The question seemed to amuse her. ‘What makes you think it hasn’t? The Milky Way is made up of roughly a hundred billion stars. Trying to establish whether any of them is anything like the Earth is tricky