Transmission

“Or maybe they just have that much to send,” Professor Brewster suggested. “Like splitting up files when sending email so that the receiver doesn’t have to download them in one huge attempt.”

That made a kind of sense, although Kevin wasn’t sure he liked being referred to as just the receiver. It made him sound as though he was a machine rather than a human being, useful only for what he could do. His mother, or Luna, would never see him like that. If Luna were here, she would see how much it hurt him.

“Either way,” Dr. Levin went on hurriedly, “I don’t think this is the end of it. What do you think, Kevin? When do you think there might be more?”

Kevin could hear the hope in her voice. This was the kind of moment that her whole career had been working toward, after all. After so long wondering, and maybe hoping, who would be satisfied with just one communication? He would want more, if he were her. He did want more. He wanted to hear everything the aliens had to say.

Kevin tried to feel for any sense of the message in its aftermath. The constant pulse of the countdown to the messages wasn’t there anymore, but he still had a sense of expectation somewhere deep inside of him that there would be more. The aliens had said that, hadn’t they?

“I think there will be,” he said. It was strange, having so many adults hanging on his words, actually listening to him. He suspected not many thirteen-year-olds got that.

“Then we need to get Kevin back listening to signals,” Professor Brewster said.

“David,” Dr. Levin said, “Kevin has only just finished translating the first signal. He’s also very ill. It isn’t right to ask him to plunge back into that without giving him some time to recover.”

“But the information—” Professor Brewster began.

“No one cares about that more than I do,” Dr. Levin said. “I’m not the director over at SETI for nothing. But I also know that you don’t learn things by pushing thirteen-year-old boys too hard. Give him time, David. We can record any signals that come from that area of space in the meantime. That will give us a record of them, too.”

To Kevin’s surprise, Professor Brewster seemed to back down. He hadn’t been sure the tall scientist would listen to Dr. Levin on this.

“All right,” Professor Brewster said. “We’ll give Kevin time to recover. It will allow us to work out the best way to work with this information. But I expect results.”

***

Kevin sat listening, trying to pick through the silence for something more. Around him, he could see scientists waiting, some with tablets poised, others with cameras. He could feel the pressure there to perform for them, to do this on command, when the truth was that he could only wait.

There was a kind of rhythm to the waiting, sitting with a set of portable headphones plugged into the stream from the radio telescope. He could feel himself filling with anticipation before the bursts of transmission coming, the feeling like a pulsing in his brain that built in an early warning signal that sent scientists scrambling to record it.

It came now, and Kevin looked up.

“I think there’s a message on the way,” he said.

It was all that was needed to send scientists hurrying to prepare, most of them moving faster than they moved at any other time. Even so, they were barely in place before the words came through.

“Our civilization started simply, on the fringes of our planet’s oceans,” Kevin translated. “We spread, and we learned, over many centuries. We built homes. We built cities. We built—”

The transmission cut off, as suddenly as it had started. Kevin waited a moment or two more, in case it would begin again, but it didn’t. That seemed to be what it was now: brief bursts and long pauses, with no sign of when it would start again.

Scientists stood around to record everything he was able to give to them, while they made Kevin write down what he could just in case the impressions there were different. Trust scientists to find a way to make something like this feel like homework.

It wasn’t easy, and not just because some of the researchers seemed to be determined to suck all the fun out of it. Translating took a mental effort, so that Kevin’s brain buzzed with it, and he could only stand unsteadily afterward. He hadn’t expected this to be physically this hard. Then again, he hadn’t expected any of this at all.

“This isn’t good for you,” Phil said when he saw how shaky Kevin was. “Take your time. Don’t push harder than you can push. Not in your condition.”

His condition was what made Kevin want to get all he could. It was hard to think about, but how much time did he have now? How many messages would he receive before his brain changed to the point where he couldn’t understand them anymore? What if… what if he died before he was done? What if he couldn’t get to the end before his body and brain gave way?