Contact Conclusion

"Hire, come quick!"
Hire started awake. He must have dozed off.
"Hides' discovered something incredible about the disc."
Hire was up and out his office door before Flame had even finished talking.
The lab was still awash in activity, but less so than before. Glancing at a time keeper, Hire realized that he had been in his office for much longer than he thought. He stepped up to the platform where the most people were now gathered, the same where Hides had been working. He gently elbowed his way to the front of the group.
Hides was talking animatedly. "What'd you find, Hides?" Hire interrupted.
Hides looked like he might explode. "It's unbelievable, sir. You won't believe it. This disk? It's not a tablet, like I thought originally. I was studying all the drawings on here, looking for patterns, and then I saw this. I know it's too small for you to see from there, but every picture on here has a series of dots and dashes around it. Every single one, without fail. I thought at first that it was their language, maybe like combinations of these dots and dashes make words or concepts. But there's no breaks between them, so it can't be that. Then I showed them to Carver, and he of course immediately thought of binary. Ones and zeroes. On and off. I thought, obviously it's binary. I mean, what very language is written on our own probes in case of contact? Binary. So I ran the binary through my communicator, but it couldn't translate it. At least, not into Agian."
"Makes sense. It would probably only be able to translate it into whatever language it originated from."
"Right. That's what I thought. But then I thought of our own probes again, and I realized I had been going about it the wrong way. Any creature intelligent enough to launch a probe would know that its finders wouldn't speak their language. Our probes contain messages in binary, but not to be translated into written language. The binary on our probes is meant to be read geometrically. As in, it would be translated into shapes and pictures. So, I ran the binary again, hoping to come up with some pictures. Again, nothing. I then wondered if the beings had included some sort of key, you know, A=dot dash, B=dot dot dash, that sort of thing. It didn't take me long to realize that they had, and that the key was right under my nose." He swept his hand triumphantly over the disk.
Hire moved over to stand behind Hides and focused on the disk, but couldn't see anything that looked like a key. Now that he was closer, he could see the dots and the dashes, but other than that, all he could see were the pictures...
He gasped. "The pictures?"
Hides nodded. "Exactly. Taken together, the binary coding and the pictures represent the message."
"So what does it say?"
"Well, that's the tricky part. I think this big circle here is a picture of the disk, and the binary seems to describe a way in which the disk and the box it was found with interact. Some of this down here is describing different frequencies on the audio spectrum, this over here is describing speed, I'm thinking audio frequencies and speed at which the message is meant to be listened to. We might have to adjust those in case the extraterrestrials speak at a slower speed or lower frequency than we can understand. Anyway, these two are more instructions on how the disk interacts with the box. I'm thinking this square here represents a viewing medium, and this square with the circle in it represents the box with the disk on top of it."
"So how do the disk and the box interact?"
Hides looked sheepish. "That I don't know. I think I can read the diagram here okay, but the directions don't make sense. I think they want the box to spin while the disc is on top of it. but we have no way of making it spin without the disc falling off. I think maybe there were more pieces that held the disc in place while the box spun. I don't know. That's just a theory. But that's not even the really exciting part."
"What is?"
"The pictures and the diagrams are only part of the message. I looked at the disc with a vision expander, and it looks like it's covered in tiny tracks consisting of alternating raised and depressed sections. Again, the dichotomy, which makes me think more binary. Carver's been working on a way to record what binary is in these tracks without visually following each track and just writing down the pattern, which would take weeks. When he's done, we'll be able to retrieve the messages stored on this disk. I think these diagrams are instructions on how to access the real message, which is recorded on the disk in binary."
Hire thought about it. "It's brilliant, really. we've been trying to find ways to store large amounts of binary on our probes without requiring a power source."
"This would do it. The only thing that would destroy this would be colliding with another celestial body, and odds of that are astronomical."
"Incredible." Hire looked over to Carver, seated at another table. "How long until we can read this?" He asked.
"Just minutes. All I'm doing is rewiring a microscopic image spectrometer to follow the tracks on the disk and record the ups and downs. We should get a clear, translatable, binary code in no time."
Hire took those minutes to ensure the lab's visual/audio recorders were functioning, and set his own communicator to record and store everything it heard. This was potentially one of the greatest moments in all of human history, and he wanted to make sure it was properly recorded.
Carver came over with a small spectrometer suspended between a tall tripod, and positioned it over the disk, which Hides had placed carefully on the box that accompanied the disk in the body of the craft. Carver gently pressed the power section of the spectrometer, and it quietly whirred to life. It scanned around itself, catching its bearings, and then zeroed in on the disk. It moved slowly back and forth, laterally to the tracks on the disk, then snapped all the way to one side of the disk and began slowly spinning in a circle, following the tightly spiraling grooves in the disk.
They waited in frantic anticipation. Apart from Flame asking if Carver's communicator was recording the solid stream of digitized binary being recorded by the spectrometer, which he answered with a nod, the room was silent. The hum of the spectrometer was the only noise. After what seemed like an eternity, the spectrometer’s circles became tighter and tighter, then stopped. The spectrometer reset itself, settling back into its passive position.
"It's done," Carver said, after a moment's pause.
Hire gently lifted the disk from its cradle on the alien box. "There's more on the other side. Let's set the spectrometer to record this while we see if we can translate the binary we have." He flipped the disk over, and laid it back down. Carver again set the spectrometer to scan.
As soon as the spectrometer was spinning away, the scientists of the Galactic Outreach Program gathered around a single communicator, preparing to hear the first words of an extraterrestrial ever heard by man.
Hides' communicator, retrieving the data from Carver's, opened a visual display field in the air above itself, preparing to translate the binary it had received. Hides gave the little machine instructions on how fast to play the data stream, based on data inscribed in binary on the outside of the disk itself. Then, the visual display field went from opaque to white.
Hire found his heart thumping madly within his chest as he waited for something to happen. He didn't have long to wait.
A scratchy noise began to emit from the communicator.
"Is that part of the message?"
Hire shook his head. "Unlikely. Probably a result of tiny imperfections in the coding of the binary on the disk. The spectrometer didn't know what to make of them, so it translated them as white noise."
"Can you have your communicator ignore those bits of data?"
"Um...unfortunately, no. There's no way to tell the junk data from the real data at this point."
The white screen flickered hazily, then faded up into a white screen with a plain black circle in the middle of it.
Carver slapped his thigh in triumph. "That's one of the pictures drawn on the disk, right next to the picture of the visual display field. I think this means we coded it right."
The picture again faded to opaque, but the scratchy noise continued. The excitement was almost palpable.
Then, it happened. A quiet, unintelligible voice began speaking from the communicator.
After a few moments, Hides sat back and put his head in his hands. "It's human."
The room erupted in a babble of moans. "Hold on, we don't know that," Flame said, raising her arms to gain attention.
"Come on, Flame. What are the odds that a non-human entity would use such a similar mode of speech to our own?"
"Well, evolutionarily speaking, it's not that far of a stretch. Almost every creature we've ever encountered uses vocalizations of some kind. Besides, even if the extraterrestrials don't use vocalizations, they could just be attempting to copy what they've observed on our own probes and satellites to make it easier for us."
"Everyone shut up, it's changing."
The voice had now changed pitch. This new pitch was used very briefly, and in a few moments, the voice again changed pitch. As they listened, the voice changed pitch both higher and lower several times.
Hire concentrated. "It...sounds like multiple entities talking."
They continued to listen to the different voices. After a few minutes, the message changed completely. A series of whistles, clicks, and moans emanated from the communicator. The hair on the back of Hire's neck stood on end.
Flame looked pale. "Is that...are those voices?"
Hire scrunched his eyes and shook his head, listening harder. The voices had completely stopped now, and the room was filled with an unsettling montage of noise.
"This must be data corruption. None of this means anything."
"To us. Maybe it means something to the beings who sent this."
After a few minutes, the noises faded, and the scratchy silence again filled the room. Hire found himself relieved. Then, sound again began coming from the communicator. This time, it was definitely, inarguably, music.
"My God..." Flame put her hand over her heart and stepped back. "It's music."
"It could be just another form of communication."
"Listen to it. Rhythmic timing, active quick changes in pitch and dynamic...it's music."
The sound of the alien music filled the room, and the audience was too stunned to say more.
They were interrupted by a soft click coming from the spectrometer. "The other side of disk is coded," Carver said softly.
Hire stood in awe, bathed in the wonder of the extraterrestrial music. "Stop this playing. We need to share this with the world."






The Chairman of the Humanities Board, the only person on Agian 7 who could be said to hold any power, stood directly beside Hire, looking down into the main examining area of the Galactic Outreach Program's main lab. Hire had called a stop to all the work with the exception of Carver, Hides, and Flame, and organized the rest in a massive preparation project. They immediately notified the Humanities Board, the acting head of Agian 7's government, who then notified the other Boards and established a communications link with the leaders of nearby planets. Within an hour it had exploded into a near-riot. The people of Agian 7 has streamed into the streets in droves, attempting to gain access to the labs of the GOP to see the alien device themselves. The Board of Knowledge set up an enormous visual display in the streets outside the GOP for the masses to see. The visual recorder that was linked to this massive display was a short distance to Hire's left, currently focused on the entirety of the craft itself, set up in a dramatic display on one of the tiers across the room. In the center of the room, in the main examination area, Carver, Hides, and Flame were setting up the connection to the display that would exhibit the sights and sounds recorded on the disk. The most exciting part was that Carver had taken a look at the data stream from the back side of the disk, and he thought it could be pictures. Actual visual displays.
The event was being broadcast not only across Agia, but across the vast expanse of space to neighboring planets. This was potentially the biggest moment in human history, and it was being treated as such.
The Chairman of the Humanities Board leaned over to Hire. "I think we should start as soon as your technicians are ready."
Hire nodded and waved to Flame, who returned with an affirmative gesture.
"We're ready. Would you like to make a speech?"
The Chairman chuckled. "No, I think I'm the last person anyone wants to hear from right now. Let's just let the non-human entities speak for themselves."
Hire nodded, and signalled Carver, who started the stream.
The now familiar sound of the voice filled the room, and echoed through the streets of a thousand human habitations across multiple worlds. Husbands and wives gathered with their children, young and old alike. Billions stood still, mesmerised by the voice. When the music started, many people shed tears at the sheer wonder of it. A dozen different musical selections played, each unique in its sound. Some sounded remarkably similar to music heard on human worlds in the past, some sounded completely foreign in every way. At the end of the musical selections, a vast silence was heard as the communicator switched data streams and began playing the data from the backside of the disk.
The first thing to appear was a faded image. Hire's heart leaped into his throat. He could barely make out what appeared to be two beings on the image. The image slurred for a moment, then came into sharp focus.
"They're remarkably humanoid," the Chairman muttered.
Hire thought he was going to be sick. "No, Mr. Chairman. They're human."
The image clearly showed a nude man and woman, standing next to a simple scale for comparison. The image flickered and changed, now showing what appeared to be a young family smiling into the recorder. Various pictures appeared and disappeared, each depicting regular humans performing regular tasks. The disappointment was overwhelming. Hire found himself drawn to the images, each causing his heart to sink further and further into despair. In the streets, the crowds slowly began to disperse, parents leading sad children back to their homes to prepare their evening meals. There was nothing more to see.
When the data stream ran dry, Hire sat and stared at the craft across from him. He laughed softly to himself and shook his head. To think he had raised his hopes on such a meaningless and impossible thing. He left the room. Flame, Carver, and Hides still sat quietly, lost in thought. He retrieved his things from his office and began the commute back home to celebrate his daughter's birthday.
The celebration was subdued, but it's hard to suppress the spirit of a child, and soon Whispers was back to her excited, buoyant self. Hire and his small family laughed and played until well after Agian's sun had disappeared behind the horizon. At the end of the day, Hire found himself on a small hill behind his home, looking up into the vast night sky, seeing the swirling cosmos and blinking stars that represented the arm of the galaxy in which Agia twirled. His communicator buzzed gently, informing him of an incoming call. He answered it as Whispers appeared over the crest of the hill, silhouetted in the glowing light of their home. She came to him, and he picked her up in his arms.
"Yes?"
"Hire. It's Carver. I know it's late, but I discovered something you might be interested in."
"What is it?"
"I ran the voices through translation software half a dozen times, and I managed to translate part of the transmission into Agian."
Hire was tired, and he found he really didn't care, but he went along with it. "What does it say?"
"It's not much. I think a lot of it is in different languages, and the translator doesn't have a big enough sample of each language to translate them all. There seems to be one language used more than the others. The biggest segment I could get says something like: 'As the general secretary of the communities which are...together...united, I guess, something about one hundred and forty-seven member states, which represent almost all of the inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet.' The rest is too corrupted to make sense."
"I've never heard of any planet close to that name."
"No one has. I don't think it exists. But you remember that painting on the outer shell of the craft?"
"Blue square with red and white stripes next to it?"
"That's the one. We still believe it could be a map. The blue section looks like it could have stars represented on it. The stripes could be some sort of measurement of distance or relationship. And you know the characters next to it? The collection of straight and curved lines? Turns out it's a primitive system of writing. We put the characters through our translation software, assuming that each symbol represents one of the sounds heard in the recording. We had to fill in some gaps, and make some assumptions, but we got it. It says: 'The united states of America.' I think this craft could still be valuable, Hire. I think we should continue to find out what we can about it. I'm going to send it to the guys at the..."
"Carver, I'm tired. I'm going to go to bed. Take tomorrow off if you want to.
"Uh-huh. Okay Hire. See you later."
Hire disconnected the communicator, and drew his daughter in close.
"Were you eavesdropping?" He flicked her nose playfully.
She smiled and lowered her head. "Maybe."
Hire laughed. "How was your birthday, beautiful girl?"
She waited for a moment before answering. "It was fun, but I wish I could have talked to extratellestibles."
Hire hugged her tighter. "I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry."
She smiled at him. "It's okay, daddy. It's not your fault."
They were quiet for a moment, each admiring the celestial parade of twinkling lights above them.
"Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"What's the united states of America?"
Hire shook his head. "I don't know, Whispers, and I guess it doesn't really matter."
Together they stood on that hilltop on a cool Agian night and looked up into the stars, overwhelmed with the knowledge that they were truly, completely, alone.

Contact: Part II

"And you're sure it's not one of ours?"

"Hire, no human has ever made anything like this. I've never seen anything even close to this. I guarantee it's not one of ours."

Hire frowned. Something seemed odd, he just couldn't figure out what.

He rocked slightly with the motion of the transporter as it moved over uneven ground. His commute to the office was shorter than most, but still took more time than he would like. Today, of course, he had something to occupy his mind. His excitement had soured into distrust. It wouldn't do to believe in something so impossible as contact with extraterrestrials. He didn't want to be disappointed.

Molds Flame, the head of contact branch was on the communicator with Data Carver and Hides-With-Dye, the project engineers. They were both brilliant young men who could speak the languages of math, electronics, and hardware, but they made up for this efficiency with a severe deficiency in social interaction. They were the right men for the job, however, and their social abilities didn't matter.

They had been catching him up on the morning's events during his ride. Halfway through the sleep cycle the night before, one of their deep-space probes had picked up information on a non-natural object. These probes were designed to recognize when something they encountered was composed of more than two minerals, indicating a likelihood of being crafted by an intelligent being. The probe had hooked this object and jumped back to Agia, arriving near the end of the sleep cycle. The engineers had taken one look at it, and called Hire right away. According to their description, the thing was definitely crafted, but he couldn't understand how they were describing it, and would have to wait until he could see it for himself.

Flame continued on in his ear. "The strangest thing is that it comes apart. It's like whoever crafted this intended for it to be disassembled. Can you imagine building an interstellar craft with detachable parts? I'd think it would have fallen apart by now." That was interesting, Hire thought. No human had built a spacecraft such as this, as far as he could remember. He hadn't spent years studying human history, but he couldn't remember anything like this coming to the surface. The first spacecraft that he knew of were built thousands of years ago by humans on Utopia and Ryhona, both now gone.

"I'm almost at the office, Flame. I'll be in in a few minutes to look at it."

"Carver's been poking around it's insides for hours now. He hasn't left it since it came."

"I'm not surprised. Flame, I'm going to go, I'm almost there. I'll see you in person in a few minutes."

  

"I think he's found some operational components. He says if he just takes the time to study it..."

Flame droned on. Her communicator was struggling to keep up with her fast pace while still making her sound confident and sure, as communicators were designed to do. Hire sighed and half-listened as the transporter pulled up outside the offices of the Galactic Outreach Program. He stepped off into the bright morning, and the transporter whirred away softly.

He made his way past the initial entry, and scanned his identification at reception. The automated greeter chimed him a merry greeting, then unlocked and opened the door leading to the labs.

"I need to go to my office," he told the greeter, indicating another door. "I need to deposit my things."

"Molds Flame requested that you make your way directly to the labs."

"I'll bet she did," muttered Hire, listening to Flame still talking in his ear. He made his way through the lab entrance and walked down the hall to the main lab.

The main lab was designed like a theater-in-the-round, with a large open examining area in the middle surrounded by raised platforms carrying seats, tables, coolers, and other examination equipment. The place was buzzing with activity. Technicians were bustling around the raised platforms, discussing things in large groups. The main examination area was so crowded, Hire couldn't see through to the object itself, with the exception of the top quarter of the thing, which poked out above the heads. He could see Flame standing in the middle, her green hair standing out from the crowd. He made his way to her, edging his way past the throngs of technicians.

He could hear Flame's voice echoed as he came to stand beside her. "Flame, I'm here."

She looked up quickly at him. "Oh." She disconnected her communicator with a flick of her wrist

.  

Hire Looked at the object and drew in a breath. Flame was right, no human had constructed this.

The main body of the craft was golden in color, and geometric in shape. It appeared to be covered in some sort of foil. On one side of the main body was a large white section of what looked like what had once been a parabolic dish of some kind. It looked as though at one point there had been several arms protruding from the thing, but the jagged edges indicated that most of them had since been torn off. Carver, the lead engineer, was currently elbow deep in the main body.

"Tell me what you've found, Carver."

"It's incredible," He replied, not looking up from what he was doing. "We found several internal components that not only could come apart, I think they were designed to come apart. They were stored in this main body here in a little chamber down in the center. I sent Hides off to examine them more, he should be around somewhere."

Hire glanced up to one of the platforms, where he saw Hides' back bent over one of the examining tables. "Is there anything on the top?" The entire craft stood just taller than Hire himself.

Flame jumped in. "You wouldn't believe it. There were markings along the top. We took these visual records." Her communicator jumped to life, hearing the implications in her voice, and projected several images into the air in front of her. Hire's eyes widened in disbelief. On one side, there was what appeared to be a small, simple geometric painting. Surrounding this painting were several plain markings, consisting of straight and curved lines.

"Do you know what those markings are?"

"We haven't thought too much about it. They could be simple drawings, depicting life forms on the planet where this originated."

"I suppose they could be. What about this painting?" He indicated the small but colorful diagram.

"Well, you see this section here?" Flame pointed to a small portion of the painting. "I think these could represent stars. This whole piece could be a visual representation of where their planet lies in space."

"Incredible. If this really is from an non-human life form, the implications are astonishing."

"I know. This would mean they have eyes similar to our own. They see and work in geometric shapes and patterns. They must see a similar color spectrum as us. You see the reds here? The gold? And, if this diagram does represent their place in the universe, it means that they have sent something to space, to understand that they sit in its vast emptiness. What if they are interstellar travellers? What if we..."

"Don't get too excited," Hire cautioned. "We don't know what we're dealing with yet."

Flame nodded. She was about to say something more when she was called away.

Hire looked over at Hides, and began to pick his way through the confusion to where Hides sat.

"What are you working on?" Hire asked him.

Hides looked up, startling Hire by the size of his eyes. Hides lowered to magnification lenses he was wearing and pointed triumphantly at what was lying on the table.

"These were inside the main craft. Can you believe it?"

Hire looked at the objects on the table, surprised by their simplicity. On one side was a small golden disc, no bigger than a serving platter, and next to it was a box no bigger than the disc.

"Do you know what they do?" Hire asked.

"No, but see how this box has a circular indentation on this side, I think these are two pieces of a whole. I think they're meant to go together." Hides gingerly picked up the disc and laid it flat on the box. "See? It's a perfect fit. The disc settles right into this groove. Now the disc itself, we think, is some sort of...tablet. Like the ancient Utopians used to use? We think the non-humans here may communicate by drawing pictures on tablets like this." He showed the disc to Hire, who realized for the first time that there were indeed small pictures on the disk. They were obviously extremely worn with time, but he could make out an exploding star, several squares, and some circles.

"Are these scratches?" He asked, indicating a series of jagged marks.

"I don't think so. They follow a strange pattern. I think they're part of the design."

Hire nodded. "Keep at it." He laid his hand on Hides' shoulder and moved back to the main area. "Flame, I'm going to my office. Notify me of any dramatic changes."

She nodded. "You don't want to be here in case we discover something?"

  

"I'll be just down the hall."

"Keep your communicator open."

He smiled, and moved out the door into the quiet hallway.

His office was cold and clean, the way he liked it. He needed this space to think. The events of the day were disturbing. He wasn't sure what to think. The first recorded human history came from twin planets Utopia and Ryhona. They had long since burned away in a supernova, but their location was marked on every stellar map. The distance was too far to travel for the average human, but some made the pilgrimage. They had been part of a small system of six inhabitable planets, all of which were colonized before their sun went nova. Since human habitation had been recorded on both prior to either gaining the ability to travel in space, it was theorized that humans were in fact much older than either planet, and must have colonized both Utopia and Ryhona around the same time. But no physical records existed of any prior habitation, and so it was nothing more than a theory. Regardless, Utopia, the first to travel through space, made her first crafts out of solid pieces of material. Humanity had followed this pattern since, and that had been thousands of years previous. As far as he knew, no human had ever made a craft even close to resembling the one that lay down the hall. Real contact with non-human entities. The thought sent a thrill down his spine.

Contact

Hire 624 sat up abruptly, confused and irritated. The dream he'd been having slowly faded into the past, and he realized what had woken him. His communicator was buzzing angrily in the alcove next to him. He flopped over in his bed, digging into the thick sheets, hoping whoever it was would give up if he didn't answer. His hopes were dashed as the communicator fell silent, then immediately started buzzing again. He moaned to himself and reached slowly towards the alcove. The communicator, recognizing his intentions, stood on its spindly legs and climbed onto the back of his hand, wrapping itself around his fingers and wrist until it was as much a part of him as his skin was.

"Hello," Hire muttered.

The communicator, sensing and decoding the vibrations this mumble caused in Hire's body, translated it using Hire's stored voice pattern into a solid, stately "Hello."

"Hire. It's Flame. You need to get into the office right away."

"It's my day off. I requested it specifically. It's my daughter's birthday."

"I know that. Kiss her on the forehead and then get in here. We've...found something."

Hire sat bolt upright. "What did you find? When?"

"Get in here. We'll brief you on the way."

Flame's communicator made her sound confident and sure, but Hire knew her voice was trembling with excitement. He felt almost sick with it himself. "I'm on my way."

Hire nearly flew out of his bed to the recycling antechamber that branched off his sleeping room. He was in the cleaning pod before his clothes were all the way off, and he had to pry the pod door open to discard them on the floor. He fumbled with the cleaning pod's control pad, selecting the wrong cleaning cycle in his haste. Correcting his mistake, he tapped impatiently on the door handle waiting for the cleansing chemicals to flood over his body, removing the sweat and grease from the day before.

They found something. He couldn't believe it. Making contact with extraterrestrial life forms had been the first reason listed on the referendum to create the Galactic Outreach Program when the idea was presented to the credit board nearly eight years ago, but that had merely been a formality. The people of Agian 7 wanted to find extraterrestrials, and making that the "primary" goal was thought to give the Program the most chance of successfully passing the notoriously stringent credit board. The real reasons, of course, were economic, but ironically the credit board wasn't known for voting for highest profit margins. They were the voice of the people, and the people wanted to make friends with galactic aliens, so that was the road the Galactic Outreach Program traveled.

Hire, of course, thought such ideas were nonsense. After all, humans had been traversing the galaxies for thousands of years, and no one had ever received so much as a hint that any other being was out there. It stood to logic to assume that humans were alone in their existence. Most civilizations had stopped looking. Agian 7, however, had always been known for its artistic persuasion, and so its inhabitants dreamed of such impossible things.

The cleaning cycle completed, and Hire moved swiftly across the room to the same uniform he wore everyday, hanging from the ceiling. He clipped its collar around his neck, and the garment wrapped itself slowly around his slim frame, adjusting swiftly to match his body temperature. He found the uniform's shades of grey on grey to be dismally boring, but the design was required by law, marking him as a board member. The star and arrow insignia on his left breast was the only feature that set him apart from other board members, indicating his status as Chairman of the Galactic Outreach Program.

Frugal by nature, Hire was a trader, and a damn good one at that. He had been raised in the Burulian trade markets of Agian 4, the fourth largest (and first richest) of Agia's twelve continents. His father, also a trader, taught him the nature of economy, and the art of haggle. By the time Hire was twelve, it was widely believed that a better trader wouldn't be found in the rest of Agian 4's sixth generation, and Hire, among the first of his generation as 24th born, agreed. It was even said that he would be as good as Teran 21260, a legend among traders. The second generation of Agian 4's inhabitants, to which Teran had belonged, had lived almost 400 life cycles previous, and Hire believed most of the stories about Teran were made up, but he was flattered nonetheless.

Being such a successful trader, Hire knew instinctively that the real profits were to be made selling art on Agian 7, and so, on his 21st birthday, he found himself in the ultra-colorful trading districts of the 7th largest, and second richest, continent on Agia. It was here that the idea for the Galactic Outreach Program spawned in Hire's mind. Hire had heard that dozens of planets just within traveling distance of Agia had started interplanetary trade routes, and the lucrative business was making many men and women very wealthy. He naturally wanted to be part of it, and so began making connections within the trade route. Interest was sparked for the legendary art of Agian 7, and the rest was history. Agian 7's credit board had been an easy sell, once the main purpose had been established as contacting extraterrestrials. Hire respected this by creating a branch of the Galactic Outreach Program to focus on this contact, and immediately moved on to establish an art trade with the other nearby planets.

But he never in million life cycles would have believed that the contact branch would ever find anything. Flame, the head of contact branch, was dedicated and talented, but Hire couldn't believe her task was anything more than a waste of time. Regardless, he knew that Flame wouldn't call him in unless they had actually found something.

His preparations complete, Hire moved softly to his daughter's sleeping room. He waved his hand at the door, indicating that he intended to enter, and it slid up without a sound. He was surprised to see his daughter awake, sitting in front of her reflective display, combing her long hair with a silver brush.

"Good morning, Whispers. Happy birthday."

"Daddy!" Hire smiled seeing his daughter's face light up. She jumped up to greet him.

"How'd you sleep, my beautiful?" Hire asked, wrapping her in his arms.

"I slept fine, daddy. I dreamed about the music again."

"Did you? Did you write another song?"

"No. I couldn't remember the notes when I woke up, but I remember it was a really happy song."

"That's good." Whispers, whose full name was Sings-with-Whispers, had been born on Agian 7, and had therefore been named after the fashion of the other inhabitants of Agian 7, who were mostly named after some sort of art, whether one they loved or one they were good at creating. Whispers was a musical prodigy, and she always sang her songs in a whisper.

"Are you excited for your birthday?" Hire asked. "I got you something extra special."

"You did?" She beamed at him. "What is it?"

"Well, you know how at work daddy is sometimes trying to talk to people from other planets? People that aren't human?"

"Yes, extra...tel..estibles." She struggled with the word.

"Extraterrestrials. Well, I might get to talk to one today."

"Really?!"

"Well, maybe. People at my work found something. I don't know what it is yet, but it could be something from an extraterrestrial."

"Oh daddy, can I talk to them? Please?"

He smiled at her enthusiasm. "If they talk, I'll let you talk to them. But I have to go, which means I'm going to miss your birthday."

Whispers was crestfallen, but she said "I really want to talk to someone from somewhere else. Hurry home, okay?"

"I will." Hire gave his daughter one last squeeze, then made his way into the brightening dawn.

TO BE CONTINUED...