Factoring Humanity Part 14

"Yes, really. Now, tell me what the h.e.l.l this is all about."

The woman considered. "I-ah, I must consult with my partners first."

"Be my guest. Do you need a phone?"

She extracted one from her funky purse. "No." She rose, crossed the room, and began a hushed conversation that bounced between j.a.panese and what sounded like Russian, with only a few recognizable words-"Toronto," "Graves," "Huneker," and "quantum" among them. She winced several times; apparently she was getting a royal chewing-out.

After a few moments, she folded up the phone and returned it to her purse.

"My colleagues are not pleased," she said, "but we do need your help, and our purpose is not illegal."

"You'll have to convince me of that."

She tightened her lips and let air escape loudly through her nose. Then: "Do you know how Josh Huneker died?"

"Suicide, my wife said."

Chikamatsu nodded. "Do you have a Web terminal here?"

"Of course."

"May I?"

Kyle indicated the unit with a motion of his hand.

Chikamatsu sat down in front of it and spoke into the microphone. "The Toronto Star," "The Toronto Star," she said. Then: "Search back issues. Words in article text: Huneker and Algonquin. H-U-N-E-K-E-R and A-L-G-O-N-Q-U-I-N." she said. Then: "Search back issues. Words in article text: Huneker and Algonquin. H-U-N-E-K-E-R and A-L-G-O-N-Q-U-I-N."

"Searching," said the terminal in an androgynous voice. Then: "Found."

There was only one hit. The article appeared on the monitor screen.

Chikamatsu stood up. "Have a look," she said.

Kyle took the seat she'd vacated. The article was dated February 28, 1994. The words "Algonquin" and "Huneker" were highlighted everywhere they appeared in red and green respectively. He read the whole thing, telling the screen once to page down as he did so: ASTRONOMER TAKES OWN LIFE.

Joshua Huneker, 24, was found dead yesterday at the National Research Council of Canada's radio telescope in Algonquin Park, a provincial park in northern Ontario. He had committed suicide by eating an apple coated with a.r.s.enic.Huneker, who was studying for a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, had been snowed in alone at the radio telescope for six days.He had been working in Algonquin Park on the international Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, scanning the sky for radio messages from alien worlds. Because Algonquin is so far from any city, it receives little radio interference and is therefore ideally suited for such delicate listening.Huneker's body was found by Donald Cheung, 39, another radio astronomer, who was arriving at the telescope facility to relieve Huneker."It's a great tragedy," said NRC spokesperson Allison Northcott, in Ottawa. "Josh was one of our most promising young researchers and he was also a real humanitarian, very active with Greenpeace and other causes. However, judging by his suicide note, he apparently had personal problems related to his romantic involvement with another man. We will all miss him."

When he was finished, Kyle swiveled the chair around to face the woman. He hadn't know the details of Josh's death before; the whole thing seemed rather sad.

"His story remind you of anyone's?" asked Chikamatsu.

"Sure. Alan Turing's." Turing, the father of modern computing, had committed suicide in 1954 in the same way, and for the same reason.

She nodded grimly. "Exactly. Turing was Huneker's idol. But what the spokesperson did not mention was that Josh left two two notes, not one. The first was indeed about his personal problems, but the second . . ." notes, not one. The first was indeed about his personal problems, but the second . . ."

"Yes?"

"The second had to do with what he had detected."

"Pardon?"

"Over the radio telescope." Chikamatsu closed her eyes, as if wrestling for one final moment about whether to go on. Then she opened them and said softly, "The Centaurs were not the first aliens we made contact with; they were the second."

Kyle creased his forehead skeptically. "Oh, come on!"

"It is true," said Chikamatsu. "In nineteen ninety-four, Algonquin picked up a signal. Of course it was not from Alpha Centauri-you cannot see that star from Canada. Huneker detected a signal from somewhere else, apparently had no trouble decoding it, and was stunned by whatever it said. He burned all the original computer tapes, encrypted the only remaining record of the message, and then killed himself. To this day, n.o.body knows what that alien message said. They closed down the Algonquin Observatory immediately thereafter, citing budget cuts. What they really wanted to do was disa.s.semble everything to see if they could determine which star the signal had come from; Huneker had been scheduled to survey over forty different stars during the week he was alone up there. They tore that place apart, but never figured it out."

Kyle digested this, then: "And Huneker used-what? RSA encryption?"

"Exactly."

Kyle frowned. RSA is a two-key method of data-encryption: the public key is a very large number, and the private key consists of two prime numbers that are factors of the public key.

Chikamatsu spread her hands, as if the problem was plain. "Without the private key," she said, "the message cannot be decoded."

"And there were five hundred and twelve digits in Huneker's public key?"

"Yes."

Kyle frowned. "So it would take conventional computers trillions of years to find its factors by trial and error."

"Exactly. We have had computers working full time on it since just after Huneker killed himself. So far, no luck. But, as you say, that is with conventional computers. A quantum computer-"

"A quantum computer could do it in a matter of seconds."

"Precisely."

Kyle nodded. "I can see why leaving an encrypted message behind might appeal to a Turing fan." Turing had been pivotal in defeating the n.a.z.is' Enigma encoding machine in World War II. "But why should I agree to do this for you?"

"We have a copy of the Huneker disk-something very hard to get hold of, believe me. My partners and I believe the disk encodes information that may be of great commercial value-and if we can decode it first, we will all make a lot of money."

"All?"

"When I was talking to them on the phone, my partners empowered me to offer you a two-percent share of all proceeds."

"And what if there aren't any?"

"Sorry, I should have been more explicit: I am prepared to offer you an advance of four million dollars, against a two-percent share of all proceeds. And you keep all rights to your quantum-computing technology; we simply want the message decoded."

"What makes you think there's anything of commercial value in the message?"

"Huneker's second handwritten note said simply, 'Alien radio message-unveil new technology.' The disk with the encoded transmission-a three-and-a-half-inch floppy, if you remember such things-was found lying on top of that note. Huneker had clearly understood the message and felt that it described some innovative technology."

Kyle frowned dubiously and leaned back in his chair. "I've spent half my life trying to decipher what students mean when they write something. He could have just been saying that we'd need a new technology, such as quantum computing, to break his encryption."

Chikamatsu sounded unduly earnest. "No, it must describe some great innovation-and we want it."

Kyle decided not to argue the point with her; she'd clearly devoted way too much time and money to this issue to countenance the thought that it was all a waste. "How did you find out about me?"

"We have monitored quantum-computing research for years, Professor Graves. We know exactly who is doing what-and how close they are to a breakthrough. You and Saperstein at the Technion are both on the verge of solving the technical difficulties."

Kyle exhaled. He hated Saperstein's guts-had for years. Did Chikamatsu know that? Probably-meaning that she might be baiting him. Still, four million dollars . . .

"Let me think about it," he said.

"I will contact you again," said Chikamatsu, rising. She held out a hand for the memory wafer.

Kyle was reluctant to let it go.

"It only has the public key on it," said Chikamatsu. "Without the actual alien message, it is useless."

Kyle hesitated a moment longer, then handed over the plastic wafer, now slick with perspiration from his palm.

Chikamatsu wiped it on a tissue, then returned it to her purse. "Thank you," she said. "Oh, and a word to the wise-I rather suspect we are not the only ones aware of your research."

Kyle spread his arms and tried to sound jaunty. "Then maybe I should simply hold out for the best offer."

Chikamatsu was already at the door. "I do not think you will like the sort of offers they make."

And then she was gone.

15.

The phone rang in Heather's office. She glanced at the call-display readout; it was an internal U of T call. That was a relief: she was getting tired of the media. But then, it seemed, they had gotten tired of her, too; the cessation of the alien messages was already old news, and reporters seemed to be leaving her alone now. Heather picked up the handset. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi, Heather. It's Paul Komensky, over at the CAM lab."

"h.e.l.lo, Paul."

"It's good to hear your voice."

"Ah, yours, too, thanks."

Silence, then: "I, ah, I've got those substances ready you asked me to mix up."

"That's great! Thank you."

"Yeah. The substrate, it's unremarkable, essentially just a polystyrene. But the other stuff, well, I was right. It is is a liquid at room temperature, but it a liquid at room temperature, but it does does dry-into a thin, crystalline film." dry-into a thin, crystalline film."

"Really?"

"And it's piezoelectric."

"Pi-pi-what?"

"Piezoelectric. It means that when you put it under stress, it generates electricity."

"Really?"

"Not much, but some."

"Fascinating!"

"It's not all that unusual, really; it happens a lot in various minerals. But I wasn't expecting it. The crystals this stuff dries to are actually similar to what we call relaxor ferroelectrics. That's a special kind of piezoelectric crystal that can deform-that is, change shape-ten times as much as standard piezoelectric crystals do."

"Piezoelectric," Heather said softly. She used her fingertip to write the word on her datapad. "I've read something about that-can't offhand think where, though. Anyway, can you make the tiles now?"

"Sure."

"How long will it take?"

"The whole run? About a day."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"Can you do it for me?"

"Sure." A pause. "But why not come over here? I want to show you the apparatus, make sure it's going to produce exactly what you want. Then we can start the run, and then maybe grab some lunch?"

Heather hesitated for a moment, then: "Sure. Sure thing. I'm on my way."

The manufacturing equipment was simple.

Spread out across the floor of Paul Komensky's lab was a piece of the substrate material measuring about three meters on a side; two additional panels were leaning against one wall, almost touching the ceiling.

The substrate was a dark green color, like computer circuit boards. And sitting on top of the substrate sheet was a small robot the size of a s...o...b..x, with a cylindrical tank attached to its back.

Heather was standing next to Paul. A computer monitor beside him showed the twelfth radio message-the first one after the basic math and chemistry lessons.

"We just activate the robot," Paul said, "and it starts moving over the surface of the substrate. See that tank? It contains the second chemical-the liquid. The robot sprays on the chemical in the pattern indicated on the monitor, there. Then it uses a laser to cut the tile out of the substrate. It then flips over the tile and paints the same pattern on the other side; I've got it set to do it in exactly the same orientation, so that if the substrate were clear, the patterns would line up perfectly. It then uses one of its little manipulators to place the tile in those boxes over there.

He hit a b.u.t.ton, and the robot proceeded to do just as he'd described, producing a rectangular tile measuring about ten centimeters by fifteen centimeters. Heather smiled.

"It'll take about a day to cut the tiles, and when it's done, all the tiles will be stored, in the order in which they should be snapped together, in the boxes."

"What if I drop the box?"

Komensky smiled. "You know, my older brother did that once. His very first computing course was in high school in the early nineteen seventies. They did everything on punch cards back then. He wrote a program to print out a pinup of Farrah Fawcett-remember her? It was all made by printed characters-asterisks, dollar signs, slashes-simulating a halftone photo if you got far enough away from it. He spent months on it and then he dropped the d.a.m.n box of cards, and they got completely scrambled." He shuddered. "Anyway, the robot is putting little serial-number stickers on the back of each tile. They're done with Post-it adhesive-if you want them off later, they'll peel off easily." He got the first tile out of the box and showed the label to Heather.