The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Morris (red white and royal blue hardcover TXT) 📕

I can’t tick off the problem until I’ve sorted it out. After all, it won’t be long now. I promise you that I’ll give it a rest after April. Then everything will be back to normal.”

“Promise? And if I help you, will you call Franziska?”

“I promise. Please send me the data.”

“I’m warning you. If you break your promise, I’ll call her and steal her from you. You’ll only have yourself to blame.”

Thomas, the old show-off. He wouldn’t have a chance with Franziska anyway, but he still would call her. Thomas was right, though—he mustn’t let this thing rule his life. Or was it too late for such thoughts? Today he put the trip to Sweden on his calendar. It was perfect, because shortly before that, Easter vacation commenced, eliminating the problem of getting time off.

Yes, he would call Franziska. He really had to make things right with her.

“Thank you, Thomas,” he said.

“You’d better not thank me. I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

“Please.”

“You don’t have to beg. I’ll get you the data. You’ll have it in your inbox by tomorrow morning.”

03 19 21.69 +03 22 12.71

Gubh oevtugyl-tyvggrevat fgne bs rira,

Gubh trz hcba gur oebj bs Urnira

Bu! jrer guvf syhggrevat fcvevg serr,

Ubj dhvpx 'g jbhyq fcernq vgf jvatf gb gurr.

Ubj pnyzyl, oevtugyl qbfg gubh fuvar,

Yvxr gur cher ynzc va Iveghr'f fuevar!

Fher gur snve jbeyq juvpu gubh znl'fg obnfg

Jnf arire enafbzrq, arire ybfg.

Gurer, orvatf cher nf Urnira'f bja nve,

Gurve ubcrf, gurve wblf gbtrgure funer;

Juvyr ubirevat natryf gbhpu gur fgevat,

Naq frencuf fcernq gur furygrevat jvat.

Gurer pybhqyrff qnlf naq oevyyvnag avtugf,

Vyyhzrq ol Urnira'f ershytrag yvtugf;

Gurer frnfbaf, lrnef, haabgvprq ebyy,

Naq haerterggrq ol gur fbhy.

Gubh yvggyr fcnexyvat fgne bs rira,

Gubh trz hcba na nmher Urnira,

Ubj fjvsgyl jvyy V fbne gb gurr,

Jura guvf vzcevfbarq fbhy vf serr!

March 22, 2026 – Passau

“Good morning! Attached you will find the promised measurement data,” Thomas had written. “But now you really owe me. It’s five o’clock in the morning, the sun is about to rise, and I haven’t slept a wink yet. Luckily, today is Sunday. Just a pity that I’ll sleep through half of it, because the best-yet spring weather is forecast for today.”

Oh yes, he had to think of the perfect way to thank Thomas. This was a truly generous thing for him to do. Why hadn’t he been in contact with him for so long?

“The amount of data should satisfy your needs. There is one problem, however. While the data was all collected at 418 megahertz, it came from different sources. I’ve given you the galactic coordinates for each.”

Thomas had really thought things through. He knew Peter wanted to create a language model with the data, after all. But if they came from different sources, how likely was it that they would all fit into the same model? It would be as if he recorded from a German station, an English station, and then one from France—and then wanted to extract an Anglo-French-German language from it. Why didn’t Thomas listen to the same source as the first time?

“I’m sure you are wondering why I did not use the same source as the day before yesterday. It’s quite simple. The signal curve repeats after a certain time. You will see it in the first file. I recorded this source for half an hour. A three-minute-long structure was repeated continuously. Since you probably can’t gain anything from the repetitions, I then switched to another source.”

Thank you, Thomas. That was very wise.

“What I found very exciting is that no two sources emit the same signal. The structures vary in length before they repeat, and no congruence can be established even if you normalize or correct for redshift.”

So Thomas had already fundamentally processed the signals, as well. This was probably part of his everyday life, and Peter would not have thought of the fact that the position of the sources in the universe could hinder their radiation. He knew this from everyday life, from the increasing and decreasing frequency of a fire engine siren, as it approached and then moved past. But what did it mean that each star was sending a ‘personal’ message?

Could it possibly mean that the content did not matter at all, and only the existence of the signal was important? That would be reassuring, because Peter had, of course, no idea what he should transmit with his radio beacon. Humankind was, once again, uninformed. He was reminded of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where Earth was demolished for a galactic bypass because the human beings didn’t appeal in time. But that was a satirical novel. He, on the other hand, lived in reality.

Given the new information, he had better not rely on the fact that the content did not matter.

Peter downloaded the attached files. He had to go to school first.

Peter noticed that something was wrong when he approached the crossing at the federal highway. The traffic was not backing up like normal, and not a single truck was heading for the nearby highway.

What was he thinking?

Thomas had even pointed out in his message that today was Sunday. He turned his bike around and rode back up the mountain.

Despite the cool morning air—it was certainly no more than three degrees—the climb made him sweat. When he parked his bike on the terrace, the back of his shirt felt clammy. Because the T-shirt compartment in his closet was empty, he went into the bathroom and swapped the sweaty shirt for a used T-shirt, which he got from the laundry hamper. He should really fire up the washing machine today. Before all of this, his closet always magically filled up. He dropped the wet shirt, caught himself and picked it up again, hanging it on one of the empty hangers on the bar above the bathtub.

His study was stuffy—he had to get some fresh air into the room. He pulled the door wide open. Outside, the sun was shining and the birds were