The Beacon

Hard Science Fiction

Brandon Q. Morris

Contents

The Beacon

Author's Note

Resolution

Also by Brandon Q. Morris

A Guided Tour of Multi-Messenger Astronomy

Glossary of Acronyms

Metric to English Conversions

Excerpt: Helium-3 – Fight for the Future

The Beacon

February 20, 2026 – Passau

Saturn floated before his eyes in the blackness of space. The rings cast distinct shadows. The image trembled slightly. Peter held his breath, as if it were that simple to calm the planet’s shimmer. But it was already almost perfect—the image’s disturbance caused by the air movement in the atmosphere was amazingly low today. Or was it because of the new ADC? The device he’d screwed onto the telescope’s eyepiece seemed to work wonders. Why hadn’t he listened to Mark sooner? Because he’d already guessed how Franziska would react to the 200 euros missing from their joint account.

He pushed one of the ADC’s two levers half a millimeter forward. The device’s two prisms changed their relative positions a tiny bit, and Saturn trembled a little bit less. Later, when he superimposed the many individual images he was now taking, they would combine into a fantastic snapshot.

“Peter, will you come here?” his wife Franziska called out, using her ‘don’t leave me alone so long’ voice. She probably wanted him to switch the TV channel for her, or to fetch a spoon from the kitchen. Alexa, the household robot, supposedly didn’t listen to her.

He looked at his watch and realized it was already close to 11 p.m. Saturn was sinking toward the horizon, and he wanted to get Neptune in the eyepiece as well! The two planets had their closest apparent approach tonight, a conjunction that would not repeat itself for many years.

Peter sighed, which didn’t solve anything. If he didn’t go inside now, he’d have to listen to her lecture him for the rest of the evening. He rubbed his hands together. It was too cold to stay in the garden all night, and that would be the only way to escape the sermon.

Peter covered the lens, walked around the telescope, and tripped over the third leg of the tripod, which was extended forward. “Shit!” he shouted.

The telescope wobbled, and he was just barely able to grab hold and stabilize it. He hated to imagine if it had fallen over and landed on the hard slabs of the garden path! But even so, it was a big bummer. Getting it back in proper alignment would take him some time, time that was very precious right now. He made sure that the tripod was still stable and ran into the house.

* * *

It took him three seconds to switch the TV to her preferred channel. All he had to do was press the button twice, which he’d shown Franziska so many times but which she always forgot. She thanked him along with a grateful look, and he couldn’t blame her for asking his help. His wife was at war with technology.

He quickly put his shoes back on, wrapped his scarf around his neck, and ran back outside. As he left the front door, the light automatically switched on. He used the brightness to check that the telescope was standing securely. The outdoor light turned off after two minutes. He removed the lens cap, rubbed his hands, and stomped his feet so he wouldn’t feel the cold so quickly. Looking through the eyepiece was pointless until his eyes readapted.

In the meantime, Peter looked into the sky, trying to identify a few constellations with his naked eye. Saturn and Neptune met in the constellation Aries. The famous curved line formed by Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis was easy to find. They represented the head of Aries with the horns. He found the ringed planet in it as a bright star. There was no trace of Neptune, and finding that planet now would be a miracle.

Three minutes passed. Peter imagined the light-sensitive rods in his retina busily accumulating rhodopsin, the visual pigment they needed to trigger light stimuli. Unfortunately, the adaptation to darkness took much longer than the adjustment to light. Wasn’t that somehow typical of this world? Franziska would undoubtedly disagree with him. She was a merciless optimist. “It’s great that you can enjoy the light, the good, right away,” she would say.

But he liked the darkness better, even if it made him wait. He had always been that way. As a child, he would sometimes hide under a blanket during the day and read with the help of a flashlight because he found it so cozy. His mother would then scold him for ruining his eyes. He still didn’t need glasses, even though he was over 50!

It was time for a try. He put his eye to the eyepiece. Maybe he’d be lucky and the telescope would have hardly moved. No such luck—he couldn’t identify the stars he was seeing, which was more to be expected. Fortunately, Saturn was so easy to spot that he could align the telescope manually.

He worked his way up slowly. Ha! There you are again, he thought. The viewing conditions had grown worse. He readjusted the ADC, but he couldn’t get the image as stable as he’d had it just a few minutes ago. No matter. It wasn’t about Saturn alone now. He very slowly adjusted the scope until the ringed planet moved to the edge of the field of view. His new target was north by 55 arc minutes, or just under 1 degree.

Where was Neptune? The eighth and outermost planet of the solar system must be close by. Peter systematically scanned through the field of view, and with each pass, another new faint star caught his eye. Thank you, rhodopsin. His eye had been adapting for 20 minutes now, but his vision was still not optimal. Fortunately, he possessed what Franziska lacked—patience. Without patience, astronomy would probably never have become his hobby.

He had been awaiting these optimal conditions! Saturn and Neptune had already had a rendezvous last year in June, but at that time the sky had been cloudy for two weeks. He had even considered taking his telescope somewhere else—if the weather forecast at home had been as bad this time, he would have looked for a better observing site, because Saturn and Neptune would not be converging again for a number of years.

He liked the meadow behind the house. They lived on the edge of town, so sometimes the eastern horizon was a bit too bright. If he set up the telescope far enough away from the house entrance, even the occasional switching on of the lights didn’t bother him much. The neighbors had gotten used to seeing him puttering around on the lawn at night. When he had first set up the telescope, the neighbors in the house on the northern edge of the meadow had kept all their blinds down, but now no one thought of him as a voyeur.

In a sense, however, he was indeed a voyeur—of the stars. It was great to pull away the curtain that normally hid most of the stars and the details of the planets. With his naked eye, he saw Mars, Venus, etc., only as if they were bright stars, and many of the stars escaped him entirely. The telescope revealed what the darkness and distance hid.

The best part, however, was stacking—the joining of many individual shots. Just as in the days when photographers used to have to take their negatives into a darkroom, only then to be amazed at the success of their photographic efforts, the stacking procedure—done later on the computer—revealed to him the true representation of the planets or galaxies. Each photo contributed a few details to the final compilation, which often made it appear as if an expensive space telescope had been employed.

But there would be time for that later. He had to track down Neptune now so that he could photograph ‘him’ again and again like a supermodel.

There! That washed-out spot hadn’t shown up earlier. He hadn’t changed the field of view, so he had to have missed it. Peter compared the coordinates and deemed it must be Neptune. The tiny spot is shaking badly, he thought. He tried to correct the image with the ADC, but had no success. Due to Franziska’s request, he had lost half an hour during which Neptune was approaching the horizon. The lower an object was above the horizon, the longer the path of its light through the Earth’s atmosphere, and the stronger the trembling fluctuations.

No matter. He’d found Neptune. The spot was now so clear to his eyes that he was guaranteed not to lose sight of it. Hurray for the rod cells! Should he try to get some camera shots? No, he decided, it’s not worth it. He already had Neptune in his sights despite the poorer clarity. Peter zoomed out a bit to get Saturn in the field of view as well. The result was not impressive. Six years ago, at the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, the effort had been worthwhile, but at that time, the two gas giants had come within six minutes of arc of each other.

Peter took a few photos where Neptune and Saturn could both be seen, only as confirmation that he’d experienced this moment, that he was a witness. The pictures would not even impress a layperson. Then he lost motivation. It was noticeably cold after all, and the frigid air was making his nose run.

But it would be a pity to stop. The conditions were perfect—no moonlight, and the city was almost dark. Should he try IC 342? It would be one of the brightest galaxies in the sky were it not obscured by the dust veils of the Milky Way’s equator. He’d tried to track it down in the past, but had failed because of the moon. IC 342 was in the Camelopardalis (Giraffe) constellation, and there were so many bright stars around it that Peter couldn’t find his way there. But he had his app on his cell phone. He didn’t dare turn on the screen because it would spoil his visual acuity, so he used voice control.

“Alexa, track IC 342.”

“I’m tracking IC 342,” a female voice answered from the smartphone.

The telescope’s motors hummed, and the heavy tube moved as if by magic. In the eyepiece, stars flew through the image. Then the telescope stopped.

Peter looked through the eyepiece. That should be IC 342... What? The motors were still twitching and the telescope still moved jerkily. The tracking seemed to be unfinished. Had the cold damaged the motors? He sure hoped not! Replacing them could be expensive, and Franziska would not be pleased.

“Tracking canceled,” the smartphone reported.

Peter was relieved. If it were the motors, the system would have reported damage. But this time, it was just the program’s fault. Sometimes the software got itself into a dead end. Then it helped to adjust the telescope manually and restart the tracking. All right. Peter moved the telescope toward Polaris. That was always a good starting point.

“Alexa, track IC 342.”

“I’m tracking IC 342.”

Again the telescope moved, and again it stalled after a while.

“Tracking canceled.”

Peter tried one last time. This time he aligned the telescope manually to the center of the Milky Way, thinking maybe another starting point would help.

“Alexa, track IC 342.”

“I’m tracking IC 342.”

The motors set the telescope in motion. But after a short time, it seemed, they quit trying again. The telescope moved jerkily, and finally stopped altogether.

“Tracking canceled.”

All right. It was time to wind down for today. Peter reassured himself that it was not his expensive telescope. The software problem should be fixable. As he walked toward the house with the heavy telescope in his arms, the light came on in their second-floor bedroom. He had to hurry. Franziska didn’t like it when he got to bed too late.

February 21, 2026 – Passau

The door slammed shut. Peter had been angry that Franziska had arranged to meet a friend today, but... now he could devote his Saturday afternoon to troubleshooting. Surely it couldn’t be that the app failed during tracking, of all things? He switched on the telescope and put it in simulation mode. It would simply execute the control app’s commands and pretend to find the constellations in the sky where the program expected them to be.

The telescope was wirelessly connected to their home network, so he could simply speak his commands. The device’s microphone captured them and forwarded them to the Alexa AI.

“Alexa, track IC 342,” he commanded.

“I’m tracking IC 342,” she replied.

The telescope woke up. He pushed the tripod a little away from the wall so that the telescope would have a clear path in all directions. The tube moved first to the right, then upward. The direction was now approximately correct. Yesterday, this was the moment when the motors had started to jerk. This time, too, they slowed down, but they didn’t stop. The telescope approached the target in mini-steps.

“IC 342 reached,” Alexa said.

Peter checked the result on the app’s screen. A barred spiral galaxy appeared, a beautiful specimen, too beautiful to be real. The telescope generated the data itself in simulation mode, matching the time of day and geographic position. After all, it was not the first time someone had looked at the sky.

The thought that someone else had already discovered everything there was to see frustrated Peter to the point where he needed to suppress it. Franziska couldn’t understand that. She preferred to look at the sky in simulation mode. That was how he had been able to convince her to let him buy the not-so-cheap instrument in the first place. She couldn’t understand why he would rather voluntarily freeze outside at night to look at a blurry version of the same celestial object that he could view much sharper and more colorfully in simulation.

All right, it was not a hardware problem. Peter knew it was possible that the telescope might have needed to make a particular movement while tracking IC 342, but then the motion had been obstructed by some debris in one of its joints. That always happened in his own joints whenever he bent down to tie his shoes. Unlike himself, the telescope was fairly new. Perhaps it had just been a temporary problem. It wasn’t uncommon that a computer refused to do what you told it to do, and eventually it came to its senses.

* * *

The problem had not let go of him by evening. It could not and must not be that the telescope refused to work, so he had to convince himself that yesterday was a slip-up. He was lucky, because another clear, cold night was forecast.

After dinner, he carried the telescope into the unheated foyer so that it could cool down slowly.

“What are you doing, darling?” Franziska asked.

He didn’t feel like explaining the details. “I have to check something on Saturn and Neptune today.”

“But the conjunction was yesterday, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re still pretty close today, too.”

“I thought we could get a little close today. I was about to run a bath, and then...”

He bent down, checked the joints of the tripod, and considered. It was a tempting offer. The night was long. Then later, when Franziska was asleep, he could still look for IC 342. He straightened up again.

“You’re right. I’ll keep you company in the bathroom.”

* * *

Franziska rode him. Peter moaned as the bed squeaked. All at once she rolled off to one side of him. He curled up behind her and took her in the spooning position until he came. Franziska continued to tease herself until she also reached orgasm.

Breathing heavily, they lay side by side on their backs. It was beautiful. He knew it, and so did his wife. They’d been married for almost 20 years now, soon after they’d met while teaching at the Albert Schweizer High School. “Math and physics teacher, with an art and music teacher, that can’t be good,” his colleagues said at the time. But his colleagues had been wrong. He and his wife were good at tolerating each other’s weaknesses, which was probably the main thing.

Franziska sat up and looked for the duvet that had fallen off the foot end of the bed. Peter stood up and got it for her, and she thanked him.

“Don’t you want to lie down again?” she asked with a yawn.

He shook his head. “I want to correct some more classwork.”

“You liar. You just want to cheat on me with your telescope.”

He shouldn’t have even tried to make up an excuse. That didn’t work with Franziska, and now she would hold it against him for two weeks.

“You’re right again,” he said. “I need to check something out there. The telescope was acting strangely last night.”

“Well, have fun in the cold. But do me a favor and sleep on the sofa. Otherwise I won’t be able to go back to sleep.”

“Sure thing, darling.”

“Suck-up.” Franziska laughed. Of course she liked it when he called her darling. She just couldn’t admit it.

“Good night,” he said.

He knelt on the bed, bent over, and kissed her on the mouth. As he did so, his gaze fell on her breasts. Franziska was still beautiful. Maybe he should stay in bed after all.

“Good night,” she said.

No, IC 342 would not give him a moment’s peace. He got up and left the bedroom, washed up in the downstairs bathroom, dried himself, and slipped back into his clothes.

* * *

He was carrying the telescope outside when the light in the bedroom went out, leaving him in the dark. An icy wind whistled through his clothes and made him grimace as he walked through the yard. Anyone who let a little cold stop him didn’t deserve to find the answers.

After setting up and adjusting the telescope out in the meadow, he left it and went to retrieve his gloves, hat, and scarf from the hallway. Before the sensor-activated light turned on again, he quickly closed his eyes. He knew the way well enough to grope his way inside and back out again.

Back at the telescope, he started tracking. He didn’t need to wait for his eyes to adapt. The saying, ‘the journey is the destination,’ was almost never true, but now it applied. The telescope’s tube turned briskly at first, then more and more slowly in the desired direction. Peter knew approximately where the galaxy should be, and the control app seemed to agree with him. Clever app, he thought.

But then the telescope stuttered again and abruptly stopped. Crap. The error yesterday had been no accident. He looked at the smartphone screen. Tracking worked via pattern recognition. The app used known star positions to analyze what the telescope was seeing, and then used that data to calculate which direction it needed to move the field of view. This was a pretty reliable mechanism.

Errors could occur temporarily if any unexpected objects interfered with the pattern recognition. However, the usual suspects, such as manmade Earth satellites, were already calculated by the program based on their known orbits. So the problem would have to be an unknown object that shone in roughly the same place yesterday as it was shining today. Did such a thing even exist? Peter looked through the telescope. His eyes had not completely adapted yet, and he could not recognize any special features.

He mirrored the telescope image onto the smartphone and analyzed it in a special program that knew all the star charts. It couldn’t find any additional celestial bodies, either—a pity, actually. He could have been lucky enough to find a new comet. He would have named it Franziska, which would please his wife.

A puzzle. He restarted the tracking, and this time, too, it got stuck just before the destination. Was the mechanism defective? He let the program search for NGC 1788, the ‘Cosmic Bat’ Nebula, located near the belt stars of Orion. The telescope obeyed the app’s commands, and finally it pointed to Orion’s belt. Peter looked in the eyepiece to confirm that NGC 1788 was actually in his sight.

“Alexa, track IC 342,” he said.

One last attempt. For a moment, it looked as if he would be successful, but then the telescope juddered to a halt again. But why? Maybe the solution to the riddle was in there. He pressed the shutter release, and the camera took a series of photographs of what the telescope was currently seeing.

* * *

Peter carried the instrument back into the hallway. His fingers felt frozen stiff, so he warmed them on the heater in the kitchen. He wondered if he should go to sleep, but he wasn’t tired, so he fetched his notebook computer from the study. From there, he accessed the telescope’s memory, retrieved the last images, and instructed the software to superimpose them.

The result was not recognizably different from the individual exposures—there was no object hiding in one shot that only became visible after he’d stacked several exposures. There was no unusual object whatsoever. Everything looked the same as it had looked for billions of years, when the youngest of the stars born in this section of the sky glowed.

It was a mystery. Fortunately, he was not the only amateur astronomer in the world. He registered in an online forum for like-minded people and posed his problem. The answers were not very helpful. Someone recommended that he have his telescope cleaned, another blamed it on the software, and a third suggested that he try a different target. So he sent an e-mail to the manufacturer of the tracking software. The answer came immediately. The hotline was taking a well-deserved break over the weekend, and they would contact him again on Monday.

Crap. He couldn’t get any further. Peter didn’t like going to bed with unresolved problems, but he had no choice at the moment. He stripped down to his underwear, lay down on the sofa, and pulled the blanket up to his chin.

February 22, 2026 – Passau

“Good morning, Peter,” Franziska greeted him.

She was always in such a good mood in the early morning that it was almost unbearable.

“Shit. Is it tomorrow already?” he mumbled, pulling the covers over his head.

“Look. It snowed!”

What? He straightened up with a jerk. He hoped he’d carried the telescope into the house!

“Did I?” he asked.

“Don’t worry. It’s in the hallway.”

Franziska had understood his question immediately, the beauty of such a long relationship. It would not have been the first time he’d forgotten his telescope outside. Peter wanted to lie down again, but a pain shot up his back. Not this, too?

“Oh, is it pinching again?” asked Franziska.

It must be obvious to her. Peter nodded.

“You should join me in my exercises. They’re good for back pain,” said his wife.

“They’re good at helping you.”

“They would help you, too. You’d just have to try it once.”

He waved it off. “Don’t bother. I don’t have the energy for that right now.”

Franziska sat down on the sofa and stroked his thigh. “What’s bothering you? You seem particularly grumpy this morning.”

Grumpy? Me? Impossible. “Nothing,” he said.

“Come on. There’s something going on.”

Franziska wouldn’t take no for an answer, so he might as well tell her. “On the telescope, the tracking no longer works, but it’s only for one, very specific target.”

“Ah, I can imagine how that would bug you. I’m sure you’ve already ruled out all possible sources of error.”

“You bet. It might actually just be another bug in the software.”

“A bug that only occurs on a specific target?”

“It’s not like I tested that many other targets.”

“How many have you tried?”

“Two.”

Actually, it had been only one other destination. But something told him the problem only occurred at IC 342.

“I see,” said Franziska.

“You’re right. I could try a few other targets,” he replied.

“But I didn’t say anything. Although, you’re probably right.”

“It’s just a feeling, but I’m sure it has to do with that particular target.” A feeling. In other circumstances, he would have made fun of it, but unfortunately he had nothing else to show right now.

“Tracking works through pattern recognition, right?” his wife asked.

“Exactly. But where it’s stuck, nothing has changed. It shouldn’t get stuck.”

“What do you mean, nothing has changed?”

“Nothing has been added. I was hoping that I might have found a new comet by chance. I’d even thought of a name.”

“Too bad. I would have been happy if a new comet had my name on it. Preferably a great comet that predicted lots of disaster for people. Later it would have been called ‘2026, the year Franziska announced death to humanity’, or something.”

“I guess that’s not going to work out.”

“Someday you’ll find a comet. I know you will. But the fact that nothing has been added is one thing. Pattern recognition might also fail if something is missing that should be there—or is that a stupid idea?”

Peter straightened up despite the pain in his back. “Of course, that would be a possibility! Thank you, Franziska. I’ll check right away to see if anything is missing from the telescope images.”

“Later. Now, we’ll have breakfast. The rolls are still warm.”

* * *

They usually went for a long walk following their Sunday breakfast. After three or four hours, they would stop for lunch at a pleasant inn. But Franziska had given him an idea that he would like to check out right away. He chewed on the rest of his roll but didn’t dare tell her.

“What do you say we meet at Rixinger’s at one o’clock?” asked Franziska suddenly.

The Rixinger was an inn with traditional German cuisine. In the summer, you could enjoy sitting outside under old chestnut trees. It was located in a neighboring village, about 20 kilometers as the crow flies.

“I, yes, that’s a great idea,” he replied.

“Then you can take your time trying to figure out why the tracking isn’t working.”

“Exactly. And you’re not mad?”

“No. I’m going for a ride on my bike. You can join me there by car. And for the tradeoff, I get the car for the way back.”

Peter smiled. On the way back, it was uphill almost all the way. That was why Franziska didn’t really like biking home from the Rixinger.

“Agreed. But what about the snow?” he asked.

“Just look at it. It’s not staying around. The sun is supposed to come out later, too, my weather app said.”

* * *

“See you!” called Franziska from the hallway.

“Have a good trip!”

“And don’t forget, you have to leave at twenty minutes before one. The Rixinger closes its kitchen at half past one!”

Yes, that was typical for these village inns, and his mouth was watering for a schnitzel. Peter winced when the door slammed shut, but it meant he was alone. He rolled his office chair closer to the desk, pushed the pile of classwork aside, and flipped open the notebook.

What was the best way for him to verify the tracking algorithm? He brought up the last image he had taken with his telescope, which should show the area where the algorithm failed. At first glance, there was nothing special to notice. So he needed comparison material.

Peter moved his chair a little closer to the desk. Franziska would scold him for sitting too close to the screen, but he didn’t need glasses this way. He started a program that could retrieve star charts from all available databases. He always enjoyed his program icon, a stylized sun with many rays, displayed when he switched through the running programs.

He switched to the image server of ESO, the European Southern Observatory. The program asked him for the galactic coordinates and the size of the desired image section, data which he had to look up in the telescope’s tracking app. He entered the data and clicked on ‘Download,’ and shortly thereafter, an orange image full of stars appeared in the program window. To be able to compare better, he switched to a grayscale display.

Good. Now he had the photo from his telescope on the screen on the left, and on the right he could see what the expensive instrument of the European Southern Observatory had observed in the sky in the same region at some other time. The area contained thousands of stars. When Peter squinted, he could see at least ten times as many stars on the right as on the left. He let the program lay a coordinate grid over it and immediately noticed the first problem, that the image coming out of his telescope was oriented differently. He rotated it by about 30 degrees, and it matched better.

But there were still far too many stars in the ESO photo. In the image viewer, he switched from the preset logarithmic to a linear scale. The faintest stars, which his hobby telescope could not see, faded into the background. Much better! Now he only needed to systematically search through both images. He arranged them side by side on the screen. His eyes wandered from left to right, left to right, again and again, but this soon became exhausting. His head ached after barely five minutes. Surely there had to be a better way?

As Peter moved a little away from his desk, his gaze fell on the class assignments. Sometimes he evaluated them with the help of a stencil. What if he made himself a star stencil? First he adjusted the scale of the two pictures more precisely. Then he increased the contrast in the photo from his telescope. The stars became even brighter, while the background turned black.

He got a foil from his office cabinet, put it in the printer, and printed the picture on the foil. The stencil was translucent wherever there was a bright star in the image. He put it over the screen but couldn’t see anything. Sure, if a black spot shines through, he couldn’t see it. He changed the color representation of the ESO data to redscale. Much better.

But again, nothing stood out. He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. Of course! He’d done it the wrong way around. He had to print out the ESO image and put it over his photo. Peter got a second transparency. In the long run, this procedure could be expensive. He took the still warm, freshly printed foil from the collecting tray and put it over the screen. Stop. First he had to display his telephoto on the screen. He switched it to red tones. Next attempt. He pressed the foil against the screen and examined the result.

Aha! There was a dark red circle at the bottom right. He noted the spot and took off the transparency. On the printout, there was a star here. The image of his telescope, however, showed only the dark red background. Empty. The algorithm must have failed at this point. He worked his way from star to star until the missing star blocked it.

But this made him only partly happy. He’d found out why his expensive telescope wouldn’t display IC 342... but, what had happened to the damned star that was supposed to guide the algorithm there? After all, the ESO catalog still showed it quite clearly. Stars don’t just disappear, they gasp out their lives in gigantic explosions. This would have been visible in the picture. It was a pity. Even with a supernova discovery, his name would have been entered in the databases.

The most probable cause for a star not being visible was an occultation. Something dark must have found its way in front of the star. If that something were near the Earth, it would not have to be too large. Very few known objects, including asteroids or comets, could obscure the star from Earth’s perspective, but if such an object did, it couldn’t repeat such an occultation for two days in a row.

He had to ask someone who knew more about it than he did. But to do that, he’d have to know which star he had lost. Objects were labeled in the ESO image. He read the coordinates from the image and called up the SIMBAD server’s website for a coordinate search. To be on the safe side, he allowed a radius of one arc minute just in case his telescope was somehow slightly out of alignment.

The result appeared after seconds. ‘Sig Dra’ appeared on the screen, so he had Sigma Draconis in front of him, which was in the Draco (Dragon) constellation. That made sense. The constellation was north of Camelopardalis, where IC 342 was located. If the tracking algorithm wanted to reliably maneuver to IC 342, Sigma Draconis was a good intermediate point. Or at least it was when it was shining.

But it didn’t look like a candidate for a supernova. Peter checked out the dates. Sigma Draconis had been known by the official name Alsafi for ten years. It belonged to spectral class G9 V, which made it quite similar to the sun. However, it had only three-quarters of the sun’s radius and 85 percent of its mass, and its luminosity was only 41 percent of the luminosity of our home star. It appeared bright in the sky because it was only about 19 light-years away from Earth. With an age of about 3 billion years, Alsafi was relatively young. Since it burned less hotly than the sun, it should have a much longer life. To stop shining all of a sudden was utterly impossible. That would mean the sun might also no longer be reliable.

Peter leaned back, and his gaze fell on the clock. The time had passed so quickly! He had to leave in 15 minutes. Franziska was always punctual and didn’t like to be kept waiting. What was he going to do with his lost star? Should he just wait and see if it showed up again tomorrow? That, he thought, was just as unlikely as the disappearance. It would also be very annoying. No one would believe him that Sigma Draconis was just plain absent from the sky for two days. If, on the other hand, this star from the immediate neighborhood remained missing for a long time, that would be an exciting discovery.

He had 12 minutes left. Who could he tell about his discovery? If he approached a research institute with his observations, they would ignore him. He was only a math and physics teacher, and not even a member of an astronomy club. Journals were piled up on the large shelf of his desk. He still preferred to read some things on paper rather than on the net.

At the top was the latest issue of SPACE, issue 1/2026. He took the magazine and opened it. Its smell of printer’s ink was so good, and when he stroked the glossy paper, it felt completely different than on a screen. He flipped to the center of the issue. There, on four pages, experts answered readers’ questions. Peter imagined that journalists knew researchers from every field and could present them with interesting questions. A researcher would not simply ignore such a question. After all, that person’s name would then appear under the article.

Peter turned to the last page. The editorial office accepted questions at the e-mail address space@emedia.de. He had seven minutes left to formulate a message. He quickly switched to his e-mail program, started a new message, and entered the address and subject line.

“Question about a disappeared star.”

No, that sounded too crazy. He was sure the editorial team got suspicious-looking messages, too.

“Question about Sigma Draconis.”

Hmm, that was perhaps too specific. He wondered if the editors would answer if his question was not interesting for all the other readers. He’d rather not take any risks.

“Can stars like the sun just go out?”

That was a suitable way to put it. As a reader, it would convince him to read the corresponding answer. He looked at the clock. Four minutes to go. He must not take too much time for the rest of the message.

“Dear Editor,” he wrote. “I tried to observe Sigma Draconis in the telescope yesterday. With an apparent magnitude of 4.67 mag, it should be easy to locate.”

Too many details. He deleted everything except the salutation.

“Can stars that haven’t reached the end of their life cycle, main sequence stars like the sun or Sigma Draconis, just disappear? I am not talking about a supernova. I know that does not occur in a single star of this size. No, I’m wondering if such a star could just collapse on itself without us noticing anything from a great distance. I would be very glad for an answer. Best regards, Peter J. Kraemer.”

The spell checker turned the ‘ae’ into an ‘ä.’ He corrected the error. How many times had he tried to get such idiosyncrasies out of his computer?

‘Send.’

He leaned back. Now he felt better. He didn’t have an answer yet, but he felt he had set something in motion.

12 33 44,55 +41 21 26,9

Sbe jr ner bayl gur furyy naq gur yrns: gur terng qrngu gung rirelbar unf jvguva gurz, gung vf gur sehvg nebhaq juvpu rirelguvat eribyirf.

February 23, 2026 – Passau

The answer from the editor reached him much sooner than he’d expected. He had to turn to the stack of class test papers. He had promised the 10th-grade B-section students that he would announce their grades tomorrow. They’d already written the work before the winter break.

But the ‘pling’ was clear. He had a new message from an unknown sender in his spam-protected inbox. That could only have come from SPACE. At least that was what his gut told him. It was better to find out right away than to be distracted the whole time he was grading the classwork.

It was undoubtedly, at the very least, an acknowledgment of receipt. The editorial department had more to do than answer curious high school teachers. Peter pushed the stack of papers aside and opened the notebook. The e-mail jumped out at him.

“Re: Can stars like the sun just go out?”

The sender was Wolfgang Koser, editor-in-chief of the magazine.

“Dear Mr. Krämer,” he wrote.

Peter didn’t hold it against people when they misspelled his last name. It was usually just a case of the spell checker doing its thing.

“You’ve asked a fascinating question there. In fact, a few years ago, astronomers noticed discrepancies between images of the sky taken twenty years or more apart. At the time, it looked very much as if stars had simply disappeared, and as you write, main sequence stars that had a few billion years left to go. However, after a multiple, thorough analysis, there remained no losses in the end that could not be explained in a natural way. My colleague, Matthias Matting, wrote a four-page article about this two years ago. It appeared in issue 1/2024. According to my information, you have been a subscriber for some time. However, I am attaching a copy of the article for you. Then you don’t have to search your archives. With best regards, Wolfgang Koser.”

Peter nodded to himself. A nice man, this editor-in-chief. He had indeed subscribed to the magazine for a long time. But the fact that Koser had attached the relevant article directly to his reply... very customer-friendly. He reached to close the lid of his notebook. But, since this editor-in-chief had answered so quickly, he should at least thank him for it. That was the way it should be. He formulated a short e-mail praising the magazine and sent it off.

Unfortunately, the pile of classwork had not become smaller in the meantime. But the man from SPACE had been so quick to send him the article. Wouldn’t it be rude to wait to read it tomorrow? Absolutely. Peter took a deep breath and opened the attachment.

The headline read, ‘The Vanished Stars.’

The text was illustrated with old photo plates and an artistic representation of a star. It was certainly not so easy to show something that was no longer supposed to be there. The text referred mainly to works by a team from Stockholm University, published in 2016, 2019, and 2023. A woman named Beatriz Villarroel always served as the lead author. The researchers compared sky photos from the 1950s and 1960s with more recent images. At first they found only one star that was still present in 1950 but had disappeared in 1992. However, several explanations for this came into consideration, which was why they repeated their search in much more extensive star catalogs. This time, 100 objects from the old catalogs were missing from the latest images. But the international research community was not impressed.

Namely, the vanished stars had been slightly redder than average. Red dwarfs often tended to become suddenly active and emit flares, and if you photographed them just at that moment, they could appear to be gone the next. The comparison Matting, the author of the article, brought to this made sense to Peter: If you photograph a distant flashlight at night, and then its owner turns it off and you take a new photo, that is not proof that the flashlight has disappeared. It is possible it is just no longer bright enough to appear in the latter image.

An exciting article. Peter closed the notebook and pushed it away. He felt sorry for the astronomers around Villarroel. It must have been a lot of work to match all those photo plates, only to find nothing in the end. The only problem was that it had nothing to do with his case. Sigma Draconis was not a red dwarf. It was a sun-like, yellow-orange glowing star that, at three billion years old was, also like the sun, still a main-sequence star. It showed changes in brightness due to sunspots, but it could not be turned on and off like a flashlight. Astronomers would also notice any red dwarf located at a distance of almost 20 light-years.

Peter sighed and reached for the stack of papers. He had class tomorrow during the first period, and still had to prepare something. It was better for him to focus on his job now. But somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that Villarroel and her colleagues had been looking in the wrong place. Maybe he’d have more success?

February 25, 2026 – Passau

Two dreary nights were behind him. Franziska had kept looking longingly at her weather app—when he couldn’t look at the stars, his mood was always a few degrees cooler than usual. Of course, his wife noticed this too, and then she took extra good care of him, which he couldn’t stand at all when he was in such a mood.

All the better that clear weather was on tap for tonight. Today was Wednesday, which meant he didn’t have to go to school until third period tomorrow. So he could stare up at the night sky as long as he wanted, or rather, as long as he could stand the cold. Earlier, the thermometer at the bathroom window read minus two degrees, but the temperature was sure to drop. He took some chemical hand warmers with him just to be on the safe side.

This time he’d put a folding chair in front of his telescope. He had also grabbed his daughter’s music stand, which she had left behind when she moved out a few years ago. It was crazy how time seemed to fly. He didn’t even remember what year that was. Now the music stand held the list he wanted to work from. He had replaced the lamp at the top of the rack with a red light so that he could read the text without sacrificing his visual adaptation.

He didn’t have to look through the eyepiece because the tracking algorithm was supposed to do the work for him. Peter had gone to Wikipedia and selected a list of the nearest stars. First he deleted all red dwarfs, because they could deceive him with flares, and lie about their actual brightnesses. Then he deleted all giant stars, because they could have actually reached the ends of their lives.

No, he wanted only quite ordinary, unremarkable stars, to which nothing happened under any circumstances. If a specimen from this category disappeared, no astronomer could persuade him that it was a natural process. Then there must be more behind it—not necessarily extraterrestrials, but at least something that science had yet to discover.

However, the list had shrunk alarmingly after the deletion of the red dwarfs. He’d never realized that the sun was mainly surrounded by such dull twinklers. Nothing of this is noticeable in the night sky, because even a red dwarf appears as a bright point. That was why he used a second program, which gave him 100,000 stars from the immediate vicinity of the sun. From this a few thousand remained, because from his meadow he could observe only those stars that appeared in the northern winter sky. That had more than halved the list, again.

Nevertheless, it could not be worked through in one evening. Peter expected it to take up to two weeks, depending on the weather. He wanted to get something out of it, too. When the telescope reached a star, he wanted to look at it and take pictures.

His smartphone buzzed when the tracking arrived at the first star: Gliese 796 in the constellation of Capricorn, also called HD 196761. The star had not yet been given a proper name. In the telescope, it appeared as a bright dot.

Peter was nevertheless impressed because he imagined the distance the light had traveled to reach his eye. It had taken 47 years, so he’d only been five years old when the photon he was observing started its journey from the surface of Gliese 796. Before that, it had struggled through the star for many thousands of years, being absorbed and emitted over and over again until, at last, it gained its freedom. Now it had accomplished its task by changing the structure of a rhodopsin molecule in his eye in such a way that it had ultimately caused a signal cascade into his brain.

He crossed off Gliese 796 from his list.

February 26, 2026 – Passau

“You want to go out there again tonight?” Franziska asked with her skeptical expression.

Peter’s conscience awoke and he immediately felt guilty. But the weather was perfectly right, a stable area of high pressure, they’d said. But who knew how long it would remain stable at these latitudes?

“I’m sure the viewing will be perfect tonight,” he said. “I’ve got this list to work off.” He waved the pages.

“You also have a wife who might be feeling as if she’s being neglected.”

She was still formulating in the subjunctive. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

“Tomorrow we’ll go to the movies, okay?” he offered. “There’s supposed to be a great Latin American flick playing at the Studio, I saw in The Weekly.”

Franziska liked films with intellectual pretensions, and especially those that came from the Spanish-speaking world. “It’s bribery,” she replied. “But bribery works for me. You know that.”

“I’m glad.”

“I just wish you would have let me know sooner. Then I would have arranged a date with Barbara today.”

“Sorry. After all, we didn’t see each other this morning. And then—”

“You have a phone, Peter. You’re holding it in your hand. It can be useful, not only to control telescopes remotely, but also for communicating.”

Her tone was sharper than her words. She must be more upset than she admitted. Or was she jealous of his telescope?

“You’re right. I’ll remember that next time. Speaking of the phone, haven’t you been meaning to call your friend in Hanover? Biggi, I think?”

“Nice try, my dear. Now get out of here. I have a phone call to make... to Biggi.”

* * *

He’d already reached the second page, and things were progressing quickly, mainly because he was looking through the eyepiece less and less frequently... When the tracking algorithm issued a success message, that was enough for him to tick off the star. Only particularly interesting specimens were not to be skipped.

He was presently on the star HD 149026, which also carried the strange name of Ogma—supposedly a Celtic deity. Ogma had only landed on his list because the star was much bigger and brighter than the sun and belonged to the yellow subgiants. It had a planet, Smertrios, named after a Gallic god of war.

Of course, none of this detail could be seen in his telescope. After all, Ogma was 250 light-years away from Earth. No terrestrial telescope in existence was capable of directly imaging planets at such a distance. But Peter had enough imagination. Smertrios circled its star in a very tight orbit that took only three days to complete. He imagined a Saturn that would be comparable in size but without rings, which could not survive in such a scenario. Smertrios would have to be heated up enormously by its star. Lots of heat meant lots of energy in the atmosphere and, therefore, lots of air movement. Sky watching must be terrible for an astronomically interested inhabitant of the planet.

But life had no chance there anyway. The planet seemed to completely swallow all radiation. Therefore it must look virtually black from nearby. The clouds of vanadium and titanium oxide, which heated up to over 2,300 degrees and were carried by an atmosphere of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, certainly would contribute to this. It must be a truly hellish world. A real pity that he would never have a chance to see it with his own eyes.

He accidentally bumped the telescope with his elbow, and HD 149026 bounced out of view. Time to check the star off the list, anyway, and look for the next one.

* * *

The light in the bedroom had been off for a while. Franziska had gone to bed without wishing him good night—a bad sign. Biggi had probably convinced her that he didn’t care enough about her. Biggi didn’t like him, and he didn’t like her. It had been that way since they were all in college. She had advised Franziska not to meet him. He studies math. He can only be boring. Biggi, who had studied art and music just like Franziska, then got together with a ‘hot’ gym teacher who later dumped her with two-year-old twin girls. Now she probably didn’t begrudge someone having a happy relationship without the need for constant excitement.

Peter started tracking the next star. Alpha Fornacis, about 46 light-years away, was a binary star system. If it suddenly disappeared, he would need a whole new theory for the mechanism behind it, because what could conjure away two stars at once? The system was quite low above the horizon, but the telescope captured it quickly. However, the instrument failed to separate the two binary objects. Alpha Fornacis A had gone through an exciting encounter when, 350,000 years ago, it came within 0.26 light-years of the white dwarf Nu Horologii. Whoever lived in the orbit of Alpha Fornacis must have experienced true comet showers at the time. For Earth, such an encounter would probably spell genuine catastrophe.

Alpha Fornacis was the last object on this sheet. The line in which it was notated lay across a strut of the music stand. The pencil lead broke when Peter crossed out the star. Bummer. He’d only brought one writing implement with him, even though there were plenty in the kitchen. He turned the page. The next star on the list was 47 Ursae Majoris, a yellow dwarf in the constellation of Ursa Major, the ‘Great Bear.’ He programmed the tracker, started it up, and walked across the meadow toward the house.

The closer he got to the house, the more quietly he moved. Franziska always slept with the bedroom window open and he didn’t want to wake her up. He took off his shoes outside the house, carefully opened the front door, and walked in stocking feet into the kitchen. He didn’t need light—his eyes were well adapted, and there were enough LEDs on technical devices to give off just enough brightness to outline things. What would the world look like if one could only perceive it by its outlines? The illusion of being able to see inside things or to see through the world would be gone, and with it the disappointment when, sometime after completing puberty, one realized how profound this illusion was.

He fumbled around on the shelf and found a pen. To be on the safe side, he took an extra. He snuck out of the kitchen like a burglar. He hoped Franziska didn’t have to go to the bathroom right now. She never turned on the light at night when she had to, so she wouldn’t wake up completely. But he was lucky. There was no one in the hallway. He sensed the bathroom door was open by the lemon scent emanating from a perfume bottle in there.

Just then his phone rang. Crap! He’d assigned a ringtone to the tracking error message. But that it would choose now of all times to go off—who could have guessed? Peter pressed wildly on the smartphone. Of course, in his haste, he hit the wrong buttons first. Alexa asked what she could do for him, it clicked as he took a screenshot, and only then did he manage to turn off the stupid ringing.

Whew. He should have run outside instead of trying to tame the phone there in the hallway. Now it was too late. On the second floor, where the bedroom was, a door creaked. Alexa had awakened Franziska. Peter held his breath. Slow, shuffling footsteps started coming down the stairs. He opted to retreat. Outside, he put his shoes back on and ran to his telescope.

Only then did he remember what the ringtone actually meant. You’re the unlucky one who woke Franziska up. Yes, that, but it meant the tracking algorithm had found a mistake. Which star was it? It must have been the top one on the new sheet, 47 Ursae Majoris, a kind of big brother of the sun because it was a bit more massive, a bit brighter, and a bit older than the sun. Peter called up its data. 47 Ursae Majoris bore the name of a crocodile king in Thai mythology, Chalawan, and had at least three planets. It could not be ruled out that an Earth-similar planet might be orbiting in its habitable zone. Therefore, radio messages had already been sent in its direction, twice, but they would not arrive until 2047 and 2049.

Or maybe not at all, because it looked like Chalawan had ended its existence for some reason. Peter imagined what this would mean for the inhabitants of a planet. If the mass in the center of its orbit went away, there would be nothing left to force it to retain that orbit—much like when a hammer thrower lets go of the hammer, the planet would henceforth race through the universe alone at its former orbital speed. Maybe the 47 Ursae Majorids had gotten lucky, and their star would have hurled the planet toward our solar system. Then they could arrive here in a few thousand years.

The likelihood of this fantasy was, of course, minuscule. It would be about as great as the chance that there was no mistake here. A star did not just up and disappear. Had he discovered something significant, or not? His telescope was hardly the most efficient. How, of all people, should he be the first to miss Chalawan and Alsafi? But maybe this was normal. The big star catalogs contained millions of objects. If two of them were missing, it would only be noticed when someone looked explicitly, for example, to answer astronomical questions about one or the other of the two stars.

What would be a logical sequence of events? Chalawan or Alsafi could have fallen victim to a stellar explosion, perhaps by a hitherto-unknown companion that supplied the necessary mass. However, this would have had to take place a few years ago for the explosion cloud to have had enough time to dissipate again to the point where it was no longer visible in his telescope. This proposition could be checked out with a more powerful telescope, because some remnant would still be found at the place of the former star.

That idea was countered by the argument that the two missing stars must have exploded some time ago, and without anyone noticing either’s change of brightness. But such stellar deaths were very interesting for researchers. That was why there were several worldwide search programs that scanned the sky for new light phenomena. They would have had to miss these two events.

Of course, it was also possible that his telescope was simply deceiving him. When he looked into the eyepiece, he didn’t see through the lenses and mirrors into space. He looked at a small screen that showed him everything that a very light-sensitive photo chip at the end of the beam path captured, and only after the image had been processed electronically.

Errors—artifacts—could creep in. The system reacted to inputs that did not meet its expectations by displaying inexplicable results. Sometimes objects displayed color fringes that were not there in reality, or there was background noise that had no basis in reality. But that whole stars should become undetectable?

Peter switched off the telescope. It moved, humming until it reached the safety position, pointed directly upward. Its resting state was something he always found amusing. If people rested in such a position, how different the world would look. Instead of beds, for instance, there might be something like sleeping vases that would hold their resting bodies.

What had happened to the e-mail he’d sent to the telescope’s manufacturer? The automatic reply had promised a response by Monday... three days ago.

He looked at the smartphone screen, but there were no new emails. The only notification was on the telescope app icon, where a symbol indicated an update he decided could wait until tomorrow. He put the smartphone in his pocket, folded up the music stand, and clamped it under an arm. Then he lifted the telescope by the central joint of the tripod and carried both of them into the house, taking them straight into the living room.

His blanket and pillow were already lying on the sofa. Franziska had prepared everything. He thought of her with a warm feeling.

19 41 48.95 +50 31 30.22

Jurer ner gur fbatf bs Fcevat? Nl, jurer ner gurl? Guvax abg bs gurz, gubh unfg gul zhfvp gbb,- Juvyr oneerq pybhqf oybbz gur fbsg-qlvat qnl, Naq gbhpu gur fghooyr-cynvaf jvgu ebfl uhr;

February 27, 2026 – Passau

“Dear Mr. Kramer,” the e-mail began.

Good, at least they hadn’t decided he was a huckster.

“Thank you for your message, and your patience that we are only responding to you today.”

Peter had just begun to wonder about it a few minutes earlier, and then the message showed up in his inbox.

“We do have some good news for you, though. We were able to understand the problem you described.”

That was great! Finally, confirmation that he was not making this all up. The company had gifted a few thousand telescopes of this type to amateur astronomers. If they asked everyone to use them to search for missing stars now, they’d get a big chunk of the cosmic neighborhood grazed in a short time.

“Our programmers have tracked down the error. The wayfinding algorithm was probably too intolerant of the input parameters at some points and then maneuvered itself into a dead end. Please download the latest version of our app, which has been available since midnight. With it, the errors you discovered should no longer occur. Thank you...”

He closed the message. So all this was supposed to have been nothing more than a software error? He’d seen that Sigma Draconis and 47 Ursae Majoris were missing... No, he hadn’t seen anything! That was the problem. He had no comprehension of how the software that analyzed the photo chip data worked. Maybe for some stupid reason it had shown only a black spot where each of the two stars shone.

But the manufacturer had assured him that their programming staff had solved the problem with the update. Peter picked up his smartphone and pressed the button that updated all the programs. Just then, Franziska called out from the kitchen. Shoot, he’d forgotten that she was in a video conference with her students right now. Fortunately, the download bar filled up quickly, and after two minutes his wife stopped complaining. He started the telescope app. Externally, everything looked the same as before.

It was still light outside.

“Alexa, what time does the sun set today?”

“Sunset today is at 5:53 p.m.”

That was more than two hours away. The weather was clear, but it wouldn’t be really dark until 7 pm. The movie for which he had already reserved tickets started an hour later. You had to be there 15 minutes before it started or your tickets could be sold to someone else.

Today was Friday, and the cinema was tiny. Even in a town the size of Passau, there were enough people interested in Latin American films. That meant they needed to allow about 30 minutes, because it would take them 15 minutes to get into town and find a parking space. He had to convince Franziska that they had to be eating dinner by 6 p.m.

* * *

“So, are you making any progress with your stars?” Franziska asked as she was smearing a thin layer of margarine on a slice of bread.

She had—surprisingly—been very much in favor of eating by 6 pm. That was said to be much healthier anyway, and he wondered why they couldn’t keep that as their usual dinnertime.

Peter bent down, picked up the stack of papers, and waved them around. “The list is still pretty extensive,” he said.

“Very impressive. What are you trying to prove with that?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course, my darling. You’re interested in my watercolors, too, aren’t you?”

Was that meant seriously or cynically? If only he were better at telling the differences in her inflection! But it was true—he was interested in her watercolors. He’d even accompanied her once on a painting trip to Lake Garda.

“The problem is that some stars have disappeared,” he explained.

“Which ones?” asked Franziska.

“Alsafi and Chalawan.”

“I don’t know them, but what beautiful names! It would be a real shame to lose them.”

“Alsafi comes from Arabic, Chalawan from Thai.”

“Interesting. And how did you come up with this? Surely it must be noticeable if stars are missing from the sky?”

“Apparently it’s not noticeable unless someone is looking. I just happened to stumble across Alsafi because the telescope couldn’t find its way to another target. After that, I tracked down Chalawan myself. By using this long list.”

“It sounds like it’s a pretty important discovery.”

“Yes. If I’m right, it would be a sensation. Stars don’t just disappear like that. They may explode, but after that, you see them all the better.”

“Hey, then you’ll be famous.”

Peter laughed. “That’s not my goal.”

That was a lie, and Franziska knew it. Of course, it would be great if he could claim such a discovery for himself.

His wife smiled. “You’re all about the research.”

“Exactly. That’s why I have to go back in a minute...”

He looked at the clock. It was shortly before 7, and 30 minutes should be enough. The telescope was already outside.

Franziska was no longer smiling. “Uh, you want to... Now?”

“Just very briefly. It won’t take thirty minutes. We can leave on time. Look, I’m already changed, too. You still have to get ready anyway.”

She looked at him skeptically.

“I’ll clear the table, too. You take care of your beauty. Not that you need to.”

A compliment never hurt. Clearing the table may cost him five valuable minutes, but if it made his wife feel gracious toward him...

“Yeah, yeah, you suck-up,” Franziska teased. “But, we better not be late for the movie.”

* * *

The telescope beeped, then started moving. Peter aimed it for IC 342, ‘The Hidden Galaxy.’ There was no error message. After two minutes, the telescope reached its destination. He convinced himself that a barred spiral galaxy was really visible. The manufacturer had eliminated the error. But what did that mean for Sigma Draconis, which was on the way to IC 342?

He had to check. The list with the coordinates was in the house. Peter snuck into the hallway, but Franziska heard him. “Ah, you’re done,” she said.

“Not quite yet. Just need to check something.”

Before she could answer, he took the list from the shelf and ran outside. He’d already entered the coordinates of Sigma Draconis on the way to the telescope, The device started moving, and a short time later the tracking app reported success. He looked through the eyepiece, but there was nothing there. A few stars twinkled nearby, but there was only darkness in the center of the subject field.

What if he’d somehow misaligned the telescope? He tried 47 Ursae Majoris. The motors of the telescope hummed again.

Franziska shouted something from inside, but he couldn’t understand her.

“Be right there!”

The telescope stopped. He hesitated. Please, show me a star. Any star. Peter sensed it—this was now a defining moment. It would be best if he walked away from the telescope and spent a pleasant evening with Franziska. But he couldn’t. The eyepiece magically attracted him. He had to look through it. What could go wrong? Just one look!

Peter bent down a bit. 47 Ursae Majoris was relatively high in the sky, so the eyepiece had moved down. He tightly closed the eye with which he wanted to look and then opened it again.

47 Ursae Majoris was still missing! It was not an error in the telescope. Then what had the manufacturer corrected? Peter entered IC 342 as the new target, held his hand over the lens, and started tracking. The telescope started moving, and after two minutes it had tracked the galaxy, even though it had only seen the palm of his hand the whole time. The programmers must have just hard-coded the position of IC 342 into the tracking app! As a result, the fact that the star was missing no longer interfered with the search for it. That was the only explanation. Those damned idiots! And it was so easy to check! Peter chose another galaxy for good luck.

At that moment, a door slammed. The muffled sound was followed by a metallic noise that must have been the outer door as it banged shut. A shadow moved along the wall of the house. Heels clacked on the path’s flagstones. Peter stood rigid and silent. He knew he should have dropped everything and run after Franziska, or at least he ought to shout something to her. Wait, I’ll be right there—something like that.

But he couldn’t do it. He still needed the proof! Surely his wife could appreciate that? Shortly afterward, the garage door squeaked. An engine howled. Wheels rolled along the gravel driveway. Individual scent molecules of Franziska’s perfume reached his nose.

Peter wiped his forehead. He was sweating and freezing at the same time, as if his body couldn’t make up its mind. Slowly, he bent over the telescope. “We’re alone now, just the two of us,” he whispered. The device did not respond.

Using the app, he restarted the tracking, once again placing a hand over the lens. This time there was an error message almost immediately. Lazy programmers. Of course, that was one way to eliminate problems!

He heaved a deep sigh, and a cloud of steam poured out of his nose as if it were the snout of a dragon. It must already be very cold. Peter opened his list. The fact that Franziska had opted to go alone had its good side. He could continue to search for missing stars in peace.

* * *

The next time he looked at his watch, it was half past one. So late already! But he had first period tomorrow! Nonsense. Tomorrow was Saturday. That was why they had reserved this evening for the cinema. The film ran for three hours, and afterward there had been a discussion with the director. But still, Franziska should have returned by now. Where was she?

His toes were stiff from the cold, and stomping his feet wasn’t helping anymore. He should pack it in for today. With the app’s help, he sent the telescope into its parked position, then carried it into the house. Should he wait up for Franziska? Better not. If he had to have a discussion with her tonight he wouldn’t be able to sleep afterward. It would certainly not be a pleasant conversation. She would call him an egoist incapable of having a relationship, which he couldn’t stand for. Stop. He mustn’t imagine the ‘conversation’ now. Otherwise he could simply forget about sleep.

Peter gave way to a yawn as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror. As he watched his reflection, he noticed that he hadn’t shaved for at least three days. He should make up for it tomorrow morning. Today, he corrected himself. He yawned again. He felt sorry for Franziska’s toothbrush. It was all dry in the jar, so he ran water over it. He turned up the heat so that it would be nice and warm when he got up in the morning, then left the bathroom. In the bedroom, he closed the window, which Franziska open despite the cold, and lay down on his side of the bed.

February 28, 2026 – Passau

Franziska did not return until Peter was sitting at the breakfast table. She looked cheerful, and that surprised and scared him. At any moment she would tell him that she’d met someone younger, more handsome, and much better at sex, with whom she would spend the rest of her life. I’ve seen too many bad movies. It’s nice that she’s doing well! he thought.

“Do you have a roll for me, too?” she asked from the hallway.

“I do.” He had baked two rolls for himself. Franziska could have one.

“It’s nice of you to think of me,” she said, entering the kitchen. Franziska’s hair was messy by her standards. She was wearing a blouse he didn’t recognize and giving off a slight odor of stale smoke.

“The blouse...” he said.

“Oh, you noticed? I didn’t think you would. Greta lent it to me.” Greta Bouvier was one of her friends.

“Did you meet her somewhere?”

“Yes, at the theater—not entirely surprising. She knows God and the world, after all. And then we hung out with the director and the distributor for a long time.”

“Oh. Was it an interesting time?”

“The director is Colombian. He wanted to go out dancing, so we went to the bar behind City Hall. They always play salsa there on Fridays.”

“Since when is it okay to smoke there?”

“Yes, the smoke. I wasn’t able to take a shower this morning. Greta is having her bathroom renovated. The bar closed at one o’clock, so we went to her place. That was fun, I can tell you! In the process, the contents of a glass of red wine landed on my blouse. Luckily, Greta and I wear the same size. After that, I couldn’t drive home, of course.”

“Sure. And then you all spent the night at Greta’s?”

“Couldn’t be helped. Greta and I in her bed, the two men in the living room.”

“You could have taken a cab.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you. You need your sleep, too.”

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“No, why? Should I be? The evening wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun with you. I wouldn’t have met José, or the man from the distribution firm.”

“That one doesn’t seem to have been as memorable.”

Franziska laughed. “You’re right about that. His name... I don’t know... I can’t remember it.”

“Anyway, I’m glad you had such a nice evening.”

“You sound a little pissed that I had fun without you.”

Did he sound like that? No, it was great that she had so much more fun without him.

“No, not at all. I’m quite pleased,” Peter said.

“That’s good. Have you made any progress with your stars?” Franziska asked.

“Yes, I’ve already checked off a third of the list.”

“So, found anything?”

“Not so far, so I’m going to stay with the two missing ones for now.”

“And you’re going to keep at it?”

“Of course. Scientifically, this is a sensation.”

“So you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. How many nights?”

“I don’t know yet, honey. But don’t worry, I’m taking tonight and tomorrow off.”

In fact, the weather forecast predicted rain first and then fog moving in. But if he gave that as the reason for why he had time tonight, Franziska wouldn’t be happy.

“That’s fine, Peter. I’m going to meet Greta again this evening. I’m sure you need some time for yourself. Haven’t you wanted to call your friend Manfred for a long time?”

That was true. He just hadn’t gotten around to it. But in reality, the call would probably be over inside of three minutes.

“What are you planning to do? I could be the driver. Then you could have your drinks without having to spend the night at Greta’s. You hate sleeping in strange beds.”

Greta did not like him. She claimed they couldn’t hold a decent conversation, but he didn’t think that was necessarily true.

“Oh, come on, you’re better off getting some rest. José asked us if we’d like to show him a bit of Munich nightlife. It’s going to be very late. He had a showing in a Munich movie theater once before.”

Franziska had said she was going to go out with Greta, but it turned out that the Colombian director was behind it after all. Of course, that was because he was such an interesting person. He must have had a difficult childhood.

Peter looked at his wife, who was looking absently at the jam. No, she’s not thinking about the great night with José. Don’t be silly. You’re happily married, and Franziska is just tired.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “If I’d have to wander around bars until the wee hours of the morning, no, I’d rather sleep in. I hope you’re good hosts.”

March 1, 2026 – Passau

It was all crap. Peter deleted the highlighted text he’d written the night before. It said what he meant to say, but it still didn’t come across the way he thought it should. He had read one or two astronomy papers before, but writing one himself was something else. Besides, if you’ve spent the whole time waiting for your wife to come home, how could you be expected to pull your thoughts together and write something professional-looking?

But he’d waited in vain. Franziska came home at around ten o’clock in the morning, this time wearing her own blouse but smelling like smoke again. He was no expert, but today there seemed to be a lingering sweetish aroma. Of course, maybe that was because of his prejudice against José—not every Colombian was a member of a drug cartel.

Franziska tried to reassure him by describing the director as a cultured, empathetic, and intellectual person. But that didn’t help to soothe him, because that was exactly the kind of guy she was attracted to. Now the guy just needed to have curly hair, a healthy complexion, and a giant crucifix. Peter almost asked about his hair, but stopped himself in time. It might inadvertently make Franziska think about him all the more.

You fool, do you think she wouldn’t have picked up on that? He silenced his inner voice.

In any case, Franziska didn’t have a date for today. Every Sunday evening, they watched Tatort, the long-running German crime scene show, on TV. He wouldn’t be able to get out of watching it with her, even if there was a major conjunction going on up in the heavens.

Enough with the stars. Now it was time to prep for his 8th grade class, third period tomorrow. Peter closed the notebook, stood up, went to the shelf with his school supplies, and took out the folder with his preparations. He’d taught every grade level in physics, but the last time he’d had 8th graders was three years ago. That had been the class with the five mathematics geniuses, which was why he’d probably have to adjust the material a bit now. It was amazing how much a class could benefit from a few outstanding and enthusiastic students.

He sat down at the desk again, opened the folder, and read a few lines. Crap. He really didn’t feel like dealing with 8th grade level physics right now. How many times had he taught this same material? Peter leaned back in his office chair, listening. A toilet flushed somewhere. Dusk was setting in. Nothing could be heard from Franziska’s room. She was also preparing for her lessons.

Sunday afternoon was always like this. It was usually quite comfortable. At six, they would have dinner, and at eight on the dot, he would turn on the evening news. Hopefully Franziska didn’t want to change that. Maybe he should get her a bouquet of flowers again tomorrow. She’d think he was feeling guilty, but she’d be happy anyway.

Peter switched the computer back on. He could always do tomorrow’s lesson from the textbook. He couldn’t solve this conundrum alone. Surely there must be astronomers who were interested in disappearing stars? Of course, there was Villarroel and her group, but the last paper had already sounded a bit hopeless. Basically, it was always came down to a matter of finding natural causes for the fact that images from different decades sometimes showed different stars.

But that was not his problem at all. He wasn’t talking about obscure points of light on photo plates from the 1960s that couldn’t be found in photos of the same region 30 years later. It was about named stars that simply no longer shone in the sky without a previous explosion. Could there be a natural cause for this? He needed to summarize his data in an article. It was unlikely that any well-known science magazine would pick it up, but the submissions would go into peer review, so they would find their way into the hands of one or more experts. So he had a chance to have professionals look at his results. He just didn’t know anyone in the astronomy community.

To do this, however, he must be able to produce a readable text—in English. He enjoyed watching films in the original language, but writing a scientific publication was a much greater challenge. His article had to meet a minimum standard or it wouldn’t end up with an expert, but in the circular file.

Maybe he should ask Franziska, who was more talented in languages. She liked Spanish even better than English, but together they were sure to produce something readable. Or should he try a machine translation? No. Peter stood up. If he included Franziska, she would certainly better understand why this topic was so important, and not just for him.

The computer went ‘pling.’ A new message had arrived. He sat down again and opened it.

“Dear Mr. Kraemer,” it began. His name was spelled correctly, a good sign.

“The attached work made me think of you. You asked us a question the other day that fits thematically. I guess the answer now seems to be a definite ‘yes.’ I hope you have an interesting read.”

The message was not signed, but the ‘From’ field showed that it came from the SPACE editor. Peter opened the PDF attachment. It was apparently a preprint, a paper that had not yet been reviewed by a third party and had probably just been submitted to a journal with possible interest in the topic. The lead author was named Dr. Melissa Holinger, who worked at Stockholm University. That told him something. He looked up Villarroel’s first paper, and sure enough, Holinger showed up there as a co-author. Apparently she now had her own group.

Peter straightened up as he read the paper’s title, Possible explanations for the non-detectability of main sequence stars from the cosmic neighborhood of the solar system. That was it! He was not alone after all. Peter skimmed the abstract. Holinger’s astronomers had found a total of seven stars that were included in many catalogs but were no longer visible in the sky. They were Sigma Draconis, 47 Canis Majoris, and five stars in the southern sky. All were yellow dwarfs and main sequence, so they were sun-like. Ha! So he was not nuts.

Now he was annoyed because he was no longer the discoverer. He could save himself the trouble of authoring the article. He had to get in touch with Holinger. Peter opted to print out the paper. The laser printer started moving with a groan and spit out four sheets. The bulk of the document described what astronomers thought might have caused the disappearance.

The entire keynote differed markedly from Villarroel’s publications. In the old articles, the search for non-natural causes—read: for extraterrestrials—had been in the foreground, even if it was never stated explicitly. Holinger’s work, on the other hand, presupposed that there must be natural causes, and discussed which of them were possible.

Peter rocked back and forth on his chair while reading the printed article. The argumentation was quite conclusive. After all, astronomers had found extended dark clouds in some cases where the stars used to be visible. The clouds could not be seen directly, but only through their heat radiation. The dust of which they consisted could cover the stars behind them. In the article, the researchers calculated the thickness such a cloud would have to be in order to block the light of a sun-like star, and how fast the star, cloud, and solar system would have to move in relation to each other for such an occultation to occur.

Of course, the argumentation had weaknesses, the researchers freely admit. The dark clouds they had detected could have been on the spot earlier—behind the respective star and at least partly shielded by it. They only became visible when the star went out. But Peter already suspected how the article would be received. The dark clouds came closer to a believable explanation. There was no known physical process that suddenly extinguished a sun-like star. But dark clouds existed, and more of them than had been believed before now, because they were difficult to detect.

Even more exotic explanations were possible. For two of the seven stars, the astronomers were not able to identify a dark cloud. They now suspected that the view of those stars could be obscured by a completely different phenomenon—dense clouds of dark matter. Since these interact only via gravity, they were not detectable in the infrared in the same way as dark clouds.

Hmm, hmm, hmm. Franziska could probably be reassured that his work was in vain. Others had discovered it first, and they had the better explanations. He would certainly not touch his telescope again in the next few weeks.

If only he hadn’t asked the editors! But that was unfair. It was good that it was over now. If he had put in any more work, he would only have been equally more annoyed.

22 57 27,98 +20 46 7,8

Vs gur qhyy fhofgnapr bs zl syrfu jrer gubhtug,

Vawhevbhf qvfgnapr fubhyq abg fgbc zl jnl;

Sbe gura qrfcvgr bs fcnpr V jbhyq or oebhtug,

Sebz yvzvgf sne erzbgr, jurer gubh qbfg fgnl.

Ab znggre gura nygubhtu zl sbbg qvq fgnaq

Hcba gur snegurfg rnegu erzbi’q sebz gurr;

Sbe avzoyr gubhtug pna whzc obgu frn naq ynaq,

Nf fbba nf guvax gur cynpr jurer ur jbhyq or.

Ohg, nu! gubhtug xvyyf zr gung V nz abg gubhtug,

Gb yrnc ynetr yratguf bs zvyrf jura gubh neg tbar,

Ohg gung fb zhpu bs rnegu naq jngre jebhtug,

V zhfg nggraq gvzr’f yrvfher jvgu zl zbna;

Erprvivat abhtug ol ryrzragf fb fybj

Ohg urnil grnef, onqtrf bs rvgure’f jbr.

March 2, 2026 – Passau

His good intentions didn’t last 24 hours. Franziska was still in a meeting, so he had about two hours all to himself. He lowered the living room blinds. Then he moved his astral projector into the middle of the room. The projector, a column that stood about waist-high, was another expensive purchase that had initially upset Franziska.

He was finally able to convince her that it fit well in the living room. Externally, the projector looked like a classic marble column. Franziska had placed a flower pot on it, and he now removed the pot to the table. There were shiny black spheres embedded in the sides, which were pivoted and peeked out about halfway. It looked fancy and a bit futuristic. The only ugly detail was the black cable that ran along the floor between the base and the power outlet. To hide it, they would have had to rip up the hardwood flooring and install a sub-floor conduit for a flush-to-the-floor outlet in the middle of the room. That had been too much for his wife.

Peter switched on the device by swiping his hand across the column. The projector emitted a melodic triad, the signal to start the appropriate app on the smartphone—which started, connected to the projector, and requested the starting position. Earth was preset as the starting point.

The astral projector fired up. The column grew to about head height as a narrower version sprouted upward from its center. It, too, was studded with black glass spheres.

Now came the moment that had ultimately won Franziska over. The living room transformed into a 3 by 3 by 2.5-meter section of space. Gravity remained, but Peter was immersed in a three-dimensional model of the inner solar system. Earth was at the center of the display, roughly in the middle of the column. The holographic projection, created by fast-moving lasers in the glass spheres, extended to the walls. The astral projector had been a hit on a major crowdfunding platform last year, and Peter had secured one in time. Home planetariums had been old hat ever since.

Peter walked around the Earth, meandered past Mars, pushed aside a few asteroids, and tried to shove Venus out of its orbit. The celestial bodies were clearly not to scale. A realistic representation would be unimpressive, because either the Earth would look tiny or the next planet would be somewhere past Berlin. For realism, there was always computer software. The astral projector brought the universe to life. The best thing about the device was that it tracked his movements. He could use his hand to push an asteroid off its course.

Peter could determine what happened next. If he pulled his hand back slowly, the asteroid would return to its orbit. If he gave it a strong swipe, however, it would leave its orbit. The program then simulated its new flight path around the sun.

When their two kids visited for Christmas, they’d had fun changing asteroid and comet orbits to hit the Earth. This was not easy, because you had to guess approximately where the target would be when the new trajectory of the asteroid should hit it. As a reward, the program then revealed a fancy Armageddon simulation, and the Earth was subsequently tinted brown instead of blue.

Only until the next reset, though, which would inevitably be necessary because the software still had its teething troubles. Sometimes celestial bodies got stuck or couldn’t get past each other, even though there was enough space, or a planet suddenly started to go crazy in the figurative sense.

This universe could not be a software-controlled simulation, or reality would crash much more often. Peter took the Earth in both hands and squeezed it. The globe shrank, and with it the other visible planets. He continued to squeeze. Mercury came in through the closed blind. A little more. Earth was only the size of a tennis ball when the sun finally appeared. He reduced the scale slightly more to get the sun into the room because our star was so huge.

It made him feel really warm. It was not the sun that warmed him, of course, but the fact that the light from the lasers that spun the hologram was naturally giving off a bit of energy to the air, and over time the room warmed up—especially where it got particularly bright from the simulated sun. Peter approached the star. It was a few centimeters taller than his own height, and although only three-quarters of it had passed through the outer wall, it was awe-inspiring. Up close, you could even see the arc-shaped flares stretching across the surface.

The rendering was extremely detailed. Everything moved much more quickly than in reality. Peter could control the passage of time in the app. He had the power and he used it, making the clock go faster and faster. Sunspots grew and then disappeared. If he turned the virtual wheel fast enough, he could observe the 11-year sunspot cycle, and he could even turn back time. He did so and arrived at 2006 and what the sun looked like when he’d met Franziska.

Bummer. He hadn’t intended to play with the astral projector. Soon Franziska would be coming home from school. If she caught him in the living room engaged in his hobby, he’d have no excuse for why he hadn’t completed tomorrow’s preparation.

Peter left the universe through the living room door and got his list, which now included the coordinates of the five missing stars in the southern hemisphere from Holinger’s list. Upon returning, he entered the numbers into the control app of the astral projector and pressed the start button.

The program calculated a new scale for the display. The sun shrank to a point where it almost disappeared. Thousands of stars whizzed through space. It was as if a gravitational quake was ripping through the local group. But everything was okay—the software just needed to calculate a new simulation that included all the stars he’d entered.

Of course, the program didn’t know that these stars were missing, which was not the point. Peter wanted to get a picture because he had a strong suspicion. He couldn’t even describe the feeling, maybe something like a hunger pang when you hadn’t eaten recently enough. The living room had grown almost dark. Peter first suspected the onset of twilight as the cause and began to be frightened by it as it was not yet that late. But, it was just not as bright in the room, because only point sources of light could be seen.

The seven missing stars were all in a radius of about 60 light-years around the Earth. Therefore, the cuboid piece of the universe in which he was standing had an edge-length of 120 light-years. Massive stars shrank to a millimeter, and that was, in actual scale, still too large. But at that scale, even smaller points of light would hardly be visible, so the astral projector did not shrink the stars any further.

Peter felt all alone. The cosmos was just so fucking empty. Here a dot, then nothing for a while, then another dot. You’d never make contact with another intelligent species. The space in between was transparent, but a wall of steel couldn’t shield better than this vast amount of nothing. It was depressing. Peter increased the scale of the stars. Now they were an inch tall, and everything looked much better. There was something like the Christmas spirit about it.

He walked around the room, stretching out his arms and spinning, and when he caught a star, it started oscillating around its position as if it were anchored by a rubber band. Peter spun faster, got down on his knees, and straightened up again, the stars frolicking around him like young dogs. The universe had gone mad, and yet it was only he who was a bit meshuga. If there was a God... did he also sometimes move through the universe like this and upset everything around him? Peter couldn’t blame him. To exist in a perfect, harmonious world must be deadly dull.

Stop! He wanted to take care of the runaways after all, so he used the app to set the center of the display to Sigma Draconis. After all, that was where it had all started. Actually, IC 342 had been the trigger, but that particular galaxy was too far away to be of any use here. The space around him moved again. The stars kept their size but streamed to new places. It looked like they were following a secret plan, and they were. But the plan wasn’t really secret, it was formed by their coordinates in the smartphone app that anyone could download free from Google or Apple. Perhaps this also applied to his life, hmm? And, was there some app somewhere that had stored his coordinates for the next 30 to 40 years that, realistically, he still might have coming?

The universe slowed down. He caught a star disappearing into the middle of the column, presumably Sigma Draconis. It was a disadvantage of the astral projector that the most important object, which was the one in the center of the display, always became invisible. Or was that a strength? Did one recognize better what really happened if one disregarded the center of the events for a moment? You must be having one of your philosophical days again, Peter. Better solve the problem.

His subconscious was usually right when it talked to him. Enough with the philosophy, even if he didn’t know which problem was meant. Peter looked around and walked a few steps through the sea of stars. It was overwhelming. The boundaries of the living room seem to dissolve. The astral projector not only created a three-dimensional hologram in space, it also threw two-dimensional projections onto the walls, giving the impression of infinity. Peter had to be extra careful not to smack into a wall. Only the lighter colored wood of the living room door told him that he must not go further in that direction.

He could not find 47 Ursae Majoris. The star should be in the upper half of the room because the northern sky was placed there. Nonsense. He had chosen Sigma Draconis as his starting point. For a moment, Peter tried to imagine the universe from the perspective of this star. He would certainly have succeeded in the past, but now the excellent 3D representation was projected behind him. It was just so much better than what his imagination could come up with.

But he still had the app. He marked the positions of the seven stars, turning them into cosmic beacons. There they were! Their waxing and waning lights were immediately noticeable. Peter counted them and wound up with six. Number seven was in the column. But the picture made no sense. The stars seemed to be distributed randomly. He tried to trace some geometric shapes on them, but he failed. The stars were not on a spherical shell, or an ellipsoid, or a cube, or a cuboid.

It would have been too good if his idea had worked immediately. Sigma Draconis was unsuitable as a center, so he tried 47 Ursae Majoris. The universe rotated around him. He had to hold on to the column for a moment because the motion made him dizzy. The projector mistook this for a switch-off command and Peter reactivated it with a wave of his hand. Fortunately, the app hadn’t reset itself yet. The universe continued to rotate until 47 Ursae Majoris disappeared into the pedestal.

Again Peter examined the picture. Chance still ruled. He couldn’t forbid it. So it was the next star’s turn. In the meantime he had gotten used to the rotation of the universe. Gravity kept him oriented nicely. How might that feel outside a spaceship? He would like to go into space one day, but he would never be able to afford it. The other day he’d read a novel in which a young man named Martin Neumaier refused tooth and nail to set off on an exciting mission to Saturn. How unrealistic!

Even from the perspective of the next star on the list, it didn’t show what he’d hoped for, and neither did it from the perspective of the following one. Peter repeated the process until he had worked his way through his list. Well, that was pretty much a waste of time. You have to realize when you’ve lost.

He pressed the app’s reset button and the universe returned to its starting position. Peter smiled. It must be typical for us humans that the Earth was at the center of this. Would an astral projector developed by extraterrestrials do the same with their home planet?

He looked at the time. Franziska had to be coming soon, but maybe there was still time for one last look. He stood in front of the column, in the center of everything. The universe spread out in all directions to infinity, and the further he went into the distance, the faster the spread. The seven stars on his list were arrayed all around him. He put in a spherical shell, but even with Earth in the center, it didn’t match the distribution of the stars. Before he gave up he tried other shapes but nothing fit. His idea was simply no good. He needed a new one.

The thought hit him like a punch in the stomach. The center was the problem. Why should one of the stars, or even the sun, be at the center of the action? The center was more the trigger around which everything revolved. That was his mistake.

He tried it differently. He did not even need to change the representation. He tried it again with a spherical shell. But this time he didn’t start with a predetermined center. He let the software calculate a spherical shell based on the coordinates of the seven objects, on which all seven stars must be located. The program took a moment. As soon as it had reported success, he tapped on ‘Show.’

A gigantic shell appeared in the universe. Of course, it seemed gigantic only from his perspective. It measured a few hundred light-years, so it was a flyspeck compared to the entire universe. The shell glittered silver. If he wanted, he could choose a different color in the app. In reality, the shell didn’t exist. It only established a relationship between the seven stars, a relationship that presumably no one even knew about yet. Holinger and her team certainly didn’t, since they were just trying to find explanations for the disappearance of the stars.

But for all seven of them to lie randomly on the shell of an imaginary sphere, what was the probability of that? Quite low. It was much more likely to indicate that there was a common cause for their disappearances, and this cause could be found in the center of the sphere. But that was not compelling. What was happening there may simply be spreading out along a particular path, for whatever reason. Peter nevertheless had the app calculate the coordinates for the center of the sphere. No celestial body was located there.

What should he do now with his knowledge? He had to write Holinger. Maybe more candidates lay on this spherical shell, but the team had overlooked them to this point. Peter stepped in front of the shell and touched it. He felt a slight tingling on his skin, even though there was nothing there—pure imagination.

He went to the column. Franziska would be arriving any minute. He was about to make the hand gesture to turn it off when it came to him—the spherical shell was also touching the column. Peter couldn’t see it, but he knew. That was precisely where Earth was. The solar system, to be exact. The sun was a yellow dwarf, just like the vanished stars.

Peter shut down the system and fell out of the cosmos and into the living room. Of course, the sun was a yellow dwarf, but it still existed, because just then, it sent a ray through a crack in the blind. The fact that the sun lay on the spherical shell was either a small problem or a big one: a small one, if it invalidated his theory about the progression of the process by which the stars disappeared; and a big one, if the sun itself should be a part of this process.

It was a small problem, he decided.

* * *

A short time later, he heard the clacking of Franziska’s boots in the garden. She crossed the terrace directly and proceeded into the living room, where she took off her boots before kissing him on the lips in greeting.

“Aha, have you been playing?” she asked.

The column was warm and still extended in the middle of the room. There was no use denying it. “I’ve been doing some research,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Then you’re not done with your preparation?” she asked.

“Not quite.”

“Good. Then I’m sure you won’t mind if I make a date with Greta tonight?”

“I... No.”

Yes, it bothered him a bit. She usually only visited her friend about once a month, and now three times in a week? On the other hand, it gave him more time to decide what to do about the lost stars.

“Great. We’re going to the movies.”

“Then you’ll be back by ten.”

“No, we’re going to Munich, and we want to do something after the movie. I’ll stay overnight with Greta again.”

“I see. You’ll meet the director there, too?”

“Yes, honey. I’m so glad to be able to use my Spanish again. It was getting quite rusty. You know how much I love the language.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Thank you for your understanding. Have you eaten anything yet? I’m so hungry! The session was terribly boring again.”

* * *

It was quiet in the house. Typically, the evening news would be on at this time, but he’d already skimmed the day’s events online. Franziska had already been gone for an hour. She’d looked very nice and had been sporting her favorite perfume. Maybe he should have insisted on accompanying her after all. While he couldn’t imagine her cheating on him, his imagination wasn’t very perceptive. It always started out just like this in the dramas they sometimes watched together—the husband neglects his wife, and she goes elsewhere for companionship.

Franziska wasn’t at all like that. She was candor personified. If she had slept with this José, she would have told him so as soon as she got home. She couldn’t keep something like that to herself. That was good, because he always knew where he stood with her—unless, this time, she didn’t say anything.

But he needed to interact with another woman now: Melissa Holinger, the astronomer from Stockholm University. Her name didn’t sound very Swedish, but Villarroel, who was presumably her mentor, didn’t seem to have been born in Sweden either. For women scientists in particular, moving from institute to institute was simply part of their career. Maybe he should make a change, too. With the seemingly endless years at his high school, his enthusiasm was starting to wane.

His hobby, astronomy, was the perfect balance. The universe was simply so huge that professional researchers couldn’t always keep an eye on everything. Amateur astronomers discovered new asteroids, comets, brown dwarfs, or even planets every year. Even when it was raining outside he could still be a discoverer, because NASA and ESA research missions shared their data on the web, and often relied on amateurs to detect previously undiscovered celestial bodies.

Melissa Holinger. He wanted to write to the astronomer. Peter opened his notebook and put his feet up on the coffee table. Franziska would scold him now if she were home. He logged in and opened the paper that the SPACE editor sent him. Holinger’s e-mail address was there in the footer. He copied it, started a new message, and pasted her address into the recipient’s line.

What should he write to her? He had no idea what scientists thought of receiving mail from laypeople. Did they get a lot of messages from obscure UFO researchers and hobbyists with no prior training who’d made up their own theory of relativity? He certainly didn’t want to be pigeonholed in that way, but how could he prevent it? He did not possess one scientific certification. He may be a math and physics teacher, but he really couldn’t know how significant his discovery was that all seven stars and the Earth were on an imaginary spherical shell.

He simply had to try. If she didn’t read his message, he would be out of luck. Life would go on.

“Dear Dr. Holinger,” he wrote in English.

“I’m a math and physics teacher in Germany,” he typed.

No. How would it look if he started with himself? Immediately quite unprofessional.

“I was very excited by your publication in Nature Astronomy on February 10.”

Too slimy.

“Your publication in Nature Astronomy on February 10 has put me on a track that may be of interest to you as well.”

That was better.

“I had already made similar observations regarding Sigma Draconis and 47 Ursae Majoris.”

He deleted the sentence. It sounded as if he wanted to dispute Holinger’s discovery. It was best if he simply stated the facts.

“It is possible to spin up a spherical shell so that all seven candidate stars lie on its surface. Of course, this may be a coincidence, but perhaps important conclusions can be drawn.”

He would leave that to Holinger.

“What is particularly exciting about this is that our sun also finds a place on this spherical shell. I am aware that it is not one of the extinct stars.”

A little humor never hurt.

“But still, it seems remarkable to me. I would be pleased if you could include this train of thought in your reflections. I will continue to follow your research with great interest.”

For the conclusion, he ought to suck up a bit. That way, Holinger might be more likely to keep him in the loop. He added good wishes, skimmed the text again, and sent the message.

Outside, a fierce wind drummed raindrops against the windows. He was glad that he didn’t have to be out and about in Munich’s nightlife at the moment.

On the other hand, it was a shame he couldn’t use the night for observations. He fetched his list of stars to work off. Then he used a star catalog to add more yellow dwarfs. After all, it was unlikely that such a phenomenon would be confined to a 60-light-year radius around Earth.

* * *

Peter woke up because he was cold. He looked at the clock. At midnight, the heating turned off, and it was shortly after two. His list and pen were on the carpet. He must have fallen asleep in the middle of work. He shivered, rubbed his hands together, picked up his things, and left the room.

“Alexa, living room off, hallway on.”

The light in the living room went out and it got bright in the hallway. He closed the door behind him. Franziska’s shoes and jacket were missing, so he knew she was not back yet. He went upstairs, got ready for bed, and went back to sleep.

March 3, 2026 – Passau

“Peter, Peter, wake up!”

Franziska leaned over the bed and shook him by his shoulders. She was wearing sunglasses and shiny red lipstick, things he could clearly make out despite it still being quite dark in the room. He assumed it to be a dream—a lucid dream, something that was happening to him more and more frequently. He could usually decide how these dreams would proceed. Only, Franziska somehow eluded his control in these dreams.

“What is it?” he asked. “It must be really early!”

“I slept with José!” said Franziska.

“What?”

“I slept with him!”

“So, did you sleep well?”

“Not slept! Had sex. Fucked! You know what I mean.”

He should probably have gotten excited at this point, but it was just a dream. It was not worth it. It wasn’t real. At best, Peter was curious to see what Franziska would come up with next. Hopefully, she wouldn’t start filling in the details.

“That’s good,” he said. “Now go to bed and get some rest.”

She shook him by the shoulders again. “Is that all you have to say? Aren’t you even interested in who I go to bed with?”

“Yes, of course, my darling. And it’s not who, it’s whom.”

But this is all part of my dream. He didn’t say this out loud, because Franziska would only get upset about it. After all, to her it was not a dream.

“‘My darling?’ I just told you that someone else fucked me, and you call me your darling?”

This was a strange dream. About the strangest one he’d had lately. He should tell it to Franziska. Or maybe not.

“Yes. I’m still tired. Can we talk about it later?”

“Later? You want to talk to me about cheating later? Man, Peter, you can go fuck yourself! I’m getting a divorce!”

Franziska stormed out of the bedroom and slammed the door.

* * *

When he woke up, he was, at first, a little disoriented. He reached over, but the other side of the bed was empty. That’s right, Franziska was out with Greta and with that director. Only then did he notice the buzzing of the alarm clock. He pressed the ‘Off’ button. Today was Tuesday, and he had to go to school. First period. That group of students was always especially nice.

He showered, got dressed, and ate a small bowl of cereal. There was no sign of Franziska. It looked as if she hadn’t even been home yet. No need to worry. She’d probably go to school from her friend’s house.

He looked at the weather forecast. It was not supposed to rain today, so he got the bicycle out of the garage and cycled to his workplace.

* * *

As promised by the weather forecast, the sun shone in the afternoon. Peter noticed Franziska and her friend Greta when he pushed his bike behind the house. They were sitting on deck chairs, covered up, and toasting each other.

“Looks like you two are having a good time,” Peter commented.

“It’s not alcohol, just lemonade. Greta made it herself,” Franziska answered.

He put the bike down, then went over to her, and gave her a kiss. She smiled at him. He hadn’t seen her this happy in a very long time. Was that good, or was there something to worry about?

“Hello Peter,” Greta said, pulling her hand out of the blanket and waving at him.

“Do you want to join us for a bit?” Franziska asked. “The lemonade is good!”

“I have a lot of preparation to do, unfortunately,” he replied.

That wasn’t quite true. He didn’t want to end up arguing with Greta, which was what usually happened. She swore by homeopathy and was always quoting her horoscope, along with everyone else’s. She really believed that a distant star determines a person’s fate. He once explained that most of the stars around her couldn’t even know she was born yet because it took longer for the light to reach them than she had yet lived, but that didn’t affect her thinking.

“I’ll be leaving soon, too,” Greta said. “Then you’ll have your wife all to yourself again.”

“Stay a little longer,” said Franziska. “Peter doesn’t mind. Right, Peter?”

“Yes, of course. Stay. I still have lots of work to do, as I said.”

* * *

“Did you finish everything for your classes?” Franziska asked.

She had prepared the supper while he was still working, and then called him into the dining room. She had set the dining room table in white. There were even wine glasses on it. Unusual—they rarely drank wine with dinner.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

He’d finished after an hour. After that, he had thought about an optimal measurement strategy. He’d wanted to solve the problem that the telescope always needed a certain amount of time to find a certain object. The farther apart two objects were in the sky, the longer it took to slew. Peter came up with an algorithm that minimized the telescope’s path. Now all he would have to do was type in the coordinates of his test objects.

“Poor you. Haven’t you taught all of these math and physics classes at least twice now?”

“That’s true, but the performance level is very different. I have to balance that out. It would be great if they would introduce electrostimulated learning here—after all, it’s been common in China for a long time. In art and music, maybe it doesn’t play such a role, but you could adjust the performance level much better before the lessons.”

“I find the idea creepy. Imagine if knowledge had been instilled in our children without them realizing it?”

“At least then they would have learned something. But I do know what you mean. State propaganda. That may be a problem in China. But in our country? How come you have so little to do right now?”

“I just assigned projects in all the classes, so I really don’t need to show up for class,” Franziska said.

“You’ve got it good.”

His smartphone vibrated. He pulled it out, even though he knew that Franziska would find that rude, but he was waiting so anxiously for Holinger’s answer. No one else answered him at this time of day. The sender, however, was an ex-colleague. He put the phone away again.

“Come, sit down. We’ll eat,” Franziska said. She poured the wine. Then she sat, took her wine glass, and toasted him.

His phone vibrated again. Just quickly checking to see who it is... holinger@astro.u-stockholm.

“Geez, Peter!” Franziska exclaimed. “You really are impossible!”

She put her wine glass down on the table with such momentum that it clinked, and several drops splashed out.

Oh, now he’d overdone it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just because of—”

“Because of those fucking stars, right? I almost think you’d rather look at them than me anymore.”

At least they don’t get upset when I check my mail.

Now he had to soothe Franziska. “Please just calm down, honey. I’m really sorry, and it won’t happen again.”

“I am the calm person! You don’t get it, do you? You don’t understand how humiliating it is when your own husband is more interested in the distant stars than in you.”

“That’s not the point at all. I was just checking something out, and I wasn’t distracted from you for a second. I was right here with you.”

“All the way here, with me? If you were, you wouldn’t keep sending me out into the nightlife with a handsome, Spanish-speaking director! I think you want to get rid of me so you can trade me in for your stars for good!”

“Not at all, Franziska. Now you’re really exaggerating. You’ve been meeting up with Greta and José all the time.”

“Because you never have time for me! I can’t sit around every evening waiting for the amateur astronomer to return from his stalking. But what I do doesn’t even interest you. That’s the worst! I was away for three nights. A normal person would show a minimum of jealousy! I’d be jealous! And you don’t even ask me if I slept with José!”

What would happen if he told her about his strange dream? Franziska would probably explode, and everything would be over, because she wouldn’t feel taken seriously. Peter sometimes had such impulses. Better to end it that way... or not?

“And, are you?” he asked.

Hmm, maybe that wasn’t very smart either. He didn’t want to know the answer. But if it was important to her, then he had to ask.

“Am I what?”

Now she reminded him of his German teacher in elementary school, who always insisted on complete interrogative sentences. Was this some kind of game to her?

“Have you slept with this José?”

“Well, that’s a clear question at last. How nice that I was able to pique your interest after all.”

But that was not a clear answer, my darling. And at the same time, it is, because if it were, you’d admit it. Then it occurred to him. She must be frustrated because the director turned her down. He was either a faithful husband, or gay. Or, more likely, José had the hots for Greta. Her friend, who had been single since he’d met her, was ten centimeters taller than Franziska, and she was a master at arousing desire, whether in men or women, often without fulfilling it, as far as he knew.

Greta seemed indifferent toward him, perhaps because she knew he didn’t like her, or because she simply wouldn’t have it any other way. This José, however, must have fallen for her, especially since Greta was also blond, which, at least according to the usual clichés, should fit his prey pattern. His wife would undoubtedly provide more substantial conversation, but if the man was looking for adventure, that probably wasn’t the most important thing to him. It was understandable, if not enjoyable, that Franziska took her anger about this out on him. That must be the explanation, so he spoke up.

“I’m sorry José wasn’t interested in you,” he said.

Crap. He needed less than a second to realize his mistake, because Franziska turned red in a flash. She swallowed a few times, then slowly reached for the wine glass with her left hand, took it between her fingers, and threw it just over his head and against the wall. The red wine splattered through the dining room.

Franziska left the room, her face bright red and her lips pressed tightly together. Shortly afterward, Peter heard her car engine.

* * *

Franziska was not back for the evening news. She was probably crying on Greta’s sofa while her friend was reproaching her for not having separated from him long ago, now that the children were out of the house. Peter tried to clean the shelf, the floor, and the wall. He succeeded with the shelf and the floor, but the wall still had a few stains.

He was alone, but that had its advantages. The sky was clear, which promised a great evening of observing. It was not as bitterly cold as it had been the past few nights. Some warm air was coming their way, which might be bad for viewing after tonight, but he didn’t dwell on that thought because he just wanted to see if a star was still shining or not.

In the meantime, he’d entered the coordinates into his optimization algorithm. The computer had printed him a new list in which the stars were sorted in such a way that the telescope needed as little time as possible to switch. All that was missing now was a direct link between the telescope and the computer, and a program capable of confirming the existence of a star from a photograph. That would be a good project for the weekend, if Franziska didn’t return by then.

Then there was the message from Melissa Holinger. He’d been saving it as if it were the longed-for promise from a lover to spend the night with him. That was how it felt when he opened it. It would depend on its contents how intensively he would deal with this subject that had grown so close to his heart. Somehow, Franziska was right. The stars were almost more important to him than she was. He also hardly thought about their relationship when he imagined how the seven stars lined up on the spherical shell.

And the sun.

“Hello, Mr. Kraemer,” wrote the astronomer.

It was already clear it was not an automatic answer.

“I apologize for taking a little longer. But I didn’t want to answer you before I had checked your thesis at least once.”

Very sensible, the woman. She had not immediately classified him as a nutcase.

“I have to admit one thing in advance: I thought it very unlikely that you could be right. Mail from amateur astronomers, please don’t misunderstand me here, is often full of obvious errors or unsubstantiated claims. This is not the case with you. The seven missing stars are indeed on a spherical shell.”

Ha! And the sun?

“It would be interesting to discuss why that is. Perhaps you already have an explanation. People outside the field often provide refreshing ideas. I would consider your observation as a whole to most likely be a coincidence. That may disappoint you, but without another plausible explanation, it is simply the most likely possibility. It may seem unlikely to you, but consider this: If you look at the 200 billion stars of the Milky Way as a whole, you’ll find thousands and thousands of ways to put spherical shells through any seven of them, or even the logo of a burger chain, or whatever figure you choose.”

That didn’t sound very optimistic.

“What can you do? It’s quite simple. The more stars you find that lie on this spherical shell, the more probable it becomes that you are really on the track of a phenomenon rather than a coincidence. But please don’t limit your search to the spherical shell itself. That would be self-deception. Every disappeared star you find away from the shell is a witness against your thesis.”

That was true, of course, and he wouldn’t have thought of taking such a roundabout path.

“And what about the sun? you will ask. You yourself write that there is an essential difference between the sun and the stars that are no longer to be found: the sun still shines. And it is by no means the only visible yellow dwarf on the spherical shell you describe. Therefore the position of the sun here also speaks against your theory. Unless one assumes that all the yellow dwarfs on the spherical shell will also disappear sometime in the future. I think that is impossible. In our paper, which you have, we also discussed some other explanations for these strange failures.”

A few tips and final salutations followed, as well as a request to contact her with further news. All right. She didn’t believe him, but accepted him as a legitimate source. That was something, at least.

He closed the computer, reached for his freshly printed list, and ran into the hall to get warm. There was a lot to do!

March 4, 2026 – Passau

Peter yawned. It was only Wednesday, and the week was already dragging. Franziska must have spent the night with Greta again. Now that he was pretty sure she hadn’t started anything with that José, he also knew why she had no problem sleeping in Greta’s cramped bed. It would be free because Greta was staying at the director’s hotel. Hopefully he’d be leaving for the next big city soon. When Greta needed her own bed again, Franziska would be back.

It was already kind of strange without her. He took until breakfast to figure out what he meant by that. The more appropriate word would be lonely. He required peace and quiet in the morning, but now he had too much of that. It was comforting to have someone puttering around in the living room while he was relaxing in the kitchen drinking his coffee.

Maybe his wife would be back in the afternoon. It looked like it would be another sunny day. She couldn’t miss that. Greta lived in an old, crowded part of town, and Franziska loved the sun.

Spring was moving in now, which meant an end to the long, clear winter nights, but as long as he could be out stargazing at all, he was less interested in the image quality.

While in the kitchen clearing the dishes, Peter came across his list where he’d left it the night before. He’d worked through two pages and proved that the new algorithm worked well. All the stars on the list were still in the sky. He wondered if he should take a shortcut by limiting himself to the spherical shell. But Holinger was right—doing so would invalidate his research. It would make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Peter pulled open a drawer and hid the list inside. There was no way he could work with the telescope if Franziska came back today—that much was clear. Maybe it would be good for both of them if she spent a few more days with Greta? That way, she might learn to appreciate her former life again.

Her former life. It sounded like it was over. A shiver ran down his spine.

* * *

The front doorbell rang just as he was checking the mock exam for the 8th grade. Peter rushed downstairs and opened the door to an impassive Franziska. He beamed at her, but she did not return his smile.

“Sorry. I left my set of keys at Greta’s apartment.”

“No problem, come on in. It’s nice that you—”

“I just want to get a few things, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“You can go ahead and—”

Her gaze fell on the telescope still in the hallway, and her face transformed into a scowl. “Oh, have you been looking up at the sky again? I hope you’re having fun with it.”

It sure didn’t sound like she wanted him to have fun. He hated this passive-aggressive tone. He was about to ask her to stay a little longer but decided he was not in the mood for her bitching. He was not going to put up with it.

“Yes, it’s quite fascinating,” he said. “This researcher from Stockholm, Holinger is her name, gave me some important clues. I was afraid she was going to laugh at me.”

Franziska took off her boots but made no move to take off her jacket. “So you found someone to talk to. That’s nice.” She turned away from him and ran upstairs.

“We correspond by e-mail,” he said, loud enough for her to hear.

“That’s much better than talking directly to each other, isn’t it?” Franziska exclaimed from the second floor.

“No, of course it’s not,” he countered. “I do talk to myself sometimes.” That was not exactly true. He only weighed thoughts against each other in his head. But it sounded dramatic.

“Poor you. I used to do that when you were out among the stars.”

Hmm. He’d never heard Franziska talking to herself. She came down the stairs with a filled bag in her hand. That was quick. Usually, she spent hours thinking about what to wear.

Peter was startled. If Franziska no longer cared, all sorts of things must have changed. He had to do something.

“Stay here, please,” he said. “Let’s talk... in peace.”

“But I’m not feeling peaceful. Our relationship isn’t working,” his wife said, “and I need some time to myself right now. Don’t be mad. It’s not you. And right now is a perfect time. I’ve got Greta’s apartment, and everything’s going smoothly at school, so all I have to do is show up for class. I’ve never had so much time to think about my life.”

So Greta was out with the director. But what Franziska was saying sounded even more threatening than a fling with a younger lover. She seemed to be questioning her whole life. Was this her midlife crisis? He didn’t want to change his life, and Franziska was part of it. Wasn’t it normal to be annoyed with each other sometimes?

“Yes, then,” he said, “I hope it’s good for you. I just wanted to tell you that I—”

“I know, Peter. As I said, it has nothing to do with you. It’s about me. You can’t help me with that, except to leave me alone for a while.”

“How long?”

“Don’t expect to see me for at least a week. Greta has gone to Berlin with José. I can use her apartment for that long.”

“I see.”

“I know you don’t understand, my darling. That would be a miracle, and I’m not asking for that. After all, I don’t understand myself. That’s why I need some time.”

The passive-aggressive undertone had disappeared. Franziska now reminded him again of the woman he’d met so many years ago, except that there were some noticeable wrinkles on her face. She stopped in front of him and stroked his cheek. Her hand was warm. He would have liked to hug her now, but didn’t dare.

“Well, I’ll be on my way.”

She turned away, slipped on her boots, and reached into her coat pocket. She seemed irritated for a moment, then remembered that the set of keys was in Greta’s apartment.

“Can you get into Greta’s apartment without a key?” he asked.

“Yes, there’s always a key under her doormat.”

“Good.”

She turned to him and opened her arms for a hug.

* * *

Peter was confused. The confusion was similar to when he was first in love. It was a long time ago, but he remembered it well because it was so intense. This confusion was a little different, though. It sat heavily in the back of his mind.

Working helped him whenever he was confused. But, he could distract himself even better by looking into the infinite distance of space. He didn’t even have to use a telescope for this, but it helped because the need for careful handling took extra concentration.

The telescope moved to the first star. He had made a note in the list for each candidate, whether or not it was on the spherical shell. This one was not. The telescope jerked, then moved east briefly and returned. The smartphone vibrated. A star glittered in the exact center of the image—that it was a yellow dwarf was not visually apparent. To verify, he would have to record the spectrogram. The telescope might have found the wrong star, but this was unlikely. Peter checked the surroundings. There was no other star of comparable brightness within a few degrees. No, he could cross this candidate off the list.

Then it was the next one’s turn. The telescope only took 20 seconds before it stopped again and his cell phone vibrated. This star was still shining, too. At least it existed 57 years ago, when the light he now saw left the star. He was looking into the past, something he had never been as aware of as he was now. All the missing stars that he’d discovered so far were at least 40 light-years away from Earth. So the event that wiped them out must have happened more than 40 years ago. Didn’t that mean that the sun was safe for a long time?

Not necessarily, he continued in his mind as he searched for the next star. This was a process that could take a while. First it had to spread through the universe and reach a star. Then, once there, it had to somehow affect the star in such a way that, if it succeeded, the star eventually vanished.

The star catalog that the Stockholmers used was only ten years old, so at that time the lost stars still existed. Now they were gone, telling him the process took ten years at most.

No, that was not true. It could still be in progress with other stars. Holinger had named some yellow dwarfs that were on the spherical shell and had not disappeared. What if the process had something to do with size? Perhaps it was gradually consuming the victims. A larger star would thus last longer. Or maybe someone was building massive structures around these stars, Dyson spheres that shielded all radiation. Something like that would undoubtedly take more time for larger stars. The sun was somewhere in the middle, size-wise. Its activity changed in a known 11-year cycle. There was no sign, at least at present, of the action of any process that would cause it to go extinct.

The vanished stars would then have had to be smaller than the sun. Peter hadn’t taken a close look at their masses and diameters, but from memory, he knew that 47 Ursae Majoris is—was—a bit bigger than the sun. So, his nice theory, like any theory can, failed with the first rebuttal. Holinger was right: He had to uncover more stars that could no longer be detected. The more specimens he had, the more likely he would be to ascertain their similarities.

His cell phone vibrated and Peter looked through the eyepiece. A small star was there, shining brightly.

He immediately entered the next coordinates.

01 44 4,08 -15 56 14,9

Lrf! V xabj sebz jurer V pnzr

Vafngvnoyr nf sver

V fuvar naq pbafhzr zlfrys

Rirelguvat V gbhpu gheaf vagb yvtug

Rirelguvat V yrnir vf abguvat ohg nfur

V nofbyhgryl nz gur sver

March 5, 2026 – Passau

‘Start,’ he typed. Now it was getting exciting. The telescope started moving. He counted 35 seconds and it stopped at the next star. He briefly examined the image and tapped ‘Visible.’ Again, the motors hummed, this time taking 22 seconds to show him a new star. ‘Visible.’ On it went. He’d written a script that afternoon that remotely controlled the tracking app. Whenever he clicked ‘Visible,’ it picked up the next star from the list and moved to it, saving him the hassle of entering coordinates.

He had gotten the idea from a sophomore while he was teaching math. Some of the girls noticed that he was often distracted, and out of curiosity, they asked him why. Of course, his personal life had no place in school, especially since his wife also taught classes there. So he told them about the missing stars and made a geometry problem out of it. In the discussion, however, they came up with the best way to test the theory, and one of the girls suggested a script.

The cell phone vibrated. He tapped ‘Visible,’ only then realizing that he’d forgotten to check the screen to see if the telescope had found a star. Bummer. But the script didn’t show him which star he might have missed. He let the telescope work. Odds were it wouldn’t have been a lost star, of all things. Unfortunately, the script could not read the screen and then press the ‘Visible’ button by itself. That would be the ultimate.

His phone buzzed again. This time he thought to check. ‘Visible.’ Buzzing motors, vibration, look through the eyepiece, ‘Visible’ button, buzzing motors, vibrating phone, check on the phone’s screen, ‘Visible.’ He tried to vary the sequence as much as possible, sometimes looking for the star on the screen and then other times through the eyepiece. He was getting tired, but it was not even midnight yet. Every clear night was precious. Franziska was away for a week. He wondered how many of those evenings the weather would cooperate.

Vibration, ‘Visible,’ buzzing motors, vibration—nothing. Nothing? Oh. He closed his eyes for a moment. The smartphone screen was running at its lowest brightness level so as not to disturb his adaptation. But for it to be completely dark? Even when he turned up the brightness, an area with only a few gray dots appeared.

He looked through the eyepiece of the telescope. There, too, he saw only black. No, wait. There, at the edge of the image, were a few points of light. Of course! He had already forgotten what he was looking for. There was nothing there, so he had finally found another star that was no longer visible.

His script had simply stopped at this point, so he saved a screenshot of the app, which also showed the coordinates. That way, he could check later which star used to be visible at that location. Then he restarted the script, and the monotony started all over.

March 7, 2026 – Passau

The rain pelted against the kitchen window. Peter poured himself a cup of coffee. Then he poured cold milk into his muesli and returned the carton to the refrigerator, sat down on the stool, and looked outside while he slowly shoveled in the milk-soaked cereal. Except for the sound of rain, it was quiet, almost too quiet, but he didn’t want to turn on the radio because it belonged to his wife. The kitchen smelled of stale cereal and overly roasted coffee. How long has Franziska been gone? It was Saturday. It seemed like a whole week to him, but it was only three days.

Good, then he could invest the weekend in his search. The crappy weather out there wouldn’t allow him to make any more observations, but this way, he finally had time to incorporate the two new finds into his theory. His spoon scraped across the porcelain, and he quickly finished his cereal. He washed out the bowl and placed it upside down in the dish drainer, as Franziska always did.

* * *

He sat in front of the computer with freshly brushed teeth. The intense scent of the toothpaste assaulted his nose. It was almost as if a blob of it had stuck to him somewhere, but he was convinced he’d rinsed it off thoroughly. Somehow, he was perceiving all smells more intensely today. Perhaps it was because he was alone. He did not want to call this state ‘loneliness.’ It was not perfect, but it was not so bad, either. Peter had always been comfortable with being alone.

But, he wasn’t alone. HD 10307 and Lambda Aurigae were with him. When HD 10307 was still shining in the sky, it could be found in the Andromeda constellation, not so far from the Andromeda Galaxy. Peter made a note, because there was an important feature. The yellow dwarf was a binary object that was orbited by the red dwarf HD 10307 B. HD 10307 A, the main sequence star, was a bit larger and brighter than the sun. Astronomers considered it promising for the origin of life, so a message had been sent in its direction in 2003.

Peter imagined the aliens there receiving a message from the Earthlings, who had long been considered violent in the universe, and thereupon they hid their sun with advanced technology so that no one from Earth got the notion to visit them. However, the radio signal would not arrive there for another 18 years, so it could not be blamed for the star’s disappearance.

Lambda Aurigae in the Auriga constellation was another piece of counter-evidence for his idea that only smaller stars could have disappeared so far, because it too was a bit bigger and brighter than the sun. Of all the stars that he deemed to have disappeared, this one most resembled our sun. Peter copied all his data into a table. He now had nine findings. He averaged one finding per night outside. If he continued like this for another week, he might reach 15. Would that be enough to impress Holinger?

He compared the data in detail. Apart from the fact that they were all sun-like stars of the spectral class G, he could not find any common features. The fact that all of them belonged to G was due to himself, because he considered only G-type main sequence stars as candidates. After all, red dwarfs with their possible solar-flare outbursts shone too unreliably, so the spectral class didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the process which extinguished the stars.

But it could. If that were true, who, of all beings, would be targeting sun-like stars? And why?

The spectral-class question still needed to be answered: Numerous planets had been found in the orbit of red dwarfs. But this class of stars had the unpleasant habit of regularly sterilizing the planets orbiting them by means of flares. The sun and its siblings, on the other hand, burned persistently and fairly steadily, which was conducive to the emergence of life.

So if you knocked out sun-like stars, you prevented or destroyed life. Peter had read enough science fiction novels to immediately think of some machine intelligence that had made it its business to wipe out biological life. But of course this was pure speculation. Why waste time on idle speculation?

* * *

For the last step today, he had to go downstairs to the living room. The steps creaked under his feet. He had always thought that they would need to have a lift installed at some point if one of them was no longer mobile enough for stairs. But if Franziska now found she preferred to spend her life without him, why would she still need the stairlift? Peter’s laugh echoed in the hallway. These were such completely pointless thoughts he had to shoo them out of his head.

As soon as the astral projector transferred him into the universe, such extraneous thoughts had no room anymore. He was back in the inner solar system. The illusion was so perfect! Once, shortly after he acquired the device, they’d made love among the stars. That had been a completely surreal experience—he hadn’t even felt the carpet on the living room floor. When the simulated, three-dimensional universe started moving, even gravity seemed to suspend momentarily.

The brain can be easily tricked. It has only a limited experience and can do little with the boundlessness of the universe. A pity, actually. Would this change in the future, when humanity would consider a stay in space as normal?

Peter took his cell phone out of his pocket. He had something planned. He quickly copied the data from the tracking app into the control of the astral projector. The image changed. Earth, Mars, and Venus disappeared. Instead, nine quail-egg-sized objects now blinked in space. Peter walked between them. He did not dare to call up the stored spherical shell again, because if the new finds were not on it, he would be at his wit’s end.

No—he couldn’t help it—he pressed the button that brought the stored representation to life. A shell magically erected itself. In the process, it captured one blinking star after another. It worked! Lambda Aurigae was already sitting right. HD 10307 was a bit off. The apparent position in the sky and the spatial position in the universe were just different. The rounded, elegant shining shell worked its way unshakably through space. The sun had long since sunk into it, as had the five stars of the southern sky that Holinger’s team found. And finally, it was HD 10307’s turn.

He was right! All nine lost stars spanned a common spherical shell. Was that still coincidence?

Some would say so. Others, not so. He had to be honest with himself. It might look less like a coincidence, but nine was not a smoking gun. Fifteen would be good. Fifteen would no longer be a coincidence. He just needed to locate more of the lost stars.

March 9, 2026 – Passau

The weather sucked, he was running out of time, and then this news had to arrive before his morning coffee! Peter pounded his fist against the side of his chair until his hand hurt. What could he say about that? He started typing a response, but he couldn’t think of an argument. Frustrated, he scrolled back to her text.

“Dear Mr. Kraemer,” wrote the astronomer from Stockholm, to whom he’d emailed his results yesterday. “I understand your impatience very well. It afflicts us all regularly. It is a part of the researcher’s life. Ideas shoot up quickly and gratuitously from the humus of our thinking, but to let them mature into a flower or to weed them, we need a crazy amount of time, during which new ideas have also been sprouting, which also want to be nurtured.”

She was not a particularly good poet. Holinger probably worked in her garden as a diversion. Peter had never been much for gardening. What he liked best was an enchanted dreamscape like Sleeping Beauty’s.

“On the two additional candidates you have tracked down, I congratulate you. I can confirm that they cannot be found, even via the Institute’s large telescope. So the discovery credit is entirely yours.”

As if that had been his point! But it was probably important to many hobby astronomers.

“Unfortunately, the two new stars do not contribute to an overarching theory, at least as far as I could tell from a brief survey. As before, there were hardly any similarities to be found, and there should be if one were to assume a common cause for the disappearances. Apart from the positions on the spherical shell, of course, which, however, seem to me too insignificant as the only connection.”

Yes, he realized that, too. But how was he supposed to make progress if the weather didn’t cooperate? And if Franziska really did return, he would need to have closed this issue. Otherwise, she’d be gone away again, maybe for good.

“We will include the positions in our next observing cycle. My personal guess is that we will find evidence of dark clouds there as well. Perhaps there is a connection between the formation of sun-like stars and the existence of such dark matter clouds. That would explain why yellow dwarfs are very frequently covered by these conglomerations, as if by a curtain.”

Holinger had already put forward that theory in her paper. It would be a logical explanation, but there were also counterarguments. A star should not just go out overnight. It would have to burn up slowly and would be observed for many years to come. But this was an interesting thought. He hadn’t measured the brightness of the stars on his list so far. Holinger rightly pointed out that many yellow dwarfs still shone on the spherical shell he’d introduced.

Could it be that they were already in the process of being obscured? Then he should be able to determine this by their reduced brightness, if dark clouds were really to blame for the phenomenon. If, on the other hand, he did not find a single star that had lost some brightness, that would speak against the dark cloud theory. It was like proving the theory of evolution: There must be intermediate states.

He needed to revise his strategy in general. He could learn something from Melissa Holinger. The commonalities he was looking for were obviously not recognizable at first glance. So he needed a second, a third, a fourth look. The data he needed for this was available on the net. Gamma, X-ray, radio, and infrared telescopes fed their results into the known databases. All he had to do was retrieve them, for every object he examined.

Sometimes a picture became more apparent when you looked at it upside down, or from a distance, or made a negative. The extinct yellow dwarfs might be hiding their common features from him. But what about the stars that still shone? Did they exhibit features that linked them? In the reverse conclusion, the absence of these characteristics would then be what constituted the extinct ones.

Peter wiped the sweat from his brow. That was going to be a lot of work, but at least it was not dependent on the weather. Today was Monday. If Franziska kept her promise, she’d be back no sooner than Wednesday.

He could wait until later to formulate the answer to Holinger’s email. He got up and shuffled to the phone in his pajamas. His penis was stiff because he urgently needed to go to the bathroom. He was a little embarrassed to call the secretary in this condition, but he couldn’t wait too long or there would be more trouble than necessary. He dialed the number.

“Robert Schumann High School, Secretary, God bless!”

“Amalie? It’s Peter.”

“Oh, you don’t sound good at all.”

“Exactly. That’s why I’m calling. I caught some nasty virus.”

“Thanks for the call. I’ll arrange for your replacement.”

Ava would curse him because now she would have to take over the hated 9th graders in math.

“Thank you, Amalie.”

“Mrs. Rott is not going to be very thrilled.”

“Yes, I know. I’m hurrying to get better. Maybe it’s just a cold.”

Peter sneezed. He hoped he hadn’t really caught something.

“Gesundheit. I wish you a speedy recovery.”

* * *

It was pretty tedious to explore the universe on the computer. Peter was looking forward to when he could get back to the telescope.

He had to query each star individually. First, he looked up the object’s galactic coordinates, second, he entered those coordinates into the data browser, and finally, had to choose which telescope’s data he wanted to start with.

For no particular reason, he chose to start with the data from the XMM-Newton, an ESA X-ray telescope that had scanned the sky for more than 20 years and had been retired only two years ago. It captured radiation such as that emitted by flares from red dwarfs. Bursts strong enough to appear in the XMM data always spelled some kind of disaster for the star involved. At worst, they’d signaled a remnant of a stellar explosion—a rapidly spinning neutron star, that is, a pulsar. However, since Peter was querying the positions of known stars, it would be a miracle to find a pulsar there. A flare was more likely. For a sun-like star, it would be a symptom that the object was not doing well, that it was somehow out of balance.

Then he switched almost to the other end of the spectrum and checked the infrared sources. Every celestial object emitted thermal radiation, even planets or brown dwarfs, which otherwise cast no light. He didn’t expect too much from them. Yellow dwarfs, of course, gave off lots of heat, depending on how brightly they shone. He wasn’t anticipating surprises here—on the other hand, he didn’t want regrets later, or embarrassment, for having overlooked something that turned out to be important.

In the next step, he jumped back into the high-energy range. He focused on data from Integral, an ESA gamma-ray observatory. Gamma rays were primarily emitted by supernovae or black holes. His candidates were actually out of the question as an essential source for these rays. Should he therefore give up the gamma-ray-based search? No. It wouldn’t take long, anyway, because not many gamma sources came into question.

Finally, he tried the radio spectrum. Here he had to choose between different wavelengths. That was a challenge, because for a star in the northern sky, data was often not available in the same frequency range as for a star in the southern sky. Peter, therefore, limited himself to the north. That was still enough work. He compared the coordinates of the current object with data from the WENSS, the Westerbork Northern Sky Survey. It was almost 30 years old, but when speaking of the cosmos, that was very little time.

The result, initially, was nothing at all. He wrote and checked off the first star, entered the next set of coordinates, and again found nothing. He felt like the universe’s accountant. Does the universe need someone doing this? Couldn’t this be done much better by software? Of course. All the data is purely digital.

He had the right ascension and declination of the objects, i.e., their coordinates in the sky, and he had an astral projector that could generate a spatial image from this spherical data.

The only problem was that he had to merge all four databases—X-ray, gamma, infrared, and radio—in such a way that the astral projector displayed their entries as distinct objects. Peter read up on the documentation. Apparently there was an interface that allowed him to feed any data into the system. Very convenient. He downloaded, as far as available, the data of the northern sky, and copied them one by one into the online memory of the astral projector. For the different objects, he also uploaded four different 3D models that the projector could use.

He was ready to go! Peter ran down the stairs. It was quite cold in the living room, as it was already getting dark outside. His stomach was growling because he’d skipped lunch. Still, he hadn’t felt a burst of energy quite like this in a long time. It seemed to him that he was onto something, as if something was about to reveal itself that would surprise him. If Franziska had told him about having such a feeling, he would have thought she was crazy.

He first turned up the heat. Franziska preferred the house to be warm and, if he let it cool down too much, it would take a few hours to get it back up to her comfortable zone. He himself only sought warmth when he’d been outside behind the telescope for a few hours. And then he preferred to take a hot bath.

The astral projector still stood in the middle of the room. All he’d had to do was switch it on and, shortly after startup, he was drawn into space, surrounded by Earth, Mars, and Venus, as always. The sun hung on the terrace outside the window. Unlike last time, he had forgotten to lower the blinds. The window glass reflected some of the lasers that created the hologram. As a result, a translucent version of the sun also formed inside the living room, just below the ceiling. It looked as if the ghost of a star was approaching the solar system from above the ecliptic.

That was not particularly disturbing, so Peter left it. He wasn’t interested in the solar system. Using the projector’s control app, he first called up the yellow dwarfs from his list. By pointing his finger, he forced the universe to change its shape. That was how God must feel. The planets shrank and disappeared, and many new stars revealed themselves in an irregular pattern.

Then he released the X-ray sources. A few violet spheres mingled with the yellow dwarfs, which respectfully kept their distance. There were hardly any objects radiating intensely in the X-ray range—apart from the stars themselves—in the immediate vicinity of the solar system. Their coronas were so hot that light particles with X-ray energies were emitted by thermal means, i.e., by excitation of the atoms. However, he refrained from letting the software color the stars violet as well.

The jump to the infrared was already providing much more information. A whole series of small red balls materialized around him. They were brown dwarfs and giant planets without their own suns. The difference quickly blurred. Some also kept the yellow dwarfs company by orbiting them. However, that was the exception rather than the rule, and in no way qualified as the great commonality of the surviving yellow dwarfs.

From the beginning, he did not expect anything from the gamma radiation. It simply emanated from the wrong sources. It was more than 20,000 light-years to the nearest galactic nucleus, and ordinary stars emitted gamma rays only when they were undergoing some kind of eruption. The astral projector automatically increased the scale to show the center of the Milky Way as well. Peter was caught in a whirlpool and pulled along. He realized too late that he was to blame for it, because he had stored the gamma objects.

Back to square one. Changing the scale by hand in precisely the right way was not so easy. Peter preferred to press the reset button, and when Mars and Venus were back, he faded in his yellow dwarfs again and then brought in the radio sources. A few green balls spread out in space, and a few more joined the existing stars. The effect was like the infrared, only a bit more sparing. Did this mean anything?

In any case, the radio signals were no sign of any civilization—the scientists who conducted the survey would have already determined that. So, they had some natural cause and there were many possibilities. The radio telescope that conducted the WENSS was listening at 325 MHz. Radio waves in that part of the spectrum often emanated from galactic nuclei, but that wouldn’t be true in this case.

Was that perhaps the common ground he was looking for? Peter started the spherical shell via the control app. The glittering depiction pushed its way through the living room. He stood directly in front of it. Some of the yellow dwarfs lined up perfectly on the shell. Peter examined them all individually. They didn’t look as nice and shiny yellow as they had before. He pulled one out of the shell by hand. Its color had changed because it coincided with a radio source.

Carefully he released it again, as if he held a sensitive animal in front of him. The next dwarf was also discolored, and the one after that. That could be it! Peter searched the entire shell, and in the end he had tracked down three yellow dwarfs that glowed just as golden as before. He marked them by virtually rotating them with his hand. Now they glowed red. One of the three was the sun.

What did that mean? Was our system doomed?

Take it easy, Peter. First, he had to rule out a mistake. He went through the other yellow dwarfs outside the spherical shell. About one-third were also a radio source, while the rest were not. On the spherical shell, however, the distribution was quite different—98.5 percent were active at 325 MHz, while only 1.5 percent were not, a phenomenon for which he couldn’t think of an explanation. He simply knew too little about radio sources. The best thing he could do was turn to Holinger again. She had already listened to him twice, so he might as well try a third time.

He turned off the astral projector and dropped onto the sofa. Enough for today.

06 10 14,47 -74 45 11

Gurer vf n irel cebira zrnaf,

gb xrrc gur gvzr ng gur fyrrcvat ghavp:

Bar gnxrf gur cbpxrg jngpu gb gur unaq

naq sbyybj gur unaq fgrnqsnfgyl.

Vg tbrf fb fybjyl gura, fb jryy-orunirq

yvxr n jryy-oerq furrc,

chgf sbbg va sebag bs sbbg nf shyy bs znaare

nf yvxr n Zvff bs Fnvag-Ple.

Ubjrire, vs lbh qernz lbhefrys njnl sbe n juvyr,

gur qrzher ivbyrg zbirf sbejneq

jvgu yrtf yvxr gur bfgevpu

Naq fgrnyguvyl yvxr n chzn.

Naq ntnva lbh ybbx qbja ba ure;

un, jergpu! - Ohg jung vf guvf?

Vaabpragyl fzvyvat fur znxrf ntnva

gur qnvagvrfg frpbaqf-cnf.

March 10, 2026 – Passau

The phone rang. He should get up. Peter turned to the other side. He should have gone to bed earlier! But the phone didn’t give up.

“Alexa, what time is it?”

“It’s 7:40.”

At this point, Franziska would have laughed out loud. You just have to turn around. The alarm clock is next to you, he imagined her saying. He even missed her criticism. But the phone didn’t give up. He crawled out of bed. Fortunately, there was a handset in the hallway on the second floor. Barefoot, he left the bedroom. The floor was cold, and the phone rang again. It had to be Amalie, the secretary. He picked it up and rasped out a greeting.

“Peter? I’m glad I caught you,” said his colleague Ava Rott, who taught the same subjects.

“Yes?”

“Oh, you don’t sound so good. I was hoping you would... I’m sorry to bother you, but—”

Peter interrupted her. “Still sick, I’m afraid.” His voice sounded hoarse without bothering to try. No wonder, with less than three hours of sleep. But he only had one more day!

“Yeah, Peter, I didn’t want to call either, but that asshole class is killing me.”

Oh, Nine C. It was only called the ‘asshole class’ among the faculty. Through some group dynamic process, an anti-authoritarian mood had taken hold with those students. No one knew what to do.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said.

“I thought they were supposed to write a class assignment on Friday. They now claim that you always gave them the solutions beforehand.”

“That’s humbug, obviously.”

“They have sheets of paper with solutions in your handwriting to prove it.”

“We went over the assignments after the classwork.”

“They claim otherwise.”

“Bullshit.”

“Peter, I have to report this. You do realize that, don’t you? But I don’t want to be the one. You’ve got to come back soon and sort it out yourself.”

Ah, so that was what it was all about. Ava wanted to get him to resume his work. How unsympathetic was that? She had no idea he was healthy.

“If you would let me sleep in—”

“Please, Peter, you have to be back on Thursday. The class is killing me.”

“Got it. Yeah, Thursday looks good.”

“Get well soon, then.”

Peter hung up. Ava blackmailing me? That’s a first.

He shivered. It must be the cold in the hallway. He proceeded to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and let nature take its course.

* * *

“Mr. Kraemer,” began Holinger’s new e-mail.

That sounded annoyed. He should probably leave the astronomer alone for a few days.

“Your new observations are undoubtedly interesting. However, I do not yet have a final opinion on whether they are relevant. The WENSS project, on which your data is based, concluded a quarter of a century ago.”

That was not a good counterargument. In the universe, 25 years was a fraction of a moment.

“You should also take a look at what the 325 megahertz sources they claim to have found might represent. I’m not particularly skilled in radio astronomy, but I wouldn’t think of stars, maybe more like pulsars and similar radio objects.”

That was a more significant objection. Peter took a mental note. He’d have to research this thoroughly.

“The correspondence of the radio sources to the spherical shell you defined is curious. However, I still wouldn’t rule out coincidence. Keep in mind that they don’t know the exact origin of the signals, only their direction. The sources themselves could be far, far beyond the spherical shell. So the stars you’re assigning the radio signal to aren’t necessarily the origins of the signal, they could just be on the beam path.”

That was true. But on the other hand, one could ask why all of the stars on the spherical shell were in the ray path, and those beyond the shell were not.

Holinger signed off with a terse goodbye.

Peter left the message in the inbox. He ought to be grateful that she continued to tolerate an annoying hobby astronomer like him in the first place. What did she say about the WENSS project? It scanned the sky in the 325-megahertz range. That meant the radio waves whose intensity it recorded were 92 centimeters long.

He looked up the possible sources, which the project had conveniently listed. Potential sources could be distant radio galaxies, pulsars, distant quasars, but also the ionized gas in the Milky Way disk. Well, Holinger was right. It didn’t say anything about single yellow dwarf-type stars, and all the stars he studied were way too close. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head.

Why should he necessarily be mistaken? Wasn’t it at least a possibility that the WENSS researchers could have been wrong? They were confronted by the same problem he was, and could not determine from any of the radio signals from what distance those signals reached their antennas. They measured only the signal strength, which must have been over 15 millijanskys. But a strong signal from 5 billion light-years away could cause a 15-millijansky pulse just as easily as a weak signal from 50 light-years away. The picture became clearer only if one succeeded in assigning a source in another area to the radio signal.

Peter picked carefully through the catalog compiled by the WENSS researchers. In retrospect, they had not been able to assign a known object to every source, which was not unusual. For example, pulsars were only a few tens of kilometers in size and could therefore be noticed purely by their radio emission and not optically. To establish a celestial object’s true nature, it was not enough to look at it in a single wavelength range, as was commonly done in such assessments. One needed a complete spectrum of the object, which could be as definitive as a fingerprint. Then, depending on where its radiation had its highs and lows, one could conclude the physical nature of the object.

Where would he get the radio spectra of the stars that interested him? He would have to examine at least three of them more closely, and also perhaps the three yellow dwarfs from which he found no 325-Megahertz-source. Merely writing to some scientist would not help him now. Measurement time at the large radio telescopes was valuable, and researchers had to submit requests for them months in advance.

He knew this all too well from what Thomas, a fellow student from college, had told him. In those days, Thomas had done an internship at the Dutch ASTRON, which operated various telescopes. What might have become of him? Thomas had been downright enthusiastic about astronomy, far more so than Peter, who eventually decided on a career as a science teacher. He opened a Google search to look for him. Thomas... what was his last name? Schröter! Oh, the name was a common one. There were plumbers, horsemen, surgeons, computer scientists, even a soccer player. Okay, this one must be him: a Thomas Schröter at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn.

He was about to write him an e-mail, but the personnel list even included his extension number. Wouldn’t it be easier to explain everything to Thomas on the phone? True, he’d be surprised that he hadn’t gotten in touch for so long. But if his interest in science was even half of what it was back then, Thomas would listen to him.

Peter dialed the number. It rang, but no one was there. He was about to hang up when a man answered.

“Schröter here. What’s up?”

He remembered Thomas’s voice as being higher, but then they had still been young fellows. Like himself, he must have passed the age of 50 by now.

“Hello Thomas, it’s Peter.”

“Peter?”

“Peter Kraemer.”

“Oh, that Peter! I haven’t heard from you in such a long time. What are you up to?”

“I’m a high school teacher near Munich.”

“I ended up at the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy.”

“So, should I call you Professor?”

“No, I never applied for a professorship. That would have required me to teach classes. I prefer to use my time for science.”

They brought each other up to date. Thomas had been at the institute for more than ten years and preferred to do field research and measurements, while he didn’t enjoy evaluating them as much. At one point he’d started working on his advanced degree, but then gave it up again.

“I just love standing at the meter,” he said. “But now out with it. How did I get this honor?”

With Thomas, he didn’t have to beat around the bush. “I need measurements,” Peter explained, “and that means radio spectrograms of two or three yellow dwarfs.”

“How come?” asked Thomas.

He explained his observations to him, and what he had already achieved through Holinger.

“You’re crazy,” Thomas said.

“Hmm.”

“But crazy in a good way. Honestly, only an amateur like you could come up with ideas like that.”

“Oh. That bad?”

“Honestly? Yes.”

“All right, thank you for your honest opinion. It was nice talking to you.”

“Slow down, Peter. I like crazy ideas and can understand yours very well. The discovery of the cosmic background radiation or the first pulsars also were put down to crazy ideas at first. It can be worthwhile to keep at it.”

“You’re saying that just to comfort me.”

“On the contrary. We have the Effelsberg radio telescope here at the institute, a 100-meter dish.”

“Can we get observation time there?”

“Unfortunately, that’s hopeless. The most recent application deadline was Feb. 5, and the next one isn’t until June 6. You’d have to fill out an application, which would then be considered by a committee. If you got through, you’d then have observation time in a year.”

“If.”

“Exactly. The committee doesn’t necessarily like crazy ideas.”

“So that’s it, then.”

“Absolutely not. I just looked at the observation schedule for this week. There’s nothing but a test program reserved from three to seven p.m. tomorrow, so I could sneak us in before or after.”

“Won’t you get in trouble for that?”

“No, I’m assisting some students with their projects, and as a result I’m allowed to use such off-peak times. Of course, something can always come up, but nothing should happen before tomorrow. What do you think about 1 p.m.? I’m sure we’ll be done by three.”

“But I can’t make it to Bonn by 1 p.m.”

“You don’t have to. The radio telescope can be controlled from all over the world. I’ll give you a login, and we’ll go searching together. What frequency did you say you were looking for?”

“325 megahertz.”

“Hmm, that reaches into the low-frequency range on one side. I’d have to recommend our LOFAR. But getting slots there on short notice is pretty much impossible.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Thomas.”

“The radio telescope can give you data between 300 megahertz and 95 gigahertz, but not below 300 megahertz. So the spectrum we gain is cut off on the left. It doesn’t start at zero.”

“I can live with that. The main thing is that I get the data.”

“We also won’t be able to drive more than two objects. To get beyond 900 megahertz, I have to change receivers.”

“You have to put on a different lens, you mean, like you’d do with a telescope?”

“More likely it’s the eyepiece, but that comparison doesn’t quite fit, either.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Changing receivers like that takes a couple of minutes, and targeting another object takes time, too. You’ll have to decide by tomorrow whether you’d rather have a more compact spectrum from three objects or a wider spectrum from two.”

“Okay, I’ll think about that.”

“Fine. I’ll send you a login for my computer, and you can look over my shoulder while I work on the telescope.”

“Thanks, Thomas.”

“Thank you. I was feeling a little bored anyway.”

March 11, 2026 – Passau

Today was the day Franziska was coming home, and the day when Thomas would record the radio spectrum of three yellow dwarfs with him. Peter had been feeling rushed since morning. He’d made Ava happy by taking over the 9th grade class again. That meant he didn’t have time for lunch, because it was already quarter to one, and he just made it home. But he couldn’t keep Thomas waiting.

He pushed the button and started up the computer in his study. Yesterday, he’d picked out three yellow dwarfs and emailed Thomas the coordinates. Two of them were on the spherical shell, and one was not. Of course, it would be better to measure 20 stars, but he had to take what he could get.

He grabbed a package of cookies from the kitchen. His tension was rising. He knew his login and password for the Max Planck Institute’s computer system by heart, even though it consisted of four groups of three random characters each. He powered up the terminal and entered the address. An input field appeared, and he entered the login that Thomas had given him, then opened a chat session.

It was five minutes to one.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Hi, Thomas. Glad to hear it’s working out.”

“Let’s hope for the best. You just have to sit back.”

“I can do that.”

“Then let’s begin our journey into the depths of space.”

As if by magic, letters appeared on his screen. Peter adjusted the window to the full screen size. Now he would see everything that Thomas saw.

A program window opened which read, ‘MPIfR Effelsberg 100m Telescope Control.’ Four buttons were visible at the top. The first one was red and labeled ‘Stop.’ The other three were green and labeled ‘Continue,’ ‘Repeat,’ and ‘Start.’ To the left was a long list. None of their entries meant anything to him. If he didn’t have Thomas’s help, he would have been lost before he’d even started.

The mouse pointer moved to ‘Pointing.’

“I point the antenna at a bright source to test,” Thomas explained.

It opened a second window in which a data chart appeared.

“Works.”

The mouse pointer changed to ‘Focus.’ Again, data came in. Then it went back to ‘Pointing.’

“It looks good,” Thomas said. “I just measured the H65-alpha transition from hydrogen at 23.4 gigahertz. The system is dazzling.”

“You don’t have to explain the individual steps to me in such detail,” said Peter. “I only understand half of it anyway, if that much.”

“You’ll have to suffer through it. I do this so often for the students that I can’t help it. I just checked the calibration of the whole system. If you want a spectrogram, it’s important to know exactly where the individual lines are. Anyway, the system mapped the 23.4-gigahertz line beautifully.”

“Good for you.”

“Now comes the real work.”

The doorbell rang. Peter saw that it was a quarter past one. That could be the mailman, who always arrived between one and two. He can leave his package at the front door, he thought.

On the screen, the mouse pointer moved to the ‘FSwitch’ entry. Thomas entered some numbers. He recognized the galactic coordinates, but not the rest.

“I’ll add it to the to-do list,” Thomas said, clicking the big green button at the bottom.

The doorbell rang again. Did the letter carrier need a signature? Now of all times!

“Go ahead and answer the door,” Thomas said. “It takes a little while for the first readings to come in. Outside, the dish is now moving until it’s right in your yellow dwarf’s face. I always find that very impressive. Have you ever seen our 100-meter giant live? The dish is aiming at a tiny dot, you might think. But in reality, it was the other way around. Your yellow dwarf is a million times bigger than my antenna. The antenna is the dwarf. The star is the giant.”

The doorbell rang yet again. The letter carrier would not rest. Peter got up and ran downstairs through the cold house and opened the front door.

Franziska was standing in front of him, her arms at her sides. She didn’t seem to have brought a bag with her. “I was just about to leave again.”

Peter took a step toward her, but she dodged backward, forgetting she was standing on a small landing. She stumbled and started to topple backward, but Peter caught her hand and was able to keep hold of it, and prevent her from landing on the ground.

“Thank you,” she said, stepping back again. “Were you asleep? Amalie said you were at school again today.”

“I have... I’m on the phone with Thomas right now.”

“With Thomas? Your fellow student?”

“You remember him?”

“Of course. He visited us in the summer once, about ten years ago. What does he do?”

“He works at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.”

“Ah, I see,” Franziska said as she squinted her eyes.

“What do you see?”

“It’s about your theories. You need his help. Haven’t you had enough yet?”

“He’s helping me record radio spectra from three stars. It’s great and will really help me move forward.”

Franziska didn’t seem happy for him. Did she really think he would just give up on the subject without having achieved anything?

“That’s good,” she said.

“Come on in. I have to go back up to Thomas, but in about an hour and a half...” he looked at the clock on his phone, “I’ll be done in about a hundred and five minutes.”

“That’s just as well. I wanted to tidy up the shelves in the living room anyway. That will take about a hundred and seven minutes. After that, we can talk.”

Perfect. Franziska only needed two minutes more than he did. What a coincidence. “Then, yes?”

Peter stepped back and held the door open for her. But Franziska only laughed. It sounded like she was crying, but she contorted her face as if she were laughing. That was confusing.

“Aren’t you coming in?” he asked.

Franziska bent down as if to pick up a bag, but there was nothing there. She looked confused for a moment, then straightened up again.

“Never mind,” she said, “I don’t think you need me. You’ve never needed me.”

“That’s right, Franziska. I don’t need you. What’s wrong with that? I didn’t marry you because I need you, did I? I need a cleaning lady, but I’ll pay her, too.”

“You’re offering me money to clean for you? That’s the last straw. I should have listened to Greta in the first place. This visit was completely unnecessary.”

What was this, now? He wasn’t offering her any money! Sometimes Franziska thought in very confusing ways.

“Sorry... I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said.

“Take care, Peter. You won’t see me again any time soon. Too bad. I even missed you a little bit.” She turned around, started running, and disappeared around the corner of the house.

Should I run after her? entered his mind for a second. But upstairs, Thomas was waiting with the radio telescope. Surely the first data would arrive soon.

“I missed you too,” he said, but Franziska couldn’t hear him.

* * *

“The mailman took a long time,” Thomas remarked.

Peter concentrated on breathing in and out as he watched the screen. In one window, a column of measured values was being created. Another window, with a black background, showed text messages like ‘XFFTS ready for observing,’ which meant nothing to Peter. A radio telescope was much more complicated than an optical one.

During a break, Peter said, “That was my wife, not the mailman.”

“Feel free to introduce us. I’m curious. I don’t remember her one bit.”

“No, she’s gone.”

“Is she that busy? A lot of stress at work?”

“Forever.”

“Excuse me? Let me get this straight. You just separated from your wife?”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s what it looks like.”

“Hey, we can stop this right now if you have something to talk to her about.”

“Thank you, Thomas, but I would really prefer that we could finish the measurement.”

“So if you want to talk to me about it—”

“No, never mind. I prefer not to talk about it at all.”

“Well, that’s up to you. I already know why I never got involved in anything longstanding. Relationships just make you unhappy in the long run. Best to fall in love again and say goodbye after three years at the most.”

There was still nothing on the screen.

“Maybe. Why is the measurement stopping right now? Hopefully not because of me? It would be silly if we didn’t get all the data because of this story.”

“No, I explained to you that we need to change receivers every once in a while.”

“The eyepiece.”

“Exactly. In the meantime, I’m already normalizing the previous readings, which means I’m converting the data so that it becomes comparable across different receivers and I can put them side by side in a graph.”

Thomas entered commands in rapid succession. He was master of the telescope, like a pianist mastered his piano—an admirable mastery that, unfortunately, Peter felt he had not achieved in any aspect of his life.

The diagram on the screen changed its shape. What had just looked like a small hill now looked like a steep peak.

“Oh. That’s interesting,” Thomas said.

“What?”

“Let’s wait and see. We’re still at the beginning of the measurement.”

Peter looked at the clock on the edge of the screen. It was already a quarter to two. “It’s going to be tight, though, if we have to be done by three p.m.”

“Don’t worry. With all the necessary calibrations and tests, it’s always slow to get going. But it’s on task now. Twenty minutes per object—we should make it on time.”

The diagram continued to grow to the right. However, the values were steadily decreasing.

“What you’re looking at is the spectral flux density in janskys, that is, how much power is coming at us from the object in the current frequency segment per time and area. The graph plots that value versus frequency, which then gives you the radio spectrum you were looking for.”

“It seems very focused on one particular frequency.”

“Yes, Peter, and that is unusual. Normally what I would expect from an object on your list would be a rather balanced spectrum with different typical lines corresponding to some hydrogen transitions. In radio astronomy we know of so-called ‘peakers,’ which have a central mountain in the spectrum. But we are talking here about distant galaxies or quasars, where peak frequencies are around five—or even up to a hundred—gigahertz.”

The diagram had frequency labels on its x-axis. There, it only went up to 4 as the highest number indicated.

“We’re not there yet,” Peter noted.

“Well observed. We were still at about four gigahertz. But the peak at 0.418 gigahertz, that’s quite pronounced and not present in our typical gigahertz peakers. The lower the frequency of the peak, the younger the object. That’s kind of a rule of thumb.”

“And, the yellow dwarfs are likely to be a few billion years old.”

“Yes, which would be very young compared to quasars and distant galaxies. But I don’t know if that rule even matters here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know of any natural process that causes a radio peak at 418 megahertz.”

“You mean there’s a transmitter there?”

“No, Peter, I don’t mean anything specific. I’m just saying that I don’t know of any physical mechanism that would lead to emissions at 418 megahertz. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that there couldn’t be such a mechanism. And, of course, we have to rule out the possibility that we are measuring any earthly sources. LTE and 5G radio have kept us quite busy with that in recent years.”

“But they’ve been around forever, right?” asked Peter.

“Yeah, sure, we can work around those frequencies now. But what if some company nearby is experimenting with new frequencies? That kind of thing has to be registered, but we still have to check it out.”

“I might have an idea how to find out.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s measure one of the two yellow dwarfs that I couldn’t find in the WENSS data.”

“As you wish. But we don’t have time today for an extra object.”

“Then we’ll scrap my second-choice star, and I’ll email you the new coordinates.”

The diagram on the screen flickered briefly, then froze. It displayed all frequency ranges from 300 megahertz to 40 gigahertz. Right at the beginning, at 418 megahertz, a peak extended into the black sky of the screen background.

“Perfect,” said Thomas. “See, we just finished measuring the first object. It’s 2:10 pm. I’m now sending the telescope on its way to your new proposal. I’ll leave the spectrum on the screen.”

“One question. The data in the WENSS project is recorded at 325 megahertz. Is that correct? And now we have the maximum value here, at 418?”

“Yes, that’s normal, Peter. The measurement window always has a certain width. The 418 megahertz is close enough to the 325 to display that reading as well. If the WENSS had sampled the sky at 418 megahertz, your yellow dwarfs would have stood out even more obviously.”

* * *

Peter ran down the stairs in a staccato rhythm, making every second step creak. The house was quite warm. Now that Franziska was no longer home, he could simply turn off the heat in every room. There was also a radiator in the hallway that, to his knowledge, had never been turned off, but his conscience prickled if he even thought about closing the valve. He must have been avoiding it for years, after a long-ago chastisement.

The kitchen was neat and tidy. After all, he’d hardly used it in the last few days. Peter took a glass from the cupboard, filled it with tap water, and drank it in large gulps. The public water supply here was excellent.

He left and entered the study, where he saw the new diagram on the screen. “That was really fast,” he said.

“I told you it would work much faster the second time,” Thomas said. “Do you notice anything?”

“There is no peak to be seen at the beginning.”

“Exactly, and none is coming, either. We have the usual lines, no other abnormalities. Wait, let me re-normalize this.”

The diagram changed before his eyes. Small prongs stretched out and created a whole new pattern. It reminded him a bit of the barcodes from product labels.

“This is what the radio spectrum of a star ought to look like,” Thomas said.

“That means there’s no way the peak we saw earlier is coming from a secondary earthly source. Otherwise, it would have to be found here, too.”

“Slow down, Peter. The interference could have just stopped. The man who was by our fence talking on his cell phone could have moved on.”

“Then it’s a good thing we have one more item on the list.”

* * *

Peter bit into an apple as the third spectrum took shape. The diagram on the screen started with very high values that shot up to the edge of the display range.

“Ha, that’s it!” Peter exclaimed.

“Hold on. After the last measurement, I need to normalize again.”

The high mountain collapsed all at once. The beams shrank until they were barely visible.

“Uh-oh, that was probably too much correction,” Thomas acknowledged.

Again a mountain grew, but this time the value interval was sufficient. The back of his left hand hurt. Peter looked down and saw his right index finger scratching away at it. He couldn’t stop until he commanded himself to move his hands under his thighs, and they obeyed.

The chart grew to the right, but the readings remained low. Unless something else arose now, he had the proof.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“I think so,” Thomas replied. “But give us five more minutes. I’ll add the last multibox, and that should be enough.”

The diagram froze for a few seconds. Peter caught his right hand looking for something to scratch and put it back under his thigh. New readings flowed in. They varied in size, but they were low compared to the peak from the beginning. The last few minutes seemed endless. He waited for a verdict to be announced.

“So, we’re through,” Thomas said.

Peter went limp. Acquittal! He was not crazy. The charges were dismissed on all counts. Only now did he feel how exhausting the wait had been. And he could do nothing at this point.

“What does that mean now?” he asked.

“Wait, while I compare the charts,” Thomas responded.

On the screen, the curves slid over each other. The second was altogether a bit higher than the first.

“The second object is closer, right?” asked Thomas.

“Yes, forty light-years instead of a little over fifty.”

“Good.”

The second diagram shrank. Now it almost completely covered the first one.

“It makes for a nice picture,” Thomas explained. “The two objects have a largely-identical radio spectrum. You would expect that, since they are main-sequence stars of similar size and similar metallicity. It’s just this pronounced peak at 418 megahertz that we find in both of them that’s not expected.”

“And that means?”

“Figuring that out is not my job. I am responsible for the measurements. Maybe you can find an astrophysicist who specializes in stellar physics and who would have an explanation. I can’t think of anyone offhand.”

“Don’t you have someone from your workgroup in mind?”

“Everyone here is involved in their own projects. And I can’t come along and say that I just circumvented the usage rules and obtained this data as a friendly service. If you do pass it on, I’d be very grateful if you didn’t mention its source.”

“I see. Yes. Thank you, Thomas. What do you think, yourself? Could it be an artificial signal?”

“I’m skeptical about that. You know the statistics. Intelligent life has been slowly dying out in the Milky Way for 5.5 billion years. And the greatest chances of encountering it would be in systems that reside eight thousand light-years in the direction of the galactic center. But you have stars in—at most—fifty light-years distance. And then two artificial signals? That simply contradicts all experience.”

“But what else could it be?”

“A previously unknown physical phenomenon?”

“But that doesn’t fit with the sudden disappearance of the stars.”

“Why? That fits very well! After all, it could be a symptom of this disappearance.”

“No, Thomas. After all, the signal apparently only occurs with the stars that haven’t disappeared.”

“With all of them?”

“No, a few of them are missing it, like the object we measured second.”

“That then argues against a connection to the disappearance.”

“But what if all the stars missing the signal will eventually disappear? From the WENSS project data, none of the ‘disappeared’ stars can be assigned a radio source.”

“To say that definitively, one of the stars that doesn’t put out a signal would have to disappear right before our eyes. But why are you so worried about that, anyway?”

“One of those stars is the sun. If my theory is correct, our home star will at some point just go out.”

“Even if you’re right, Peter, remember that on cosmic scales, everything takes a long time. The sun will also eventually turn into a red giant. We don’t need to be afraid of that today.”

“But the stars we’re talking about were still observable in the sky twenty years ago!”

* * *

Peter was sitting on the sofa, as he always did at eight o’clock on the dot when the evening news was about to start. Franziska was always busy, and always a few minutes late. But today she hadn’t shown up at all, and the TV screen was black.

He drank from the beer bottle. Beer did not taste good to him, so he rarely drank it. But at least this way he was not all alone. Maybe he should get a pet? A dog would be too much trouble, but a cat might fit the bill. If Franziska returned, she wouldn’t mind. She liked cats. She was one herself. If you treated her wrong, she arched her back and scratched you.

What would happen now? If only he knew! Franziska expected him to fight for their relationship. But what about the sun? If he was right, Earth was threatened. Without the sun’s light, civilization, every living creature would die—Franziska, their children, and even the cat he wanted to get. Better not to get a pet, after all.

He had to fight for the sun. How pathetic that was, making him sound like a madman. If he was right, he was virtually obligated to give everything to prevent such an end. But that was what all crazy people thought of themselves. Should he have his head examined? He could ask the school psychologist, a good man and sworn to secrecy.

Peter sighed, and the sound of his breathing echoed. This was impossible. If he sat there much longer, he really would go crazy.

He got up and walked up to his second-floor study.

* * *

“Dear Dr. Koser,” he began his e-mail. “I’m afraid I have to bother you again. Unfortunately, I don’t know any expert in stellar physics who could answer my question. But in your magazine, researchers regularly answer readers’ questions, so I hope you can once again forward my question to the right person.

It is very short, and reads, ‘Is there a natural explanation for a peak at 418 megahertz in the radio spectrum of a main-sequence yellow dwarf of about one solar mass?’ I attach a graph of what this peak looks like. The data was obtained using the Effelsberg radio observatory. I suspect that my question is too specific for publication, but I still hope to get an answer. In return, I will remain a SPACE subscriber for life.”

He added salutations and sent the message.

And now? Based on the time, the news had just finished. In the past, he would be watching some romantic comedy with Franziska right now. She loved funny movies, insisting that life was serious enough. If the regular broadcast lineup didn’t have anything she wanted to watch, they might stream a travel documentary. He would have to reorganize his evenings. Unfortunately, tonight was cloudy, so he wouldn’t be able to get behind his telescope.

The astral projector! The device also had an entertainment mode. You could use the control app to download tours that took you through the entire universe. Some only showed the most exciting objects, while others also had an integrated storyline. Mostly it was about exploring something entirely new.

Peter stood up and walked downstairs. How many times had he used the stairs today? He should go out for a walk once in a while. It would be better for his health. But today he didn’t feel like doing anything. He was stuck in limbo, and he was at a crossroads. His life was going to change, and change big time. But today, all of that was still hiding beyond the horizon. And he could jump all he wanted—he couldn’t get any closer to a clear view of it.

Peter waved his hand to turn on the device. It would always be in the middle of the living room now, because no one would demand that he put it away. Revolution! He smiled even though no one could see him, something that he rarely did. Circumstances so often insisted upon a smile that he usually didn’t have a leftover one for when he was alone. But he hadn’t seen another person for days, so his supply was slowly increasing.

The astral projector howled. He’d forgotten to switch off the light. The device noticed that its projections could not be seen and increased its power. However, this made the room even brighter, and it had to keep upping its own brightness. Peter quickly turned off the living room light, which he didn’t even remembered turning on.

On his way back to the center of the room, Peter held a hand in front of his face to prevent a stray laser beam from accidentally hitting him in the eyes. The projection beams could only be seen where they united and conjured up a three-dimensional image. The projector slowly calmed down. Carefully, it adjusted its output to the darkness. It was faster when making the adjustment from dark to light.

And now? Peter fetched a chair from the kitchen, placed it right next to the device, and sat down. He set the coordinates so that he was in the center of the universe. His view of the cosmos changed immediately. He no longer recognized a single constellation. Around him it was strangely empty. Shouldn’t the Big Bang have taken place here? Maybe that was why it was so barren. Everything that was once here had long since blown outward in all directions. The center of the universe was its loneliest place. But that was nothing compared to his sofa.

Peter hated himself when he was in this mood. It was, of course, astrophysical nonsense. The universe had no center from which it expanded. New space was constantly being generated at each of its coordinates. It was a gigantic leaven, which swelled in all directions. Besides, the Big Bang took place in the whole universe simultaneously, just as it existed then.

It would have been nice to be able to watch it. But the astral projector refused to take him traveling back to that time. He had already tried. Perhaps the manufacturer, whose home base was the United States, was afraid of how religious groups might react if the astral projector didn’t show their version of creation. The birth of the universe had been a brutal, violent process that didn’t fit into every worldview.

Whenever he was depressed, Peter started to philosophize, but that wasn’t getting him anywhere.

He loaded the saved data into the app. The spherical shell appeared again. He activated the stars that had disappeared. Because they appeared invisible in the spherical shell, he made them blink. Pulsating blue crosses appeared on the spherical shell, reminding him of gravestones. If the planets that orbited these stars had been inhabited, all of their living beings would have perished.

He added the data for the few remaining stars, those that lacked the 418-megahertz signal. Now they were all there.

He walked up and down along the spherical shell. What was geometry trying to tell him? Was there a time-lapse? The shell was about half a light-year thick, so the stars it hit were all the same distance from the source of the calamity, give or take a quarter of a light-year—minuscule in cosmic dimensions. But did that mean the catastrophe genuinely came from the center of the sphere? Not necessarily.

He tried to imagine how the calamitous process spread from the north pole of the sphere. A mysterious force could have spread across the shell, wiping out one star after another. He programmed such a sequence into the control app. Everything had to have started—at the earliest—after the last sky survey wherein the stars were still found. That gave him an approximate sequence of events, since the stars in the southern sky were detected at different times than those in the northern sky. He let the inexplicable force run over the spherical shell with these parameters, but something went wrong: The sun also went out, replaced by a blinking blue cross.

What was wrong with his reasoning? Maybe it was the north pole of the sphere. Why should the process start at this arbitrary point defined by humankind? He tried it at a randomly chosen point on the equator of the sphere, but this time another still-visible star disappeared.

He had to work on this systematically. He wrote a small optimization algorithm that searched for the exact point from which the mysterious force emanated. He connected the algorithm to the astral projector via the programming interface. That way, he could watch the program at work.

“Start.”

The universe flickered. The algorithm selected a point in the upper latitudes. Rapidly, a white, steamroller-like depiction moved across the spherical shell. Whenever it hit a star, the star became a blinking blue cross. Shortly before the end, the sun’s turn came. The implication: eight billion people die. Peter got goosebumps.

He replayed the simulation, and space flickered again. The roller raced. The sun died. Peter sped up the process. Flicker. Roller. Death. Flicker. Roller. The sun survived. Next time it died again. Death, survival, survival, death, death. Death had the upper hand here. That was reassuring to him, because the sun was still shining. Thus, a scenario in which it would’ve been extinguished by now could not be right. He could be wrong, and how he hoped he was.

Peter had to turn away. The roller raced over the spherical shell from different directions, and its rapid movement was making him nauseous. Then his smartphone vibrated. Done!

His little program had found a result—the most probable time sequence. He didn’t need to map reality. It all started about 20 degrees north of the equator of the spherical shell, at a single point. If the sphere were the Earth, an asteroid might have hit there, sending an earthquake around the globe. But it was not Earth. It was a virtual sphere in space whose dimensions he’d calculated himself. It could not be seen, nor was it present, and it was defined by a mere two-digit-number of stars.

But something hit this sphere, from the outside or maybe from the inside. The force of the hit created the white-hot roller, which now spread over the sphere. One star after the other went out. Then the simulation stopped. They had reached the present.

Peter wanted to know the future, so he pressed the start button again. The simulated roller continued to move. It first knocked out star number 1, whose radio spectrum they had evaluated, then star number 2. No, he was mistaken. That was the sun. The sun went out.

He went to it and carefully took it in his hand. The system showed it as a small, brown ball. Peter pressed it briefly, and the projector understood the command and showed what the simulation predicted about the sun’s fate. Peter read the numbers glimmering brightly in the void.

We have three months left!

* * *

The universe stood still. Peter sat on the sofa. So... was he really right? His numbers were too imprecise to commit to. And anyway, what would that look like? Help, the sun is about to be extinguished. I have no idea how that’s going to happen, but I’m sure it will. We’re all going to die.—Yes, yes, Mr. Kraemer. Please put on this comfortable white jacket.

Peter laughed. It would be his own fault if it came to that. Doomsday prophets were never well-liked. He would probably share the fate of the Trojan Cassandra, whom nobody believed. But she was stabbed to death because of her prophetic gift. He’d just be put away somewhere.

There was only one way—he must eliminate the danger himself. The signal at 418 megahertz had been found coming from all the stars that were being spared from disaster. Somehow, he must make it so that the sun also emitted such a radio signal.

He must construct a beacon!

March 12, 2026 – Passau

A beacon? How do you build a damn beacon for something like this?

Peter announced a change in the day’s lesson for his 11-C physics students in order to brainstorm together with them. The students appreciated the change, especially since he had promised them an impromptu assignment. After he’d clarified the origin of the term from seafaring and traffic, he described the problem to the class as one of a purely theoretical nature.

The main problem they quickly encountered was that Earth-based radiation was too uncertain. There was the varying cloud cover, for one thing, but also the fact of the Earth’s rotation. Earth itself would effectively shield a transmitter on the lawn behind his house for half the time. One student had suggested a balloon, but that was also stationary for all practical purposes.

So they had discussed space as an alternative. A satellite in Earth orbit had a better view of the universe, but was also repeatedly shielded by our planet on its way around the globe. A probe orbiting the sun would be better. They had researched the costs together and had come up with an amount in the millions of euros—considerably more than he could ever get his hands on.

Maybe he could manage to convince one of those Internet millionaires of his theories? They were bound to be besieged by crazies like him. He needed a better idea. Peter flipped open the notebook and started a search. What was the cheapest way to get a satellite into space?

He came across a concept that struck him, one having been invented by a Swedish furniture giant. CubeSats were small, cuboid boxes in standardized sizes. The smallest possible specimen, a Unit, or U for short, was 11.35 by 10 by 10 centimeters and weighed no more than 1.33 kilograms. These mini-satellites were then launched into space with many other CubeSats on a large rocket, often with a sizeable primary payload that did not fully utilize its payload capacity. This made launching CubeSats particularly inexpensive.

Peter kept looking. Building and launching CubeSats seemed to be profitable, and many companies offered their services to him. Some only facilitated the launch, while others also built the satellite according to user requirements. But when he looked at the promised deadlines, the CubeSats had to already be assembled. Most providers promised flight-ready delivery within two weeks. Special requests were extra, of course. Two years ago, he had ordered a new car online, and it had taken six whole months for delivery.

His stomach growled. He ran downstairs to the kitchen, took a pizza out of the freezer, unwrapped it, and put it in the oven. He set the temperature to 210 degrees and looked at the clock above the sink. He had to take the pizza out of the oven at 2:32 p.m.

Peter ran back upstairs and sat down at his desk. A new window had opened in the web browser where he’d searched for CubeSats.

“Good afternoon. I’m Miguel, your account manager at SigmaLaunch,” it said in English. “Can I be of assistance to you? If so, click ‘Yes,’ please.”

Obviously a chatbot. Peter was about to close the window when he remembered his questions. Would a CubeSat be capable of emitting a strong enough signal? Maybe there was a human behind this invitation after all?

He clicked on ‘Yes.’

“I’m glad to hear that. How can I be of service to you?”

“I would like to order a CubeSat that can broadcast a radio signal.”

“You’ve definitely come to the right place at SigmaLaunch. May I ask your name?”

“Peter J. Kraemer.”

“Thank you, Peter. It’s nicer to be able to address you personally. Of course, we only store your data if a contract is signed. A radio signal, then? With what destination? That’s important so that we can plan for sufficient signal strength.”

Well, if he only knew. How far must the signal of the beacon reach to protect the solar system from annihilation? The intensity of electromagnetic radiation decreased with the square of the distance. As a physics teacher, he knew that well enough. But it never entirely died out. With a sufficiently sensitive receiver, one could still receive the Earth’s TV transmissions on Alpha Centauri.

However, he did not know how sensitive the recipient of this unknown threat was. He didn’t even know if a recipient existed, let alone what it was. But if he told this to Miguel, Miguel would think he was crazy. And rightly so.

“Peter, are you still there?”

“Yes, Miguel. I was just doing some checking in my records. The satellite should be able to maintain data communications to the outer solar system.”

“I see. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to rent capacity on the Deep Space Network? They guarantee a service level of 99.8 percent, and billing is based on usage. So you would be reliably online, but you would only have to pay for actual usage. We currently have a special offer where the 20,000-euro sign-up fee is waived if you opt for a two-year contract. I could set you up on the spot.”

“That’s nice, but the satellite is supposed to send signals around the clock. We want to use it to calibrate important equipment. To do that, it has to broadcast twenty-four seven.”

“That’s different, of course. In that case, the Deep Space Network would be the more expensive solution. I’d love to show you some current models from our collection. Do you have any virtual reality equipment?”

“No,” said Peter.

“That’s too bad. If you did, you could examine the proposals yourself. But we can continue to talk via our chat.”

“Wait, Miguel. I own a holoprojector. I think it’s VR compatible.”

“Wonderful. I’ll send you a link to our VR demonstration room right here in the chat.”

Miguel had barely finished his sentence when the promised link popped up. Peter clicked on it. The program prompted him to select an output device, but his astral projector did not appear in the list. Bummer. Was it incompatible after all? Nonsense. It was simply not powered on at the moment. Peter ran downstairs and activated the device. When he breathlessly arrived back upstairs, he saw the astral projector in the list. He selected it and ran back down into the living room.

A woman was standing there. Because the living room door was only half open, Peter could only see her left half, and from behind, but the black skirt she was wearing showed that Miguel must be female. He entered the room, and the woman turned to face him. She was decidedly pretty, slightly shorter than himself, with black hair and tanned skin. She wore a classic white blouse with her black skirt.

Peter thought he smelled a hint of perfume, but it must be a deception. The woman extended her hand. Peter returned the gesture and reached into the void. Of course—it was a hologram, after all. The woman opened her mouth as if she were speaking, but no sound came out. She then pointed to her ear with her right hand.

He’d forgotten to turn on the sound. The music that the astral projector usually played annoyed him, so normally the sound was off. He rotated his index finger clockwise a few times.

“... very pleased to meet you,” the woman said with a slight accent.

“Likewise,” Peter said. “Although I was expecting to meet Miguel here.”

“I’m sorry about that,” the woman said. “I’m Miguel. But if you prefer, I can choose a different avatar, one that is male or genderless. My algorithms had calculated from the available data that you would respond best to a female avatar.”

“It’s okay,” Peter said.

So Miguel was a chatbot after all, an artificial intelligence. The woman looked so real. Except, when she moved her head and individual strands of hair became visible, they appeared with colorful fringes of light.

“What should I call you?” Peter asked.

“You’re welcome to stay with Miguel. That’s the name of my main programmer. He’s the one I feel most comfortable with.”

“Good. Miguel it is, then.”

“May I ask where we are?” asked Miguel.

The question sounded strange, but it was probably justified. The chatbot must have expected to show up in an office environment.

“In my living room,” Peter explained. “I prefer to work in a home office.”

He looked down at himself. Fortunately, he hadn’t slipped into his sweatpants yet, as he usually did after work.

“Of course,” Miguel said. “Would you please join me?”

What was she up to? No, he? Or better, it?

He took a few steps toward the avatar.

“Thank you,” Miguel said.

Suddenly, a shiny silver-colored metal shelf unit stood behind him, in which many cuboid boxes were stored. The living room door protruded into the image and therefore disrupted it.

“The door,” Miguel said.

“Yeah, go ahead and close it,” Peter said.

Miguel raised her hands and shrugged apologetically. Peter slapped his forehead. The avatar looked so real! Of course! She couldn’t interact with the real world. He gave the door handle a push and it slammed shut.

“Thank you.” The avatar turned to the shelf and took out one of the cubes. Then she held it out toward Peter as if it were a gift. “This is our basic unit. Technically a 3U CubeSat.”

The cuboid was slightly longer than a school ruler, and about ten centimeters each in height and depth.

“How much does something like this cost?” asked Peter.

“Well, before we talk about prices, let’s talk about what the basic unit can do. Always included are the Command and Control Module, or CCM, and a more than adequate power supply with a runtime of six weeks. Also integrated is the DEO, as required by law in the EU. If you want to save costs, we can refer you to our office in Kinshasa, where the regulations are a bit more relaxed.”

“The law requires deodorant for satellites?”

“A ‘deorbiting device.’ At the end of its lifetime, any new satellite launched under an EU license must be able to steer itself into the Earth’s upper atmosphere to burn up and thus avoid becoming space debris. We are relying on low-cost iodine thrusters. These are basically nothing more than pressurized spray bottles with no moving parts. I assume that the CubeSat will be stationed in low Earth orbit. At higher orbits, it will be much more expensive.”

“Ah, can we talk about prices now?”

“I still wanted to—”

“No, Miguel. First I need to know how much this fun will cost me.”

“The 3U module with the described equipment comes to about 119,000 euros, launch included. However, our ground services end one day after the launch. We offer a continuation of ground services in a low-cost subscription of 8,000 euros per week.”

“What do I need that for?”

“We monitor your satellite’s orbit and relay command and control signals to it. You could do this yourself with a powerful radio, at least when the CubeSat is within your range. You would have to determine how important constant monitoring is. I can make an algorithmic estimate if you tell me the exact purpose of the satellite.”

“No thanks. I don’t need it right now.”

“Suit yourself, Peter. What’s the planned mission duration?”

If he only knew! It would be best if the beacon would send forever and ever. But he probably couldn’t ask for that.

“Twenty years would be good,” he said.

“Oh. Are you sure?” Miguel put the CubeSat back on the shelf.

“Is that a problem?”

“In more ways than one. With such a long operating time, we need to harden the electronics against cosmic rays. We also need a chemical engine to sustain orbit for that long. A 3U model certainly won’t cut it there. May I be frank?”

“Of course.”

“With such requirements, I would have to advise a standard satellite in the 200-kilogram class. But that quickly takes us into the higher six-figure range. And I have a feeling that’s not quite what you can afford. Please don’t get me wrong.”

Peter swallowed. The avatar had been implanted with an awful lot of self-confidence. But she was right—Peter didn’t have a million euros, and it was easy to see when you were standing in his living room. He might be able to come up with 600,000 euros if he sold the house that had belonged to his mother, who’d died last year.

“Then I guess I’ll have to go somewhere else—” he began.

“Not at all.” The avatar smiled broadly. “There is a simple alternative. We’re banking on a mission duration of twenty-four months, and before those two years are up, we’ll simply send a replacement into orbit.”

“But then we need ten CubeSats for twenty years. That’s even more expensive, isn’t it?”

“You’re forgetting about technological progress. Hardware prices have been cut in half over the past five years. Startup costs have dropped by two-thirds. Competition is so strong that this trend will continue. In ten years, shipping three kilograms into low Earth orbit will cost less than shipping to Australia. After all, Earth orbit is only a few hundred kilometers away!”

“That sounds too good to be true.”

“It is true, though. All the market researchers say so.”

The Avatar took a larger box from the shelf. It was the same length and width as the first one but twice as deep.

“However, we won’t be able to get by with the 3U model even with two years of mission time. We need a lot of power, for one thing. Look at this 6U option, which is roughly ten by twenty by thirty!”

Peter watched as Miguel moved one latch on each of the four sides of the base of the box. Next, she folded the side surface upward. On its inner side, which now faced outward, were solar cells. The avatar repeated this process on all four sides until the CubeSat had a cross-shaped ring of solar panels. Then she reached to the other end, loosened one latch per side there as well, and flipped out four more panels that were connected to the other end of the satellite. Peter saw that solar cells also covered the CubeSat’s basic framework.

“So, that makes a total of six panels, each with a base area of thirty by twenty square centimeters, and six more, each with thirty by ten square centimeters, so that makes 5,400 square centimeters,” Miguel explained. “If we also equip the backs of the fold-out panels with cells, we even get to 9,000 square centimeters, but with lower efficiency then. That leaves us at a pretty decent price for the system.”

“But then there’s no room for the antenna,” said Peter.

“Oh, yes there is. It’s in here,” Miguel said. The woman reached her hand sideways, moving it deep inside the box. Then she pulled out what looked like a collapsed umbrella. The construction unfolded into a bowl.

“That’s where we’ve got the good stuff,” Miguel said. “It’s a JPL development, a retractable high-gain reflector. With a 12U unit, we could even integrate a second antenna like that, but that would be quite expensive.”

“Define expensive,” Peter said.

“Just a moment. For your particular mission, the CubeSat needs attitude control. I suggest that we combine a launch tracker with a magnetorquer. The launch tracker will determine the position and attitude change of the satellite. The magnetorquer then adjusts the attitude accordingly. That way, we can prevent the satellite from going into a spin while efficiently aligning the solar panels.”

“What’s a magnetorquer?” Peter asked. “Do you have time to explain it to me?”

“Of course. My company has licensed twenty instances of my AI. Currently, only three are in use, so we don’t have a capacity problem.”

“I understand.”

So somewhere, two other avatars of the same AI were standing and explaining to other customers what they wanted to know.

“An excellent question,” said the holographic woman. “Basically, we run electricity through a magnetic loop, which causes the loop to align with the field lines of the Earth’s magnetic field. It’s a fairly primitive technique that doesn’t require special electronics. But it works very well in low Earth orbit, and provides enough angular momentum.”

“Good. And that’s it?”

“Well, we won’t be able to do without thermal management, but good insulation and heat dissipation of the processor will probably be enough for that. I’d go for consumer-grade silicon, but doubled for safety.”

“Meaning?”

“We’re using conventional circuitry like you would use on Earth. But, to reduce the risk of a failure, we build everything in twice.”

“Ah, sure. That sounds smart.”

“It saves a lot of money.”

“That strikes the right note.”

“Yes, Peter, I think so too. I just had the engineering team sign off on the design proposal in the background. So it’s feasible as a 6U CubeSat.”

“And how soon?” Peter asked.

The hologram of the woman turned the hologram of the CubeSat in her hands, looking at it. It looked as if she was lost in thought, but she was probably talking to the engineers. Or with the engineers’ AI?

“These are standard components,” the avatar then explained, “but integrating the power supply and reflector is a bit more involved. The engineers estimate that it will take four weeks. I know that’s a conservative estimate, though. According to the statistics of all previous orders, such special requests have been completed in less than twenty days.”

“And then when would the launch be possible?”

“Our next rideshare launch is scheduled for April 30, on a New Glenn from Blue Origin. There’s still room for twenty units. If you agree, I can reserve a spot for you right now.”

“Just a minute. You haven’t named a price yet.”

“The price is really very reasonable. Rumor has it that Blue Origin is just trying to buy market share with especially low prices. But whatever the reason, you’re benefiting from it.”

“That’s great, but what is the price?”

“Well, the 6U module alone we normally offer for 400,000 euros, including launch. Plus the special requests and the rush surcharge—”

“You didn’t mention anything about those.”

“All contracts with a launch date in the next 60 days are subject to the 15 percent rush fee, but don’t worry. If you sign the contract right away, I can offer it all to you for just 298,000 euros, including sales tax.”

Phew! Almost 300,000 euros. Half a house. Probably payable in advance. He wouldn’t be able to sell his mother’s house that quickly. When Franziska heard about it, she’d think he was out of his mind. All because of a crazy idea, she’d say. But that was wrong. It was not an idea. He had proof, even if it was not enough for others. After all, the fate of the Earth was at stake.

“Okay, I agree,” he said.

“What about insurance?” asked Miguel.

“Insurance?”

“The launch could fail. The rocket could explode. Then all the payloads will be lost.”

“What’s the risk?”

“That’s hard to quantify. So far, no commercial New Glenn mission has failed, but there’s always a first time. We’re working with a major insurance company. For 19,000 euros, your 6U unit is fully insured. If the first attempt fails, you get a second one free of charge.”

Peter took a deep breath. That would be 317,000 euros. Who knew what else they would add? But certainly not so much that he’d have gambled away his inheritance completely. The market was good, and he could certainly get more than 600,000 for the house.

“Then I’ll take the insurance,” he said.

“A wise decision,” the woman said, taking the 6U unit off the shelf once again. “I forgot one more thing. You can choose the paint finish on the base module. How about gold paint?”

The CubeSat suddenly shined golden.

“Or maybe a nice red?”

The cuboid looked as if it had been dipped in blood.

“We also have various patterns.”

Pink hearts were spreading over the satellite.

“No, thank you,” Peter exclaimed.

“The paint is complimentary. I recommend gold, which also helps with thermal management.”

“Well, gold then.”

“I’ll send you the contract on your computer. You can sign it digitally.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, yes. One more thing. Unfortunately, since you’re a new customer, we can’t start fulfilling the contract until you deposit a guaranteed amount with us.”

“How much?”

“Fifty thousand euros. If you transfer it today, there should be no scheduling problems.”

“I... Of course. I’ll transfer today.”

Bummer. He wouldn’t get the liquidity value of the house that quickly. He’d have to transfer the money from their joint account. If he remembered correctly, it should have just under 60,000 euros.

Peter looked up. He was standing alone again in his living room. Dark smoke seeped out of the kitchen through the crack under the door. Shit! He ran to the oven. Why hadn’t he smelled it earlier? Thick clouds came out. He turned it off and yanked open the door. A gush of hot smokey air blinded him. More smoke spread through the kitchen. Peter started coughing. The pizza had turned into a lump of coal. He thrust the kitchen window wide open, then opened the front door and all the living room windows. What was he supposed to eat now?

He held a dishtowel over his mouth and nose, and got some sausage and bread from the refrigerator. With that, he retreated to the living room.

08 52 36 +28 19 51

GURA jnf abg aba-rkvfgrag abe rkvfgrag: gurer jnf ab ernyz bs nve, ab fxl orlbaq vg.

Jung pbirerq va, naq jurer? naq jung tnir furygre? Jnf jngre gurer, hasngubzrq qrcgu bs jngre?

Qrngu jnf abg gura, abe jnf gurer nhtug vzzbegny: ab fvta jnf gurer, gur qnl'f naq avtug'f qvivqre.

Gung Bar Guvat, oernguyrff, oerngurq ol vgf bja angher: ncneg sebz vg jnf abguvat jungfbrire.

Qnexarff gurer jnf: ng svefg pbaprnyrq va qnexarff guvf Nyy jnf vaqvfpevzvangr punbf.

Nyy gung rkvfgrq gura jnf ibvq naq sbezyrff: ol gur terng cbjre bs Jnezgu jnf obea gung Havg.

Gurernsgre ebfr Qrfver va gur ortvaavat, Qrfver, gur cevzny frrq naq trez bs Fcvevg.

Fntrf jub frnepurq jvgu gurve urneg'f gubhtug qvfpbirerq gur rkvfgrag'f xvafuvc va gur aba-rkvfgrag.

Genafirefryl jnf gurve frirevat yvar rkgraqrq: jung jnf nobir vg gura, naq jung orybj vg?

Gurer jrer ortrggref, gurer jrer zvtugl sbeprf, serr npgvba urer naq raretl hc lbaqre

Jub irevyl xabjf naq jub pna urer qrpyner vg, jurapr vg jnf obea naq jurapr pbzrf guvf perngvba?

Gur Tbqf ner yngre guna guvf jbeyq'f cebqhpgvba. Jub xabjf gura jurapr vg svefg pnzr vagb orvat?

Ur, gur svefg bevtva bs guvf perngvba, jurgure ur sbezrq vg nyy be qvq abg sbez vg,

Jubfr rlr pbagebyf guvf jbeyq va uvturfg urnira, ur irevyl xabjf vg, be creuncf ur xabjf abg.

March 13, 2026 – Passau

“Are you insane?” Franziska’s voice exploded in his ear.

He’d been pleased to see her number on his caller ID, but he should not have taken her call. Who could have guessed that the bank advisor who looked after their account at the small cooperative bank would check with his wife about the transfer? And, first thing in the morning?

“There are good reasons for everything,” he replied. “Believe me, honey.”

“I’m not your honey! And of course there are reasons. You want the money for yourself, that’s obvious!”

“I just borrowed it temporarily, until I sold the house.”

“What, you want to sell our house? And I’m just finding out about it in passing? But there’s no way you can do that without my consent. I absolutely can’t believe this. It’s a good thing William called me.”

“William?”

“William Maximilian Deuer. You know him. He advised us on the refinancing back when we did that. But don’t deflect!”

Deuer, that’s right. That’s the guy from the bank. Peter remembered the long name tag. Didn’t he violate bank secrecy by doing that? Probably not. After all, it was a joint account. With account movements of this size, any good bank advisor would take notice.

“It’s not about our house, Franziska. I’m selling my mother’s house!”

“Oh, all of a sudden, right now? You know who’s always advised you to do that?”

“Yes. You. I know. But now I need the money.”

“You’re going to spend it? Surely the house will fetch half a million. What kind of crazy idea do you have now?”

I am having a radio beacon built and launched into space to save the solar system from destruction. Your husband will be a hero. Unfortunately, no one believes him because there is no physical process that can knock out a star in a few days without leaving a trace.

But he couldn’t tell her any of that. Franziska would try to have him declared insane. She was much too reasonable. Ha, he never thought he’d think that about his wife. Maybe this should be a warning to him. Maybe he really was going crazy?

“No, I’ve had enough of constant complaints from tenants, and since it just so happens that another agency has inquired—”

“Very reasonable, Peter. But then why did you take the 50,000 from our account?”

Franziska seemed to have calmed down a bit. Peter had a guilty conscience. They had always placed a lot of value on not lying to each other in their relationship.

“Sorry, Franziska, that wasn’t the truth. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He decided to try the truth. Maybe his wife would believe him after all.

“I’ve made a terrible discovery. If our solar system doesn’t broadcast on a certain radio frequency soon, it will be destroyed by an unknown power.”

Oh, man. He sounded just like those QAnon weirdos. No one in their right mind could believe that.

“Oh, Peter.”

Now his wife sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. His heart stuttered.

“Even now, you can’t stop making jokes? I’m really afraid for us. We haven’t done so badly so far. Why do you want to destroy that? What are you hiding from me? I can’t be with someone I can’t trust. So don’t come to me with such made-up stories! Life is not a novel!”

Unfortunately, Franziska was probably right. If what he was experiencing were in a novel, he’d be the hero and not the villain, and a happy ending would be assured. But as it was, he must expect to have divorce papers on his desk soon. And even if he saved the world, no one would believe him. Shouldn’t he leave it alone then? But what would become of his children? If he was right, they’d all die. If he was wrong, he would lose his wife and his mother’s house. He would have to pay a high price, but the result might be worth it.

“Franziska, there’s no point in us continuing this conversation,” he said.

“But Peter, what’s wrong with you? Let’s talk to each other sensibly!”

“I’m sorry, Franziska, but I can’t explain this to you right now. Let’s end the conversation.”

“Whatever,” said his wife, ending the call.

Peter took off his pajamas and went into the bathroom to take a shower. The hot water felt good, and he managed to push any thoughts of Franziska to the back of his mind. Four more hours of math and physics today, and then the weekend would arrive.

March 14, 2026 – Passau

Finally, the sky was clear once again. Peter was grateful to the weather god, although this also meant it would be very cold after the sun went down. He had a task to accomplish that he had been preparing for all day. He needed to find more stars that lay on the spherical shell of destruction. The more data he had, the more credible his evidence would become.

Peter again proceeded systematically, according to his list, which he’d expanded to also included less-luminous stars. Thus he did not progress quite as quickly because it was more laborious to convince himself of the existence of these more-faint points of light. The naked eye was usually inadequate in such cases, so he made use of the stacking technique. Fortunately, it was the weekend and he was alone. He would stack the individual images tomorrow during the day.

The disadvantage of this approach was that he missed the satisfaction of checking off having sighted each item on the list. He only knew that each object in question had its ‘entered’ box checked. But whether it existed or not was only apparent in those cases where he had already seen it with his own eyes in the eyepiece. As a result, Peter’s thoughts regularly wandered, both a blessing and a curse. It helped him to persevere, but it also meant that he sometimes got confused in his list.

At least there was one piece of good news. Peter imagined telling it to his wife—he missed having conversations with her. He was so used to the exchanges that had always been a part of their daily lives that he now considered their absence the biggest drawback to being alone. Yet he had never considered himself particularly talkative. He had always thought of himself as a person who got along quite well without others.

The broker who was to sell the house in Berlin had gotten back to him this morning. Peter gave him only a rough description of his particular situation, but the man seemed to be familiar with such problems and said he was prepared to pay Peter a considerable part of the targeted purchase sum of 600,000 euros in advance. In return, all proceeds above this amount would end up in the broker’s pockets.

It was probably profiteering, but Peter was okay with it. He urgently needed the money. Even an auction could not be organized so quickly. Deuer from the bank explained that it would take a few weeks to set up a mortgage on the house before the money could be paid into the account.

He didn’t have that much time, so he’d accepted the shrewd realtor’s offer. His mother had always been proud of her house. She would have loved to see her son and his family move in there, but now she was lying in an urn in the cemetery. Peter didn’t believe in an afterlife, so he didn’t feel bound by his mother’s wishes.

His smartphone vibrated, telling him the tracking program had once again failed to find the entered destination—the rule rather than the exception with his current candidates. Peter checked the position and determined the ascension and declination were set correctly.

He pressed his eye to the eyepiece. Several stars were visible, but he could not see the object he was looking for in the center of the image. His rod cells were not sensitive enough. With the push of a button, he started taking individual photos. The photons, which had been traveling for more than 50 years, now only had to hit the telescope’s high-sensitivity chip at the right moment.

March 15, 2026 – Passau

There was a tiny dot in the center of the photo. Good. That star was still shining. Peter drew a checkmark in the box on his list, and swiped to the left on the screen. The next image appeared. This photo also showed a bright dot in its center. He checked the position, then placed its checkmark in the list, too.

Where would Franziska be right now? Before, on a sunny-weather day like this, the two of them would have surely been out for a walk somewhere. Instead, he had lowered the blinds to better concentrate on the star photos.

Next.

Peter pulled the notebook a little closer and squinted his eyes. The dot was correct, but he could see a thin trace of light in the lower-left corner. What was that? He memorized the coordinates and the time and looked them up in a database. It was an Earth observation satellite, owned by India, that had wandered through the image during the individual shots.

Such traces were not uncommon. He could simply ignore them. Peter looked up every single one anyway. It might, just maybe, be a comet that no one else had found yet. Many comets were discovered this way. He imagined Franziska coming back to him after he managed to get a celestial body named for her.

The next image showed only emptiness in its exact center. Peter enlarged the image and the contrast, but that didn’t change anything. Had the image possibly slipped? He compared the data at the bottom of the photo with the values in his list. A match. He clicked on ‘Print,’ only to cancel the process immediately. Why should he print a black area?

The list. So far it contained only checkmarks. Now he drew a cross. First a vertical line, then a shorter, horizontal one that crossed the vertical line in its upper half. The result looked mysterious and dramatic.

* * *

By late afternoon, he’d managed to look through all the shots from the previous night. In the last work step, he once again inspected each of the photos that had received a cross. There were five. The number seemed surprisingly high, after it had taken him so long to track down the first missing specimens. Was it because he had limited himself to the spherical shell this time? And didn’t this preselection affect the validity of his data?

It was conceivable that, outside of the spherical shell, many more stars had been lost in the same time period. Then his theory would, so to speak, stand on clay feet. He already knew what this meant: In the coming nights, he must randomly select an area of the same size that was not located on the spherical shell, and search there in an identical way. If he then discovered a similar number of losses, that was probably it for his theory.

But first he wanted to look at how the new finds matched the old ones. He ran downstairs to the living room. It still smelled like burnt pizza. With a wave of his hand, he started the astral projector. He called up the simulation he’d designed four days ago to determine the deadline—how much time they had left until the sun died.

First, as usual, appeared the spherical shell, on which everything seemed to take place. He added the new data, which was evenly distributed over the northern and southern hemispheres. Then he started the actual simulation. The roller ran over the spherical shell from different directions, over and over again, erasing one star after the other, except for those that gave off signals in the right frequency range.

The program took longer, with the new data, to determine the most likely scenario. Peter closed his eyes because he was getting a headache from the flickering of the roller. Finally, the simulation stopped. Last time—four days ago—it showed the sun having three months left.

Now it had only three weeks!

13 13 37 56 +42 29.76

Biresybjvat fxvrf bs jnfgrq fgnef fcyraqbe bire gur fbeebj.

Vafgrnq bs vagb gur phfuvbaf, jrrc hc.

Urer, ng gur jrrcvat nyernql,

ng gur raqvat snpr,

gur enivfuvat fcnpr ortvaf.

Jub vagreehcgf,

jura lbh chfu gurer,

gur pheerag? Ab bar. Hayrff,

gung lbh fhqqrayl fgehttyr jvgu gur zvtugl qverpgvba

bs gubfr fgnef nsgre lbh. Oerngur.

Oerngur gur qnexarff bs gur rnegu naq ybbx hc ntnva!

Ntnva. Yvtug naq yvtugyrff,

yrnaf sebz nobir qrcgu gb lbh.

Gur ybbfrarq avtug snpr tvirf fcnpr gb lbhef.

March 16, 2026 – Passau

SigmaLaunch was taking its time with their answer. Peter made himself breakfast in the kitchen and then took it outside into the garden, because the sun was already pleasantly warm at seven o’clock in the morning, and it still smelled awful in the kitchen. At the moment, he could only hope that Franziska didn’t come home just yet, or he’d screw it up again right away.

He slowly ate the muesli and milk, into which he had cut pieces of apple, sipping black coffee with it. For him, this was the safest way to prepare for his morning ‘business.’ He didn’t want to feel the sudden urge at school. The school toilets were clean, but the idea of one of his colleagues relieving himself right next to him, separated only by a thin wooden wall, made him shudder.

It worked faster than expected. Peter checked that the cellphone was in his pants pocket and sat down on the toilet in the first-floor bathroom. It was a small room with a tiny window, but all around were brick walls inches thick. He felt much more comfortable there. He always got up 15 minutes earlier than necessary to allow himself these quiet minutes.

Now, of all times, the smartphone vibrated. Peter unlocked it. The answer from SigmaLaunch was there. Miguel invited him to a chat, and Peter accepted the invitation.

“Good morning, Peter,” Miguel wrote in English. “In your time zone, it should be early morning right now?”

“Good morning, Miguel. Yes, it’s morning.”

It was strange to exchange pleasantries with the chatbot. After all, it was just a piece of software.

“Should we switch to VR mode?” asked Miguel. “Then we can have a face-to-face conversation.”

That he could do without. “No, thank you, this is really not a good time for me.”

“Suit yourself. You sent us an email. What can I do for you?”

“We need to bring forward the launch of the CubeSat. Is that possible?”

“It’s difficult. We can speed up the manufacturing of the hardware, but Blue Origin won’t launch earlier because of us. That’s the downside of ridesharing. The CubeSats are only guests of the actual payload.”

“But surely there are other providers who can give my satellite a ride?”

“I would have to check on that. It would be more expensive then, though. Only the launches on the New Glenn are on special offer at the moment. Regular prices are well above that.”

“How much more?”

“Fifty thousand euros plus, just to give you a ballpark number. I don’t know exactly yet. I would first have to negotiate that with the company in question. On top of that, we may not yet be regular customers with the competition, so we may get even higher prices.”

“Then maybe I should look for another business partner?”

“I’d be careful about that, Peter. Contracts have to be fulfilled. I don’t think you have a chance elsewhere, either. We’ve researched you, of course. You’re a physics teacher, and you don’t own a company. Actually, I should have charged you the full amount up front.”

“It’s all right. I didn’t mean it that way. But we need to have the beacon in orbit in three weeks at the latest.”

“The beacon?”

“That’s what I call my probe. It’s a radio beacon, like in seafaring, that warns incoming ships.”

“Of course it’s none of my business, but that doesn’t make sense in spaceflight. Who exactly are you trying to warn? All human-crewed spacecraft are controlled from their respective mission control.”

“You’re right. It’s none of your business.”

“I don’t care, either,” Miguel said. “As long as everything is done legally, and we’ll make sure it is, you can put your beacon in orbit.”

“But it will only help if it broadcasts no later than April 4. No, starting by April 3.”

He’d already made the recordings the day before yesterday.

“I am ninety-five percent sure that we will get a flight opportunity in time. However, it could be significantly more expensive than planned so far. You can cover the additional costs? Up to what amount?”

Phew. If he offered too much now, they would probably try to use the buffer. If he offered too little, nothing would come of the launch.

“Let’s say 100,000 euros. Surely that’s as big as any surcharge should be.”

“Good. Thank you, Peter. I think we can work with that. I’ll get back to you tomorrow at the latest with a concrete proposal. Please be prepared to transfer the additional fee promptly.”

“Of course.”

Peter locked the phone screen. His urgent ‘business’ had vanished. One of the sacrifices required to save the world.

March 17, 2026 – Passau

It was almost dark, and still no one had come forward. Apparently it was not that easy to find a ‘seat’ for his CubeSat. At least the broker made good on his promise immediately after signing the contract and transferred the money to their joint account. Hopefully, Franziska noticed that and no longer suspected him of trying to loot her.

Peter was going through the list for tonight. It had been cloudy yesterday, but mostly clear skies were forecast for today. He must finally get the search region ready. Maybe it would turn out that his haste was all for nothing. Should he write to Holinger again? He could still get out of the contract, not without a substantial penalty, but the entire sum was not yet due, either. He could hold off on transferring the 100,000 euros for at least a few more days.

No. He decided. He switched to online banking and initiated the transaction.

As if the recipient had noticed, a message reached him at almost the same moment. Miguel invited him to another chat. What would he have to say?

Peter opened the window.

“Sorry it took longer than expected,” Miguel reported. “There were some difficulties. I thought I had a ride for you last night. It would have been a Soyuz rocket, from Vostochny. But that fell through because of export regulations. We are not allowed to export the JPL sector antenna to Russia. That’s pointless because the technology is public knowledge, but rules are rules. But now I have a new opportunity for you. It has only one small catch.”

Oh, a catch. What did that mean?

“Don’t worry. It’s really just a minor hitch. The company we’re talking about is from Germany. Maybe you even know it. It’s called Rockets Plus. The company has just completed its second model. It’s scheduled to launch on March 30 from Kiruna, Sweden. Sending the CubeSat to Sweden is not a problem.”

“A first flight, then. Isn’t that risky?”

“It is the first launch into orbit. The new rocket has already had a few test launches. Rockets Plus offers a sensational price per kilogram.”

“So no hitch, after all?”

“Well, you’re not going to find insurance that covers a first launch. But if I understand you correctly, April 4 is the final date anyway.”

“That’s right. After that, the project no longer matters.”

“I don’t quite understand that, but it’s not necessary that I do. The fact is, if there is a launch failure on March 30, no one in the world can construct a new CubeSat and put it into orbit by April 4. So, to be honest, you can save the money on insurance.”

“That’s right. So, how much is all this fun going to cost me now?”

“All in all, that brings us to 348,000 euros.”

“Excuse me? Last I understood, we were at 317,000 euros. There’s no insurance, and Rockets Plus offers a super price, you said. Shouldn’t it be less?”

“Unfortunately, there is another surcharge for this during production. The CubeSat has to be in Kiruna at least two days before launch to give them time to integrate it into the rocket’s payload. We need at least ten days to build it, so the only option is an individual courier flight from the U.S. to Sweden. We can’t send your CubeSat by mail.”

“Okay, then so be it. After all, I have now already transferred 150,000 euros. What about the remaining payment?”

“It should definitely get to us before we launch.”

“You’re not taking any chances.”

“No, we can’t afford that.”

“One more question.”

“Yes, Peter?”

“Can I watch my CubeSat launch?”

The idea had just come to him. If he was investing this much money in his spaceship, he’d like to be there for the launch.

“You mean via the net?”

“No, locally. In Sweden.”

“I’ll have to check on that. Normally, it should be possible. But please wait to book airline tickets.”

March 18, 2026 – Passau

Evaluating the stacked photos was the most tedious part of his research. He stared at black images for so long that he eventually saw dots where there were none. And that was after a long day of work with students who were even more stressed than he was.

It was a wonder how they kept motivating themselves. That was why he couldn’t understand his colleagues who whined about a lack of motivation. After all, they got to teach their favorite subjects every day. On the other hand, their students had to learn what the schedule and curriculum demanded of them.

Next photo.

Peter stared intently at the center of the picture until he found a point. Great, another checkmark on his list. So far, he hadn’t uncovered another missing star. It was strange that he was glad about it. After all, it confirmed his theory that in less than three weeks, the sun would die, too.

He still hadn’t quite let the drama inherent in this short time period get to him. Shouldn’t he be glad if his ideas proved to be wrong? Somehow being right seemed to be more important to him than the survival of humankind. Or was it about the unique chance to become the savior of the world? Even though no one would ever know about his involvement, he felt pride rise at the thought of it.

He swiped the picture aside.

If he saved Earth, Franziska would have to return to him after all. Well, she didn’t have to return, of course. She wouldn’t believe him any more than anyone else would.

He closed his eyes and massaged his temples. The small dot in the center was hard to see. Peter swapped black and white tones, and a dark dot was clearly visible on the light background. But the screen brightness soon strained his eyes, so he switched back to the original colors. It would have been better if he could have automated the process, but he trusted an algorithm less than he trusted himself.

* * *

Peter yawned. He had finished going through all the images shortly before ten. He had found a star in every single shot. The area of the sky he had sifted through corresponded to the one he examined on the spherical dish. There, five stars were missing, and here, none—statistically significant. The phenomenon, the nature of which was still unknown to him, really did seem to be confined to the spherical shell. That was good in that it confirmed his theory. However, it also meant that the sun was still awaiting destruction.

He must get his beacon into orbit. If it emitted a signal with a frequency of 418 megahertz, the solar system fulfilled all conditions to be spared despite its position on the spherical shell. Didn’t it? Had he perhaps overlooked something else? What if the mere existence of the signal was not enough now? Frantically, he checked the website of the Federal Network Agency. His WLAN was transmitting at 2,400 and 5,000 megahertz. Some other service might have been transmitting at 418 megahertz.

In fact, Germany reserved the range between 410 and 420 megahertz for professional and military radio applications. He’d never investigated what exactly was transmitted on the corresponding channels. Maybe it had to be a specific message? Leave us alone. Attention, intelligence on board. Something like that?

Peter wrote a message to Thomas at the Effelsberg observatory. His former fellow student must have recorded those messages. Right?

11 41 03.01 +34 12 05.88

Oevtug fgne! jbhyq V jrer fgrnqsnfg nf gubh neg–

Abg va ybar fcyraqbhe uhat nybsg gur avtug

Naq jngpuvat, jvgu rgreany yvqf ncneg,

Yvxr angher’f cngvrag, fyrrcyrff Rerzvgr,

Gur zbivat jngref ng gurve cevrfgyvxr gnfx

Bs cher noyhgvba ebhaq rnegu’f uhzna fuberf,

Be tnmvat ba gur arj fbsg snyyra znfx

Bs fabj hcba gur zbhagnvaf naq gur zbbef–

Ab–lrg fgvyy fgrnqsnfg, fgvyy hapunatrnoyr,

Cvyybj’q hcba zl snve ybir’f evcravat oernfg,

Gb srry sbe rire vgf fbsg snyy naq fjryy,

Njnxr sbe rire va n fjrrg haerfg,

Fgvyy, fgvyy gb urne ure graqre-gnxra oerngu,

Naq fb yvir rire–be ryfr fjbba gb qrngu.

March 19, 2026 – Passau

The morning was off to a good start. Miguel from SigmaLaunch had written to him that he was welcome to observe the launch on-site. He would have to take care of travel details himself. SigmaLaunch would then provide him with the necessary access permits.

Peter was not yet sure if Thomas’s message was good news or bad.

“The scan,” Thomas wrote, “integrates over the appropriate frequency until the signal is strong enough overall. Temporal amplitude modulation, i.e., whether the signal strength changes in a certain rhythm, as in good old medium wave, is lost. The same applies to possible frequency modulation, i.e., adding information by changing frequencies over time, as you know it from FM radio.”

It was nice that Thomas assumed he possessed this knowledge. In fact, he had always hated electromagnetism as a branch of physics. And now—of all things—he had no choice but to deal with it.

“You’re in luck, though, because I have a three-hour session at the observatory tomorrow that I won’t need all of. I’ll pick the strongest source and listen for a few minutes on 418 megahertz only. I will then send you the raw data. That way, you can find out for yourself if there is any information in it. I’m sorry, but that’s as much as I can do for you.”

Thank you, Thomas. This is far more than I expected.

March 20, 2026 – Passau

“Vg unf ab frys.”

Peter sighed. That didn’t make any sense, yet it had looked so simple! In fact, the signal Thomas picked up at the Effelberg observatory had a clearly discernible amplitude modulation, meaning its strength changed with time, just like music—or speech. Peter immediately checked the distribution of the modulation. It appeared to be no random distribution, no simple noise. So there really was a message in the 418-megahertz message!

But what message?

Peter knew he should go public with this discovery immediately. There must be researchers who could answer his questions. But who would believe him? A signal at 418 megahertz protects entire solar systems from destruction. Haha! That sounded like a scenario from a bad movie, an idea with feet of clay—nothing solid to stand on. Thomas had already warned him. Because the transmissions seemed to repeat themselves, and they were relatively short, it was not impossible that natural processes could be responsible.

Extraordinary findings required extraordinary evidence—the basic rule with such discoveries. What he had would certainly not be enough for the scientific community. Even Thomas, who had recorded the data, was skeptical.

What did he have, at first glance? The changing amplitudes resulted in a series of values that lay between 1 and 27. Was it a coincidence that this was the number of letters of the Latin alphabet? But 27... that was also 3 to the power of 3. For beings with three fingers and three arms, this would be a very natural system, possibly even more so than the decimal system, which humans use with their twice-five fingers.

But that was pure speculation. There could also be 30 characters, including three that were so rare that they did not appear in the short text. Or had he chosen the division wrongly? The signal had two states, strong and slightly less strong, each change corresponding to one bit. To get to his characters, he assumed a 5-bit encoding. That meant each five bits in a row resulted in one character. With a 5-bit coding, values between 0 and 31 would be possible.

One problem was that he did not know where the beginning was. If he shifted the beginning just one bit to the left or right, the result was a completely different character. The chance that he had caught the correct start was one in five with a 5-bit encoding. Upon further evaluation, he had to make sure he included all five possibilities.

Another problem was his basic assumption that it was five bits. There, his human way of looking at things played a significant role. With five bits, he got a nicer alphabet consisting of 27 characters. With four bits, the alphabet would have only 15 characters, with three bits, only 7.

But of course, it could also be a binary alphabet, consisting only of zeros and ones. Then the chance would be high that he picked up some machine’s radio transmissions, or was that also a human prejudice? For example, how would a species communicate that had no finger-like limbs at all?

Peter shook his head. He couldn’t get any further that way. The possibilities were infinite, so he had to make assumptions. First, he would try the 5-bit encoding.

vg unf ab frys.

There it was again. The text continued, maybe eight lines on an A4 sheet. When he switched to 6-bit encoding, the text shrank. At 3 bits, it grew. At first glance, the amount of information he found also depended on the encoding. However, at second glance, more information could be represented with 31 characters, at 5 bits, than with only 15 characters—at 4 bits.

He entered the text into an online translator for fun. The algorithm recognized Russian and automatically translated it into his language. The result:

“Vg unf ab frys.”

A new icon had just appeared on the right side of the screen. It showed a hand holding a dumbbell. He moved the mouse pointer over it. “Train new language model,” he read in a text bubble.

Peter clicked on it.

“This feature is only available as part of Advanced access.”

Surprise, surprise. They expect me to pay. A registration form opened. He entered his data and was then asked to choose an account type. ‘Standard’ and ‘Pro’ had 30-day trial periods, but ‘Advanced’ didn’t say anything about that. Access cost: 99 euros a month. But that didn’t matter now. He completed the registration, dutifully set up payment, entered the confirmation code from his credit card company, and received a welcome message.

There was no mention of a new language model. He hoped he hadn’t fallen for a scam. He logged in with the more recent data.

“Vg unf ab frys.”

Again the meaningless translation appeared. But this time, when he clicked on the icon with the dumbbell, something happened. A gear wheel turned, and a red text appeared on the screen.

“Too little data to build language model.”

Well, that was no problem. He entered the whole text.

“vg unf ab frys—vg vf rirelguvat naq abguvat. Vg unf ab punenpgre—vg rawblf yvtug naq funqr; vg yvirf va thfgb, or vg sbhy be snve, uvtu be ybj, evpu be cbbe, zrna be ryringrq. Vg unf nf zhpu qryvtug va pbaprvivat na Vntb nf na Vzbtra. Jung fubpxf gur iveghbhf cuvybfbcure qryvtugf gur punzryrba cbrg. Vg qbrf ab unez sebz vgf eryvfu bs gur qnex fvqr bs guvatf nal zber guna sebz vgf gnfgr sbe gur oevtug bar, orpnhfr gurl obgu raq va fcrphyngvba. N cbrg vf gur zbfg hacbrgvpny bs nal guvat va rkvfgrapr orpnhfr ur unf ab vqragvgl—ur vf pbagvahnyyl vasbe[zvat] naq svyyvat fbzr bgure obql. Gur fha, gur zbba, gur frn naq zra naq jbzra jub ner perngherf bs vzchyfr ner cbrgvpny naq unir nobhg gurz na hapunatrnoyr nggevohgr—gur cbrg unf abar, ab vqragvgl. Ur vf pregnvayl gur zbfg hacbrgvpny bs nyy tbq’f perngherf.”

Was that enough for the algorithm? It had to be enough, because that was all he had. This time, the gear wheel turned longer. Hope rose. But could it be so easy to decode a radio transmission that, he hardly dared to think, had come from aliens?

“Too little data to build language model.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple. Crap. So what now?

He wasn’t one to give up. First, he tried again with a second version of the text, in which he had shifted the beginning by one bit. It was silly because it didn’t change the amount of text, but it didn’t cost anything to try. The gear wheel turned for a while.

“Too little data to build language model.”

He had a hunch, so he squelched frustration and anger. He could still increase the amount of text without additional input. He only had to try it with a 4- or 3-bit encoding. He recalculated the text. In the first variant, it became 20 percent longer; in the second, another 25 percent. Now would it be enough? He copied the 4-bit text into the window and pressed the ‘Start’ button.

“Too little data to build language model.”

So the 4-bit encoding was not enough. He tried the even more extended version. The gear wheel turned longer than ever before. Finally, a green line appeared.

“Creating new language model.”

Peter rocked back and forth on his chair. He mustn’t get too excited too soon. This was machine learning, not understanding. The algorithm was trying its hardest to impose the structures of a language on the data. How many languages might the software know? What was certain was that these were only human languages. Was alien communication subject to similar laws?

The system spit out a translation:

An impertinent Internet believes the evident repentance. Moreover, it means the profitable initiative. The critical systems confirm the diabolic paradigms to the stringent partnership. They entrust to the situation the suspect experiment. Nevertheless, they obey the transparent enthusiasm and taste the final technology. The successive schemes tell the diverse weaknesses a posthumous construct. For this, they fall in after the artificial positions.

Peter laughed. The text reminded him of some of his principal’s speeches. But there was no sense in it. The result just proved that the program could squeeze something out of some data that read remotely like meaningful text.

But at least he now knew how much input the software needed to start working on it in the first place. He needed to double the amount of text at the very least. Or, better, quintuple it if he wanted to be sure.

He needed Thomas’s help again. There was no other way.

March 21, 2026 – Passau

“Vg unf ab frys. That sounds funny,” Thomas said.

“I don’t know what’s funny about it,” Peter said.

“You’ve always been a buzzkill. No wonder your wife... Sorry.”

And Thomas had always been an empathy-less asshole. No wonder he lived alone. But now Peter needed him.

“Can we maybe have a serious talk?”

“Look, if you click on the speaker icon, the program even tries to pronounce ‘vg unf ab frys’ for you.”

“I know. So, then what? Can you help me?”

Thomas audibly drew in a breath and then exhaled it loudly. Peter couldn’t see his face because he was just sharing the screen content with him, but Thomas made it pretty clear he was annoyed. Peter could understand him. From a purely scientific point of view, this was all very thin.

“It’s the weekend, but I’ll fit it in somehow. I really don’t know if that’s going to help you, though.”

“Yes, it will. You already helped me a lot. But, I need five times the amount of data to be able to obtain something meaningful.”

“Peter, you’re getting lost in this. I almost feel like a co-dependent getting you your dope. You’d be better off using your time to get your wife back. I know what a loyal dog you are. I don’t mean that disparagingly. I really don’t. I couldn’t do it, being with the same person for so long, but your path has always been clear to you. Remember when we used to get drunk together?”

“And you’d tell me which girl you’d most like to hook up with. But then she’d turn you down. I remember. Girl after girl.”

“Yes, because I was a penniless student. We should really get together again sometime. Why don’t you come by here when you’ve got your affairs in order? You can bring Franziska, too.”

“First, I need your help to get my affairs in order.”

“Do you want me to call Franziska for you, as an old friend?”

“No, Thomas, I’m talking about the data. 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 chirping. He’d paid no attention earlier. In front of the house was a large apple tree, which was vigorously leafing out. It was a real paradise out there. How might Franziska be feeling right now? he wondered. Normally she’d be in the garden from sunrise to sunset on a day like this. He should call her today, as he’d promised Thomas.

Now would be the perfect time for that. Unlike him, Franziska had certainly eaten breakfast before now. He was pretty much an early riser, but she was like a rooster, awake at the crack of dawn.

First, though, the data. There were eight files. And the one he already had. Thomas put the coordinates in the file name. He looked up the first object, 12 33 44.55 +41 21 26.9, in the SIMBAD database, where pretty much every celestial object could be found. To do this, he clicked on ‘By Coordinates’ under ‘Queries’ and copied the line into the search box.

‘SDSS J123348,82+550037,1 -- Quasar,’ the website told him.

The result could not be correct. Or had Thomas made a mistake? Quasars were distant, active galaxies. They did not interest him.

Hold it, Peter. Thomas is the professional. You are the layman here.

He replaced the commas in the coordinates with periods, as was customary in English. Then he pressed ‘Submit Query’ again.

“* bet CVn -- Double or multiple star”

The result started with an asterisk, so there was also a question of it being one or a multiple star. Peter scrolled down to the ‘Identifiers.’ The list contained all the names astronomers had given to this star during their sky surveys.

The star had a number in the HD catalog—a good sign, as it would have been included in the Henry Draper catalog, which was first published back in the beginning of the 20th century. The Internet could give him more information about HD 109358, as it was called. It was Asterion, a star very similar to the Sun, located 27 light-years away from us in the constellation of Hunting Dogs. The emitter was a yellow dwarf. Very good. Thomas really paid attention.

The signal that was in the file was 27 years old. When it was sent, Peter was in the final stages of his studies. He had not yet met Franziska. It had been a stressful time, as he had been ashamed to settle for becoming a teacher rather than a physicist. That had somehow seemed like a failure to him. Today he saw things differently. He had managed to get children interested in physics—not all of them, but some.

Come on, Asterion, let’s see what you have to tell us.

He encoded the bitstream of the file by combining five consecutive bits into one character. The result was, he reminded himself, dependent on which bit he started with. No one could help him with that. He simply had to create five versions of the file for now, and later on, combine them with the five versions of each of the other eight files to generate the language model.

Peter sighed. The further he went with this task, the less likely it seemed to him that he would get a meaningful result. After all, he’d seen the language model that the program suggested to him yesterday. All the files might have been repetitions of the same random content, over and over again.

“Sbe jr ner bayl gur furyy naq gur yrns”

Hmm. That sounded as pointless as yesterday’s “vg unf ab frys.” But he couldn’t let that intimidate him. The letters he assigned to each character were utterly arbitrary. He could have used the Base64 ‘winker’ character set or Morse code. Then he’d at least not have had the feeling of having to recognize meaning in the text because that was impossible. For that, he would need the help of a self-learning AI.

Ten years ago, what he was up against would have been impossible. Back then, so-called artificial intelligence still needed precise rules to learn something new. But that had changed. The new agents were not smarter per se, but they no longer need rules. Rather, they recognized the inherent rules for solving a problem and approached them in a step-by-step process.

That was what the AI had done when he asked it to build a language model. If his assumption was correct that the signals were messages, then those messages must have been composed according to certain rules. And, those rules could be determined by the AI, and then applied to translate the messages for him into his own language according to its own inherent grammatical context.

Of course, there was no guarantee that this would work. The software had run through it with all human languages, but here he was dealing with non-human utterances. Perhaps they were purely machine-based. They could be, for example, coordinates or simple descriptions of the system from which the transmission came, written in the language of mathematics. Peter hoped, of course, to learn something about the senders. That would be fascinating. He’d be the first person to hear the thoughts of extraterrestrials.

No. He must not burden himself with too many hopes. Peter decoded the next texts. He had always been a dreamer, which had been a hindrance more than once in his life. It had even prevented him from going into physics, because he’d have wanted to revolutionize science, of course. However, he was also a realist and had always known that he was not talented enough.

The computer gave a ‘plong’ sound, so the nine-by-five files were ready. Now he had to combine each of them with all five variations of the other files in every possible way. He made a note on his school notepad. This was a nice math problem for his 7th grade class. How many total files would result from combining nine individual files, each with five variants, if the order didn’t matter?

There were too many to create the files by hand, so he wrote a small script that took over the task. The process was simple: two loops, and within five minutes the mini-program had finished its work. Now came the more difficult part. He had to upload the total files one by one to have a language model generated from each of them. Uploading in the web browser would be too cumbersome.

Fortunately, the service also had an application program interface, through which he could make automated requests. To be on the safe side, he checked whether his 99-euro subscription included the use of this API and found, fortunately, that it was included.

He had already named the individual files so that he could upload them one after the other. However, the service did not provide instant responses. Rather, he got a unique number for each upload, under which he could download the results later. Unfortunately, the list of common questions didn’t reveal how long the process would take, so he prepared himself to have to wait until the next day.

He wrote the second script. It worked on the first test.

Peter leaned back. Should he start the upload? What was to stop him? Nothing would come out of it anyway, except that he had once again exercised his programming skills.

He clicked the start button.

March 23, 2026 – Passau

“You have new results,” the AI had told him by e-mail in the morning. But he’d had to wait to open it, as today he’d really had to go to school. The 7th grade students hadn’t been pleased about his trip into combinatorics, but he liked to take them on such side trips. The little darlings wanted to quickly forget what they had learned, especially when it was from the previous school term. And then, next time around, he had to teach them combinatorics from scratch.

He threw his jacket into the corner and ran up the stairs. In the hallway, two pairs of underpants he didn’t remember dropping were lying on the floor. Before Franziska came home, if she came home, he had to clean up.

The computer was still running. He logged into the voice AI. The results of the calculations were presented in a long list. The AI had utterly failed in only about every tenth case. That was good and bad. Good, because the amount of data was apparently sufficient. Bad, because he now would have to look at many ‘translations,’ most of which would consist of nonsense. The main problem with this was: how did he determine what of it actually made sense? What if he couldn’t pull out any meaning?

It didn’t help to dwell on it. He just had to get started. But first he got himself a glass of water from the bathroom.

* * *

It was exhausting to read through such a mountain of nonsense. The AI must have a lot of imagination. How could it get the idea that the sentences it produced made any sense? It took Peter ten minutes to understand the small annotations that were found under each text. The learning algorithm revealed how confident it was of its translations.

Peter searched for help. Of course—it was his own fault. He could have specified a higher level of confidence which would produce much less output. Without such a specification, everything that did not cause an error message had been spit out for him. But with all the texts he’d read so far, the AI stated the probability of having encountered a real language was less than five percent.

Surely there must be a way to hide these suggestions? It didn’t look like he’d miss anything by doing that. Peter checked one menu after another and finally found the right filter. What value should he set? He tried 90 percent. One mouse click, and the list shrank before his eyes.

A single entry remained. Peter took a deep breath. It was certain to be a coordinate specification, he thought. That would be very exciting, because the way a being described a place automatically said something about how it thought. It would give insight into the consciousness of a non-terrestrial identity. That would be tremendously exciting, even if no one believed him—of which he was certainly 90 percent confident.

He clicked on the entry.

“For we are but the husk and the leaf: the great death which each has within himself, that is the fruit around which everything revolves.”

That was... He knew that! Somewhere... He knew he had read it before. It was a quote from... by... Arrrgh—he could not think of the name. So he copied the text and entered it into a search engine.

Rilke. It was Rilke. Rainer Maria Rilke. This couldn’t be true! It was the content of the first signal, sent by Asterion, the star in the constellation of Hunting Dogs—93 percent probability. There it was. That was pretty certain. But what did it mean? He looked it up on the help pages of the language AI, but they didn’t say a word about interpretation.

Peter continued reading. What happened to the “vg unf ab frys” that Thomas was making fun of yesterday? It was in the second message. The new language model translated it like this:

“it has no self—it is everything and nothing. It has no character—it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated. It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the chameleon poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one, because they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence because he has no identity—he is continually informing and filling some other body. The sun, the moon, the sea and men and women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute—the poet has none, no identity. He is certainly the most unpoetical of all god’s creatures.”

That sounded poetic and philosophical at the same time. He didn’t recognize it, but the Internet knew this text. It came from John Keats, a British poet. Peter read on—and came across more poems. More Rilke, more Keats, but also other poets. Some he knew, most he didn’t. He had never cared much for poetry.

In school they’d had to interpret poems. What was the poet trying to say? A silly question. But what he read sounded beautiful. It made him think. It made him want to share some of the lines with Franziska. They should read them together. A few years ago, they used to read to each other. The practice had fallen by the wayside. Too bad.

He digressed—no surprise, given what he’d found here. But what was it? He’d have to ask the AI’s programmers. Email and chat support were both provided. The company was based in the United States, so he had a good chance of reaching someone there.

“A question about interpreting the results,” he typed into the chat window.

“Of course, Peter. What can I do for you? My name is John.”

Peter flinched when he heard his own name. But it was clear that John knew who he was, because he was logged in.

“I have invented my own language. Now when I write texts in it and enter them into your software, I get a language model.”

If he told John about his extraterrestrial signals, John would immediately write him off as a weirdo.

“That’s great, Peter. You see how perfectly our AI works.”

“Absolutely, yes, I can see that. The translation that the algorithm makes doesn’t seem very close to the original to me, though.”

“That’s normal, Peter. You must know that with the help of the language model, we primarily capture the meaning of the original content as best we can. The algorithm then tries to express this in the target language. To do this, the program falls back on set pieces that it finds in its huge text memory and that have yielded a similar meaning during the analysis.”

“So you couldn’t reconstruct the original text?”

“No, that’s impossible. The language model has nothing to do with the original character set. It only contains meaning relationships, and only those that are statistically probable.”

“If I write a longing prose text in my invented language, could your system translate it as a poem by John Keats?”

“That’s right, Peter. You can think of it like a Black Forest cake. The cake is the input text. It is broken down into its components until you couldn’t even guess that it used to be a cake. In the process, however, the AI extracts the concepts that are in the cake. The sweetness of the sugar, the fruitiness of the cherries, the rich fat of the cream, the chocolaty cocoa flavor. Then the AI puts something back together from these concepts. It certainly won’t come up with a car, and it won’t come up with a dog, but it probably won’t come up with a cake either, but maybe a cherry strudel with a cup of cocoa to go with it. Do you understand? We construct a new shell for the concepts contained in the old shell. But the old shell remains unknown and cannot be reconstructed.”

“Thank you, John. That helps a lot.”

March 24, 2026 – Passau

“For we are but the husk and the leaf: the great death which each has within himself, that is the fruit around which everything revolves.”

Peter read the verse over and over again. It left a sadness in him that he couldn’t quite grasp. Of course, he knew that he would die someday. He hoped he had at least 20 more years before then. His father died at 75, so he probably had that much time anyway. But so far, the inevitable end had not been worth a thought to him. After all, it was unproductive and didn’t suit him at all. Maybe it was just because he had more time to think at the moment.

He flipped open the oven door and pulled out the hot pizza, using his fork to maneuver it onto his plate. His students had been surprisingly well-behaved today. They must have been looking forward to Easter vacation. Three more days. It suited him just fine, because SigmaLaunch had checked in this morning. His CubeSat was on its way to Sweden, and he’d confirmed his permission to observe the launch. He could hardly have chosen better timing. The launch would take place on Monday morning.

Peter divided the pizza, which measured about 30 centimeters across, into six segments of 60 degrees each and turned it into a math problem, of course. How many people could each have a slice if nothing was to be left over and each eater needed at least 60 square centimeters of pizza to be satisfied? “Who would feel full enough with only 60 square centimeters of pizza,” Matthias from the 6th grade would say. And he’d be right, of course.

As if to prove it, Peter ate the segments, each 117 square centimeters in size, one after the other. He left only the last one. Franziska always said he had to watch his weight. She was probably right, too. After 50, the risk of cardiovascular disease increased, especially for men who lived alone, he had read, while for women, marriage tended to be rather detrimental to health. Hmm. So, in theory, it would be better for Franziska if she separated from him.

He washed his greasy fingers with the soapy rag in the sink and wiped the residual water first on his jeans, then on his handkerchief. He put the plate into the dishwasher, which was already growing full—and stinky. I really should start it up again sometime, he thought.

But not now. If he was to be in Sweden by Monday morning, it was best to start the dishwasher on Saturday. Peter got the notebook. The launch site was near the northern Swedish town of Kiruna. There was a flight connection via Stockholm directly to Kiruna, but only on Mondays and Fridays. On the other days, the quickest option was 14 hours or more on the road between Stockholm and Kiruna. He had several flight choices every day to Stockholm. But, there was still that long drive from the Swedish capital to Kiruna, along the Gulf of Bothnia on the Baltic Sea.

Surely there must be alternatives? He switched to the Finnish options. Airports were marked at Oulu and Rovaniemi. From Rovaniemi, it looked like four and a half hours of driving, but the only viable connection was on Saturday. Okay, then he’d have Sunday to acclimatize. He’d leave at 11:35 a.m. and arrive in Rovaniemi at 5:15 p.m. with a change in Helsinki. Then around five more hours by car. That sounded doable.

There seemed to be plenty of hotels around Kiruna. He booked the Reindeer Lodge because it was fairly close to Esrange, where the Swedish Space Agency’s launch center was located. The accommodations, in private wooden cabins, looked rustic. Franziska would like that. Should he call her and ask her to come along?

It was only 24 minutes or so from the lodge to the launch site. The weather forecast predicted a maximum temperature of minus five degrees. The roads looked rather narrow in the online route planner, so he booked a car with four-wheel drive, even though it was a bit more expensive.

Peter reached for the phone and typed a 0, then a 1, then a 7. He’d slowed down with each digit, and after the 2, he stopped and put the phone aside. He didn’t trust himself. What should he tell Franziska? Come with me to northern Sweden to watch me send my mother’s house into space? Maybe it was better for her to keep her distance from such a madman. He was beginning to think that he should turn himself in before he became a danger to others. It was not easy, being utterly convinced of something while knowing everyone would believe you were a nutcase.

No, not all of them. Not Thomas and not the researcher Holinger, even if she did not accept his thesis. He had data on which he based his theory, data which any interested person could measure. The problem was that they allowed for other interpretations as well. And if his theory was correct, the current cosmology would have to be overlooking a danger that was hard to imagine.

His computer made several pinging sounds, the booking confirmations for the flights, the hotel, and the car. Peter printed them out. Who knew if he’d have Internet access everywhere in the far north?

Then he got up and took a folder from the shelf. He had to prepare the lessons for tomorrow. Three more days of school.

March 26, 2026 – Passau

“Hi, Peter!”

It was Franziska. He’d hesitated for a long time to take the call, even though he longed to hear her voice.

“Hello, Franziska! I, um...”

“I just wanted to give you a quick sign of life before you reported me missing to the police.”

“That’s nice. I wouldn’t have... uh, I’m glad to hear your voice.”

Franziska was right. She’d announced at the end of February that she’d be spending some time in Greta’s apartment because her friend would be away anyway. A month had passed. He never ran into her at school, but he assumed that she was deliberately avoiding him. After all, she knew his schedule.

“I’m glad too, Peter. How are you?”

She was happy. That was good.

“Well, busy, you know how it is so close to Easter break. And how are you?”

“Quite well. It’s a bit lonely. Greta is still traveling with the director. Can you imagine? Yesterday she called from Hamburg, and tomorrow they’re going to Amsterdam.”

“With Greta, I can very much see that happening.”

“Yes, it suits her. I couldn’t. I miss my garden. Are you keeping up with watering the flowers? And are you making sure the blackberries don’t overgrow everything? Are the blackbirds breeding yet?”

“You could come and see for yourself.” Peter held his breath.

He had surprised himself. It rarely happened to him that his words were faster than his thoughts. But now these words had escaped his mouth.

“Hmm. I’d really like to sit in my deck chair again, look out over the fields, and have an Aperol Spritz to go with it.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“The forecast for the weekend is 20 degrees and sunny. What do you say I come by Saturday around noon?”

Peter swallowed and sat down. His ear was sweating, so he changed the phone to the other side. On Saturday...

“Peter?”

“There’s a little bit of a problem there,” he said.

“You’ve already gotten a replacement for me, and you can’t cancel on her so soon?”

“No! Please don’t take this the wrong way—”

“Oh well, when you start out like that... I thought you’d be pleased. I would have been pleased.”

“I’m looking forward to it, too. But the day before yesterday, I booked tickets to Rovaniemi.”

“What are you doing in Finland? I bet it’s still freezing there.”

“Actually, I want to go to northern Sweden, but it’s a shorter trip from Rovaniemi. On Monday, my satellite launches into space—my beacon. I’ve explained to you that the solar system is threatened.”

“That again? I thought you would have returned to your senses by now. I’m sorry I made such a stupid suggestion.”

“It wasn’t a silly suggestion after all. I would have liked you—”

“Don’t act like that. Your obsession still takes precedence over everything else.”

“You could come with me. I’ve booked a lodge in the middle of the Arctic wilderness. There are even reindeer there!”

“Yes, and lots of snow, I’m sure. I’m not going to sit alone in the lodge in sub-zero temperatures while you watch a rocket launch, when we have twenty degrees and spring here!”

“Gosh, Franziska, it’s not like that at all—”

“Don’t bother, Peter. I’ve got it all figured out. Do what you have to do. When are you leaving?”

“The plane leaves at eleven-thirty.”

“Good, then I’ll have the garden to myself by ten o’clock at the latest. Are you sure you won’t be back before Monday?”

March 27, 2026 – Passau

His cellphone rang. Another call from that same blocked number! He’d already ignored it twice in class today. Answering it wouldn’t be a good example for his class. Peter swiped the green-handset icon to the side.

“Hello, Miguel from SigmaLaunch here,” a voice announced in English. “Good to finally reach you.”

He didn’t recognize the voice. Had they replace the chatbot, or was this a real person?

“Peter here. Am I talking to a human being?”

“Of course, Peter.” The man laughed as if he had made a great joke.

“What can I do for you?”

“I have good news for you. Your CubeSat has arrived in Kiruna.”

“Great.”

And for that, he calls me multiple times?

“There’s still a little problem with the documents.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Declaration of space debris-based risks is lacking.”

“I thought it was enough for the satellite to have a DEO?”

“Without the DEO, it wouldn’t be allowed to launch. But without the declaration, Rockets Plus cannot integrate it.”

“But I have no idea how to fill out something like that. Where do I get the form? Can’t you do it?”

Peter hated bureaucracy.

“You are the operator. We’re not allowed to take that over from you. It’s not like we’re even EU-based. If we were the operators, we’d have to put in a request to transfer the waste budget.”

Since the increasing amount of garbage in Earth’s orbit had become a problem a few years ago, each space nation had a certain garbage budget. It was not permissible to send new satellites into space until others had been brought down.

“Okay. What do I have to do?”

“You need to download the DRAMA program. In it, you will enter all the data of the CubeSat. The software will then generate the certificate that you need to forward to Rockets Plus.”

“When?”

“Today. Now. You’re holding up the entire launch preparation of the rocket at this point.”

* * *

If only he had answered the phone sooner. This DRAMA software had been aptly named, even if it was an acronym for ‘Debris Risk Assessment and Mitigation Analysis.’ Just creating the account and downloading and installing the software took 20 minutes.

The program asked him for data, some of which he’d never heard of. Peter could only answer the questions by copying them into a parallel chat window, where a SigmaLaunch employee picked out the appropriate data for him. He’d been able to keep up through the classic orbital elements, but after that it got tricky.

It was all the more surprising that, at the end, the software readily calculated what it needed: The probability of a collision with space debris during the lifetime of this mission, and the approximate time the CubeSat had until it burned up again in the atmosphere, as well as the risk that it wouldn’t be completely destroyed on re-entry. Peter saved the results in a PDF file and emailed it to the address SigmaLaunch gave him.

He fervently hoped he had not made a mistake. If the data did not arrive in Kiruna today, his CubeSat would remain in the warehouse.

March 28, 2026 – Passau

Peter was excited and tired at the same time. He got the mat from the cellar and laid it on Franziska’s deck chair. Then he adjusted the lounger so that it would face toward the sun at ten o’clock. He opened out a flat-folding table next to it. On top, he placed the bouquet of tulips he’d bought yesterday and the note he’d written. “Sparkling wine and Aperol are in the refrigerator,” he had noted in his spidery handwriting. Around it he’d drawn a heart. It looked awkward. He’d never been very good at drawing. He moved the vase on top of the note so the paper couldn’t fly away if the wind should pick up. Then he got the red blanket and a pillow from the living room.

There. Now it looked as if Franziska had been sitting in her garden for a long time and had only gone into the house briefly. His heart warmed. Peter imagined her, sitting there waiting for him when he came home on Tuesday. But that was nonsense, of course. With his latest refusal, he had probably blown it once and for all.

Peter sighed. Then he tore himself away from the sight of the empty deck chair. He had to go to the airport. He pulled the suitcase, already standing on the terrace, to the garage and loaded it into the trunk. He hadn’t packed very much, but the winter clothes he’d known he would need were so heavy that he couldn’t transport the suitcase as hand luggage. He slid behind the wheel. Crap! Peter got out again because he had forgotten to lock everything. He ran back and locked the house and cellar doors.

Have a good trip, honey, he imagined Franziska’s voice saying softly.

March 28, 2026 – Kiruna

The airport in Rovaniemi, where his flight had landed on schedule, was surprisingly large and modern. The Sixt counter was near the exit. The clerk greeted him in dialect-free English. Peter signed the rental agreement, took the keys, and exited the building, his rolling suitcase in tow. When he exhaled, a plume of steam escaped his mouth. It was cold outside, but it was a dry cold that he could handle pretty well, especially once he got his winter jacket out of his suitcase.

The rental car was parked in the well-lit parking lot. It was only 150 steps, so he wouldn’t reach his usual 10,000-step goal today. He put his suitcase in the trunk, got in, and the car greeted him.

“What can I do for you?” it asked in English.

“Drive me to Reindeer Lodge in Kiruna, Sweden,” he replied.

“I’m navigating you to Reindeer Lodge in Kiruna, Sweden,” the car said. “Autonomous driving mode is only available during daylight hours and on ice-free routes.”

Had he heard that right? Were the roads icy? This was going to be fun. He reversed the car out of the parking space. Then he followed the arrows that appeared on the windshield.

* * *

Fortunately, there was no sign of ice on the roads. Navigation initially followed Highway 83, which ran straight for many kilometers at a time. To the left and right were nothing but spruce and birch forests. There was relatively little snow on the trees. They usually had more in Germany in the winter. The asphalt was in such good condition that Peter felt increasingly sleepy. At Lake Raanujärvi, he stopped briefly to stretch his legs. He peed behind a tree, wiped his hands on snow, and dried them with the handkerchief he always kept in a trouser pocket. Then he watched the moon, the light of which was refracted many thousands of times by the snow-covered ice of the lake. The icy cold woke him up again.

The road passed over a mountain ridge. The higher up and the further north he got, the smaller the trees became. It was a pity that he couldn’t see very much of the landscape. He passed a viewpoint but didn’t stop. At the Torneälv River, he crossed the border into Sweden. On both sides of the bridge, the border security buildings were still standing, but there were no guards.

The road was now numbered 99. On the navigation screen, he saw that it went north along the river. The 99 then turned into the 395, but the river remained on his right as a neighbor. Finally, the road got the EU number 45, but somehow without becoming a millimeter wider.

“In eight hundred meters, turn right.”

Peter jumped, as the car hadn’t spoken for so long a time he’d forgotten it had that feature. The intersection seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. A sign pointed to the ‘Ice Hotel,’ which must be nearby. Now his destination was just a few minutes away. He crossed a river, which seemed to him more like the junction of two lakes, and drove through a small town called Jukkasjärvi, where hardly any lights were burning even though it was only half past ten.

To get to Reindeer Lodge, he took a gravel road that he would not have found without the navigation program—he only discovered the tiny signpost the next morning. At least the dirt road had been cleared of snow. After about 500 meters, he came across a row of wooden huts spread between trees.

There was no sign of a reception desk. Two of the cabins had lights on, but cars that were recognizable as rental cars were parked not far from them, so guests were most probably staying there.

Peter studied his reservation. He called the phone number, and a young-sounding female voice answered. It turned out that the reception office was in the village near the church. But the woman agreed to come because he’d be the last guest anyway, after which she could go home.

Half an hour later, Peter was lying in his bed. He was so tired that he hadn’t checked out the hut’s amenities or bothered to brush his teeth.

March 29, 2026 – Kiruna

When Peter awakened in the morning, bright light streamed past the sides of the blind into the hut. Doesn’t the sun always rise late and set early this far north? He looked at the clock on his cellphone. It was only seven, and yet it seemed as bright as day. He wanted to get up to pull the blind up, but when he pushed the thick blanket aside, the frosty air overwhelmed him.

Just beyond the foot of the bed, he saw a cannon stove. A few wood scraps were still glowing in its tube, but they were no longer enough to warm the room, because the walls rose like in a tent and the peak was at least four meters high. To the right of the stove, a narrow side room opened out. He wondered if there was a toilet inside, since his bladder was already pressing. He didn’t remember what the woman who’d welcomed him here had said. He only remembered her saying that breakfast would be served in a communal building.

Peter stood up with the blanket around him. He pulled up the blind. Next to the stove were wood and firelighters so that he could light the stove. He checked the adjoining room, but it was only a small entrance area, so the toilet must be outside. He got dressed, packed his toothbrushing stuff, slipped into his shoes, and left the cabin.

It was not as cold outside as he had feared, but nippy enough that the windows of his car were frosted over. The ground between the huts consisted of compacted snow, but it didn’t feel slippery. The paths to the toilet hut and the refreshment hut were easily recognizable because they were the widest. Peter deeply drew in the air, which smelled of forest and animals, probably the reindeer with which the lodge gave sleigh rides. He remembered that the woman had offered him a ride, but he’d declined.

His bladder was calling again. He had to take care of his physical needs first.

* * *

Peter was sitting at breakfast half an hour later. The young woman from yesterday wished him a good morning. He seemed to be the only guest, so he looked for a place as close as possible to the cannon stove, which was also the heating system for this hut. He found cereal, pastries, coffee and tea, already more than he needed, and there was even fruit, which he had not expected.

What should he do with this day? He could borrow cross-country skis or snowshoes rent-free. That sort of activity would be more Franziska’s thing. Peter looked at the surroundings on his cellphone and came across two interesting places: the spaceport in Esrange, which he would visit tomorrow anyway, and the iron mine of the Swedish company LKAB. With that, he made his decision. He booked a reservation online for the tour, which would start at half-past nine.

* * *

He was already lying in bed again when Franziska called him.

“I wanted to thank you for the nice welcome home,” she said, “I appreciate it, even though it was a shame you had to travel.”

She didn’t sound as upset as she had yesterday.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go through with this now,” he said. “I think our futures depend on it. Our children’s, too.”

“I admire you a little bit for that,” Franziska said, “even though I think you’re wrong. But you’re really committed to it.”

“You’ll see that I’m right.”

He said that, although he hoped it wasn’t so, because Franziska would only realize that he was right if the CubeSat project failed, and then they’d all be dead.

“After all, we don’t have to sort it out now,” said Franziska. “Anyway, it was a beautiful day in the garden, with sun and Aperol Spritz. And, your day?”

“I went to see a mine, where we were taken down to five hundred and forty meters. Just imagine that feeling, five hundred and forty meters of rock above you.”

“Thank you, no. Just the idea is enough for me.”

“We could have rented snowshoes or skis.”

“Thank you, Peter. I’ve really had enough of snow now that we’re at the end of March. I was delighted to be able to lie in the sun today. The only thing that would have appealed to me if I were there would have been the northern lights.”

“Are you... Will you still be there when I come back on Tuesday? I’d be glad.”

“I can think about that tomorrow. In any case, I’ll spend the night here again tonight. It feels good to sleep in my own bed again.”

* * *

Peter was still lying awake and thinking about the conversation. Franziska didn’t seem to be as angry with him anymore. What else did she say? The aurora borealis would have delighted her.

He looked at the clock. It was now shortly before ten. That should be a good time to search the sky for them. He crawled out from under the covers and got dressed again.

It took a while to find a place where the trees did not interfere with the view of the sky. Sure enough, there they were. Pale, rather gray flags were waving in the black firmament. At first glance, they resembled thin veils of clouds, but when he looked closely, he recognized a greenish tinge. A few meters away, a man had mounted a cellphone on a tripod and was using it to photograph the sky.

“May I?” asked Peter in English.

“Gladly,” the man said.

Peter looked at the display of the cellphone. The northern lights were visible in much richer contrast. But he didn’t have a tripod, and handheld, long exposures wouldn’t work. It didn’t matter. He had the images in his head, which were enough to describe them to Franziska.

March 30, 2026 – Kiruna

It was still dark when the alarm clock on his cellphone rang. Peter got up and switched on the light. Today was the big day, and the thought made him a little nauseous. He quickly put on some clothes, freshened up in the toilet hut, and went to breakfast.

It was icy and clear. He looked up at the sky, and a thousand stars stared down on him. They blinked and winked much less than at home in Passau. It was as if the heavens were much more serious about him here. He stopped and looked for Sigma Draconis, but he couldn’t find the star, not because it was no longer there, but because the night sky was figuratively overflowing with stars. How was anyone supposed to believe that some were missing?

The door to the communal hut opened with a loud creak that echoed off the trees. A sonic boom could hardly be louder in this wilderness. He looked around, but the lights didn’t suddenly go on in any of the other huts.

It was lukewarm inside. The young woman was not here yet, but yesterday she’d put everything he would need in front of him. He only had to turn on the coffee machine himself. He had also already checked out, as he would not be returning to Reindeer Lodge. It didn’t take long before the smell of coffee permeated the room. Peter calmed down. He didn’t give a damn about these strange feelings.

The launch would succeed, of that there was no doubt. Rockets Plus had done everything to ensure the maiden flight of their new rocket did not fail. A lot depended on it for the company, not the least its IPO. The company’s engineers were unaware that failure would also mean the end of the solar system.

* * *

It was slowly getting light as he made his way to the launch center. The trees along the roadside emerged from the darkness as if reporting for duty in the Lapland tree army. Peter yawned. He opened the side window, and the icy air quickly dispelled the rest of his tiredness. A rickety Volvo overtook him. It was the quintessential Swedish cliché.

After a while, he saw a couple of large white satellite dishes on the right side of the road. That must be the ESA ground station mentioned on the launch center website. It was therefore exactly seven kilometers farther. The odometer had advanced six more kilometers when he saw the illuminated entrance. The wooden building beside it was the visitor center. Even though there was light in the sky, the center would not open until eight.

He saw a light on inside the glassed-in porter’s lodge. Peter parked the car at the side, walked to a small window, and knocked on it. A woman was sitting inside. She pointed to the back with her left hand. He walked around the little house to a door at the rear. He kicked the snow residue off his shoes, opened the door, and went inside.

“You must be Peter Kraemer,” the woman said in English. “I am Vera.”

She was significantly shorter than himself, a little overweight, and wore a blue uniform that looked more like private security than police.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“The others are already here.”

“How so? I’m coming from Reindeer Lodge, and except for an old Volvo, no one has passed me.”

“That must have been Esther. She’s in charge of breakfast. The others are staying at our ‘Aurora’ hotel.”

“I see.”

“I have your ID here. You must keep it with you at all times.”

Vera handed him a plastic card with an attached blue and white striped lanyard. He hung it around his neck and thanked her.

“You’ve never been here before, have you?”

He shook his head.

“Well, come with me.”

Vera took a lined jacket from the back of her chair, put it on, and pointed to the door.

* * *

Peter started the rental car. The guard sat next to him. The windshield immediately fogged up and Peter turned the ventilation controls to the highest setting.

“Pull up to the card reader,” Vera said.

He reversed a few meters, then pulled to the left until he could reach the card reader from his window. He tried his plastic card, but the barrier did not respond.

“You’re a guest, no privileges,” the woman said, handing him her card. He held it over the reader and the barrier opened. They followed the road for a few hundred meters until Peter saw a few clinker buildings and wooden sheds on the left.

“This is dispatch,” Vera said. “Turn left and drive slowly.”

As they passed between the buildings, the guard showed him the operations center, the hotel, and the restaurant.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

“No, turn left again over there.”

He drove them into a large square opening. It looked like the forest here had been cut down for a construction project.

“Big plans?” he asked.

Vera laughed. “No, this is the balloon launch site. See the road there at the end? That’s where we’re going.”

He turned into a wooded area. The road made a left turn. Then he saw an open area with some low buildings grouped around it. There was no rocket set up.

“This is launch site 1,” Vera said.

“Stop?”

“No.”

The road continued through another wooded area again until another clearing appeared. It had to be their destination, because there was a rocket in the middle of the open space. It looked huge out here in the open. It seemed to be leaning against an illuminated tower, as if it needed to rest a bit before launching.

“Stop there behind the flat-roofed building,” Vera said.

He parked the car in a gravel parking lot, got out, and looked around. He’d once visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here, everything was much more modest. And they were damn close to the rocket he saw shimmering above the building’s flat roof. He imagined the rocket taking off on a cushion of flame that enveloped the building and his car, until the paint blistered.

“Pretty big, huh?” asked Vera.

Peter nodded.

“It’s the tallest model to launch from here so far.”

“But we’re safe in that building?”

“Yes, of course. The safety margins are generous,” Vera replied.

She went forward and held the door for him. They were in a room about the size of two classrooms at his school. At the front was a large projection screen covered with status displays. A tall, slim man clad in a turtleneck sweater and jeans approached them.

“There he is, our curious guest,” the man said in German.

Peter thought he picked up a slight accent.

“Welcome. I’m Peter Bintzew,” the man introduced himself, “the CEO of RocketsPlus.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Peter Kraemer.”

“I’m glad you made it. I’ve been curious about you. You’re a physics teacher?”

“Yes, high school. You’re probably wondering what made me want to launch a CubeSat so badly.”

“Indeed. You’re our first private client.”

“It’s a long story.”

“All right, you’ve got to tell it to me. But for now, let’s get your satellite into space. You can sit there in the last row but, please, don’t touch anything.”

Then turning his escort, Bintzew said, “Thank you, Vera, for taking care of our guest. Sören can take you back to the front in ten minutes. He has something to do in town.”

“I’ll wait outside,” Vera said. “It’s too hot for me in here.”

* * *

Peter sat on a wooden chair reminiscent of the chairs on which his students suffered. A low desk in front of him held two monitors. To his left were two more similarly equipped workstations. There were six rows in total, almost reaching the projection screen on the end wall. The most important people seemed to be sitting in front, surprisingly few of them. Rockets Plus apparently got by with a small number of staff members. He’d once watched a launch at DLR in Ottobrunn, near Munich, and there had been twice as many people in the room.

What he saw was not particularly exciting. He would have loved to go out and watch from the roof, but he was not allowed to. A countdown was running on the projection screen, which had just stopped at T-5 minutes. A young woman with dark skin and short hair came over to him. She tapped around on one of the screens until he could see a camera image that showed the rocket. Clouds of steam were issuing from beneath it. Here in the north, this seemed normal to him. A sauna would probably emit no less vapor.

The countdown picked up where it had left off. The rocket was snow-white, almost its entire body filled with fuel. Only in the tip at the very top was there room for the payload. Who would his CubeSat be traveling with? Peter imagined the satellites talking to each other.

Hah!1 get to go out first.

So? Then I’ll live longer.

I’ll get to see a lot more than you.

My purpose is top secret.

T-60. The display counted down second after second. Peter’s palms grew sweaty. He slid them under his thighs. At T-15, he felt a vibration. On the screen, the first flames burst from the engine. It looked as if the rocket was holding back with great difficulty. In just a moment it was going to launch.

Five more seconds.

The flames grew and spread around the launch platform. For a moment, it looked as if someone was about to sacrifice a virgin rocket in a fiery ritual.

Then the illusion dissolved. Gravity ceased. Even Peter felt lighter for a moment. He alone sprang to his feet, and all at once, everyone in the room stood and clapped, except for three people who remain seated in the front row. The clapping quieted—the danger was not over yet. The rocket rose and rose. It had become a dot on the screen as it continued to soar.

“First stage successfully separated,” the Rockets Plus CEO exclaimed.

Clapping resumed, and then the room went dead silent. The rocket was no longer visible to the naked eye.

“Second stage successfully separated,” Bintzew said. “Waiting for payloads to be ejected.”

Silence. The launch of the rocket was a success, but the company made money only when it successfully launched the payloads. Up to now, everything was an expense.

“CubeSat launcher reports success,” Bintzew finally announced.

Again, everyone jumped to their feet, the excitement especially evident in the front rows where the company’s employees were. They exchanged hugs and pats on the back. German words flew around the room.

Peter sat down first, then got up and went outside. No one stopped him. His job was done... Or was it? He felt a strange calm. He had done what he could. No one could ask more of him, not even himself.

* * *

The restaurant was called ‘Space Inn.’ It looked like a canteen, and that was an accurate perception. Today's main course consisted of a turkey cutlet with rice, and a salad buffet, moderately priced by Swedish standards. Peter carried his tray to a place on the edge of the uncrowded dining room. Some of the employees who came in bought hot coffee and then unpacked food they had brought with them.

He had even more time than planned. Everything had gone so smoothly that he could hardly believe it. The flight from Rovaniemi didn’t leave until the next morning. For tonight he had reserved a room in the Finnish city. He really could have forgone this trip entirely. He now realized it would have been better to spend the weekend in the garden with Franziska.

He looked at the clock. There were still more than 24 hours until he saw her again. The plane would land in Munich at half-past one. At least it was vacation time, so they still had two weeks to themselves. He had to use the time to get everything back on track. He didn’t want to lose Franziska.

His smartphone vibrated in his pocket. It was a message from Miguel from SigmaLaunch, congratulating him on the successful launch. He put the phone away again and continued eating.

Suddenly, someone spoke to him from behind. “May I?” asked Peter Bintzew in German.

“Ah, you’ve come to hear the story.”

Bintzew sat down in the seat opposite him. He had a coffee and a piece of cake on his tray.

“First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your successful launch,” said the CEO.

“I’m happy to return that sentiment. Without your new rocket, everything would have been too late.”

“Too late?”

Peter had almost let the cat out of the bag. He was annoyed with himself, because he knew he mustn’t tell his true story to anyone. “Quite brave to start a space company in Germany,” he said. Maybe he could manage to distract Bintzew.

“Not at all. The conditions were perfect: trained engineers, a research environment, it’s no problem to get any specialist to move, plus the investors and public funding. After all, I come directly from the university myself.”

“You seem older than that.”

“Thank you for the ‘compliment,’ Bintzew said with a chuckle. “But you are right. I studied first in my hometown of Kiev. Space technology, in Germany, was my second degree. But now it’s your turn. How did you come to launch your own CubeSat?”

“Shouldn’t every man, in his lifetime, father a child and launch a satellite?”

“‘Plant a tree,’ my friend. But no one spends almost half a million on that. Not that I’m in the least upset about it, but there must be more to it than that.”

Bintzew paused and reached into his pants pocket. “Excuse me, this is important. The control room.”

Bintzew stood up and listened for a minute.

“And that is absolutely certain? No reaction?” he then asked in English.

Peter could not hear the answers from the other side, but Bintzew did not seem to be pleased. He was probably about to say goodbye and run to the control room. Instead, the CEO sat down again, looking at him seriously.

“We have a problem. Sören just called in from the ground station, which has since taken over the CubeSats.”

“A problem that also affects my satellite?”

“It affects only your satellite.”

“Oh, great. Is it not broadcasting?”

“I can’t say. It’s probably transmitting. It just can’t be controlled from the ground.”

“How can that be?”

“The satellite would have to do a half turn to get the long-range antenna pointed in our direction. That doesn’t seem to be working.”

“But if it’s broadcasting, what’s the problem? That’s what I wanted, isn’t it?”

“Each satellite has a DEO built in, a deorbiting device. This allows it to be nudged into the atmosphere at the end of its life, where it burns up—waste avoidance. But sometimes satellites just don’t respond. In that case, the DEO acts like a dead man’s switch. If the satellite does not receive an acknowledgment from Earth, after a certain amount of time the DEO activates, destroying the satellite before it can get in the way of others. A defective object should leave its orbit as soon as possible.”

“But my satellite is not defective. It’s doing its job!”

“The DEO knows nothing about the task. Without communication with us, the DEO will react—it has no alternative. It’s hard-wired to do that. With an additional long-range antenna, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“But it wouldn’t have fit in the 6U format.”

“You’re always wiser afterward.”

Shit, shit, shit. The satellite must transmit or the sun will die!

“Is there nothing that can be done? It is exceedingly important that the satellite not self-destruct. It’s vital.”

“I’ll take your word for it, even if I don’t know the reason, but no one can prevent the DEO from being activated. It’s technically impossible. How could you turn off a mechanism that is not accessible?”

“Maybe with stronger transmitting power? I could use a large radio antenna...”

Thomas would certainly help him.

“From the surface of the Earth, you have no chance. The antenna is misaligned. You have to get within a few kilometers. I’m really sorry, Peter, but there’s nothing I can do for you there. You’ll just have to make do.”

“Couldn’t you find another satellite that’s in a similar orbit and transmit the signal from there?”

“It would be a great coincidence if, first, you could find a satellite suitable for it, and second, if you could convince the operator, and as quickly as possible. I’m afraid you’d have to fly there yourself.”

Shit! That couldn’t be true! Peter would have liked to bang his fist on the table, but he didn’t dare do that among all those people. If the satellite will at least transmit until April 4 or 5!

“How much time do I have?” he asked.

“For what?”

“How long until deorbiting starts?”

“The DEO device waits exactly 72 hours from the time the satellite is released for a connection with the ground station. Upon confirmation, the DEO is disarmed. If it fails to make the connection, it removes the object from orbit.”

* * *

He couldn’t believe it. He’d come so close! Thoughts swarmed through his head. Had he spent all that money for nothing? On the other hand, if the beacon didn’t transmit long enough, money was no longer his problem. He had to get back to Franziska as quickly as possible. Then they could at least spend the little time they had left together. He couldn’t think of anyone with whom he’d rather spend his last days.

Would there have been an alternative? The second antenna, certainly, or another mechanism for turning the satellite. But there was no point in stewing about it now. It was just too bad that there was no connecting flight to Munich today. But he could at least fly to Helsinki in the evening and take the early plane home from there. That way he could reach Franziska shortly after eight.

What had Bintzew said? He’d have to fly there himself! Peter hit the brakes without thinking and came to a stop on the narrow shoulder. He cringed instinctively, expecting to be crashed into from the rear, but there was no one behind him. He hadn’t seen another car in half an hour.

Peter got his notebook out of his backpack. He used his smartphone to set up a hotspot. Forests stretched to the horizon to the left and right of the road, but cell reception was still better here than at home.

‘Fly there yourself,’ Bintzew had said. Of course! That was no longer a utopian dream, ever since 2022. Several companies offered flights into space. All he needed was a bit of luck.

And he was in luck! Virgin Galactic flew on April 3. Peter did the math. Seventy-two hours would have passed by April 2. But the deorbiting process that started then was slow. The iodine engine had little power, just enough to lower the satellite’s orbit over two or three days so that the increasing air resistance would do the rest.

He looked up the orbital data. The orbit of his CubeSat was at an altitude of about 340 kilometers. Virgin’s space glider flew only a single orbit with its passengers, reaching a maximum altitude of 300 kilometers. In fact, it was very convenient that the DEO device would have been activated the day before. He just had to manage to switch it off again in time. Even at an altitude of 300 kilometers, his beacon would be able to transmit for a few months, and after that, the danger should be averted if his calculations were correct.

Virgin conveniently disclosed all flight plans, which allowed him to read the necessary data to feed the app that otherwise controlled his astral projector. When the device was not available, the app output its results to the smartphone. That would have to do.

He started the simulation. The CubeSat and the space glider moved around the Earth at different levels. There, over Africa, for example, they should meet. But the altitude would not be right, nor would the speeds synchronize. The CubeSat would cross the space glider’s path about 30 kilometers below it, and at a rapid pace.

Is that enough to reach the DEO device and disable it? He had to make sure, even if it meant taking control on board—the first mutiny aboard a starship. He’d go down in history... and end up in prison. He would have saved the world, but no one would believe him.

First he had to secure a seat. For the April 3 launch, Virgin was using the latest model in its fleet, which had ten seats. In the beginning, in 2022, it had been very difficult to get a seat, but now such small excursions had become normal. In fact, there were still two seats available on the 3rd. So he could take Franziska with him—if he still had 400,000 U.S. dollars left, because a seat cost 200,000. But he didn’t. Of the amount transferred in advance by the broker, there was still just under 200,000 euros left. At the current exchange rate, that was 240,000 dollars.

So it was only enough for himself—a pity. Franziska would undoubtedly manage to convince the captain of the space glider of the necessary course change.

* * *

“It’s me,” he said.

The theme music of Today’s Journal could be heard in the background. He had waited until Tatort was over.

“I thought so,” said Franziska. “So, did you have success?”

“How was Tatort?” he asked instead.

“A little confusing. It didn’t work out?”

Now he had to tell her.

“Yes and no—there’s a problem. The beacon is transmitting. But it will stop soon. Too soon. The DEO on board is coupled with some kind of dead man switch that—”

“I don’t need the details. What does that mean?”

“There’s only one way to fix this. I have to go up there myself.”

“Knowing you, you’ve already booked the ticket.”

“Yes. I couldn’t go this far and then let it all go now. The beacon has to keep transmitting.”

“So you’re not coming home tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately, no. I would have loved to come to you, please believe me. But I’m flying directly to the U.S. I’m taking off on the 3rd.”

“You’re going into space? You’re insane.”

“It has to be done. I fly with Virgin Galactic. Don’t worry. They’re exceedingly reliable. There hasn’t been a single abort yet.”

He preferred not to tell her that he planned to hijack the space glider. He still hoped that he could somehow spare himself that, after all.

“I see.”

Crap. Franziska was angry. He had hoped that she’d at least understand his predicament.

“How much is this actually costing you?” she asked.

“$200,000.”

“A princely sum.”

“It was more expensive a few years ago.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re saving so much.”

“Please, Franziska, stay in the house and wait for me.”

“That’s a lot to ask... You know that?”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’ll think about it, Peter. That’s all I can promise you.”

“Thank you. I love you.”

“Until you get back, I don’t want to talk to you again. You hear me?”

“I... Okay. Then how do I find out what you’ve been thinking about?”

“You’ll see when you enter the house.”

Franziska hung up. He had done his best. More than that was not possible. She hadn’t said she loved him. But she hadn’t said she didn’t love him either.

That gave him hope. Still, tears ran down his face. He didn’t know where the salty stuff came from.

March 31, 2026 – In Transit

The airplane shuddered its way across the Atlantic. The on-board entertainment system seemed to be overloaded by the simple map display. Eight hours to go.

The air was dry, and the neighbor in the middle seat, 40ish, had been farting constantly since takeoff and obviously thought no one would notice. At some point, his digestive system would manage to equalize the pressure, right? At least he didn’t have to fight for the armrest. Since the food trays had been cleared, his neighbor had been sitting with his eyes closed, his arms folded in his lap. Now and then one eyelid twitched, which Peter noticed even when he was not looking.

A transatlantic flight like this was really no fun. He’d wrestled with the idea of paying for business class, but it was a day flight, so he wasn’t likely to get any sleep anyway. Why should he pay three times as much money just for the better food? He would land in Houston, Texas, at 6 p.m. Central Daylight Time—7 hours and 55 minutes to go. After that, immigration to the U.S., which often took forever. If he was unlucky, he’d miss the connecting flight. If he was lucky, he’d be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 9:41 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Phew.

Peter leaned forward to catch a glimpse out of the small window. As he did so, his gaze fell on the woman sitting in the window seat. She was half the age of his immediate neighbor and quite pretty. That was noticeable, even though she was wearing a baggy sweater and sweatpants. His two seatmates knew each other—she was probably his daughter.

The woman winked at him. Peter felt caught and leaned back. All he’d wanted to do was look out the window! He tapped around on the screen. Supposedly there was a camera that looked straight down, but all it showed was ‘snow.’

Peter took his notebook from the seat pocket in front of him, folded down the little table, and placed the computer on it. The web browser offered to connect it to the super-fast on-board network, but he turned off the wireless module. Last night, as he lay awake in the airport hotel in Helsinki, he’d thought about the messages. The language model had translated them into human poetry.

Did that mean that there was a cross-species language that used lyrical devices? But what did it really mean? The poems into which the messages had been transformed did not convey facts, but feelings. Perhaps because there were, in reality, no facts in the data. Or maybe because there was no common ground to translate the factual part of the message. The only thing the AI could transmit was that for which mutual understanding was possible. That would be raw feelings like loneliness or passion, longing or love.

A nice thought—Franziska would be happy about such communication. Unfortunately, it was impossible to verify. But then, shouldn’t the solar system at least participate in the conversion? The signal that his beacon had been sending out so far was completely bland. It was saying, “I’m here,” nothing more. Presumably, it was enough to stop the annihilation. Hopefully, it was enough. But what if another rational being was checking the 418-megahertz signals in the cosmos and came across the sun? Then the inhabitants of this system must seem to him like unfeeling, cold machines.

He needed a better signal. As a youth, he’d once written poems for an early, purely platonic love. But he was not suitable as the ‘Lyrical Intelligence’ of humankind. He needed something written by a professional. He’d have really liked to ask the young woman in the window seat what her favorite poem was. She had tattoos on her forearms and dark makeup around her eyes, which made her look to Peter’s naïve eye as if she were someone who read poetry.

Franziska would have had a conversation with her long ago. She might also have had an idea herself. So now he had to use the expensive onboard Internet, after all. He connected the notebook to it and grudgingly paid $20.00 for the rest of the flight, as if that would make any difference now.

The net turned him on to a book by a well-known literary critic who’d passed away a few years ago. The man had put together a collection of what he thought were the 100 best poems. Peter downloaded the electronic version, and was captivated by the first verses.

He was almost afraid to continue reading. There were far too many good poems to choose just one.

* * *

Two hours later, Peter chose one, a poem that the German poet Stefan George had written almost 130 years ago. It was an autumn poem and it spoke of farewell. A civilization on a planet with bound rotation or with an exactly vertical axis of rotation would not know seasons, but farewells should be unavoidable anywhere in the universe.

The poem spoke to him personally, in a strange way, creating quiet voices in his head. He could not understand them, they only whispered. The sound of children running through dry leaves drowns them out. He feels the sun on his forehead. It is no longer hot as in summer, but pleasant. He is suddenly an old man whose life had rolled past. A red-gold leaf lands on his palm.

His neighbor on the right still had his eyes closed. The older woman on his left, on the other side of the aisle, was wearing headphones and watching a movie from the in-flight program.

Peter read quietly.

We walk up and down in the rich tinsel / Of the beech aisle almost to the gate / And see outside in the field from the lattice / The almond tree for the second time in flower.

We search for the shadeless benches / Where no foreign voices have ever frightened us / In dreams our arms intertwine / We feast on the long mild glow.

We feel grateful as to quiet roar / From treetops radiant traces drip on us / And only look and listen when in pauses / The ripe fruit knocks on the ground.

He was satisfied. What of it would reach an alien listener? He copied the text into the AI’s language model, which translated it into a data stream. Was that really a good idea? The back-translation was even more subject to error than the translation itself. After all, there was no unique original language, but several from which the model had extracted concepts. Peter reversed the process, and generated the data stream from the German original.

Now he just needed to upload the new signal to the beacon.

April 1, 2026 – Albuquerque

He didn’t make it out of bed until the third ring of the alarm clock. A time difference of eight hours was cruel. Despite the overlong day, he had barely been able to fall asleep, and now he was supposed to get up when it was late afternoon for his body.

But he had to get out. He had one day to get a weapon. How else was he going to gain control of the space glider? The coffee in the motel breakfast room helped wake him up. It was just the way he liked it: strong, black, hot, and bitter. He poured himself a full ‘dose’ in a big paper cup, drank it down at the table while eating a dry bagel, poured himself a refill, and closed the cup with a plastic lid. If he upped the dose every 60 minutes, he might make it through the day. Fortunately, there was a fast-food café on almost every corner.

He chose Los Ranchos Gun Shop. The store had the best reviews on the net. It was still a mistake, though, because they didn’t open until 11 a.m. Peter steered the rental car back onto the four-lane 4th Street. It was only 13 minutes to Old Town if he took the slightly longer route via Rio Grande Boulevard. When he saw a river drawn on the navigation screen, he made a small detour. He crossed the Rio Grande River, which carried lots of clay-tinted brown water. At the next available crossing, he turned around.

The old town of Albuquerque was worth seeing. Small cafés and tourist stores invited you to visit. He let himself drift for an hour and a half, and by then he had seen everything. In the meantime, the Los Ranchos Gun Shop had also opened. The selection was huge. Everything was available, from pistols to rapid-fire rifles. On one wall hung an advertisement for ‘Henry.’ He knew the name from Karl May’s books.

When it was his turn, the first thing the dealer asked him was for his driver’s license, probably standard procedure for anyone seeking to buy a gun.

“Forgotten at home, sorry,” he said.

Maybe the man wouldn’t take the law so seriously. But the dealer, who in his leather shirt resembled a cowboy, just laughed.

“Happens to me all the time, too,” he said. “But I can’t sell you anything until you show it to me.”

“Too bad. There’s nothing to be done at all? Um, price-wise, I mean?”

Peter spoke quietly so that the other customers didn’t overhear.

“Not a chance. I can’t afford to have my license revoked.”

“I see. Thanks anyway.”

“Sure. Thanks for thinking of the Los Ranchos Gun Shop.”

Peter left the store. Just outside the door, another customer stopped him. He wore a holster with a shiny chrome gun on his belt.

“Hey, buddy,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Every other Saturday, there’s a gun show here. The private sellers there ask few questions.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re welcome.”

It was Wednesday, and he flew on Friday. He couldn’t wait until Saturday.

* * *

He had imagined buying guns in the States would be easier. Apparently gun laws in the States were tougher than he’d been led to believe. He’d found neighborhoods where shady characters lurked on street corners, but he couldn’t just go up to a guy like that and ask him if he had any weapons to offer. What if he was just waiting to take his wallet, or, an undercover police officer?

The gun show would have been an alternative. He had been told the same thing by a dealer in another store where he had been the only customer. Despite the privacy, the salesman had not wanted to sell him anything. Peter imagined what it would be like in the space glider. No one would expect a hijacking. He wouldn’t dare to fire the gun in space, anyway. Wouldn’t it be enough to wave a plastic model around? If one of the passengers overpowered him, he had lost anyway.

Peter headed for a large sporting goods store. The store was huge and had everything he could imagine, from fishing accessories to athletic shoes to sailing gear. Con you sail in the New Mexico desert? No matter.

The martial arts section had what he was looking for: Rubber replicas of weapons meant for hazard-free training. He put a rubber gun in his shopping cart. It appeared almost genuine, was about as heavy as a real gun, and cost just under $5 plus tax.

April 2, 2026 – Spaceport America

This section of Interstate 25, through the dry semi-desert of New Mexico, was a truly boring stretch of road. After a good hour, Peter stopped for the first time since exiting the freeway. The town of Socorro, in the county of the same name, consisted mostly of shanties and one-story bungalows. He parked in front of a bakery, bought a six-pack of chocolate donuts, and devoured two. The sugar shock woke him up faster than the coffee he’d bought to go with them.

The next stop was Truth or Consequences, where he had to turn off the interstate. He’d have added a stop here just because of the town’s curious name. In 1950, the little New Mexico town of Hot Springs officially changed its name when the popular radio program, ‘Truth or Consequences,’ offered to broadcast its 10th-anniversary show from the first town to rename itself to match the show’s title.

The road became narrower now, and the desert even drier. Further to the east lay the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range.

Then the UFO appeared. It seemed to have landed in the middle of nowhere. Virgin Galactic must have found it and converted it into the reception building of its ‘Spaceport America.’ Perhaps the modern building made of glass and steel had been moved here from the future...

Peter drove into a parking space. Despite daily launches, it was rare for more than 50 visitors to find their way here on any given day. No wonder it was so empty.

The interior of the UFO was reminiscent of a modern airport. And, it was, except that the destination was beyond Earth’s atmosphere. At the reception desk, his data was already on record.

“You still have an hour,” said the young man behind the counter. “Would you like me to organize someone to show you around a bit?”

Peter shook his head. He preferred to have peace and quiet for a little while longer.

* * *

The briefing took place in a classroom that could have been straight out of his high school. Nine other passengers had spread out on the benches. Among them he saw a group of three women who were using it to celebrate a bachelorette party, a retired couple in an infectiously good mood, two smartly dressed men in their 30s who behaved like a couple, and two other men, apparently traveling separately, whom he’d seen saying goodbye to their wives outside. Those two had sat down at a table for a moment, looking at him as they did so. It might have been meant as an invitation, but Peter was not interested.

Next to the projection screen at the front of the classroom, a door opened. A young woman stepped through—shoulder-length black curly hair, taller than himself, and clearly well-trained.

“I’m glad you’re all here,” she said. Her English came with an accent that could be Italian or Spanish. “I am Francesca Rossi, your pilot. We will share an adventure today and tomorrow. To make sure everything goes safely, I ask you to listen carefully today.”

What a coincidence! Francesca. That sounds a lot like Franziska. The pilot cast a reproachful glance at the three bachelorettes, who immediately stopped whispering.

“Briefly, about me: I trained as a fighter pilot in my native Italy. After that, I applied to the ESA to become an astronaut. But after my training, there was no mission for me for the foreseeable future. That’s why I applied to Virgin Galactic and will now launch into space with you and the beautiful VSS Astra. This will be my 99th flight, so I have developed a settled routine. That’s good for you, because then I can focus all the better on your needs.”

Did that also apply to a detour into another orbit? Of course he didn’t vocalize the thought.

“Are there any questions so far?”

No one raised a hand.

“Okay, let’s start with a little introduction to our spacecraft and the carrier aircraft. The VMS Eve, our mother ship, will take us to an altitude of 15 kilometers before we start our own engine. I’m sure you know, because you booked it, that the VSS Astra is the first member of the Virgin fleet powerful enough for a complete Earth orbit.”

Peter’s hand shot up. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Please.”

“How many orbits could the Astra perform?”

“Quite a few. More than we can ever attempt, because after three days we would run out of oxygen. But, by then—at the latest—someone should have rescued us. I’ll be getting to the emergency procedures shortly.”

“Thank you,” Peter said.

* * *

“I recommend the Parasol Golden Ale today,” said the waiter, who looked like a member of a rock band, his knees bouncing to the beat of inaudible music as he awaited Peter’s order.

“Sure. And the bratwurst.”

“Wonderful, sir. I’ll pass that along to the food-truck people.”

This small-town brewery only did brewing, no cooking, but at the back of the building was a red truck that prepared and sold food you could order to go with your beer. Peter stretched, leaning back as best he could on the bar stool. He was not used to being a student anymore. Francesca—she’d put them on first-name basis—might be a good pilot, but she was less gifted as a teacher. He could tell she’d rather be in the cockpit than in the classroom.

But he was now well-informed about all the risks and side effects. It had been made clear that Virgin envisioned purely passive roles for the passengers. They were allowed to look at the Earth from every angle, take selfies, and buckle up again when the seatbelt signs lit up.

This time, however, it would be different. It had to be. But he alone knew how different!

* * *

“A Parasol, please!”

He recognized that accent. Peter turned around, and there was Francesca. The waiter greeted her with kisses on both cheeks, making it clear she was a regular here. She went to the bar to buy her drink, and only after she sat down did she look in Peter’s direction.

Francesca hesitated briefly. She was apparently uncomfortable, and he could sympathize. After all, she was off work, but knew the German was likely to approach her. The bartender brought his beer and set it in front of him. Peter raised it in a silent toast to Francesca. She nodded in acknowledgement. He could imagine how she was feeling. After all, he was a customer, and even though she was off duty, it would be rude of her to ignore him.

“A Parasol Golden Ale?” she asked.

Peter nodded.

“I drink that too, whenever they have it available.”

“So you come here often?” asked Peter.

“An Italian in a beer bar... does that surprise you? I was in Germany for a fairly long time during astronaut training, in Cologne, so I got used to drinking beer.”

He took a sip, then another. Something was missing—not enough hops for his liking.

“Pretty good,” he said.

If it was Francesca’s favorite beer, he’d better stifle the criticism.

“I like it because it’s not too hoppy,” she said. “You’re not going back to El Paso or Albuquerque?”

Francesca didn’t strike the buddy-like tone she’d used at the Spaceport, so he responded in kind.

“No, I found Truth or Consequences more interesting.”

“Most of our passengers prefer to stay overnight in a bigger city.”

“What about you? I would have thought you lived in the Spaceport.”

“That would be terrible. No, I have a small bungalow here. I’m quite happy to have my peace and quiet after work.”

“I see. I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. How did you get on board with us in the first place? You don’t seem like the typical space tourist. I mean, you have to be able to afford it, first. Sorry—please don’t take this the wrong way.”

“That’s alright. I sold my mother’s house to pay for it.”

“She died? I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s been a while. Don’t worry.”

“And then why go to space of all places? For the money, you could have traveled around the world. Five times. In first class. Excuse me—for some odd reason, I have the financial questions in mind today. You don’t have to answer.”

“No problem. I’m a teacher, math and physics, and an amateur astronomer.”

“So that’s where the connection to space comes from. Then I don’t have to explain that this flight doesn’t bring us much closer to the stars and planets. There really are people who expect to see Mars as a sphere up there. Or even the stars.”

“No, I don’t expect anything like that.”

He paused. Peter wondered if he could talk to her about his true motives. Francesca was the pilot, and tomorrow he would see her for the last time in his life. It didn’t matter if she thought he was a lunatic. And he’d acted normal enough today that she wouldn’t report him yet for his weird ideas.

“Strictly speaking, I booked the flight because of a pretty serious problem that I hope to solve while we’re up there.”

“Interesting. What’s it about?”

“It’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it?”

“You have as much time as it takes for me to drink two beers. After that, I have to go to bed. You’ll need a well-rested pilot tomorrow.”

* * *

Francesca had just ordered her third beer when he finished his saga about the satellite alignment problems.

“So since yesterday, the beacon has been losing altitude?” asked Francesca.

“Yes. You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“You’re not exactly normal, that’s for sure. You have to be crazy to put all your eggs in one basket like you did. I’m just wondering how you’re expecting to solve the problem...?”

I’m sure she already suspects it, even though she hasn’t said it.

“I want to try to hijack the space glider.”

Francesca laughed heartily. “With that rubber gun in your luggage? I was in the military long enough to recognize such an obvious fake.”

“How do you know what’s in my luggage?”

“The bags are all x-rayed, along with the vehicles as they drive onto the Spaceport site. At the guard house as well! The guard probably thought you were training with it.”

“That probably wouldn’t have worked then,” he said.

“And you would have gone to jail for a few years, Peter, even with a fake. Everything that happens in that cabin is recorded. I would have knocked you out and strapped you down in your seat.”

“Then it’s a good thing we talked about it.”

“But the solar system is going to be destroyed—”

“—if I’m right. Unfortunately, my evidence is pretty thin. The main problem is that there is no physical process whatsoever that could just ‘blow out’ a star without leaving a trace.”

“That which cannot be, must not be.”

“Well...”

“I could help you.”

“What? That would be great. You believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t know if your theory is correct. But if it is correct, no matter how small the odds, the consequences would be deadly. So I’m inclined to take the low .”

“Low risk?”

“I am the pilot. I don’t have to hijack the VSS Astra to change its orbit. Suppose the radar were to report an obstacle... some possible space debris. Then, of course I would have to take evasive action.”

“But it’s all being recorded.”

“Well, there are sometimes radar echoes that are not quite attributable. It’s the pilot’s responsibility to react to them. If I judge whatever is causing those echoes to be a danger, that applies. Course corrections take time, so I have to be able to work with incomplete data sometimes. Better safe than sorry—that applies here a hundred and ten percent.”

“One hundred percent. Please don’t say one hundred and ten. I can’t take that. I’m a math teacher.”

Francesca laughed. “You really are crazy. Here I am offering to save the world, and you’re holding on to ten percentage points.”

“Sorry. Will you help me anyway?”

“Of course. I like your craziness. It’s worth the risk to me. You don’t have to get out of the VSS Astra on the way to fix your beacon, do you?”

“No. It’s enough for me to get close enough to it to reset the deorbiting device.”

“This is done by radio?”

“Exactly.”

“How close do we have to get?”

“As close as we can. I will compress the commands so that a few seconds will be enough.”

“Good. Then we need a separate radio. The on-board radio records everything, and that could fall into the hands of someone who has no business knowing about this.”

“Crap. Where am I going to get a radio by tomorrow morning?”

“You let me worry about that. I need two things from you: the target’s orbit, and the signals to be sent.”

Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out the USB stick onto which he’d recorded the data while he was on the plane. “Here,” he said.

“Oh, so quickly—you’re prepared.” Francesca took the stick from him. “What’s all on here?”

“A command sequence to disable the DEO, and a new signal to broadcast the beacon.”

“A new signal?”

“I told you that the transmissions coming from the other stars could be translated as poems.”

“I didn’t fully understand that.”

“Okay—not important. But, considering that, I don’t think our solar system should give out a boring signal. That’s why I encoded a poem into the data structures.”

“How romantic.”

Hmm... No one ever, in all his life, had called him romantic. But in this case, Francesca was right.

April 3, 2026 – VSS Astra

When Peter looked out the right window, he saw an airplane a few meters away. If he leaned to the other side, he noticed a white fuselage with portholes like those of the VSS Astra there, too. What he saw was the double hull of the mother ship, the VMS Eve. It was a catamaran of the skies, and where a marine catamaran’s sail would rise into the air, the space glider in which they would fly into space hung from an ingenious structure.

Virgin Galactic had been using this principle to turn tourists into astronauts for some time now. At first, they’d only surpassed the 100-kilometer line, where space officially began. But the market had changed. Today’s customers wanted to circumnavigate the Earth at least once. That required more time and a more powerful spacecraft. The VSS Astra was the first of its kind, but the operator was already having two sister ships built.

“Sorry, it’s time for me to get on with launch preparations,” Francesca said.

She leaned forward in her pilot seat so that Peter could no longer see past her out the left window, and pressed buttons, turned switches, and tapped on the screen. Her movements were purposeful. She never hesitated while performing a perfectly rehearsed choreography. Francesca looked as if she had mastered it all before her first flight. She must be a born pilot. Who could know, maybe she’d be famous one day? He imagined her being the first person to explore an icy moon of Jupiter.

He was fortunate that he got to watch her work directly. She’d given him the seat on her right. It was designed like a second pilot’s seat and was initially intended for a co-pilot. For cost reasons, the company had since dispensed with that role. The space shuttles were so reliable, and the flights so short, that a co-pilot would be even more bored than the pilots, who were probably already under-challenged as it was.

There had been no discussion about space allocation. Unlike the passenger seats, there was no additional porthole in the roof. Peter had a good view to the front during takeoff, but he couldn’t see the sky. That was why none of the others envied him being allowed to sit in front.

“Dear future astronauts,” Francesca addressed the passengers, “we will be launching shortly. Please make sure you have strapped yourselves in.”

Peter adjusted the straps that stretched over his shoulders and hips. So far, this was the only difference from flying in an airplane. That was why he didn’t feel any excitement at the moment, only the growing hope of being able to fulfill his task.

The hull of the VSS Astra jerked, and they moved backward. It was surprisingly quiet. Minimal vibrations indicated the four engines of the mother ship were already running.

Peter turned around. The other passengers sat in two rows behind him. The three bachelorettes were talking across the center aisle, and the husband and wife were holding hands. The male couple had been seated one in front of the other. The one behind had a hand stretched forward onto his partner’s shoulder. The older of the two men traveling alone had his hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed. He seemed to be praying.

The cabin was surprisingly spacious, probably due to the generously-distributed windows and the mirrored rear panel. From the outside, the space glider hardly looked bigger than a Cessna. Peter noticed more seats than side portholes, probably due to the subsequent addition of four seats to the VSS Astra. The hull design had been probably adopted from the older sister ships.

“Take off in ten seconds,” Francesca said.

Oh! He hadn’t realized they were going so fast already. The Astra sped along a wide, almost immaculate concrete runway that seemed to stretch to the horizon. But that was deceptive. Somewhere, far out there, it merged into the equally gray desert.

Peter immediately felt the liftoff in his stomach. The noise grew louder, a mixture of wind and turbine noises. Francesca spoke into the microphone under her chin.

He thought of the radio, trusting she hadn’t left it behind. The mothership pulled up more steeply, and Earth disappeared from his view. Soon they entered dense clouds, became enveloped in mist, and then quickly exited as if they’d been conjured into another world where a white sun shone out of a sky that grew darker by the minute. Peter leaned forward to admire the cloud layer, which reminded him of an alien city, full of residential towers and giant, exotic trees.

Francesca didn’t seem to have an eye for all this beauty. Although she was almost as much a passenger as he was so far, she had to operate instruments and read off values. There was even a clipboard with an old-fashioned paper checklist on which she made entries from time to time. She carelessly put the pen down next to it. Peter reflexively reached to grab it so that it wouldn’t roll away, but the pen was faster and nestled on the underside of the checklist.

“It’s magnetic,” Francesca said with a smile.

Of course. They would soon experience weightlessness. A free-floating pen would be a hazard.

“Launch preparation,” Francesca said. “Fellow astronauts, your seats will now move into launch position.”

Peter looked back to observe what was happening and was surprised by his own seat, which slowly tilted backward. Of course, this should have been obvious to him. One of the women shrieked briefly. Above him, on the ceiling of the glider, a couple of screens activated. They showed curves and tables from which he could make no sense. Francesca calmly continued her work.

“The radio?” he asked.

“Under your seat.”

“Thank you.”

That was very reassuring. Nothing can actually go wrong now. The only thing that worried him was that the word ‘actually’ had crept into his mind.

* * *

The force of their rocket motor pressed him into the cushions. The belts tightened automatically. Now the VSS Astra was on its own. Francesca had explained to them in training that their weight would double. Peter raised one arm. It felt like he had to move it through a viscous liquid. The acceleration seemed incredibly high to him, but when he looked outside the impression faded, and they might as well have been standing still, in midair.

Only the sky kept getting darker. It was as if a storm front lurked up there, a dark danger. But what he wanted to protect the solar system from must still be light days away. The rest of the atmosphere above them, to which the refracted and captured sunlight gave its blue color, just got thinner and thinner, allowing the blackness of space to shine through.

Soon he saw the first stars. He could already hear loud oohs and aahs. For the other passengers, who could see directly into the cosmos through portholes, the sight must have been even more fascinating.

But he also benefited from his seat position. Their home planet lay before him. The Earth was no longer a surface, limited by an unreachable horizon. It turned into a sphere before his eyes, curled up like a tired cat. A strip, becoming narrower and narrower, separated the beings on its surface from the deadly vacuum of space, protected them from cosmic radiation and the eruptions of the sun, preserved them from galactic cold, balanced the different energy levels, and—ultimately—enabled life’s existence. His existence.

A deep gratitude spread in his soul. He didn’t even know he could feel such a thing. It was an almost-spiritual feeling. This had to be the moment that most astronauts raved about for the rest of their lives.

He looked at Francesca and saw a tear in the corner of her eye. Either the air was too dry, or she felt it too, even on her 99th flight.

He didn’t ask her about it. It was too private.

* * *

Much later came the moment of weightlessness. Francesca switched off the rocket motor when they had reached orbit. Everyone was allowed to unbuckle. Peter climbed to the back with the other passengers to float a bit, but it was not what he expected. For him, the feeling of freedom came from outside. The darkness of the cosmos fed it, as did the beautiful, blue-white-green globe below him.

Weightlessness itself was merely constant falling, an endless ride in the express elevator. He could move in a way that was impossible on the ground, but that didn't make it any easier. Maybe it was a matter of getting used to it, but he had to be much more careful about how much momentum he gave himself, where his movements directed him, where he could grab something to stop or redirect himself.

“Peter, would you come here?”

He pulled himself forward, climbed headfirst over the back of his chair, and sat down.

“Don’t buckle up,” Francesca said as he reached for the seatbelts. “Open the compartment under your seat, please.”

Peter leaned forward, felt under the seat, and pulled on the handle his fingers found. A drawer of sorts appeared, containing a technical device. He unpacked it. His USB stick was plugged into one side.

Francesca turned off her microphone and explained to him the buttons the device had. There were about 300, but he would only need a few.

“I’ve already tuned it to 418 megahertz,” Francesca informed him. “You start the broadcast with this button here when I give you the signal. If for some reason you need to restart it, you press here. And you can cancel everything with this button.”

She had changed to a more confidential tone. Now they were co-conspirators with a common plan.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He gave her a thumbs up. “All right.”

“Mission control, unclear radar echo on standard orbit, changing orbit,” Francesca announced after reactivating her microphone.

Peter didn’t hear the control center’s response, but right after that, Francesca told everyone to buckle up again. So Mission Control must have approved the maneuver.

“Thrusters now!” said Francesca.

First, the Astra turned until the tail pointed in the direction of flight. Then a gentle force—not comparable with the acceleration force during takeoff—pressed him into his seat. Finally, Francesca turned the nose of the glider back in the direction of flight.

“Thank you. That’s about it,” she said.

The seatbelt buckles rattled behind them. Shortly after that, smartphone cameras clicked, and the other passengers chatted in whispers. The three bachelorettes giggled.

Peter remained calmly seated. He suspected his epic saga would soon come to an end—hopefully, the one he wanted.

* * *

“Take a look!”

Francesca pointed to one of the displays in front of her. A red dot could be seen, slowly moving into the picture from the left. She pressed a button and a green line appeared that seemed to cross the path of the red dot.

“Is that...?” he asked.

Francesca put her index finger to her lips. “Yes, that’s a satellite, quite a small one—a CubeSat, I think. But don’t worry, its orbit is well below our orbit.”

“How far?”

“Four-kilometers difference.”

Hopefully, that would put them close enough. But he had no other choice.

“Shouldn’t we get out of the way there?” he asked.

“No, the object and its cross section are known. There are no surprises to be expected. That’s what we have the registration rules for. Only with unknown objects do we have to be very careful. The surveillance can always slip through something. With asteroids, you also never know if they’re traveling alone.”

“That maneuver earlier... Was that an asteroid-like object?”

“We’ll never know. There was no confirmation from Earth. Maybe someone will see that thing tonight as a shooting star.”

“What a beautiful idea.”

Francesca showed him eight fingers. Eight minutes.

Peter took the radio onto his lap. From behind, no one could see what he was doing. The backrest was much too wide for that. Everything depended on him. He had to press a button at the right moment. Surely he ought to be able to do that? He moved his index finger to test it. It obeyed. Nevertheless, he was afraid that it might refuse service at the decisive moment. After all, nothing depended on it, apart from the sun’s continued existence and, thus, all humankind’s.

Surely you are mistaken, Peter. Your whole theory is the result of a sick brain.

And so what? he answered himself. Then at least I had a lovely trip into space.

But if you are right, you must press that button without hesitation. You can’t do that. You’re totally overwrought.

Yes, I can.

Francesca showed him three fingers. The number inflated to three digits in his head in a flash. One hundred and eighty seconds. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, he counted along now. Briefly he closed his eyes, but the fear of suddenly falling asleep overtook him. He was sweating. Crap. It couldn’t be that hard to push that fucking button! He stared into the darkness until his eyes watered, but he didn’t dare wipe them with his handkerchief, because he’d have to reach into the pocket of his boarding suit to do it. What if the clock jumped and skipped ahead 60 seconds?

It looked like Francesca was giving him the finger. This was getting serious. The red dot was already damn close. Peter preferred not to ask how fast it was. How fast they were. They were in free fall, but they were falling so fast that they were skirting the Earth and accidentally staying in orbit.

Francesca raised both hands and held them so the other passengers couldn’t see. Then she folded one finger at a time. It was the quietest countdown he had ever experienced, and at the same time the loudest, because his heart was pounding to Francesca’s beat, which was dictating its tempo by the transition between two hyperfine structures of the ground state of cesium-133.

The universe was strange. The smallest was related to the largest, and when Francesca’s little finger curled, his index finger pressed the button and a sense of calm swept through him.

* * *

Peter needed two minutes to recover from the excitement. He just sat there, the radio on his lap, listening to the beeping of the instruments and the quiet conversations of the other passengers.

“You’ve done well,” Francesca said.

“Yeah? I don’t know.”

“When will we know if it worked?”

“After landing. I need to call SigmaLaunch, the launch provider. They monitor the orbit of the beacon.”

“I meant your theory.”

“Ah, whether it is true? If I’m right, we’ll never know.”

“I feel sorry for you.”

“That’s not necessary. After all, I have experienced space. That’s something. And I know what I saw in the telescope.”

“Oh! I think I might... Shit!”

Francesca hunched over and then stiffened up again. She held her right shoulder with her left hand, at about the collarbone.

“What is it?” asked Peter.

Only then did he notice the whistling. A strong draft of air moved past him toward the windshield. He heard excited shouts from the other passengers, and an automated voice spoke.

“Pressure loss. Please put on your oxygen masks and fasten your seatbelts.”

At the same moment, blue masks fell out of the ceiling. His dangled on a long cord to his right. The pressure loss must have had something to do with the whistling. He leaned forward and saw the hole. It was circular and about an inch in diameter. Beyond it was space. They must have collided with an obstacle, a very fast obstacle—perhaps a screw?

Francesca tried to reach forward with her right arm but could not. A dark spot was spreading on her blue uniform at shoulder height. She was bleeding.

“Should I call for help?” he asked.

She grimaced and shook her head. “No one can... help us. You have to... seal the hole.”

She was obviously in a lot of pain. Peter thought about the hole. It had an area of a good three square centimeters. The pressure difference was one bar, so they wouldn’t die right away. It would take until the air pressure in the large volume of the space glider hull had fallen by half... and there were definitely oxygen tanks that would counteract it.

From behind, a woman leaned forward and waved her arms. “Do something! Now!” she shouted.

Peter forcefully pushed her back.

“Oh my God, the pilot is dead!” the woman exclaimed. “There’s a hole in her shoulder. And in her seat. I saw it!”

“I’m still alive,” Francesca said. “Stay seated and keep your mouth shut.”

The woman fell silent. A man intoned a loud prayer, but no one responded.

“In front of me, the compartment in the footwell,” Francesca said.

Peter unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned over, and felt for the compartment. There it was. He flipped it open and saw a medpack with a red cross, and a package with a tool symbol on top. He picked up the medpack, but Francesca shook her head.

“First, the repair.”

“Okay.”

He tore open the repair package. A spray can lay at the very top, a hose attached to its nozzle.

“Yes, that’s what you need,” Francesca said.

He shook the can and leaned across the cockpit. The object had come in pretty flat, so it must have been in orbit. Some satellite or spacecraft with the same orbit must have lost it. He held the end of the hose to the hole and pressed the spray button. Dense, gray foam poured out of the hose and stuck to the inside edge of the hole. The longer he pressed, the smaller the hole became.

Then the spray can was empty, but the hole wasn’t closed. The remaining opening measured maybe half a centimeter. At least he had reduced the cross-section to one-fourth.

“Do we have any more of these?” he asked, shaking the empty can.

Francesca shook her head. “Not that I know.”

Presumably, the engineers assumed that the spaceship would never survive this large a hole. But had he made it small enough yet?

Peter reached into his pocket for his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. It was a nice cloth fabric that absorbed moisture very well.

Inspiration hit: Peter took one of the four corners between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it the way he sometimes did to clean sticky mucus from his nose. The twisted cloth was just the right size for the damage in the windshield. He moistened it with spit and fed the tip into the hole.

The whistling stopped. He pressed the fabric more tightly into place.

Francesca pointed to a roll of tape. He used several pieces to secure the handkerchief, although that was not necessary because the cabin pressure pushed the tip into the hole.

“Thank you,” Francesca said. “We were lucky. Ten centimeters further down, and it would have hit the instruments.”

“Five centimeters and it would have hit your lung.”

“I’m expendable. Without the technology, the ship would have had a hard time finding its way home.”

“Isn’t there a remote control?”

“Yes, there is. At some point, they’ll probably fly these gliders without pilots. But for now, I’ve got Mission Control to take care of things. Thanks, Peter. It was a good thing I had you next to me, wasn’t it?”

“Right now, we’re going to take care of your shoulder,” Peter said.

“There’s not much to do there. It was a straight-through shot. I just need a painkiller.”

He opened the medpack, pulled out an appropriately labeled syringe, and handed it to her. Francesca, who was looking pale, jammed it into her thigh.

“There. It’ll get better,” she said, wresting a smile from herself and turning on her microphone.

“Dear passengers,” she said, “we have had a minor incident, but it has since been resolved. We are out of danger, and you can take off your masks again. Is everyone okay?”

One after the other they reported. All of them had survived the collision. Only one of the men had vomited. Peter only now realized that he still had the radio on his lap. He pulled the USB, pocketed it, and stowed the radio back under the seat.

“Good. Unfortunately, our orbit is now nearing its end. I ask you to fasten your seatbelts again. The descent will be a bit rougher than the ascent. But in return, we will be able to admire the earthly landscape in all its beauty.”

Peter looked out the window during the entire descent. He had thought Francesca was joking. After all, they were headed for the New Mexico desert.

But it was true. After their close call up in space, the Earth seemed all the more beautiful.

* * *

An ambulance, surrounded by a small crowd of people, was waiting at the exit. Francesca didn’t miss the opportunity to say goodbye to all the passengers. The dark spot already stretched almost to her hip, but she didn’t let on. Then she was escorted to the ambulance by a man in a white labcoat.

An older man identified himself as the head of Spaceport America. He thanked all of the passengers for their prudence.

Then he turned to Peter. “Mr. Kraemer, we appreciate your extraordinary help after the collision,” he said, reaching out to shake Peter’s hand. “We would very much like to invite you on another flight so that you can fully enjoy the experience as well.”

“I can’t complain at all,” Peter replied. “It was only a small hole after all. I enjoyed the flight very much.”

“Well, if you change your mind, drop me an email. Maybe your partner would like to travel with us one day?”

The man handed him a business card. Peter looked at it and pocketed it. What he’d like was to go to his rental car, now. There was time to make it to Albuquerque today, where he had to return the car. Maybe he could still get a flight to Houston from there.

“Well, thank you for your hospitality,” he said.

“Just a minute, Mr. Kraemer. I’ve got some reporters here who want to ask you a few questions. It’s not every day, after all, that an object hits a civilian space flight, and then a passenger repairs the spacecraft.”

A motley group surrounded him, pointing cameras and microphones at him and shouting questions. Peter surrendered and described again and again in great detail how he saved the VSS Astra with a cloth handkerchief.

April 4, 2026 – In Transit

“Can I get you another drink?” the stewardess asked.

“No, thanks. I have everything I need,” said Peter.

He’d treated himself to business class for the overnight flight from Houston to Frankfurt. He had just under 20,000 euros left over from his mother’s house. Now he could spend that, too. He took the notebook from the empty seat next to him. Franziska had said she didn’t want to hear from him again until the matter was closed.

It was time for a message.

“Dear Franziska,” he wrote. “I have good news. SigmaLaunch has confirmed that the beacon, whose signal should save the solar system from destruction, is no longer trying to leave its orbit. So it is now fulfilling the task I gave it for the next two years, and I have also succeeded in my task, at least in the aspects I have control over. I will be home tomorrow at noon. I would be very happy if you were there too. In the last weeks, you probably had the impression that I only had my hobby in mind. But, I was thinking about you all the time. If the catastrophe that I believed was coming would have only affected me, I wouldn’t have had the strength to prevent it. The necessary energy was given to me by thoughts of you. Even though I admit that this sounds corny, it is the truth. I really hope you can forgive me for having seemed to ignore you. Yours, Peter.”

April 15, 2026 – Fonimagoodhoo

“It’s so dreamy here,” Franziska said.

“It’s great that you like it,” Peter said.

His wife had been smiling ever since they’d arrived on this island paradise. Yesterday afternoon they’d even had sex. It was almost as if they were newly in love. The turquoise sea, the white beach, the vegetation with all its shades of green, and the delicious food seemed to have an almost magical effect. It had been a good idea to spend the last euros from the house sale this way.

“I’m going to get something else from the buffet,” Franziska said as she stood up.

As soon as she left, restaurant chef Majib was standing next to the table.

“How are you?” he asked in English, as he did every morning. “Everything good?”

“Everything is fine.”

“If you need anything—”

“Then we’ll get back to you.”

Peter’s cellphone vibrated. There was Internet access only in the restaurant. Should he get his phone out? It would be a good opportunity. Franziska seemed to be waiting at the buffet for an order. The chef was preparing custom omelets again today.

His phone vibrated once again. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the display. He had a new e-mail. The sender couldn’t be seen in full, but the e-mail address ended in .se, so the message came from Sweden. He immediately thought of Stockholm University—Melissa Holinger, the astronomer. The message could only be from her.

Peter unlocked the device and opened the message.

“Hello, Mr. Kraemer,” he read. “I’m still curious about your theory. Have you made any progress yourself?”

Oh, you bet I have.

“I read about your heroic action at Virgin and wondered if it had anything to do with your research subject. But anyway, that’s not why I’m writing to you. I made measurements again on the stars we both studied. We had, after all, come across the fact that radio emission at a certain frequency correlated negatively with whether a star disappeared on a certain spherical shell.”

We? I’m the one who came up with it!

“I have now taken a closer look at these stars, and I am sorry to inform you that we must have been mistaken. One of the stars where the supposedly protective signal was definitely detectable has now also disappeared. So we can no longer assume a correlation.”

What the hell?

His beautiful theory had just collapsed. If the signal didn’t protect against the destruction of a star, then his beacon couldn’t protect the solar system from death, either. He involuntarily looked up, as if the sky was about to collapse then and there. But all he saw was the artistic wooden construction of the ceiling, in which large lamps had been embedded so as to give off a very soft light.

“Honey? Do you want to try some of my omelet? It’s delicious. Now, please put that stupid cellphone back in your pocket.”

Majib pulled back her chair so she could sit comfortably. He looked at his wife. Franziska was beautiful. She always tanned quickly.

It would be good to follow her request, but the message was important. Either the sun would be destroyed in a few days... or his calculation could have been inaccurate, and he had spent a good half million euros in vain.

His eyes returned to his wife. No one else mattered. Let someone else save the world this time. He turned off the phone, tucked it into a pocket of his shorts, and reached for his fork. He took a bite of the omelet. He slipped the warm mixture into his mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, and tried to determine the flavors. Egg—of course. Spring onions. Salt. An exotic spice he didn’t recognize...

“Yes,” he said, “it really is delicious.”

5th of the Spring Month 1897 – Lokkor

“Wormitor, come over here!”

The old Explorer came shuffling up to him on his six skinny legs. Krognatur realized that he had been disrespectful again. His colleague had already survived eight winters. He should have brought the imaging device to his elder.

But Wormitor did not complain. He never complained. Maybe it was because he’d grown up in the middle of the brood war. Krognatur was lucky. He belonged to the first intermediate generation and would never have to experience a brood war. Only his children’s children were threatened with this future fate. But he probably wouldn’t find a female interested in his seed packets, anyway.

He was glad that he at least had an interesting job. Studying the signals that the umbrella plants received from universal space was always exciting and surprising. Wormitor must be old enough to have known the investigator who had discovered this special property of the iron leaves of the umbrella plants. The leaves transmitted signals to the water circuit of the plants, from where they could be extracted. It was as if one could hear universal space thinking.

“What’s up?” Wormitor asked. He curiously pushed back on the hard shell that protected his body and neck. The red dots on it looked washed out, another hint to Krognatur of his colleague’s advanced age.

“Look at this text,” Krognatur said. “The Antsen just transmitted it.”

The Antsen had developed the ability to interconnect their brains in their huge castles, which were thousands of pairs of legs in size. This enabled them to solve difficult problems in the blink of an eye—for example, translating broadcasts from universal space. Krognatur tapped the vision device with his foremost pair of legs, magnifying the text and allowing Wormitor to read it more easily.

“Hey! I’m old, but I’m not blind,” Wormitor said, resetting the attitude.

Then he read aloud.

We crawl back and forth in the soft mud / Of the silk tomb almost to its lid / And see on the outside of the suspended grass / The umbrella plant for the second time with spots.

We flutter to the sunny places of rest / Where strangers’ calls never shooed us / As we flay our limbs entwine / We dine while blood dragonflies glow.

We feel joyfully how with silent urge / From leaves light reflections drip on us / And only see and hear when in pauses / The leaky branches prop themselves into forks.

“Where did you get that?” asked Wormitor.

“From universal space, and then processed with the Antsen communicator according to our own presets, as we had agreed.”

“It’s obvious that this is coming through universal space. But from where, exactly?”

“According to my calculations, a small yellow dwarf could be the source, about ten light-leg pairs away from us.”

“That’s exciting,” Wormitor said. “You’ll definitely have to pass that on to the clear-cut artists. They’ll create a wonderful light sculpture out of it.”

Author's Note

Dear Readers,

The world is saved. Or is it? It’s hard to say. Peter was both a hero and a victim of the prevention paradox. He couldn’t prove he was right without leaving Earth in danger. On the other hand, this showed that he was never focused in being right. I think we need people like that, who don’t focus on themselves, but on the big picture.

But of course, this story is not over either. You may already know that everything is interconnected in my universe. Do you remember the crack that suddenly appeared in the Earth’s sky in The Rift? Could it have been the danger—or might it have been the black hole in The Hole? Or, in the end, was the danger only in Peter’s head?

We’ll probably have to pay him and his helpers another visit. After all, it’s only 2026, and Francesca, who will make her outer space career in The Enceladus Mission starting in 2046, still has 20 years to go. If you don’t know Enceladus yet, take a look! There you will meet the young woman again as a tough space pilot.

I will also be happy to have you visit me, for example, on Facebook, or on my website, where I report several times a week about current events from the universe. Some of the names in my books have been suggested by my fans on Patreon, to whom I express my sincere thanks.

I have one more critical request before you go—no, two. First, this book plays a vital role in my Master of Space Science degree. I would like to determine what knowledge has stuck with you. What do you remember? Please fill out the questionnaire at

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Second plea: A review. Without reader reviews, it is much more difficult for potentially interested readers to discover a new book. That’s why I’m depending on your help. Please use this link:

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...or scroll to the end of the book, where Amazon will ask you for a star rating and offer you the opportunity to leave a review.

As always, you can get an illustrated version of A Guided Tour of Multi-Messenger Astronomy by requesting it here:

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I hope to see you in the next book!

Sincerely,

Yours, Brandon Q. Morris

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Resolution

What’s the deal with the chapters that have strange names like 22 57 27,98 20 46 7,8? And what do the peculiar texts you find there mean? The resolution, of course, has something to do with the plot, so I won’t deprive you of your reading pleasure by giving it all away from the start. But if you’ve had enough of puzzling, don’t scroll back now, but continue reading after the spoiler alert.

Attention: Spoilers ahead

The chapter names are coordinates. First, you find the right ascension in hours, minutes, and seconds, succeeded by the declination in degrees, arcminutes, and arcseconds. There are always concrete objects behind the coordinates. The first five readers who email me the names of all objects (see imprint for address) will receive a free paperback of their choice. Tip: To infer concrete objects from the coordinates, you can use the search function of the object dictionary SIMBAD, (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/).

By the way, at the end of the Guided Tour, I also explain the basic terms of astronomy, i.e., what these coordinates are all about.

The texts are messages. They are encrypted with the Red 13 method. Perhaps you’ve already recognized it. To decode them, you have to replace each letter with the one that is 13 letters ahead in the alphabet. Or you can make it easy and use a decoder like https://rot13.com. Or you can make it even easier and go to hard-sf.com/decoded. There, all texts are listed decoded. Which of the texts do you like best?

By the way, I didn’t write the poems myself. I am not that confident of my poetic competence—let’s put it that way. That’s why I helped myself to John Keats, William Shakespeare, Rainer Maria Rilke, and others. Can you tell which poem is by whom? On the page referenced above, I have added this information in each case.

Also by Brandon Q. Morris

The Triton Disaster

Nick Abrahams holds the official world record for the number of space launches, but he’s bored stiff with his job hosting space tours. Only when his wife leaves him does he try to change his life.

He accepts a tempting offer from a Russian billionaire. In exchange for making a simple repair on Neptune’s moon Triton, he will return to Earth a multi-millionaire, enabling him to achieve his ‘impossible dream’ of buying his own California vineyard.

The fact that Nick must travel alone during the four-year roundtrip doesn’t bother him at all, as he doesn’t particularly like people anyway. Once en route he learns his new boss left out some critical details in his job description—details that could cost him his life, and humankind its existence…

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The Dark Spring

When a space probe returns from the dead, you better not expect good news.

In 2014, the ESA spacecraft Rosetta lands a small probe named Philae on 67P, a Jupiter-family comet. The lander goes radio silent two years later. Suddenly, in 2026, scientists receive new transmissions from the comet. Motivated by findings that are initially sensational but soon turn frightening, NASA dispatches a crewed spacecraft to the comet. But as the ship approaches the mysterious celestial body, the connection to the astronauts soon breaks. Now it seems nothing can be done anymore to stop the looming dark danger that threatens Earth...

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The Death of the Universe

For many billions of years, humans spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction.

They have only one hope: The ‘Rescue Project’ was designed to feed the black hole in the center of the galaxy until it becomes a quasar, delivering much-needed energy to humankind during its last breaths. But then something happens that no one ever expected—and humanity is forced to look at itself and its existence in an entirely new way.

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The Enceladus Mission (Ice Moon 1)

In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon.

The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon. If life does indeed exist on Enceladus, it could only be at the bottom of the salty, ice covered ocean, which formed billions of years ago.

However, shortly after takeoff disaster strikes the mission, and the chances of the crew making it to Enceladus, let alone back home, look grim.

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Ice Moon – The Boxset

All four bestselling books of the Ice Moon series are now offered as a set, available only in e-book format.

The Enceladus Mission: Is there really life on Saturn's moon Enceladus? ILSE, the International Life Search Expedition, makes its way to the icy world where an underground ocean is suspected to be home to primitive life forms.

The Titan Probe: An old robotic NASA probe mysteriously awakens on the methane moon of Titan. The ILSE crew tries to solve the riddle—and discovers a dangerous secret.

The Io Encounter: Finally bound for Earth, ILSE makes it as far as Jupiter when the crew receives a startling message. The volcanic moon Io may harbor a looming threat that could wipe out Earth as we know it.

Return to Enceladus: The crew gets an offer to go back to Enceladus. Their mission—to recover the body of Dr. Marchenko, left for dead on the original expedition. Not everyone is working toward the same goal.

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Proxima Rising

Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth’s space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away. The unusual crew faces a Herculean task—should they survive the journey. No one knows what to expect from this alien planet.

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The Hole

A mysterious object threatens to destroy our solar system. The survival of humankind is at risk, but nobody takes the warning of young astrophysicist Maribel Pedreira seriously. At the same time, an exiled crew of outcasts mines for rare minerals on a lone asteroid.

When other scientists finally acknowledge Pedreira’s alarming discovery, it becomes clear that these outcasts are the only ones who may be able to save our world, knowing that The Hole hurtles inexorably toward the sun.

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Mars Nation 1

NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space.

But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed ‘Mars for Everyone’ initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.

Challenges arise even before they reach Mars orbit. The MfE spaceship Santa Maria is damaged along the way. Only the four NASA astronauts can intervene and try to save their lives.

No one anticipates the impending catastrophe that threatens their very existence—not to speak of the daily hurdles that an extended stay on an alien planet sets before them. On Mars, a struggle begins for limited resources, human cooperation, and just plain survival.

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Impact: Titan

How to avoid killing Earth if you don't even know who sent the killer

250 years ago, humanity nearly destroyed itself in the Great War. Shortly before, a spaceship full of researchers and astronauts had found a new home on Saturn's moon, Titan, and survived by having their descendants genetically adapted to the hostile environment.

The Titanians, as they call themselves, are proud of their cooperative and peaceful society, while unbeknownst to them, humanity is slowly recovering back on Earth. When a 20-mile-wide chunk of rock escapes the asteroid belt and appears to be on a collision course with Earth, the Titanians fear it must look as if they launched the deadly bombardment. Can they prevent the impact and thus avoid an otherwise inevitable war with the Earthlings?

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A Guided Tour of Multi-Messenger Astronomy

For millennia, humans looked at the sky with their naked eyes.

Then came the telescope. Celestial bodies looked closer and clearer, but in principle, one still gained the same information. Next, scientists discovered that there is a continuous electromagnetic spectrum. Gamma and X-ray radiation, microwave radiation, ultraviolet and visible light, infrared, and radio emissions are all of the same nature, but have different frequencies, and thus transmit different information.

Electromagnetism is not the only source of data from space. Other fundamental forces also convey information about cosmic objects. Today, therefore, we speak of ‘multi-messenger astronomy.’ It is based on the coordinated observation and interpretation of different messenger signals. Interplanetary probes can visit objects within the solar system, but beyond that, scientists must rely on special ‘extrasolar’ messengers. These four extrasolar messengers include the aforementioned electromagnetic radiation, plus gravitational waves, neutrinos, and cosmic rays. They are generated by different astrophysical processes, and therefore reveal different information about their sources.

The most important multi-messenger research subjects outside the heliosphere are expected to include compact binary pairs (black holes and neutron stars), supernovae, irregular neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and relativistic jets. Just about any object reveals more about itself when observed in all available wavelengths and with all messengers.

In the following pages, I describe individual measurement methods and their special features.

Gamma Astronomy

Gamma rays represent the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation. Their photons (light particles) reach energies of more than 100 keV. The cosmic processes that emit gamma rays are diverse, but mostly identical to those that emit X-rays, except that they occur at higher energies. Thus, where gamma rays are found, X-rays are often encountered as well. These include electron-positron annihilation, the inverse Compton effect, and in some cases, the decay of radioactive material (gamma decay) in space, which is possible in extreme events such as supernovae and hypernovae, and when matter comes under extreme conditions, such as in pulsars and blazars.

The highest photon energies measured so far are in the TeV range, the record being held by the Crab Nebula, which delivered photons of up to 80 TeV in 2004.

Long before experiments could detect gamma rays emitted by cosmic sources, scientists knew that the universe must produce them. These processes include interactions of cosmic rays with interstellar gas, supernova explosions, and interactions of energetic electrons with magnetic fields. However, it took until the 1960s before we were able to detect these emissions.

Indeed, most gamma rays coming from space are absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, so gamma-ray astronomy could not develop until it was possible to get detectors beyond most of the atmosphere using balloons and spacecraft. The first gamma-ray telescope, launched into orbit on the U.S. Explorer 11 satellite in 1961, caught fewer than 100 cosmic gamma-ray photons. They appeared to come from all directions in the universe, suggesting some sort of uniform gamma-ray background. Such a background would be expected from the interaction of cosmic rays with interstellar gas.

The first true astrophysical gamma-ray sources were solar flares that revealed a strong 2.223 MeV line. This line is developed during the formation of deuterium by the union of a neutron with a proton. Significant gamma-ray emissions from the Milky Way were first registered in 1967 by the detector aboard the OSO 3 satellite. It found 621 events attributable to cosmic gamma rays.

The field of gamma-ray astronomy made great leaps forward with the SAS-2 (1972) and Cos-B (1975-1982) satellites. These two satellites provided a glimpse into the high-energy universe. They confirmed earlier findings regarding the gamma-ray background, produced the first detailed map of the sky at gamma-ray wavelengths, and discovered a number of point sources. However, the instruments’ resolutions were not sufficient to identify most of these point sources as specific visible stars or star systems.

An important discovery in gamma-ray astronomy came from military satellites in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Detectors aboard the Vela series of satellites, designed to detect gamma-ray bursts from atomic bomb explosions, began recording gamma-ray bursts in space instead. Later detectors found that these GRBs last from fractions of a second to minutes, can appear suddenly and from unexpected directions, flicker, and then fade after briefly dominating the gamma-ray sky.

To this day, the sources of these mysterious high-energy flashes remain a mystery. In any case, they appear to come from far across the universe. The most plausible theory at present is that at least some of them come from so-called hypernova explosions—supernovas that produce black holes rather than neutron stars.

X-ray astronomy

X-ray astronomy, of course, deals with the observation of X-rays coming from astronomical objects. However, the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs X-rays, so instruments to detect them must be carried to high altitudes by balloons, sounding rockets, and satellites.

X-rays are emitted by astronomical objects containing extremely hot gases with temperatures ranging from about one million degrees Kelvin (K) to hundreds of millions of degrees Kelvin. Although science predicted that the sun and the stars had to be important X-ray sources, there was no way to verify this for a long time.

The existence of solar X-rays was only confirmed in the middle of the 20th century by V-2 rockets, which had been converted to sounding rockets. The discovery of extraterrestrial X-rays was the primary or secondary task of several satellites launched since 1958. The first cosmic X-ray source outside the solar system was discovered by a sounding rocket in 1962. The source was named Scorpius X-1 (Sco X-1). The X-ray emission from Scorpius X-1 is 10,000 times greater than in the visual range, while that from the sun is about a million times less. In addition, the object’s energy emission in the X-ray region is 100,000 times greater than the sun’s total emission in all wavelengths. It is now known that Sco X-1 is a neutron star that sucks matter from its companion.

In the meantime, astronomers have discovered many thousands of X-ray sources. Moreover, we now know that the space between galaxies in galaxy clusters is filled with a very hot but highly diluted gas with a temperature of between 100 and 1,000 megakelvin. The total amount of hot gas in visible galaxies is five to ten times their total mass.

Today, specialized telescopes aboard satellites are used to observe X-ray sources. These currently include the XMM-Newton observatory (low to medium energy X-rays 0.1-15 keV) and the INTEGRAL satellite (high energy X-rays 15-60 keV). The European Space Agency launched both of these, and NASA has the Swift and Chandra observatories in orbit.

The GOES 14 spacecraft carries a Solar X-ray Imager that monitors the sun’s X-rays for early detection of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other phenomena that affect the space environment. It was launched into orbit at 22:51 GMT on June 27, 2009, from Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

On January 30, 2009, the Russian Federal Space Agency successfully launched the Koronas-Foton (CORONAS-Photon) which has several X-ray detection experiments on board, including the TESIS telescope/spectrometer FIAN with the SphinX soft X-ray spectrophotometer.

ISRO (India) launched the Astrosat multi-wavelength space observatory into orbit in 2015. One of the unique features of the Astrosat mission is that it enables simultaneous multi-wavelength observations of various astronomical objects with a single satellite. Astrosat observes the universe in the optical and ultraviolet regions, and the low- and high-energy X-ray regions, of the electromagnetic spectrum, while most other scientific satellites can only observe a narrow range of the wavelength band.

The Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini LEggero (AGILE) gamma-ray observatory satellite of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), has the Super-AGILE detector for hard X-rays from 15-45 keV on board. It was launched on April 23, 2007, with the Indian PSLV-C8.

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) is a Chinese X-ray space observatory launched on June 15, 2017, to observe black holes, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, and other phenomena by their X-ray and gamma-ray emissions.

China’s CNSA launched the ‘Lobster-Eye X-ray Satellite’ on July 25, 2020. It is the first in-orbit telescope to use an ultra-large field of view to search for dark matter signals in the X-ray energy range.

Where did X-ray radiation come from, and what types of objects can we observe in this part of the spectrum? Quite different types of astrophysical objects emit, fluoresce, or reflect X-rays, from galaxy clusters to black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGN) to galactic objects such as supernova remnants, stars, and binaries containing a white dwarf (cataclysmic variable stars and super-soft X-ray sources), a neutron star, or a black hole (X-ray binaries).

But some objects in the solar system also emit X-rays. The most notable is the moon, with most of its X-ray brightness coming from reflected solar X-rays.

A combination of many unresolved X-ray sources is thought to produce the X-ray background observed across the entire firmament. The X-ray continuum can arise from bremsstrahlung (braking radiation), blackbody radiation, synchrotron radiation, or the so-called inverse Compton scattering of low-energy photons by relativistic electrons, as well as collisions of fast protons with atomic electrons, and atomic recombination with or without additional electron transitions.

Radio Astronomy

Radio astronomy is a branch of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object occurred in 1932 when Karl Jansky observed radiation from the Milky Way at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Subsequent observations have identified a number of different sources of radio emission. These include stars and galaxies, but also entirely new classes of objects such as radio galaxies, quasars, and pulsars. Radio astronomy has also been used to discover cosmic microwave background radiation, which is considered evidence for the Big Bang theory.

Radio astronomy is performed with large radio antennas, called radio telescopes, which are used either singly or connected in multiples. By using interferometry, radio astronomy can achieve high angular resolution because the resolving power of an interferometer is determined by the distance between its components, not by the size of its components.

Radio astronomers use various techniques to observe objects in the radio spectrum. They simply point their instruments at a high-energy radio source to analyze its emission. To create an image of a region of the sky in more detail, they take multiple overlapping scans and assemble them into a mosaic image. The type of instrument used depends on the strength of the signal and the level of detail required.

However, observations from the Earth’s surface are limited to wavelengths that can penetrate the atmosphere. At low frequencies or long wavelengths, the Earth’s ionosphere limits transmission because it reflects waves below a certain frequency. On the other hand, water vapor interferes with radio astronomy at higher frequencies. Therefore, people like to build radio observatories at very high, dry locations so that the water vapor content in the line of sight remains minimal. Finally, transmitting equipment on Earth can cause high-frequency interference. For this reason, radio observatories are best built in remote locations.

The difficulty of achieving high resolutions with single radio telescopes led to radio interferometry, which was developed in 1946 by British radio astronomer Martin Ryle and Australian engineers, radio physicists, and radio astronomers Joseph Lade Pawsey and Ruby Payne-Scott. It is based on superimposing images from two or more spatially distant sources.

Modern radio interferometers consist of widely separated radio telescopes observing the same object, connected by a coaxial cable, waveguide, optical fiber, or other types of transmission lines. Not only does this increase the overall signal, but it can also be used in a process called ‘aperture synthesis’ or ‘synthesis imaging’ to greatly increase resolution. This technique works by superimposing (interfering) the signal waves from the different telescopes on the principle that waves coincident with the same phase add up, while two waves with opposite phases cancel each other out. This creates a combined telescope that is the size of the most widely spaced antennas in the array.

To produce a high-quality image, multiple and different distances between telescopes are required (the projected distance between two telescopes, as seen from the radio source, is called the ‘baseline’). As many different baselines as possible are needed to obtain good quality images. For example, the Very Large Array (VLA) has 27 telescopes that simultaneously provide 351 independent baselines.

Since the 1970s, improvements in the stability of radio telescope receivers have made it possible to combine telescopes from around the world—and even from Earth orbit—to perform interferometry with very long baselines. Instead of physically connecting the antennas, the data received at each antenna is paired with timing information, usually from a local atomic clock, and then stored for later analysis. At that later time, the data is correlated with data from other antennas recorded in a similar manner to produce the resulting image. Using this method, it is possible to produce an antenna that is effectively the size of the Earth. Because of the large distances between telescopes, very high angular resolutions can be achieved, greater than in any other field of astronomy.

Radio astronomy has led to a significant increase in astronomical knowledge, in particular through the discovery of several classes of new objects, including pulsars, quasars, and radio galaxies and, for a different kind of example, Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. This is because radio astronomy allows us to see things that are undetectable in optical astronomy. Such objects represent some of the most extreme and energetic physical processes in the universe.

The cosmic microwave background radiation was first discovered with radio telescopes, and radio telescopes have also been used to study objects much closer to us, such as the sun and its activity, and radar mapping of the planets.

Ultraviolet Astronomy

Ultraviolet astronomy is the observation of electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet wavelength range between about 10 and 320 nanometers. Ultraviolet light (infamous for the sunburns it causes on our skin) is not visible to the human eye. Although many a cancer-risking red arm or back would seem to say otherwise, the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs most of the light at these wavelengths, so astronomical observations must be made from the upper atmosphere or space.

Measurements of the ultraviolet light spectrum (UV spectroscopy) reveal the chemical composition, density, and temperature of the interstellar medium, as well as the temperature and composition of young stars. UV observations also provide essential information about the evolution of galaxies. The ultraviolet universe looks very different from the familiar stars and galaxies seen in visible light. Most stars are relatively cool objects that emit much of their electromagnetic radiation in the visible or near-infrared part of the spectrum.

Ultraviolet radiation is the signature of hotter objects, typically in the early and late stages of their evolution. When viewing ultraviolet light emissions from the terrestrial sky, most stars would fade. Instead, the most visible stars would be a few very young and massive stars, and some very old stars and galaxies that are becoming hotter and producing high-energy radiation shortly before they die. However, gas and dust clouds could also block the view in many directions along the Milky Way.

With the help of ultraviolet astronomy, it was possible to learn significantly more about gas flows around hot stars and in binary systems. But researchers also gain new insights within our solar system with data from ultraviolet observations. For example, by studying the gases ionized in the tails of comets by the solar wind, it is possible to determine their composition. In addition, UV light has provided data on the composition of the atmospheres of planets such as Venus.

Infrared astronomy

Infrared astronomy studies objects visible in the infrared (IR) range, but invisible to the human eye. The wavelength of infrared light, also called thermal radiation, ranges from 0.75 to 300 micrometers.

Infrared astronomy had its early beginnings in the 1830s, a few decades after William Herschel discovered infrared light in 1800. Only after radio astronomy provided essential discoveries in the 1950s and 1960s, however, and astronomers then realized the true value of the information available outside the visible wavelength range, was modern infrared astronomy founded.

Practically no new techniques had to be developed for this purpose. Infrared and optical astronomy are often performed with the same telescopes because the same mirrors or lenses are usually effective over a wavelength range that included both visible and infrared light.

However, the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs some of the infrared light. Therefore, like radio telescopes, most infrared telescopes are located at high altitudes in dry locations, i.e., above as much of the atmosphere as possible. There are also infrared observatories in space, including the Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for launch in late 2021, also observes primarily in the infrared.

Infrared telescopes have helped find just-forming stars, nebulae, and stellar nurseries. They are also useful for observing extremely distant objects such as quasars. This is because quasars are moving away from Earth as the universe expands. The resulting large redshift makes them challenging targets for an optical telescope, and an infrared telescope provides much more information.

In May 2008, an international group of infrared astronomers demonstrated that intergalactic dust greatly dims the light from distant galaxies. In reality, the galaxies are almost twice as bright as they look. The dust absorbs much of the visible light and emits it as infrared light.

To achieve a higher-angular resolution, infrared telescopes can be combined to form interferometers. As in the radio domain, the effective resolution of an interferometer is determined by the distance between the telescopes and not by the size of any of the individual telescopes. When combined with adaptive optics that compensate for the effects of the atmosphere, infrared interferometers can achieve particularly high angular resolution.

A special problem of infrared astronomy is that these telescopes require cooling. Infrared light is heat radiation. Every heat source is, therefore, a source of interference. Space telescopes are, in particular, continuously heated by the sun and must be extensively shielded and cooled. The low temperature is often achieved by using a coolant that will eventually run out. Several times, space missions have been either terminated or switched to observations in shorter wavelengths when coolant supplies were depleted. For example, the WISE space telescope ran out of coolant in October 2010, approximately ten months after launch.

Gravitational wave astronomy

Gravitational wave astronomy aims to use tiny distortions of space-time, as predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, to collect data on massive objects and any processes that trigger such distortions. These may include neutron stars and black holes, events such as supernovae, and the early universe shortly after the Big Bang.

Einstein first predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916. For a long time, however, researchers were unsure whether they actually existed or were just artifacts of the theory. Indirect evidence of their existence was first provided in the late 1980s by studying a binary system consisting of a neutron star and a pulsar, with the pulsar moving just as it would have to if gravitational wave emission were present. The discoverers, Hulse and Taylor, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993.

On February 11, 2016, it was announced that the LIGO collaboration had directly detected gravitational waves for the first time in September 2015. Barry Barish, Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement. LIGO works with two perpendicular arms over which laser pulses are sent. When a gravitational wave arrives, these arms are distorted differently. The travel time of the laser light changed minimally, which is visible through a changed interference pattern.

The fact that the measuring instruments have so far recorded mainly catastrophic events has a clear reason: The frequencies of ordinary gravitational waves are very low—their wavelengths are therefore very high. Thus they are much more difficult to detect by LIGO. Higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) occur in more dramatic events. They distort the two arms of the measurement construction more strongly and could therefore be observed first. For the future, therefore, astronomers are looking to space-based detectors for which longer arms are possible. ESA, for example, is planning a gravitational wave mission to be launched in 2034 called the evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA).

Another project is to measure pulsars precisely. If they are hit by gravitational waves, there should be transit time changes in their signals. Researchers worldwide are working together in so-called ‘pulsar timing arrays’ to track down gravitational waves of low frequencies. However, results are not expected for a few years.

Neutrino Astronomy

Neutrino astronomy observes astronomical objects with neutrino detectors. Neutrinos are produced during certain types of radioactive decay or nuclear reactions, such as those that occur in the sun, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays strike atoms. Because of their weak interaction with matter, neutrinos offer a unique opportunity to observe processes inaccessible to optical telescopes.

Neutrinos continuously pass through the Earth in huge numbers. However, they interact so rarely with ordinary matter that only one interaction is registered per 10³⁶ target atoms. And each interaction produces only a few photons or a single changed atom. Observation therefore requires a huge detector mass consisting of many atoms as well as a sensitive amplification system.

Given the very weak signal, sources of background noise must be reduced as much as possible. The detectors must be well shielded. Therefore, they are built deep underground or underwater. They detect particles flying upwards (i.e., coming from below them). ‘Upwards,’ because no other known particle can pass through the whole Earth, so that one is safe from interferences. The detectors must be located at a depth of at least one kilometer, and yet there is still an unavoidable background of extraterrestrial neutrinos interacting in the Earth’s atmosphere. The detectors consist of an array of light multiplier tubes housed in transparent pressure spheres, which in turn are suspended in a large volume of water or ice.

Why are neutrino detectors needed? If you look at celestial bodies like the sun in light of any wavelength, only the surface can be seen directly. Any light produced in the core of a star interacts with gas particles in the outer layers of the star and takes hundreds of thousands of years to reach the surface, making it impossible to observe the core directly. However, since neutrinos are also produced in the core of stars (as a result of nuclear fusion), the core is visible to neutrino astronomy.

Researchers have also discovered other sources of neutrinos, such as those released by supernovae. Several neutrino experiments have joined together to form the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS), looking for an increase in neutrino flux that could indicate a supernova event. Currently, astronomers are trying to detect neutrinos from other sources such as active galactic nuclei or gamma-ray bursts. Neutrino astronomy should also be able to indirectly detect dark matter.

* * *

So that you can also get something practical out of this, and perhaps give Peter a hand with his observations, I will conclude with a completely different but still related topic. You already own a telescope: your eyes.

Astronomy with the naked eye

It’s a common myth that you need a telescope to be an astronomer. Beginners often hear it when they ask for advice on how to approach their newly discovered hobby. You can indeed see much more with a telescope than with the naked eye or binoculars. But basically, you don’t need a telescope to study the sky. In other words, getting started in astronomy is actually free.

Beginners are best advised to simply use their eyes to familiarize themselves with the firmament—preferably with a star chart. Even if you buy a telescope later, it is essential to roughly know the sky. Either way, once you get started with the instruments Mother Nature has given you, you’ll be delighted to discover what you can detect with the naked eye.

Now, before you immediately run outdoors, here are a few things to consider if you want to enjoy stargazing. First, plan time for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and second, choose a location that is as dark as possible. Any light pollution is more than annoying when stargazing. For example, unless you want to target the moon itself, it can be quite distracting. Viewing is better during a new moon, or if Luna shows up only as a narrow crescent.

A starry night is a breathtaking experience, and you will be amazed at what is presented to the unaided eye. Star clusters like the Pleiades are easy to spot, as is the star-forming region of the Orion Nebula. The band of the Milky Way can be seen from any dark location. With a simple star guide or planisphere, you’ll know right away where to look, but the objects are so conspicuous that they can be found without any accessories. Up to this point, astronomy doesn’t have to cost you a dime.

Once you have acquired a taste for astronomy, the desire for a pair of binoculars or a telescope will probably arise, and these instruments do not have to be expensive. If you choose carefully, your first piece of equipment can give you many years of pleasure and later serve as a reserve.

The night sky holds many wonders that can be perceived even without any instrument. According to theory, under perfect conditions, humans can recognize everything from a magnitude of +6.0 in the firmament—assuming good eyesight, of course. This means that you can capture 9,000 stars at once with a single glance. But if it’s dark enough all around, much more will show up—there are galaxies, planets, and star clusters, if you only know where to look. If you have a telescope at your disposal, possibly equipped with suitable filters, you can look thousands of light-years away—and just as far back into the past. A fascinating idea.

You need to give your eyes time to get used to the darkness, as I have already mentioned. Likewise, I’ve said you should avoid light pollution and cloudy skies. But you should also avoid alcoholic beverages, for best stargazing results, no matter how cold it may be outside—alcohol impairs the ability of your eyes to adapt, as does nicotine.

The best time to start observing is around the time of a new moon, when the satellite does not outshine all the treasures around it. I also recommend an elevated location, or at least a point where there are no houses, mountains, or trees blocking the horizon.

Once you have arrived at the best possible location, you will naturally want to perceive as much as conditions allow. Keep in mind that stars and planets are much easier to detect than galaxies and nebulae, even if they are of the same magnitude—the latter objects are scattered over a larger area of the sky and are thus much more diffuse than the concentrated points of light.

As the seasons progress, the constellations will gradually become familiar to you. Depending on whether it’s winter, spring, summer, or fall, constellations and asterisms such as Orion, the Big Dipper, the Summer Triangle, or the Great Square of Pegasus will wander through your field of vision. They also always provide useful reference points from which to make your way around the firmament.

The top three destinations

Orion Nebula (M42)

Right ascension: 05h 35m 17s

Declination: -05° 23′ 28″

Best season: Winter

Constellation: Orion

Magnitude: +4.0

If you look below the three stars of Orion’s belt, you will recognize the Orion Nebula as a pale spot in a clear sky without light pollution. It is a powerful gas cloud in which new stars are formed. It is 1,344 light-years away and can be seen even from the outskirts of a city.

Pleiades (M45)

Right ascension: 03h 47m 24s

Declination: +24° 07′ 00”

Best season: Winter

Constellation: Taurus

Magnitude: +1.6

In winter and spring, the Pleiades star cluster is impossible to miss. One can distinguish six or seven stars arranged in a pattern similar to that of the Big Dipper. The group is easily visible to the naked eye even with moderate light pollution.

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Right ascension: 00h 42m 44s

Declination: +41° 16′ 09″

Best season: Autumn

Constellation: Andromeda

Magnitude: +3.5

With a distance of 2.5 million light-years, the Andromeda Galaxy—also called Messier 31—is the most distant object we can perceive with unaided eyes. The environment should be sufficiently dark. Then you can see the galaxy on moonless nights in the constellation of the same name.

Technical jargon

Right ascension (RA)

In the sky, RA corresponds to the longitude on Earth, with the directions west and east. It is given in hours, minutes, and seconds because we see different parts of the sky during the night due to the Earth’s rotation.

Declination (Dec)

Dec indicates how high an object will rise in the firmament. Just like latitude, declination has north and south. The units are degrees, minutes of arc, and seconds of arc, each subdivided into increments of 60.

Magnitude

Magnitude is also called apparent brightness and indicates how bright an object appears when seen from Earth. The scale often causes confusion at first because the lower the number, the brighter an object is. For example, a star with magnitude -1 (mag -1) is more brilliant than one with +2.

Glossary of Acronyms

5G – 5th Generation (Telecommunications)

ADC – Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector

AGILE – Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini LEggero

AGN – Active Galactic Nucleus

ASI – Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italian Space Agency)

ASTRON – ASTRonomisch Onderzoek in Nederland

AI – Artificial Intelligence

API – Application Program Interface

CCM – Command & Control Module

CNSA – Chinese National Space Administration

CORONAS-Photon – Complex ORbital Observations Near-earth of Activity of the Sun-Photon

DEO – DEOrbiting device

DLR – Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center)

DRAMA – Debris Risk Assessment and Mitigation Analysis

eLISA – evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

ESA – European Space Agency

ESO – European Southern Observatory

EU – European Union

GOES – Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites

GRB – Gamma-Ray Burst

ISRO – Indian Space Research Organisation

HXMT – Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Chinese space observatory)

IPO – Initial Public Offering (stock market term)

IR – InfraRed

JPL – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

JWST – James Webb Space Telescope

K – Kelvin

keV – kilo (1,000) electron Volts

LIGO – Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory

LOFAR – LOw-Frequency ARray

LTE – Long Term Evolution (Telecommunications)

MeV – Mega (a million) electron Volts

NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration

SIMBAD – Set of Identifications, Measurements and Bibliography for Astronomical Data

SNEWS – SuperNova Early Warning System

TESIS – TElescope-Spectrometer for Imaging solar Spectroscopy in x-rays

TeV – Tera (a trillion) electron Volts

UV – UltraViolet

VR – Virtual Reality

VLA – Very Large Array

WENSS – WEsterbork Northern Sky Survey

WISE – Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

XFFTS – eXtended bandwidth Fast Fourier Transform Spectrometer

XMM-Newton – X-ray Multi-Mirror Newton

Metric to English Conversions

Length:

centimeter = 0.39 inches

meter = 1.09 yards, or 3.28 feet

kilometer = 1093.61 yards, or 0.62 miles

Area:

square centimeter = 0.16 square inches

square meter = 1.20 square yards

square kilometer = 0.39 square miles

Weight:

gram = 0.04 ounces

kilogram = 35.27 ounces, or 2.20 pounds

Volume:

liter = 1.06 quarts, or 0.26 gallons

cubic meter = 35.31 cubic feet, or 1.31 cubic yards

Temperature:

To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 1.8 and then add 32

Excerpt: Helium-3 – Fight for the Future

43rd of Frien, 298

“Watch out for the wall! Be careful!”

Kimikizu turned away so she didn’t have to see the collision. She’d thoroughly explained the situation to her protégé three times already—since the day before, the ship had been braking full force, and thus Niribinu should have been angling her wings more slowly when she was making turns. Why was she stuck giving flying lessons to this smug girl who was just 43 days old? Surely her skills were more urgently needed in the navigation department.

“How was I?”

Unbelievable. Niribinu had smacked against the wall like a wet cloth, and she still expected praise?

“Come on! The nosedive before, I mean, that was amazing, right?”

No. She wouldn’t give this good-for-nothing praise she didn’t deserve, even if it was just a matter of months before Niribinu would be her boss. It had been a matter of pure luck. When the Supreme Navigator had died 73 days before, this girl’s egg had happened to be the one next in line. It was the Supreme Mother herself who had hatched her, and Niribinu’s wingspan was now almost as wide as her own. Yet her ego was about ten times greater.

This once again confirmed Kimikizu’s hypothesis that weak character was innate. In this case, it couldn’t be from the Supreme Mother. She was considered an exceptionally humble Iks who had seen it all over her 320 life cycles, including the launch from the home world.

“I’m going to complain about you to the Supreme Leaders, Kimikizu. I certainly can’t learn if you don’t give me any feedback.”

Feedback! Kimikizu had to keep her beak from clacking at the very thought. The chickie wanted flattery, but she just wasn’t going to deliver. She looked at the ceiling of the vast hangar where they were doing the flying exercises. It was already two-thirds dark, meaning her shift would be over soon.

“All you need to do to get feedback is to take a look at yourself in the mirror, Niri.”

She deliberately used the abbreviated form of Niribinu’s name, which was used for chicks—no adult Iks would have responded—but the insult was lost on Niribinu. Either she hadn’t noticed, because she was still used to it, or she had the talent of simply filtering out anything unpleasant. But, it was impossible to ignore the effects of her collision with the wall. Three of the feathers on her head were broken. On the side, where her bare skull protruded, a distinct lump was slowly turning brown.

“Oh,” Niribinu said, turning as if there was a mirror behind her rather than the wall she’d just slid down.

“Yes. The landing was not optimal,” Kimikizu said. She had to pull herself together to keep her beak from clacking loudly.

“Attention. Attention,” an announcement suddenly boomed. “Navigators to the control center, please.”

Ha, she thought, I’m saved for today. “Unfortunately, I must be off. See you tomorrow for flight training, same time.”

Niribinu parted with the traditional greeting, “Steady upwind.”

At least she was polite.

* * *

To get to the control center, Kimikizu used one of the large wind tunnels that ran through the entire ship. Although it took longer than with the pneumatic tube capsule, she enjoyed exerting herself. When she arrived, the other Navigators had already situated themselves in their seats. Hers was on the edge. She pattered in, spread her wings, and settled in. It was unnecessary at the moment, as the course was locked in and couldn’t be changed from the control chairs, anyway. But the Navigators traditionally held their meetings while lying down, although Kimikizu didn’t connect the motion sensors to her wings and legs, as she otherwise would have done.

“Brides of the Wind,” Supreme Navigator greeted them.

According to tradition, Navigators were only female. It was said that the female sex had a better sense of which course to take, plain and simple.

“The Knowledge Guardians have finally managed to compile the data from the reconnaissance flights, the automatic probes, and the on-board telescopes,” said the Supreme Navigator.

It was about time. If they didn’t slow down from interstellar to stellar speed soon, the ship would leave this system on a hyperbolic trajectory. Kimikizu shivered because the very idea frightened her. The Iks species had left the home world almost 300 cycles before because the Guardians had finally found a system that could ensure their civilization's survival for the next ten billion years. Where else could you find four gas giants?

Recently, Kimikizu had been dreaming of spreading out her wings in the cloud layers of the largest one and embarking on an almost-endless journey. That was freedom! It seemed almost irrelevant to her that the planets also offered vast reserves of the material their civilization needed to survive. She could just keep on soaring without any other living being, simply flying with her wings outstretched.

This was unrealistic, of course—she also needed food and water. But dreams were a part of life.

* * *

“...entering the orbit of the central star as planned.” Oh, dear. Kimikizu was annoyed with herself. She had not been listening to the Supreme Navigator. The control center ceiling changed and a massive white star appeared. It seemed unreal. The home sun had glowed a pleasant red, but throughout the millions of years its energy output had steadily decreased. This star, on the other hand, was in its prime. While they’d always tried to get closer and closer to the home sun to still feel its warmth, they would have to pay careful attention to their distance from this one.

The picture changed, and the star shrank.

“The display is not to scale anymore,” the Chief Navigator announced, although everyone had probably already reached that conclusion. A round object had appeared next to the star, a grayish-brown, rocky planet, its surface bearing scorch marks from the star, and dotted with meteorite craters.

“Temperatures between sixty and a hundred and fifty lini,” explained the Supreme Navigator. Sometimes it was ice cold, and at others very hot. Kimikizu knew what the plan was, of course. As useless as this planet appeared, it was the crucial piece of their survival puzzle. It was only when the Guardians had confirmed that they’d found a terrestrial planet in the proximity of a star that it became clear that their civilization still had a chance.

“You’ve probably already guessed the good news. The planet is completely uninhabited.” The other Navigators clattered their beaks enthusiastically, and Kimikizu joined them. The Supreme Leaders, along with the 10,000 members of the Iks nation, had long discussed what they would have done if they were to arrive at the rock planet only to discover that it was colonized. There was, after all, a cruel fate in store for the planet. It would either collide with its star or spend the next billion cycles alone in the cosmic cold.

“How much time do we have?” asked Lobozinu. The elderly Iks was the only one who dared to ask the Supreme Navigator such direct questions.

Kimikizu tried to remember the last time Lobozinu had spread her wings. As a rule, she only pattered through the corridors of the ark. But she was popular because of her sharp wits. She’d grown up on the home world with the Supreme Navigator, and rumor had it that they’d even come from the same nest—a real nest, at that, since back then nests were still made of almond tree branches.

“The maneuver must begin in two days at the latest,” said the Supreme Navigator. Some of those present clattered their beaks quietly. Kimikizu was surprised, too.

“Yes, it’s not much time,” said the Supreme Navigator. “But I talked it over with the Uncertainty Oracle, which is certain that we will accomplish the maneuver.”

“Then why are we meeting here at all?” asked Lobozinu.

The Supreme Navigator squawked. Kimikizu thought she was going to tell Lobozinu to keep her beak shut. However, it just grew unusually quiet. Could it be that the Supreme Navigator was still looking for the right words? Finally, she said, “The Explorers insist that a Navigator assist the maneuver.”

Silence. The notion flew in the face of the traditional division of labor between the sexes. Kimikizu was frightened. Was it really a good idea to begin their fresh start in the new system with a revolution?

“I know what you’re thinking,” said the Supreme Navigator. “I had similar concerns, but the Supreme Explorer was able to dispel them. It’s not a question of us doing the work of the males. It’s very risky to approach the rock planet from interstellar speed. We can’t afford to make any mistakes, and there will be no second chances. However, it’s not possible to precisely calculate the trajectory in advance. For this reason, a Navigator must be aboard the Explorer ship.”

“Couldn’t the Uncertainty Oracle calculate the course remotely and transmit it to the ship?” asked Lobozinu.

“Because of the distance and the high speed, the margin for error is too great. Someone at the controls of the Explorer ship has to calculate the path.”

“You’re right, Supreme Navigator,” said Lobozinu in a placating tone. “And now?”

“I could designate a candidate from among us,” said the Supreme Navigator. “But I’d prefer to have a volunteer. You’re well aware that it’s not always easy with the Explorers.”

With the males, Kimikizu thought. She means, with the males in general.

“The Navigator who volunteers shouldn’t be the hesitant type, and she should be able to put her birdseed where her beak is in the event of an emergency,” said the Supreme Navigator.

Lobozinu laughed. “Oh, that would have been an assignment meant for me,” she said, “back ten years ago. Imagine the fun you’ll have there!”

Nobody else answered. Kimikizu saw how everyone was trying to sink deeper into their cushions. Time was passing incredibly slowly today.

After what seemed to Kimikizu to be an endless silence, the Supreme Navigator said, “The Explorer ship will start shortly after midnight and will be in transit for two to three days. I’ll give you an hour to think it over. After that, if no one volunteers, I’ll have to choose someone.”

Two to three days. She’d spent her entire life on board the generation ship that her ancestors had set up in the hollowed-out interior of an asteroid. Now she had the opportunity to leave the spaceship for at least two days. She clattered her beak involuntarily.

“Kimikizu?”

The Supreme Navigator must have heard her. But that was not how she had meant it! Or had she? Kimikizu thought about training with Niribinu. She wouldn’t have to see the spoiled brat for two days. Wasn’t that alone worth it?

“Yes, Supreme Navigator?”

“I got the impression that you wanted to say something.”

“Yes.” Kimikizu couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

“Yes, what?” asked the Supreme Navigator.

She could still turn back. All she had to do was say something unrelated. That would undoubtedly ruffle the Supreme Navigator’s feathers, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Her career had already been predetermined for her when she’d still been inside an egg. There was no need to go above and beyond.

“I will accompany the Explorers,” said Kimikizu.

Now it was out and she couldn’t turn back without losing face. She would leave the ark and fly to the rocky planet. Darn it, she thought, what had she gotten herself into? Her innermost downy feathers stood on end.

“Wonderful, Kimikizu,” said the Supreme Navigator. “You will represent us well there.”

“And most importantly, you’re going to have lots of fun, dear,” added Lobozinu. “I must confess that I’m jealous of you, getting to make this journey.”

Fun. Glory. Kimikizu wasn’t all that sure that even one of the two was within a wingspan’s reach. She had always lacked the big tail feathers needed to become a heroine. But it was worth it to not have to train with Niribinu in the upcoming two days.

The Net Fleet

Twenty new stars appeared on the edge of the system. At least it would have looked like so at first glimpse to somebody on the surface of one of the planets that orbited the bright yellow sun. Yet from up close it was not new stars that suddenly appeared, but rather brightly shining spots of light that had formed in the icy vacuum of space for no apparent reason. They didn’t remain stable for long. Just a few tenths of a second after they materialized they expanded, and a dark spot appeared at the center of each one, although the word ‘dark’ doesn’t quite do justice to the impression these spots gave—it was not just the sense of absence of light, but rather the absence of everything! It was as if 20 holes had been punched through the fabric of the universe… and this was just what had happened.

Twenty spaceships burst out of the 20 wormholes, coming back into the reality of outer space. One ship scarcely made it out before the wormhole from which it had exited shrank behind it to then contract into a spot of light that quickly faded. All 20 of these new ‘stars’ disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

On one of the 20 ships, Netmaster Kasfok opened his three right eyes and glared mercilessly at the troublemaker who had dared to interrupt his meditation. Reluctantly, he loosened his back legs from the net, opened his three left eyes, swung his body around, and dropped via a fresh thread to the floor of the meditation room.

From the entryway, Threadfinder Jokar drummed on the floor with his two front legs, communicating a greeting along with an apology for disturbing the meditation session. Kasfok received the vibrations and emitted a pheromone cloud that signaled his salutations and indulgence.

The report! he drummed back.

Successful passage, came the answer. All ships have arrived in the target system. The remote localization has been confirmed.

Kasfok was satisfied—in fact, more than satisfied! As master of the network, he was not only responsible for the 20 ships, but the fate of the remainder of his species hinged on his very mandibles. And this survival depended not least on their ability to replenish their dwindling energy resources. This wormhole transfer had been the last they could make using their jump generators, since the fusion reactors lacked the helium-3 fuel to create the energy needed for another one. They had placed all their bets on this system because it was unique among the galaxy's solar systems.

Maybe not unique, but certainly an exception, thought Kasfok.

The Milky Way has an inconceivably high number of planets, yet only a few of them are gas giants. These few almost always have orbits that are very close to their sun, making accessing them problematic, if not impossible. It is extremely rare to find a gas giant that is far enough from its central star to allow for the mining of helium-3 from its atmosphere. Helium-3 would inevitably become a vital energy source, a coveted raw material for all space-faring species.

On gas planets, the helium isotope is found in its original cosmic ratio. This is higher than on any rock planet, meaning that gas planets serve as the preferred and most sought-after source for this precious substance. Thus, gas planets orbiting their respective suns at suitable distances will take spots at the top of the list of heavenly bodies that astronomers of all intelligent species will seek. Finding a solar system with four such planets would be an incredible stroke of luck for any space-faring civilization. Ah, but this was just what they had succeeded in doing. For the remnant still in existence, the future of their people was assured for the time being.

What did the scans show? Kasfok drummed.

As we had hoped, Netmaster. Four gas giants at a considerable distance from the central star. It will not be challenging to harvest helium-3 from their atmospheres. Threadfinder Jokar emitted a cloud of contentment. He was responsible for the navigation of the small fleet, which he had brought here safely on the last of their energy reserves.

Are there signs of life in this system?

This was their greatest concern. They no longer had the resources to hold their ground against any advanced civilization that might be located in the destination system.

No, Netmaster! None of the planets are inhabited. We’re not getting any radio signals, and there are no local heat emissions on any of the planets to indicate settlements or energy generation systems. We are the only living beings in this system.

Pleased, Kasfok brandished his mandibles. He retrieved the results from the scans and sensor data on a terminal on the wall of the meditation room. One look dashed the faint hopes he’d had of finding a new home for his species in the system. None of the planets was suitable for settlement by the Mendraki. There were indeed two planets orbiting within the habitable zone. Unfortunately for them, one was almost entirely lacking in atmosphere, and the other showed too high an oxygen content for his species to survive there. They’d have to keep looking.

Something in the jumble of data caught his attention. What’s this? he drummed on the communication thread.

Nothing unusual, Netmaster! An asteroid that’s on a course within the system. It’s probably an object from deep space that has been caught in the sun’s gravitational field. With the path it’s on, it will plunge into the sun before too long.

Go and inform the other Shipmasters! In a few pulses I will give the command to start the braking maneuver.

Shortly after, Kasfok entered the bridge of the fleet’s lead ship. The other Shipmasters were already on the screens, awaiting his instructions. While no pheromones could be transmitted via radio, it was almost possible to smell the various conflicting feelings. Each one was waiting with a communication limb poised on a thread. Kasfok’s drummed instructions would be translated into electrical impulses and transmitted to the recipient as vibrations of the communication thread. They would all be able to feel his words.

Not everyone was friendly to him and his web leadership. Kasfok knew that there were quiet vibrations demanding his replacement. No one had yet dared to express this in stronger vibrations, but the number of those who wanted to see a younger Netmaster at the top was increasing. Kasfok was well aware that some Shipmasters sympathized with this view. But now he would take the wind out of his critics’ webs! Under his leadership the greatest possible treasure had been found. He was the savior of the Mendraki and would go down in history as such!

Just as he was about to give instructions for a collective fleet maneuver, a vibration resonated through the communication thread. The other Shipmasters received it, too.

The asteroid! drummed remote scout Holmak. It is changing course!

Kasfok involuntarily emitted a pheromone cloud of surprise. How can an asteroid change course?

Now it’s heading for the inner planet, which is fiery and incapable of sustaining any life.

That wasn’t my question! Kasfok rebuked the remote scout. Even though he was afraid of the answer, he repeated his question. How can an asteroid suddenly switch course?

There must be... Holmak paused as if something in him prevented him from conveying the message. The asteroid is not an asteroid. Or, to drum it more clearly, it is probably a hollowed-out asteroid that has been transformed into a spaceship.

Netmaster Kasfok knew that this altered their circumstances tremendously. They were not alone in this system!

44th of Frien, 298

It is cold up here.

Kimikizu had taken the wind tunnel to the level just beneath the surface. While it was just as warm inside the hollowed-out asteroid as it was on the home world, she seemed to feel the bitter cold of the cosmic vacuum here. With her inner plumage fluffed out, she scurried through a short corridor leading from the wind tunnel to the hangar. Kimikizu now regretted her hasty decision to volunteer for the adventure. In the roost, she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes shut, even though she had an exciting flight ahead. That was probably the very reason she hadn’t been able to get any sleep.

She approached a double door and tapped a button with the tip of her wing, watching as the doors swung open. The hangar of the flying machines! She still had vivid memories of the first visit she’d made there, with her elementary school classmates. The machines had seemed huge to her, like steel gods, mainly because each had the shape of an Iks, just many times larger. Thus far, she’d only flown along once during her training, as part of a ship’s tour intended to familiarize the students with the machine’s controls.

Kimikizu entered the hangar, head tilted toward the ceiling, from where the metal gods looked down on her. It had just so happened that the Iks’ physical form had proven practical. The beak, for example, could accommodate a selection of sensors or weapons systems. The Iks were peaceful, but they had also experienced civil wars. While they now no longer had any external enemies, the Conqueror Caste still had significant influence and promoted weapons development. Kimikizu hoped they would never need them. In any case, the Explorers had assured everyone that there was no alien activity in this system.

“Here she comes at last, our bride of the wind!”

Kimikizu directed her beak in the direction of the voice. She recognized a group of Iks in uniform. One of them broke away from the group to approach her. Kimikizu wasn’t sure how to act around him. Bride of the wind. It was only the Navigators, not the Explorers, who used this title to address each other. It wasn’t an explicit insult, but it was unconventional.

She had already been warned that Explorers tended to behave in ways that challenged their narrow social norms. She guessed that this was how it had to be, flying ahead of the flock and thus spending a lot of time outside the protective community. In the long history of their kind, it had always been the Explorers who had set the course for months of wandering around the home world in search of fertile areas.

“Welcome to the flock,” he said by way of greeting. He spread his wings and lowered his head.

Kimikizu responded to the gesture with the traditional reply, “I await directions.”

The Iks started laughing. “Now let’s cut the ceremonial crap. I’m Norok. Nobody’s giving you any directions here. We’ll be awaiting your directions. You’re the Navigator, after all.”

Kimikizu was shocked, but tried not to show it. Unconventional! Apparently she hadn’t been adequately warned about the Explorers. What would be next? All that was missing now was Norok trying to fertilize her eggs.

“I’m Kimikizu,” she said, further lowering her beak.

“A pleasure,” replied Norok. “We’re not so formal here, but if you want to be addressed by your full name, we’ll honor that. Sorry if I shocked you. I’m Norokamilo, if that’s of any importance to you.”

“No, that’s fine, Norok,” she said, deliberately swallowing the rest of the name. “I was aware that Explorers are more relaxed.”

“You’ll see it’s comfortable here with us,” said Norok. “Perhaps we should spend a little more time with the other groups when we’re off-duty so we don’t forget the formalities entirely. You really seem taken aback. I’ll include that in the next meeting.”

Oh no! Norok was the one to set the topics of the meetings, which meant he was no ordinary Explorer. He had to be the Supreme. She should have fallen to her knees before him!

“Are you the Supreme Explorer, Norok?”

The Iks took two steps ahead of her in the group's direction and then turned to face her. “I hope it’s not obvious?” he said amicably. “Formally, you’re correct, but you’ll see that it doesn’t matter much to us, Kimi. Sorry, Kimikizu, of course.”

“Please call me Kimi while I’m here,” she said spontaneously. Otherwise she would always be the outsider, and that wasn’t what she wanted. She already felt enough of that among the Navigators.

Kimikizu was still lost in thought as they reached the group. As Norok introduced her, she looked at the Iks who would be on board the flying machine with her. From the beaks in the group, she could tell that there were Iks of all ages. The differently patterned tail feathers, and especially their varied eyes, told her that the Explorers also came from different regions of the home world. She was surprised that they all seemed to get along.

“Kimi?” the Supreme Explorer addressed her.

Oh, he must have asked her something. Her lower plumage turned yellow. It was so embarrassing!

“Sorry, I was preoccupied.”

The others clattered their beaks, but it didn’t sound malicious.

“I asked you to say a few words about yourself.”

“Of course.” She considered what to say. Norok had already described her function.

“I’m Kimi. My parents come from the southern mountains,” she began, “but they first met on the ship. I have three sisters and four brothers, all of whom are older than me. In my free time I offer flight lessons. I’m not bad at aerobatics myself. My biggest idol is Kuturamilo.”

When she mentioned the name, everyone started clattering their beaks enthusiastically. Was it because the second part of the name was the same as the Supreme Explorer’s? Often, it was possible to infer kinship this way.

“The Explorers worship Kuturamilo,” said Norok. “He significantly advanced flight for the Iks. Did you know he was an Explorer himself?”

“I thought he was a Conqueror?”

The others made grinding noises of protest with their beaks. She must have said something wrong.

“According to the Conquerors, yes,” Norok said. “To be fair, Kuturamilo was initially a Conqueror, but then he joined the Explorers.”

“I wasn’t aware of that.”

“No problem. You certainly must have legends about famous Navigators that we don’t know.”

Kimikizu thought about it. No, there were no such legends, most probably because the Navigators, as a group, hadn’t even existed for 3,000 cycles yet. The profession had only been introduced when it became clear to the Supreme Leaders that the species would have to leave the home world. Apparently 3,000 cycles wasn’t enough time for legends to develop.

“This isn’t really my area of expertise,” she replied elusively.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Norok. “Our giant bird awaits us.”

With an elegant gesture, he put his right wing around her and led her to the wide staircase at the belly of the flying machine.

* * *

The bird they boarded felt entirely different from the one in which she had performed her test flight. It was far bigger. Kimikizu estimated that it was ten wingspans in both width and height, and at least 150 long. The smell inside was also very different. It was clear that the Explorers spent most of their time in the flying machine. It didn’t have the neutral smell of machine oil, but of everyday life, sometimes unpleasant like sewage, and occasionally pleasant like food and the warmth of sleep.

Norok led her through the corridors according to a system that left her feeling somewhat lost. They both pattered ahead on their short feet with the others behind them. Gradually she felt uncomfortable constantly being at the head of the group. She calmed herself by remembering that this was a gesture of hospitality, even if it conferred a special position that didn’t correspond to her social status.

Her feet started to hurt. She missed the wind tunnels. For two or three days she would have to go without spreading her wings and propelling herself up without stopping and, cheating gravity, tumble into the deep. How could the Explorers manage without this experience on a long-term basis?

“Will we be able to fly on the rock planet?” She asked.

“No, this planet has no appreciable atmosphere. That’s why it’s not such a loss. So you’ll be needing a flight suit in addition to a breathing mask.”

Another embarrassment. Of course, she should have known there was no atmosphere on the planet. But the flight suit got her attention. So far, she had only heard of this technology. They looked just like spacesuits, but they also had several jets that worked even outside of atmospheric layers.

The group stopped at a door. She hadn’t noticed, but now there were only six of them. The other Explorers must have turned off into their assigned stations. Norok identified himself with a voiceprint.

“Explorer Norok,” he said.

“Entry granted,” came the automated reply.

A double door opened and they entered the cockpit. Kimikizu counted six seats, each located in front of computers that were within wing’s reach. There were shiny surfaces angled above the seats, and Kimikizu wasn’t sure if these were windows or screens—probably displays. Windows that did not face forward but rather diagonally and upward didn’t seem very practical to her, but the very suggestion of windows made the whole room appear larger and airier.

In the middle of the room was a pillar, about as wide as two Iks, and covered all over with flashing lights.

“Is that an...”

She didn’t dare say the word.

“Yes, it’s an Uncertainty Oracle,” said Norok, smiling.

There were very few of these computers, which operated according to very specific principles of physics. The Iks researchers had developed them just prior to the launch, and there hadn’t been enough time to make more. Their abilities were described as practically limitless, but it was evident to Kimikizu that this view was due to some romanticizing, as was everything related to the home world.

She couldn’t quite believe that there was no longer anyone around who would be able to recreate such an oracle. The Iks couldn’t have just acquired this ability in a few hundred cycles only to immediately lose it. Who knew what political games determined the fate of the oracles? Perhaps the Supreme Leaders were simply afraid that they would surpass them in intelligence and therefore replace them.

“Is this your first time seeing an oracle?” Norok asked.

“Yes,” Kimikizu confessed. “Only the Supreme Navigator can ask our oracle questions. Nobody else has access.”

“That’s too bad. It’s different with us, as you can see. The Oracle is also happy to answer your questions. It doesn’t do any harm if you ask it. On the contrary, it improves itself.”

“Thank you, Norok. I will certainly take advantage of this opportunity.”

“But don’t get your hopes up too high. The Oracle can do the most extensive calculations in a short amount of time, but it is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and many tasks exceed its capabilities.”

“Like calculating the flight to the rocky planet?”

“That’s not a problem for the Uncertainty Oracle.”

“But the Supreme Navigator said—”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you’re told.”

“Then why am I here?”

“I imagine the Supreme Leaders are interested in what it’s like here. Instead of getting an impression for themselves, they asked your Supreme Navigator to send us someone.”

“So I’m a spy?”

“That’s not what I’d call you.” Norok laughed. “You are our guest and we’re happy that you’re here.”

“But you didn’t request me?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we didn’t request you. I hope that we can nonetheless learn from each other.”

This Norok was rightly the Supreme Explorer. He was a perfect example of their species—friendly, polite, courteous, confident, and kind. But Kimikizu was still irritated. She had been sent as a spy without being told about it. So it had never been about her skills. She felt used by the Supreme Leaders. There was only one way to get revenge. She would show everyone how vital her skills were to the success of their mission.

* * *

“Spread the wings.”

“Run forward.”

“Leap.”

The automatic system’s statements sounded bizarre when experiencing the launch while strapped to a seat in a flying machine. They harkened back to the old days before there were machines, although they had long since lost their literal meaning. Kimikizu was surprised. Even these oh-so-modern Explorers still kept them. Who had introduced the procedure back then, and when was it?

She considered running a query, but then she felt a rumbling throughout her entire body. It was coming from the depths of the flying machine. The main engine was gathering power, like a silver tiger preparing to take its murderous leap. On the angled surface above her, which turned out to be a screen, after all, she saw sunlight flooding the hangar of the flying machines. Apparently the departure gate had opened. The machine she was in was maneuvered up to the gate on rails. The main engine had gathered enough power. A gigantic catapult would hurl it out of the hatch, and then the engines would be deployed.

The hatch now appeared from the right, indicating that they would launch soon. Kimikizu thought about her flight exercises. Even if the engine didn’t work, she knew where the flight suits were and could make her way back in an emergency. No, she was not afraid. None of the five other Iks in the cockpit seemed to be worried, either.

Kimikizu relaxed until she was, without warning, pressed into her seat. She couldn’t breathe, but the tremendous acceleration only weighed on her briefly. Then the spaceship was free. More displays were activated on the left and right. It almost looked as if someone had opened windows there. The flying machine moved forward weightlessly, driven by the momentum of the catapult, through a deep, narrow valley that had been artificially carved into the asteroid before they’d left the home world.

At its very bottom was the hatch that sealed off the hangar from the outside. Kimikizu realized how naive she had been. She had thought she’d been close to the surface when they were in the hangar, yet there had remained several kilometers of rock between herself and the unforgiving universe. It had been a good idea for the Supreme Leaders to protect their civilization from all dangers with an impenetrable shield.

“Warning, the engine is about to fire,” warned Norok.

Then she felt it. The rumbling turned into a powerful vibration. Her inertia pressed her forcefully into the cushions. The acceleration wasn’t as strong as it had been with the catapult, but she’d have to endure it for a longer time. The rock faces on the left and right moved faster and faster across the screens. Suddenly everything went black as they reached free space. The flying machine banked along its trajectory. First the sun wandered onto the screen, so the display had to decrease its brightness, and then a gray, round spot followed.

This was their goal—the rock planet that the Iks’ ship would use to slow down in this system.

Competitors

Netmaster, the asteroid ship has begun a braking maneuver! The remote scout was clearly excited, as indicated by his arrhythmic drumming. His mandibles also trembled uncontrollably, and he involuntarily released a pheromone cloud that smelled of anxiety. Kasfok wondered why Holmak was so nervous.

Kasfok tried to conceal his disappointment and irritation. With particular care, he tapped his two front legs on the communication thread that connected the command web and the location station. His vibrations would signal a calm Netmaster who was not shaken by any emotion.

Can you draw any conclusions from the data about its destination? he asked.

Currently, the data is still insufficient, the remote scout replied. I’ll be able to make a prediction in a few hundred pulses.

With great willpower, Kasfok forced his pheromone organ to emit confidence and control. He also danced a few steps to communicate reassurance. As a Netmaster, his job was to show the entire network that he was deserving of his position at the top of their community. Yet internally, he was just as agitated as the remote scout.

What were the chances that this extraordinary system had been discovered by another species, doubtlessly also seeking the system’s helium-3 supplies? Kasfok couldn’t imagine what else the generation ship—that was what it had to be, given its size—could be looking for here. Even if in an infinitely vast universe, every event, no matter how unlikely, had to happen eventually somewhere, he cursed the misfortune of it happening to his species here and now, under his leadership—as if their position, and his own in particular, weren’t precarious enough already.

Kasfok was the 17th Netmaster since they’d had to leave their home planet. For almost 20 generations they had been traveling through this galaxy with their fleet in search of a new home. What had originally been almost 100 ships had now become a fleet of only 20 units. Nearly one million Mendraki had escaped the catastrophe, but after such a long time their population was now just a fifth of what it had been. By Kasfok’s estimate, they had at best five or six generations until the genetic pool would become too small to ensure the long-term survival of his species.

Besides, their ships were old, failure-prone, and badly in need of repair. But they had neither the means nor the knowledge to maintain, much less to fix, what their ancestors had built. Knowledge had been lost from generation to generation, and today the Mendraki, lacking an understanding of the technology, could barely operate the ships and their equipment.

More and more ships had been lost to accidents, and others they’d had to abandon. Some had been devastated six generations ago when they’d encountered the only other species on their journey through the galaxy. Only a quick escape had saved the rest of the fleet from destruction at that time. Fortunately, the unknown enemies with their fearsome battleships had not been vengeful, and therefore had not pursued them.

And now this! They’d discovered a source of energy that was rich and easily accessible, and that could meet their needs for many generations. Their reserves were as good as empty, and the tokamaks could no longer supply energy for further jumps. The fate of the Mendraki had to be decided in this system! Kasfok vowed he would not let a second encounter with an alien species destroy what had survived the first encounter.

Yes, the wormhole generators had run out of power, the tokamaks had become inefficient and decrepit, the ships had started to crumble in every nook and cranny, and opposition among the Mendraki had already begun to form. Still, the 20 ships’ weapons systems were operational, and he was ready to fight for the future of his species.

This future—their survival—depended on the Mendraki having unimpeded access to the gas planets. He would not let anyone get in their way. This system belonged to the Mendraki alone!

Holmak, the remote scout, interrupted Kasfok’s thoughts. The ship is taking a course for the inner planet and quickly decelerating, he announced.

Kasfok was aware that everything they saw had already happened several macropulses before. They were still on the edge of the solar system, and all the data they now received had needed a long time to reach them at the speed of light. Whatever the aliens had intended to do, they’d already accomplished it—or failed—by now.

The Shipmasters of the fleet network’s other units had followed the developments of the last pulses with a mixture of worry, fear, and excitement. So far, none of them had spoken. Kasfok wanted to avoid being indecisive and timid, and he knew he had to do something before losing the initiative. His opponents were just waiting for him to show weakness.

He drummed his command on the communication thread. All units accelerate in the direction of the fifth planet. Once there, we will swing into a stationary orbit, which will allow us the uninterrupted observation of the aliens. This will enable us to get closer to the aliens and thus receive data in a timelier fashion, while simultaneously making clear our claim to the four gas planets. As soon as we know exactly what the aliens are up to, we will take the appropriate action!

* * *

On the fleet ship the Solstice Bud, Shipmaster Tolkut terminated the transmission and released a cloud of disgust mixed with the pungent odor of contempt. He didn’t have to try to conceal his emotional state. The entire crew of the Bud knew what the Shipmaster thought and supported his position. In fact, he’d even been urged to rebel, but Tolkut was a careful and level-headed Mendrak—some even said hesitant. He did not dare to openly oppose Kasfok until he was sure he had the support of a majority of the Shipmasters.

In his eyes, and those of his co-conspirators, if one wanted to give the small group such a lofty name, the current Netmaster posed a threat to the continued existence of their species. He took unforgivable risks and had everything hanging from a single thread now that they’d jumped into this system. Of course, the remote scout had indicated no fewer than four of the gas planets with deposits of urgently-needed helium-3 deposits. But there had also been the option of jumping into a system where one of these rare celestial bodies had been sighted, also orbiting its central star from a greater distance.

That other, alternative planet had been much closer, and they still could have jumped here afterward. But Kasfok had insisted on heading straight for this destination, even if there had been a risk of encountering unforeseen obstacles here—like now! Tolkut didn’t want to imagine what the situation would be like if it turned out the remote locator had been mistaken.

They had come here with the last of the helium-3 that remained in their repositories, and if the locator was wrong, they would likely be stranded here for a very long time, probably several generations. That was how long it would take to extract enough helium-3 from the ground of one of this system’s moons to hazard at least one more jump.

Whatever the case, Kasfok’s stubbornness spelled disaster. Now they had come across another intelligent species that had also traveled into this system. Since there was nothing remarkable here other than the four gas giants, it was clear what they were looking for. Kasfok would have only one response. War!

Tolkut thought this was ridiculous. First, the net fleet’s ships were in pitiful condition, which made combat operations highly risky. Second, nobody knew what resources the unknown species might have, and in the past, this had almost wiped out the remaining Mendraki. Third, the atmospheres of the four planets could provide enough helium-3 for both species.

Perhaps it would even be possible to collaborate and exchange technologies, even though the other species seemed to be inferior to the Mendrak technologically, as indicated by the lack of FTL-compatible propulsion. The giant asteroid's mass—the generational spaceship—was far too great to be moved through the higher-level continuum using wormhole generators. The energy requirement for such a maneuver would be astronomically high and could not be met using any of the known methods.

But collaboration had never been the strong suit of the Mendraki. Long ago, Tolkut had conceded that their situation was attributable to the extremely high potential for aggression among his kind. Kasfok was a product of the ancient civilization shaped by war and struggle. He was the representative of an era that had ultimately led to the loss of their home planet. And now, if he couldn’t stop Kasfok, he could lead the last of the Mendraki to extinction.

* * *

Netmaster Kasfok scurried through the corridors of the ship. He was pensive and worried, not so much because of the other species or their plans. He was convinced that despite the smaller size of their ships, the fleet would emerge victorious in the event of a conflict. Though the Mendraki spaceships were much smaller than the considerable generation ship, they were far more agile and versatile. They could circle the hulking giant like a swarm of kletz mosquitoes. And the 20 ships in the net fleet could attack the asteroid just as the tiny mosquitoes could drive an adult Mendrak insane with their lightning-fast attacks and furious bites.

The difference was that the ships’ attacks were not just nasty and painful, like the bite of a kletz mosquito, but instead, they would be made with weapons that could tear deep lesions into the asteroid’s surface. What started as small wounds would continue to grow relentlessly until they eventually fused into one large and fatal wound. Once it managed to tear open one of the cavities that must surely exist as living space within the asteroid, this would be the beginning of the end of the generation ship. The encroaching vacuum would have devastating consequences, and the ungainly colossus would then die, just like a Mendrak who’d been attacked by a swarm of kletz mosquitoes and ultimately fell victim to the countless bites that would bleed profusely.

It was also evident that the asteroid’s inhabitants didn’t have the same technological sophistication as the Mendraki. The analysis of the available data left no doubt about this. They wouldn’t have anything to fight against the fleet’s weapons.

No, it wasn’t the strange species that worried Kasfok. They would be devastated. Rather, it was the fact that such a crisis could offer his adversaries an opportunity to bring his leadership into question. Kasfok was aware that from now on, he had to be more on guard than before.

He reached a restricted area of the ship that could be accessed solely by select Mendraki. Only he, Netmaster, was allowed to enter this sector at any time—one of the many privileges of his position.

A soldier stood in front of a closed bulkhead. Seeing Kasfok, he raised the pair of legs closest behind his head to bring them together in the traditional salute.

Kasfok briefly danced a gesture of impatient confirmation of the greeting with his second pair of legs, but didn’t bother to produce a thread of communication that would have allowed for personal conversation. He simply drummed his command on the floor. Across the short distance, this would be enough to transmit the vibration and make it clear to the soldier that he was to promptly open the door.

The soldier waved his mandibles submissively and obeyed.

The bulkhead closed immediately behind him, and Kasfok entered a richly-decorated room. Skillfully spun webs of different colors covered the walls and ceiling, and changing light created a relaxing atmosphere.

A door opened in a side wall. The Mendrak who entered was somewhat smaller than Kasfok and wore a red and gold cloak over his bifurcated body, a sign of his status.

Netmaster, he drummed on a thread running diagonally across the room. He also raised his rear pair of legs. What gives us the honor?

What do you think, Eggwatcher Lotrak? I need some relaxation.

Of course, Netmaster! Is there anything special you’d like?

Number 17 was pleasingly docile last time, Kasfok replied.

Do you want to reproduce, or just relaxation? In the first instance, I could give you a recommendation...

Just relaxation, Kasfok interrupted Lotrak.

I’ll see to it that Number 17 is prepared. The smaller Mendrak lowered his mandibles, turned, and disappeared through the door. The reason for his small size was that Lotrak and the other Eggwatchers had their genital organs removed shortly after hatching to prepare them for their position. This stunted their growth, making them too scrawny for any other work. They were scorned in private by the fully grown Mendraki, especially those of the leading Warrior Caste, although simultaneously envied for the privilege of always being able to live in the company of females.

Kasfok settled into one of the immaculate webs on the opposite wall. A few pulses later the side door opened again, and Lotrak entered with a female Mendrak.

Number 17 at your service, Netmaster, he drummed, then retreated and closed the door behind him.

The little Mendrak stood motionless in front of Kasfok. Hesitantly, she lifted her rear pair of legs in a clumsy attempt to offer the greeting of respect. Her mandibles sagged loosely, and her gripping legs rested lightly on the communication thread. The two middle pairs of legs, which now had to bear her entire weight, trembled slightly. She was clearly nervous.

Kasfok felt anger rising within. Sometimes he wanted to be able to have an intelligent conversation with a female. But this was, of course, impossible. Every female Mendrak was lobotomized shortly after hatching. In the ships' narrow confines, this was the only way to keep them from killing each other. Each female would try to destroy another female’s clutch but protect her own.

It had always been possible in the home world to ensure sufficient distance between sexually mature females, but this was impossible on the ships. It had already become common in the first generation of ship crews to treat the females for any aggression they had shown toward other females by operating on their brains. Kasfok thought this was a shame, but not because he pitied the female Mendraki. Rather, he regretted that after the procedure, they were no longer able to perform the tasks that nature had designed them for—particularly those that made life as pleasant as possible for the male Mendraki.

Now they were only suitable for mating and laying eggs so as to ensure the procreation of the species. Educational duties now fell to specially trained Mendraki who were not suited to be Warriors, and this group now formed the bottom of the Mendraki patriarchal social structure.

Number 17—females did not need names because they were not considered full-fledged individuals—was one of the rare cases in which a lobotomized female still had some residual self-awareness, and therefore could cater to a Warrior’s sexual desires. At least she understood how Kasfok expected her to satisfy him, if he repeatedly explained it to her.

Read more? hard-sf.com/links/1691018

Copyright © 2021 by Brandon Q. Morris

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www.hard-sf.com

brandon@hard-sf.com

Translator: Stephen Vladimirov

Editing team: Marcia Kwiecinski, A.A.S., and Stephen Kwiecinski, B.S.

Cover design: Jelena Gajic