Transmission

People wouldn’t listen to him now, whatever he said. If he came forward with another string of numbers, wouldn’t they assume that he was just trying to start it all again?

“We could tell your mom,” Luna said. “She’d believe you, and she’d know what to do.”

Kevin shook his head. “I’m not sure she would now, not after all the trouble this has caused. Even if she did, I don’t know if anyone would listen to her, either.”

“Who then?” Luna asked. “We have to tell someone. A reporter, maybe?”

That would at least get the news out into the open, but again, it didn’t feel like the right idea. If he went to the reporters, trying to explain, wouldn’t they just make fun of it? He needed to be able to prove it. There was only one place he could do that, only one place where they might be able to realign a telescope to pick up whatever new signal awaited.

“We need to contact someone at the NASA facility,” Kevin said.

Even as he said it, he could guess how difficult that might be. He took out his phone, trying to think of the best way to do it. It wasn’t as though he had direct numbers for any of the people who might be able to help.

He decided to start with Dr. Levin, because at least the SETI director had seemed more sympathetic than Professor Brewster. He found a number for SETI online and called it, listening to it ring and finally getting through to reception.

“Hello,” the receptionist said. “SETI Institute. How can I help you?”

“I need to speak to Dr. Levin about an urgent matter,” Kevin said, trying to sound as grown up as he could. Maybe if he could make it sound as though he was a colleague or something, they might let him speak to her.

“Who is this?” the receptionist asked.

“Well… um…” Kevin looked over at Luna, who shrugged. “This is Kevin McKenzie. But I have to speak to her right away. There’s been another message, and there’s a second set of coordinates, and…”

He heard the click as the receptionist hung up.

“They wouldn’t even let me explain,” Kevin said. That hurt, that after so much they would hang up without even letting him say anything.

“We need to keep trying,” Luna insisted. “Here, let me. We’ll try NASA. They’ve got the telescopes, after all.”

She rang, and pressed some buttons. It seemed that she did a better job of sounding older too, because when she spoke, it sounded to Kevin more like her mother than it did his friend.

“Hello, I was wondering if you could put me through to Professor Brewster? It’s quite urgent, yes. It’s Professor Sophie Langford of the University of Wisconsin. Yes, I’ll hold.”

Kevin hadn’t known that Luna was quite that good at making things up on the spot. She thrust her phone at him, and Kevin took it, just in time for Professor Brewster’s voice to come onto the other end of the line.

“Hello?” Professor Brewster said. “Professor… Langford, was it?”

Kevin took a breath. “Professor Brewster, it’s me, Kevin. Don’t hang up, it’s urgent.”

“What are you doing calling this number?” Professor Brewster demanded. “And getting through to me under false pretenses? Don’t you think you’re in enough trouble already, young man?”

“Listen to me,” Kevin said. “I wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t important. There are things you need to know.”

“I know quite enough about your situation,” Professor Brewster said.

“That’s not it,” Kevin insisted. “There has been another message! A new set of coordinates. The aliens said—”

“That’s enough,” Professor Brewster said. “We all put enough time and effort into chasing this charade, without trying to revive it. I’m going to hang up now, Kevin. If you contact this facility again, I will be passing the details of it along to the police.”

He hung up, just as firmly as the receptionist had.

Kevin stood there, trying to work out what to do next. He didn’t have any other phone numbers to try, unless he was going to attempt to call a journalist or the White House or something, and in both those cases, he suspected that he would get pretty much the same response that he’d just had. He could go home and try to talk to the journalists there, or he could wait for his mother, but both of those options risked him being ignored, and—

“So,” Luna said, interrupting his thought process, “how are we getting to SETI?”

“What?” Kevin said.

“It’s the best option we have,” Luna said. “If we go to them, they’ll see that you’re serious, and they’ll be able to persuade NASA to move their telescopes. Dr. Levin always seemed far nicer than that Professor Brewster anyway.”

When she put it like that, she managed to make it sound so utterly logical that there was no arguing with it. Luna had a way of doing that kind of thing that was kind of terrifying, in its way. Even so, Kevin thought that he should at least try.

“My mom will kill me if I do something like that,” he pointed out.

“Your mom loves you too much for that,” Luna said. “Anyway, she’s going to ground you forever for sneaking out as it is. You might as well save the world while you’re in trouble already.”