"A nonhuman head appeared in the screen. Van Rijn replied by the same eerie set of whistles and quavers." (p. 386)
"'Shall I try for a picture this time?'
"Weinbaum nodded. A moment later, he was looking squarely into the green-skinned face of something that looked like an animated traffic signal with a helmet on it. Though the creature had no mouth, the Dirac speaker was saying quite clearly:
"'Hello, Chief. This, as if you didn't know, is Thammos NGC 2287, transmission date Gor 60, 302 by my calendar, July 2, 2973, by yours...'"
-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1973), CHAPTER NINE, p. 105.
Van Rijn's screen reminded me of Weinbaum's. Van Rijn receives a report from an SSL factor in a different galactic sector who must have traveled to Earth to make the call whereas Weinbaum intercepts a future instantaneous Dirac transmission from another galaxy. Both van Rijn and Weinbaum operate on an interstellar scale although for different purposes.
(Googling reveals that an error by Weinbaum. He thinks that NGC 2287 is not M41 but M31 or NGC 224 which is the Andromeda galaxy.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Blish's instantaneous FTL communications Dirac from the future certainly strikes me as an impossibility.
Ad astra! Sean
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