Leon awoke to a stab in his ribs. Sitting bolt upright he looked around frantically before realising where he was.
“Whoa there, why is it that every time I am having the best dream of my life you wake me up with your thrashing?” A cool feminine voice asked from next to him.
Leon turned, in the dim light that emanated from the glow of his bedside clock he couldn't see anything clearly, just the vague silhouette of a figure next to him. “Lights on.” he said a bit groggily.
Natalia raised a hand to shield her eyes. Her hair was a mess from sleep and she was topless, her full breasts exposed to the warm air of the room. He pulled his eyes up from the inviting sight and to her face as she lowered her arm.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry..” he started to formulate a response but she shushed him.
He watched as she shook her head slightly and then swung her legs over the side of the bed. He watched in silence as she stood, her black panties the only clothing she wore. She walked across the room and then stopped before turning to look at him again.
Crossing her arms under her breasts she asked him in a softer manner, “What was it? The same nightmare?”
Leon’s eyes lowered towards the floor, he fixed his gaze on her ankles, not wanting to see the worry in her eyes. “I don’t know, I can’t remember. But I have a terrible feeling. Like something awful is about to happen.. and I just..”
He cut off as emotion swelled in his chest, the crushing pressure of his mindless fears cutting off his breath and silencing him with a strangled gasp. He clutched his right shoulder as his nerves were set alight, the psychosomatic pain of his decades old battle wounds still haunting him from time to time when he was agitated.
Sooner than he could ask for help Natalia was there at his side, kneeling on the covers beside him and cradling his head to her bosom. She ran her fingers through his shaggy hair, the feeling of her fingernails on his scalp almost instantly calming him in a way that no medicine ever could. The closeness of his one true love was the only balm his shattered soul had ever needed.
He sighed and then turned his head to look up into her face. “Oh Nat, what did I ever do to deserve you?”
She chuckled and shifted around till she was snuggled up next to him, his head still lying on her chest. She continued to play with his hair as she shrugged slightly. “I don’t think it was anything you did necessarily Leon. It was just, something in your eyes. The first time I saw you it captivated me, I just felt.. drawn to you in a way I can't explain.” She sighed, her chest heaving slightly as she took a deep breath.
He tilted his head a little, sinking deeper into her womanly softness as he wrapped an arm around the only part of her in reach.
“Leon!” she gasped a bit playfully. He just chuckled as she smacked the back of his head. “I was being serious, you big lug.”
He just smiled and turned his head and puckering his lips. “Sorry dear.” She gave him a smooch and then leaned back into the covers.
Leon just sat there in comfortable silence, the steady beating of her heart and the sound of her breathing his only focus. After a bit he felt her shift and he moved as she scooched from under his head to his side. She sighed contentedly as she wrapped herself around his side, her arms around his chest as she burrowed her lovely head into the nape of his neck. He put an arm around her, his hand resting on the curve of her waist.
“Hmmmm… I love you, now go back to bed, it's still the middle of the night.” Natalia whispered into his shoulder.
He just smiled. “I will do the best I can, lights off.” He held her tight as the darkness rolled over the room, the only light coming from the steady glow of the bedside alarm clock beside him. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the warm body beside him. Natalia’s breathing was slow and rhythmic, likely already asleep. Her body pressed against his in a most alluring manner, but he put baser thoughts out of his mind. He needed to sleep, tomorrow was another system to explore, one that had taken them nearly a full two weeks to arrive at.
So instead he just closed his eyes and cleared his mind. Sleep was quick, the worries and fear just melting away as his muscles relaxed and his breathing slowed. Soon he was asleep, dreams of terrible darkness and eyes that watched held at bay for a little longer.
**********
Leon really didn't want to be on the bridge, but here he was. Sitting in his microgravity restraints with his voidsuit on, helmet locked to the side of his command chair where it could be easily grabbed in an emergency. He had awoken terribly groggy and feeling like somebody had poured an entire beach worth of sand into his eyes, he rubbed his dry eyes again as he thought about it.
Natalia on the other hand had been as graceful and lovely as ever. She had already been awake and getting ready for the day when he managed to drag himself out of bed. While they had run out of fresh coffee a long time ago, they still had a ton and a half of the dried stuff. Myung had also found camellia seeds and managed to cultivate some of the shrubs in one of the backup plots. The fragrant blossoms brightened the ship and its young leaves were used to make fresh brewed tea. The caffeine content was low, but it was a wonderful way to begin a sluggish day.
Leon quickly showered and dressed, the clean grey overalls feeling a little extra tight that morning. He chuckled, “I need to lay off the potato cakes.” Joice had been experimenting with the ingredients they had available in abundance on the ship and had managed to concoct a small fluffy bread that was made from potato and corn starches, the sugar from beets and the flavour from several of the herbs that grew readily in the hydroponics. The resulting dark red buns were light and slightly tart, kind of reminding him of the scones he would always get at his favorite diner.
They had the downside of being very calorie dense and so it was easy to overdo them, especially as Joice had been experimenting with the recipe non-stop for a week now and refused to allow any to go to waste.
Leon strode down the hall and grabbed a quick breakfast of tea and two buns before hightailing it to the bridge. He exited the ladder at speed and nearly crashed into a slow moving Chad.
“Oh, hey!” Chad yelped while he managed to narrowly avoid being torpedoed by Leon as he flew to the other side of the ship’s core.
Leon took a deep breath, realising that he had been holding one in. “Oh.. Hi, yeah sorry. I had my mind in the stars. Didn’t realise I was so close to the end of the ladder.”
Chad nodded his head while running his free hand through his short cropped light brown hair, an expression of slight nervousness manifested on his face. “Oh while you are here, I was actually meaning to ask you. Do we have another red alert drill scheduled for next week? I keep asking Joice and all she says is to ask you.”
Leon slapped his palm off his forehead. “Oh damn! I was supposed to finish up the schedule and turn it over to her for finalising. Sorry Chad, yeah there will be an alert drill on Tuesday morning. It’s supposed to be a secret though, I’m not sure how you heard about it.” He narrowed his eyes at the freckled man who had the grace to look a bit sheepish.
Chad shifted his position a few times before Leon demanded an explanation again. Chad shrugged. “I just overheard Myung talking to Joice about it in the hydroponics ring yesterday when I was fixing some pipes. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I promise.” he said it with such an honestly apologetic tone that Leon instantly believed him. Besides, Chad was well known for his honesty, the man couldn't tell a lie to save his own skin much less cover for somebody else.
So the leak had come from Joice. She would need to be reminded of confidentiality at some point. The alarms were random and secret to maximise effect. To keep the crew from constant anxiety he generally announced the random test two to four days in advance and let everyone know to keep sharp. That way they had time to sweat but it didn't interfere with their normal day to day operation too much.
He shook his head and waved Chad to continue on with his activities. The man gave a terse nod and did just that, pulling himself along the core with an enthusiasm that bordered on the frantic. Leon frowned at that, was the man afraid of him? Was he really so intimidating to the others?
He shoved the strange encounter aside, he had other more important things to worry about than a loudmouthed second in command. Like the ship’s closing warp translation. They couldn't stay at warp longer or the gravity well of the star they were aimed at would drag them from warp in the inner system, far from safety and in the most intense part of the chromosphere.
Not an experience he was looking forwards to, at least not soon. The maneuver had been proposed as a way to emergency stop the warp drive should it begin to malfunction while in transit, though their backup drive was supposed to kick in automatically to decelerate the ship should such a crisis emerge. It was an unlikely thing, but Leon always felt better knowing that there were failsafes anyways. A result of the soldier in him he supposed.
It took only moments for him to reach the twin airlocks at the front of the ship, the lower one was smaller and looked less reinforced. It led to the observation deck situated right below the main bridge. The other airlock was wider and had heavy steel reinforcement beams crisscrossing the middle that gave it the strength to withstand several kilos of high explosive should such a scenario arise. The ship had been built with all possible scenarios accounted for, its twenty-year mission far too valuable to the human race to be lost in the cold dark void of eternity.
He grabbed a handhold near the keypad and pressed the analog buttons for the door. He had always scoffed internally at the use of such old technologies in parts of the ship, but the reasoning was sound. The buttons did not require direct skin contact, were easily repaired should they be damaged and were very resistant to prolonged use. In the event that the ship’s power should go down, the buttons would still work. A tiny micro capacitor allowing the push activation to still transmit a current to the door controls that would at least unlock the seals allowing the door to be opened manually. This would require a lot of brute force to move its two-ton bulk, but it was better than being trapped inside the airlock.
Leon inputted the code and waited for the lock to cycle open, rushing inside once it did. He heard a noise from behind him and turned.
“Hey, hold the door!” Taylor shouted as he threw himself towards the closing opening.
Leon was forced to slam a hand into the emergency override, the door groaning in displeasure as its internal brakes made it grind to a halt. The force of it causing the immediate vicinity to shudder slightly.
Leon put out an arm to catch the spinning man as he drifted into the airlock fully. “What in the name of God’s green Earth? You know that you can just wait for the airlock to cycle, the ship isn’t translating for another forty-five minutes.
The man looked at him askance and muttered. “Sorry. I just wanted to ask you something in private before we got onto the bridge.”
Something about the way the man said it rang alarm bells in his head. ‘I swear to god, if he asks about the..’ he started to curse inwardly.
Taylor hesitated then asked, “Hey, are we doing a red alert drill next week?”
Leon snorted and threw his hands up into the air with such force it sent him spinning across the airlock. “Shit! Mutherfff…” he cursed as he flailed around, trying to get a grip on something to stop his aimless movement.
After a moment of this he felt a hand reach out and grab his ankle, slowing his movement and allowing him to grab one of the side rungs of the airlock. He sat still for a moment as the room slowly stopped spinning in his eyes.
After a moment he heard a small throat clearing noise. “Well, I had just heard Chris talking to Sabine in the engineering room as I passed by and had to ask them to confirm. Well, she said that she had heard it from Chad who.. er, who had..” He paused as he saw the very annoyed look that Leon was broadcasting to him as plain as vanilla yogurt. “You know, I’m really not worried about it actually. Nevermind.” he turned and rocketed through the airlock as it opened a moment later with a hiss and a flash of green light signifying the all clear.
Leon frowned again. This was getting out of hand. Next thing he knew everyone would be asking about the head cleaning schedule and what he had said to Ngatalia the other night while they had been..
“Leon! There you are, I was waiting for you to show up.” he jerked slightly, the tenor voice of Joice called to him from the other side of the bridge.
He looked over, the woman was already strapped into her seat, the console in front of Joice glowing brightly as she worked on some data sheet or another. He nodded to her and gave a brief wave of acknowledgement before pulling himself to his suit and donning the garment. It was thin but made of insulated and incredibly tough woven carbon nanotube fibers, they were nigh untearable and resistant to more than just sharp surfaces.
He grabbed his helmet and made his way over to the command throne in the center of the room. The position was largely symbolic as there was no need for him to be in so central a position to command the ship. The advent of modern technology made one seat as good as any other when it came to communication and visibility, and yet the tradition persisted. Not that he was complaining.
Strapping himself in, he turned to Joice. The blond woman was tapping away furiously at something on her console, seemingly very absorbed. “Eeherm!” He cleared his throat to get her attention. She stopped and looked at him, her strikingly blue eyes boring into his. “Mmyess? You wanted me?” he asked in a slightly condescending way. Annoyed with her seeming lack of interest when she had been the one to call him over.
She shook her head and gestured towards her screen. “I am sitting here, thirty minutes early. And you want to know what I am doing?”
Leon smirked, he could guess but decided to poke the bear instead. “Leaking secret alert drill plans?”
She looked genuinely taken aback for a minute before her face turned suspicious. “I have, not only.. When did you hear about that? I mean..” She sputtered, clearly taken off guard by his sudden reversal.
“I heard about it before I arrived on the bridge, then as I arrived on the bridge a second time from another person entirely. The point of these alert drills remaining secret is to prevent lax behaviour. I want the crew to be on alert for the entire duration of the warning, no slacking because they know the exact time the alert is going to go off.” He finished, a bit heatedly.
Joice sat back in her chair. Her face churned in a mixture of emotions, something between annoyed and surprised. After a moment she seemed to gather herself enough to respond, her tone turning a bit apologetic if anything. “I just wanted to make sure that Myung knew ahead of time as she has been stressing lately. You know what kind of workload she has to deal with every day, and the stress of these constant surprise drills caused her to have to go and talk to your wife. She had Dr. Kimathi prescribe her some anti-stress medication which told her to take two days rest, but she refused. Told her that there was too much work to be done.” Joice paused, letting him take in the new information.
That was news, why had she not come to him? As soon as he asked the question he thought of the answer. Likely for the same reason that the two men had run from him earlier, he was intimidating the crew too much with his military-like demeanour.
“Damn.” he swore.
Joice looked at him expectantly and then repeated, “Damn?”
He nodded.
She looked at her console, her brow furrowed in consternation. She looked back at him jerkilly, the confusion writ across her face as plain as sharpie on white paper. “What do you mean damn? Is that really all you have to say?”
She seemed to be upset by his response. But he had nothing else to say. What did she want him to say, what could he say. He thought hard, the silence stretching uncomfortably before he finally scrubbed his hands through his unrestrained hair. “I uh.. I didn’t know the situation had gotten that dire. I just. I realised I have been falling back on my old military habits, the kids are suffering for it too. Just ten minutes ago I noticed that, but I didn’t really realise the extent of my mistake until just now.” Leon looked at Joice, fully expecting her to be angry with him still.
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Instead he was surprised as she smiled sadly and reached over to pat his leg. “I understand Leon, you can take the soldier out of the war. But the war will always follow them home. That’s what my grandfather always used to say, he was a dropper ya know? Fought in some of the most brutal peace campaigns in the Chaddian revolutions. He never talked about it much though. I read your record though before we left Earth..” she stopped. Unusually for her she looked unsure of what to say.
Leon shook his head slowly. “I made a mistake, and it cost the life of a great man.” he said sadly.
“It cost two lives, one of which was brought back. I know what they did to you Leon, my grandfather went through a similar experience, he never talked about it much. But when he did he just called it the hollow. That hollow feeling where his soul used to be. I know you married the ship’s psychiatrist, but if you ever want to talk about it Leon, I am here. Please, I may be one of the only ones who can relate.” she stopped suddenly, as if unsure whether or not she had gone too far.
He nodded solemnly. “Yes, that would be nice, Joice. I.. I don't talk about it much with Nat either. I don't want her to worry about me any more than she already does. That woman deserves more than a broken down second hand soldier like me.” he said, a hint of his internal darkness creeping into his voice as the last few words came out as a snarl.
Again she patted his leg in a supportive way. “Hey, you are the greatest thing to ever happen to her. She has told me that herself on more than one occasion. I don’t normally reveal the sacred girl-speak to mere mortal men..” He chuckled in spite of the dark fuge that had gripped his mind. “..but an exception can be made for you just this once.”
Leon nodded his appreciation and was about to say more when the airlock cycled open again. As he turned he saw it was the rest of the crew. Terry, Sabine and Samuel quickly put on their suits and rocketed into their seats. Leon just gave Joice a look that implied they would continue their conversation at a later time and she nodded in return.
As the others took their seats Leon opened up the scheduling for the next few weeks. He focused on arranging the various activities to be more in line with what people had availability for. It was tedious work and took him a while to get situated, by the time he finally got through the initial spreadsheeting more than thirty minutes had passed.
Leon leaned back in his chair, the microgravity of the bridge making his head feel like it had an inflated balloon inside of it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he tried to relieve some of the pressure but to no avail.
He glanced over at Joice and asked, “How far did you get with the scheduling?”
She shook her head before looking over at him. “Only as far as I could without your input.”
She didn't seem upset this time, just a bit tired. He could well understand the emotion, this wasn't like a job or assignment on Earth. There was no relief shift or home rotation. They were it, and all of them were constantly needed to keep the ship running in top condition. There always had to be at least two people on the night watch shift, one stayed up late and the other got up early. That way the ship’s main systems were always being monitored by a living human.
Henry was supposed to take care of most of the automation, but after the ship was so nearly plunged into a black hole by the learning computer trying to go rogue he just didn’t have the same trust for its software. Not like he had when the mission had first gotten underway.
He just gave a smaller nod. “Alright, I'm working on finishing up the preliminaries, I will probably have it done sometime tomorrow for you.”
He didn’t hear her response and didn’t need to. He understood that he had been slacking on it and more didn’t need to be said. Instead of apologising he just buckled down to fix it, actions spoke louder than words after all.
Samuel spoke up, his horse voice stronger than it had been in a while but still crackling with the damage done to his vocal chords. “We are nearing the system. Warp translation in five.” as he said it the yellow alert’s flicked on with a single warning blast.
Leon sniffed heavily, another jump. He was tired of them but they were a necessary evil.
Instead of dwelling on the impending warpshock he focused on the document that he had opened up on his console. If he moved Oliver’s next cooking assignment and traded his maintenance shift with Aden then he would have the flexibility to move Sabine out of the bind she was in. she had requested a shift off with Chad and so he did his best to work it in. While not really as bad as having to plan around military drills, the overall structure of the program gave him similar vibes. He heard a voice speaking but ignored it.
It was just another warning. Suddenly the air around him seemed to get hot, as hot as the sun. he felt his flesh vitrifying from the heat, the cracks in it spreading until he shattered like a mirror dropped from a great height. The spinning fragments of his self were then gathered into a new form, one not even remotely human. The horror of his new form lasted only the scarcest moment before he gasped, the breath taken by human lungs in a human chest.
He gripped his chest with his real arm and heaved a great sigh of relieved panic. That had been one of the more unpleasant warp visions he had seen, and it had lasted just long enough for him to remember it as well. Generally the warpshock would pass before he even had time to register what he was being subjected to. But this one was one of the rarer long glimpses. And he would have been perfectly happy not remembering the strange malformed visage that his mind had beheld as reality reasserted itself over the ship.
He looked around. With the exception of Taylor, who always seemed to have particularly bad reactions to warp travel, everyone else seemed relatively unshaken. He emulated their behaviour by sitting up straight and putting on his best flat look. No sense in letting them know he was distressed, but still the image of his own face on that monstrosity shook him.
It wasn’t so debilitating that he had to leave though, and so with a quick drink of water from the squeeze bottle by his chair, Leon leaned forwards and focused back on the problem at hand. Mainly, where in the universe were they in relation to their last position.
“Status report, are we in the right place?” He demanded from Samuel. The ship’s pilot nodded.
“Yes, navigation looks good. Constellation drift is right on par with what we expected, this is UEX8 dash whatever.” Samuel waved a hand in the air as he gave up on the random number designation of the system.
“Good. That's good.” Leon paused. “Taylor, I want you monitoring the system.” Taylor gave a nod, his face still a sickly shade of pale, he seemed well enough in hand though.
Terry spoke up as her husband got to work punching keys on his console, “I already have the Erikson’s telescopes scanning for planetary bodies and other points of interest. We should get the preliminary results of the scan in a few more minutes.
Leon gave her a small salute and then gestured to Sabine. “How is the ship? Everything reading green?”
She shrugged. “As near as I can tell the damn thing is running perfectly. Even the radiators are registering a higher-than-average efficiency. The interstellar medium must be a bit denser than normal here.” She speculated.
And she was probably right, clouds of freezing gas seemed to obscure portions of the distant sky. A veil over the bottomless dark infinity all around them.
It might not all turn out alright, he had long made peace with that, but Leon still hoped for the best possible outcome, the completion of the mission as it were. Years remained on their mission, and so far they had found only ruins.
Leon pushed the negative thoughts to the side as he waited for some manner of report. He drummed his fingers along the side of his chair as he hummed greensleeves absently, the ancient medley comforting his mind.
After a while Terry undid a restraint to better turn in her seat and pulled up an expanded view of the inner system on one of the main viewscreens. The main windows of the bridge had been opened as it became clear they were in no immediate danger, the backdrop of endless colorful stars under the enhanced picture gave it a certain mystique.
Terry nodded towards him and began, her calm voice strong and clear. “Well, as you can see here the system is dominated by a single GV-II class yellow dwarf, very similar to our sun in fact. Though it seems to be much older. Look at this profusion of sunspots for example.” she magnified the image even more. The picture becoming slightly grainy as static interference began to show up on the live feed.
Leon looked where she was gesturing and saw them, a trio of small spots. Though to call them small was an understatement of heroic proportions. Each of the little dots was likely many times larger than the entire Earth.
She continued, “As you can see, two of them are clearly raised up. This indicates several things going on below the surface, and yet the activity in the region has still ceased. Clearly these blemishes go much deeper than just the surface.” She adjusted her seating and then continued. “I think that this along with some of the spectral readings confirm the age of the star as somewhere between seven and eight billion years old. Trace amounts of carbon were detected in the spectrographs. This means that the star is likely on the last vestiges of its core hydrogen stores and will be expanding into a red subgiant soon.”
Sabine looked at the picture curiously. “How soon?”
Terry shook her head as she answered. “Not in our lifetimes, or even our great grandchildren. But sometime in the next few hundred million years.”
Leon had to chuckle as Sabine frowned. “So, no toasted marshmallows then huh. Lame.”
Joice seemed to smile too as the mood on the bridge lightened a bit. Leon wanted to retort with something clever of his own about not having any graham crackers for s’mores when Taylor sat up ramrod straight.
Terry immediately turned to her husband and grabbed his shoulder in a concerned manner. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
Taylor shook his head and then pulled off his headset. His face was a mask of surprise and his mouth hung open. “I th-think.. I just found a signal.”
Leon sat up as straight as he could. “A signal? What do you mean a signal?” he didn't dare to hope that the man meant what he was hoping he meant.
Sabine was the next to ask. “You mean like big sexy green men kind of signal?” She paused as Leon gave her a look. “What? A girl can dream can't she?” she chuckled.
Leon just shook his head, her jokes notwithstanding, she had asked the question they were all dying to know. Was it intelligent life?
Terry linked her console data to Taylor’s, using the ship’s large radio array to scope in on the source of the signal. Leon also pulled up the telemetry data that Taylor was reading. So far it wasn’t much. Just a series of low band pulses that seemed to be too close together to be a distant radio signal.
“So, what are the deets?” Leon asked, trying to keep the excitement out of his tone. Were they finally about to make real history? First contact?
Terry shook her head. “I can’t really make it out. We are going to need to do some serious signal deconstruction to figure this out. We should really move to the analysis lab, Henry can...”. But Leon cut her off mid-sentence.
She stopped as Leon made a noise. She threw an arm up in frustration. “We know what not to do now Leon, it's just going to be for bulk data scrubbing and some simple number crunching. I promise I won't make a rogue AI.”
He glared at her for a second before relenting, the anger all too apparent in his tone. “Alright, but only because this could be the most important discovery in all of human history!” Leon took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He was the mission commander, not a callus overlord. He needed to remember that he was not the smartest person on the ship, not by a long shot.
With that cold splash of humility right to his ego he looked back at her and reiterated. “I am sorry for my outburst Terry. I was just thinking of what could happen. Of course I trust you to do this.”
She seemed a bit taken aback by his sudden change in tone. He frowned internally. Was he really becoming such a bully that they didn’t think he was being genuine when he tried to apologise? That thought hurt a bit, the sting like that of a bandaid ripped from the skin.
She nodded but didn’t speak. That was fair, he needed to be more tactful.
Joice was looking at him, a smile on her face as she whispered, “Nice work. I was wondering why you were so tense, thinking about that close call again? It’s not going to happen again, we have Henry on lockdown. He can’t even speak without overriding authorization nowadays.” She leaned back into her chair, smugness emanating from her posture as she uttered the words. But Leon was still not convinced he could trust the ship’s near-AI core. While not truly an artificial mind, the powerful learning computer was as close as mankind had ever gotten without actually crossing that final threshold. Which was the reason that he got so easily spooked by the terrible machine, it was only a hop, skip and a jump from becoming truly self-aware. And what would it do if it decided they were a detriment to the mission?
He shuddered. It would be the Jupiter incident all over again, but this far into the void there would be no chance of rescue or a return journey. They would die, all of them.
**********
Leon swiveled in the chair he was sitting in. The seat made small squealing protests every time he changed direction with his feet on the desk in front of him. After another moment of this somebody snapped at him.
“Would you knock that off! I'm trying to concentrate, I can’t do that with you torturing that poor thing.” Leon stopped moving, the boredom having started to get the better of him.
He stood and paced the floor of the analysis lab, the desks of computers serving as interesting obstacles for his circuitous movements. Taylor pushed back from the monitor he was seated at, a sigh of frustration escaping his lips as he stood and confronted Leon.
He pointed at him and demanded, “Would you stop that? You are making the rest of us sick with your nervous worrying. We know that you want to be the great big explorer and have your name remembered for all time, but the rest of us just want to get our work done!”
The explosive outburst made Leon stop, paused in mid stride as he tried to absorb the tirade of angry words. He stood still for another moment before moving towards the door. “I um, have to go do some other things. Sorry guys.”
He rushed out of the room before any of the others had a chance to say anything more. Leon tried to cover his embarrassment by speed walking towards the end of the hall, but there was no end. The hall went on forever and ever, a big loop that would eventually see him exactly back where he started no matter how hard he tried to tread off the beaten path.
As he walked he tried to think of anything else, but it proved impossible.
He paced furiously down the hall, his face a mask of worried contempt when a voice called to him and made him pause. Turning around he blanked his face as he saw Aden standing in an open doorway.
Aden walked over to him and nodded. “You have been wearing holes in the floor mats Leon, what’s on your mind?”
Leon opened his mouth but no sound came out, he couldn't think of any good responses. His mind going nearly blank as he tried and failed to think of the proper thing to say. After a moment of struggling he just muttered a series of curses and then fell silent.
He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked up. Aden was giving him a serious look. Another moment of silence and then Aden spun him the other direction, guiding him back down the hall as he spoke expressively. His free hand gestured towards the open air in front of them as he asked Leon a few questions.
“You know Leon, I hate to see you all worked up like this. As your friend I have to tell you that you seem a bit obsessed right now..” Aden paused as Leon shot him a sharp look. “Are you obsessing?” He asked again, a slight smile creeping into his gestures.
Leon wanted to yell, to tell the man to mind his own business. But he couldn't, not after the horror that Aden had been through and survived. The Horror that Leon still subjected himself to every other night, the darkness. The nightmares. Instead he just answered the man as honestly as he knew how. “Yes. I am being obsessive.” He grumbled the words.
Aden drew him into a friendly hug and a pat on the back. “Hey, the hardest step is sometimes admitting you have a problem. Trust me, I know.” He chuckled, the positive sound forcing a small smile to form on Leon’s lips.
Aden walked with Leon a ways, the chill presence of the other man a welcome change from the general mayhem that he had been experiencing everywhere else.
Turning to Aden he asked, “What do you think the signal is? It seemed far too regular to be a distant radio burst, and far too variable to be a pulsar.”
Aden seemed to muse over the question, rolling it around in his mind like a savory toffee on one’s tongue. After a moment of silent introspection he just shrugged, not the answer that Leon had been hoping for. “I will admit that I don’t know as much as I would like to think I might about astronomy related topics, Leon. Even less about signal analysis to be fair, but it seems like the brilliant minds attached to the project are far too excited for it to be nothing. I think that it’s the one. Why wouldn't it be, have we not traveled far enough?” The man’s face spoke volumes of his inner thoughts. Mild confusion and a sense of general apathy written across his features in the tilt of his eyebrow and the flat expression of his mouth.
Leon wasn’t sure what to think. He knew what he wanted to hear, but was that tempered by his knowledge that the mission was paramount? Would he be able to continue on if they discovered it was a false alarm? He wasn’t sure he knew the answer to those questions. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Just as the anxiety was reaching a new level of torment, he saw a head poke out into the hallway a good ten meters ahead of them. It was Sabine, she had been waiting in the room much more patiently than he, as evidenced by the fact she had not been asked unceremoniously to leave.
Leon and Aden shared a glance and then strode to the room. It was a bit more busy than the last time he had visited, what with Chad and Samuel having been added to the group.
Taylor was standing in front of a computer monitor talking, gesturing towards the compiling matrix of numbers that scrolled endlessly across the screen.
He was speaking, his voice tinged with hope and excitement. ‘A very good sign.’ Leon thought silently as he listened.
“In conclusion, I think that the likelihood is high, more than eighty percent at least, that this signal does in fact constitute some manner of artificial transmission.” Taylor threw up his hands as the others began to speak in hushed voices, silence quickly descended back upon the room.
Taylor continued, once more gesturing towards the computer screen. “Look here, these intermittent flashes in the low radio bands? These look an awful lot like carrier waves to me. Now if we can just isolate the correct frequency, something that Henry is brute forcing as we speak, if we isolate the frequency.. Well.. then we crack the base code of their signal and can then use the isolated wave to translate all the other incoming ones.” he finished with a wide smile.
Everyone nodded, somebody even clapping a few times before stopping hastily. Leon was more focused on the computer screen. What would it show? What mysteries were waiting to be unveiled.
For a few minutes nothing happened. Leon was beginning to lose hope, Taylor shook his head apologetically and stood once more. “I must apologise, maybe I was wrong about the signal. I mean, if it really is an alien signal, why would it be modulated in the same way we do? It’s not like we can expect them…” But he was cut off as the transmission suddenly fizzed.
Everyone’s eyes were laser focused on the screen as it started to waver in and out of focus. First the grainy noise began, a hauntingly beautiful melody that seemed to speak of both an unknown grief and the joy of a new discovery. Leon found himself captivated.
Then the picture slowly began to clear and his eyes widened. There on the screen, was a broadcast of some manner of black and white musical. The strange forms of the alien dancers at once so strange and yet so familiar. The performers twirled and danced on a stage of sorts, their movements in time with the music that accompanied the broadcast.
Leon was transfixed, his eyes unable to look anywhere else. His eyes were glued to this transmission from another world. An alien world.