Those Who Watch by Robert Silverberg

Author:Robert Silverberg [Silverberg, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf
Publisher: The New American Library Inc.
Published: 1967-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

Nine

The distress signal sent out by the doomed Dirnan ship in the moments before its destruction had been received in a thousand places at once. Every Dirnan ship on watcher duty over Earth had picked the signal up, for the broad-band Dirnan communication system was not hampered by line-of-sight problems or in need of an ionospheric bounce, and it pervaded that entire region of space at the speed of light. The twenty watchers over China learned of the ship’s fate. So did the eighteen watcher ships currently patrolling the skies over the Soviet Union, the other nineteen in various orbits over North America, and the isolated groups of watchers keeping tabs on India, Brazil, the African Federation, Antarctica, Japan, and other high-technology nodes throughout the world. All in all, close to four hundred Dirnan watcher ships were on duty in atmospheric levels, and all of them learned about the catastrophe within the first few moments.

As the signal spread, it came to the attention of the four ships stationed permanently around Earth’s moon. It reached the roving ships that regularly checked the artificial space satellites of the Earth nations to make sure that no lethal weapons had been placed in orbit. It impinged on the detectors of the Dirnan ships posted in the vicinities of Mars and Venus. It aroused attention at the Dirnan ground base on Ganymede, Jupiter’s plant-sized moon, where some ninety watcher ships were parked while their crews enjoyed their allotted holidays. It was noticed by the fifty-odd Dirnan relief ships on their way from Ganymede to other posts in the systems now occupied by crews awaiting vacation. The wave spread, minute by minute, to the ships currently located out by Neptune’s orbit, and as far out as Pluto. In time — a great deal of time — that imperishable signal would reach as far as the home world itself.

Others who learned of the fate of the Mirtin-Vorneen’ Glair ship were certain representatives of the opposing race, the Kranazoi, who were able covertly to tune in on the wavelength of a Dirnan distress signal. But in this instance the Kranazoi headquarters had no need to pick up the signal, since they were receiving a full report on the explosion from one of their ships that had happened to be in the vicinity.

Then, too, the distress signal activated the receptors at the Dirnan headquarters on Earth.

There wasn’t supposed to be any Dirnan headquarters on Earth. Dirha and Kranaz had signed covenants governing the permissible contacts between the two galactic races and the people of Earth, and one of the things that was forbidden was any sort of physical landing on the planet by Dirnan or Kranazoi personnel — let alone a permanent presence down there. But covenants sometimes prove to work against global security; and the Dirnans had found it necessary, for their own protection, to station a pocket of agents on the surface of Earth. The station was well hidden, more to keep it from the attention of the Kranazoi than to keep it from the attention of the Earthmen.

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