Poul Anderson, Tau Zero, CHAPTER 5.
See "Communication In The Big Deep," here.
To continue:
"Though days might go by without a break in the silence, he persevered. He was rewarded with success. But the quality of reception was poorer, the interval of it shorter, the time till the next longer, as Leonora Christine entered the Big Deep." (p. 47)
Next we read Fedoroff's own words. He describes the fading of the signals and also articulates a personal response to the content of the very last message:
"'...that final cast we received...upset me.'
"'The music?'
"'Yes. Music. Signal-to-noise ratio too low for television. Almost too low for sound. The last we will get, Ingrid Gunnar's daughter, before we reach goal and start receiving messages a generation old. I am certain it was the last. Those few minutes, wavering, fading in and out, scarcely to hear through the firecrackle of stars and cosmic rays - when we lost that music, I knew we would get no more...
"'It happened to be a Russian cradle song...My mother sang me to sleep with it.'" (p. 49)
Here is yet another description of the sound of space. (See also Three Senses In Space.) After this detailed account of the physical difficulty of communication, we suddenly learn the content of that last message - which understandably incapacitates Fedoroff for a while.
For recent discussion of a Russian prayer offered during a battle, see Raduysya Mariye.
2 comments:
Space communication: http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2010/02/on-torchships.html.
Buried in the comments is a thoughtful discussion of space (if in-system) communications.
Look for the comments from Thucydides, seemingly a knowledgeable contributor (who now comments on ToughSF.
-Keith
Kaor, Paul!
And, of course, unbeknownst as yet to Fedoroff and his fellow crew, this bit of music he he would be the very LAST communication from Earth that the "Leonora Christine" would ever receive.
Sean
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