"...called on the standard band. 'Two humans, shipwrecked, in need of assistance. Respond.' And again. And again. Nothing answered but the fire-crackle of cosmic energies.
"He tried on the robots' band. The digital code chattered with no alteration that he could detect.
"He tried other frequencies.
"After an hour or more, he unplugged and rose."
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT Chapter Seven, p. 243.
Three sounds:
Flandry's Anglic distress call, translated into American English for our benefit;
the chatter of the digital code, meaningful although not understood by Flandry;
meaningless noise.
And yet another description of cosmic radio noise. See Seethe And Crackle.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I think the fact Flandry could not get the Wayland AI to "hear" his radio calls was was a sign of it becoming mentally "stiffened," or getting too set in its ways. Not surprising, after more than 500 years of isolation from the outside universe.
Sean
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