Transmission

Kevin thought about the countdown. It was getting faster.

Now, he suspected, he knew what it was counting down to.

The only way to test that was to keep going, working in the institute’s testing lab with his headphones on, listening as they pumped in the feed of signals from their listening equipment. He sat there and did his best to translate the signals as Phil sent them through, one by one.

“Nothing with that one,” Kevin said, shaking his head.

“I’d have thought there would be something,” Phil replied, his voice sounding in Kevin’s ears as he worked on the other side of a pane of clear glass.

Kevin had thought so too, with the countdown pulsing so fast inside him. Kevin could feel the pulsing, hummingbird fast within him now, impossible to ignore and suggesting that whatever was coming would be here soon. He was tired of waiting, and tired of people staring at him, and sometimes just tired.

“Kevin should take a break.” His mother’s voice, from outside the room. Kevin was glad she was there. He wasn’t sure what that meant for her work, but he was glad she was there.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca, Dr. Brewster was pretty clear that we need to keep feeding Kevin the signal this close to the end of his countdown.”

“And are you going to listen to him, or to me?”

Kevin suspected he might be about to get a break. He smiled at that thought. A more worrying one replaced it. What if nothing happened? What if he sat here day after day, and the countdown reached zero without anything happening? What if they’d put this effort in and it was all in vain? How would they all react to that?

A worse thought occurred to him, a thought that made Kevin screw his eyes shut in an attempt to push it away. It didn’t work. What if this was all his illness? What if the countdown wasn’t to a message but to some kind of seizure? What if that too rapid beat was his own heart, or the blood vessels around his brain getting ready to burst? The people of the institute had gathered around Kevin like a prophet about to speak, but what if he really was just dying?

Then the signal came, rushing through him.

And he knew the time had come.

***

Kevin could see people rushing to get into the room on the other side, obviously wanting to be there as the message came in. He barely paid any attention to them. The message was too important for that.

“If you are hearing this,” Kevin said, translating automatically even though he didn’t know how he was doing this, “our world is gone.”

He heard the gasps outside as people listened in and realized some of what it must mean. A few of the scientists there started jotting down notes, and Kevin heard them talking in the background.

“That would mean that there haven’t been any aliens for at least forty years now,” one said.

“If there are,” another put in. “We only have the kid’s word for the translation.”

The others ignored him. They seemed as caught up in the moment as Kevin was.

The message kept going, and Kevin kept translating. “We are sending out these messages to preserve what we can of our people, and to ensure that our knowledge does not die.”

The signal seemed to intensify, and now it was like a stream that Kevin couldn’t have begun to hold back. There were only the strange sounds of the alien language, and the words that came as he translated them almost automatically.

“Our planet was one of seven, with three inhabited. The colonies collapsed first. Home was destroyed in the fires that cleansed it. This is our story, our record. Perhaps hearing it will help others to avoid the same fate as us.”

Kevin spoke the words almost without registering the signal that triggered them. The signal was a complex, chattering thing, and if he concentrated, he could just about make out the clicks and buzzes that made it up. Mostly, though, he just got the meaning, pouring straight into his mind as he listened.

It felt as though just keeping his brain locked in with the signal was an effort, and Kevin could feel a bead of sweat forming above his eyes as he worked to keep a grip on it.

“We must send these messages carefully, only a piece at a time, but if you listen, you will learn.”

The signal cut out. Kevin waited and kept waiting, listening for more, but there didn’t seem to be anything else.

Finally, Kevin looked up. He could see Phil and his mother staring back at him from beyond the glass, but there were others there, plenty of others. Professor Brewster and Dr. Levin were both there, along with as many staff as could fit into the room beyond. He could see the shock on so many of their faces, and he could guess why: they hadn’t dared to believe this was real. They’d thought that it would turn into nothing.

This, though, was a long way from nothing.

He could also see their other reason for the shock: they clearly expected the message to continue.

No one had expected it to fall into silence.

CHAPTER EIGHT