ENCOUNTER WITH TIBER

Reviewed 9/19/1996

Encounter with Tiber, by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes

ENCOUNTER WITH TIBER Buzz Aldrin & John Barnes New York: Warner Books, 1996				Rating: 5.0 High
ISBN 0-446-51854-9	560p.	HC/GSI	$21.95

Early in the year 2006, NASA (still struggling under tight budget constraints) launches a mission to place an ingeniously-designed radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. During its preliminary checkout in Earth orbit, good luck happens. Astronomers on the surface pick up a strange signal on a low-frequency band. It is hard to be sure because this 96-meter-wavelength transmission barely penetrates the atmosphere, but it seems to be coming from Alpha Centauri.

The news is quickly relayed to the NASA1 crew. After convincing themselves it is no prank, they manage to string a dipole antenna along the truss of the International Space Station where they are docked and hook it into the FSRT receiver. Soon they have the signal loud and clear. They relay its contents to the ground, and in fairly short order it is discovered that this is indeed a message from that nearby star, intended for travelers from a planet circling it. The message contains diagrams showing the locations of what can only be data storage units — one at the Moon's south pole, one near the northern ice cap of Mars.

This is the story of the human quest to recover those troves of data from the distant world (named Tiber by an Italian scientist) and of what results when their contents are finally read. The collaboration between Hugo & Nebula nominee novelist John Barnes and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin promises a gripping tale with a high level of technical verisimilitude; and Encounter with Tiber delivers on that promise. If I may be forgiven for quoting a certain car commercial from the 1970s (and even if not), I enthusiastically say, "I'm impressed."

1 This is a simplification. It's not strictly a NASA crew, but like all space endeavors of that time, it has representatives of various organizations. Nor is their vehicle a space shuttle, as readers in 1996 might expect, but a "revised and expanded" Apollo capsule.

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