0254 - 2025.10 Signs of Life

Space is unusual. Full of surprises. Mostly in the imagination of science fiction writers that made anything possible. It can also be scary. Solar storms, dust clouds, exploding stars.

Let me tell you a story.

In science fiction life seemed to be everywhere, even if everywhere was a long way apart. In a universe that was billions of years old the opportunity of millions of permutations of life was a reality.

With a seemingly infinite number of galaxies to explore it was unlikely that us mere humans could encounter more than an handful of comparable species. We have hardly traveled more than a few thousand light years since FTL travel was created.

I say created because the theory was around for fifty years before technology caught up. I don’t understand it but I was on this ship and it worked. A second generation ship, a few more creature comforts allowing us to travel further.

Our ship, the Santa Maria, like its namesake, is on a voyage into the unknown, but not the totally unknown.
When the original Santa Maria headed to the Americas there were enough stories and rumours that there was something there, islands and peoples. Not a waterfall into the abyss or off the back of a turtle.

So it is with our voyage. Exo planet searches have found plenty of candidates for earth like planets, and those visited early on most certainly didn’t contain humanoid like species at our stage of development. Probes dropped to the surface found slithering, slimy creatures and insects. Always something that must be millions of years behind us, which raised the question as to what made us as advanced as we are. Did something happen in our past that changed the course of destiny, was it the Moon governing tides and seasons and giving us eclipses that was the impetus for our development? Was it a not-entirely-misplaced belief in a Creator, however unearthly that may be?

As Homo sapiens moved away from Mother Earth so did our telescopes. One light year away from Earth was one light year closer to somewhere else.

In due course we came across a binary star system, two dwarfs in close rotation seeming as one from a distance, with a rocky Earth sized planet at the goldilocks distance giving off the spectroscopic readings of early industrialisation.

Curiosity meant that we, our species, couldn’t help ourselves. To prove we are not alone, the budget was approved to go and have a look.
Three thousand, seven hundred and fifty one light years away is relatively close in galactic terms, but a long voyage for us.

It’s also a timeline similar to which we generally measure our history. If there was life there and they were looking at us it was the time of the Babylonians, the first writing, city states, early law and taxation. If we are detecting industrialisation they could now be three thousand years more advanced than us by the time we got there.
With no science fiction pulse weapons or ion torpedoes we were literally relying upon the element of surprise, or innocence. Go there, have a look, and report back. We carry no surface probes, no ability to land, and the brief is to look from afar, though that is loosely defined.

Like the first Voyager probes that passed planets by and sent data back, our role is the same. A machine could do this job, but humans are, well, better, What if our targets were only just space faring? Would we stop and say hello? Encourage them? Tell them where we are? What if they still lived in mud huts, or had already consumed their planet and moved on. Too many variables to consider, so here we were, slowing down, getting the first readouts from our sensors.

All of which is three thousand seven hundred and fifty something years more recent than the data we started with, four years ago.

I see you’ve noticed, yes, FTL means “faster than light” and not “instant”. We can go 996.5 times faster than light - we round up and call it one thousand times faster - so there is travel time and mass dilation and all number of complications - and it’s taken us four years of mostly induced hibernation to get here safely.

The first picture is coming through, it is not terribly clear, and so are the accompanying readouts. The crew are talking, something is not right.
I ask them, what seems to be the problem?

Look, they say, the top half of the image that’s come through seems to show the binary stars are joining together.

What does that mean I ask.

Nothing good says the science officer, if they are fusing together it probably means no life on the planet, either destroyed by radiation or, if they could, they’ve escaped to space.

As the Pastor on the ship my job is mental health. The crew is small and a long way from home. Of course there is a religious aspect, I have faith and so do all of the crew, you cannot go searching for God and be unable to recognise Him if you find him. Or be unprepared. So I give a silent prayer for the people of the planet, whatever they may have been, for their safety.

The planet, I asked. Can you see that yet?

Wait a moment, it should be on the image too.

The screen print assembled, black lines following black lines. No stars in the background, very unusual, it’s too black.

Then we see some red. We wait, the first pixels forming a shape.

‘The planet? I ask again. Is that it?
No, it should be a round dot, and blue-green. Not red.

Two flashes of red on the screen, in the darkness, not a planet in sight.

The Captain decides, quickly.

The planet has exploded. Nothing for us here. Retract sensors. Reverse course. Everyone prepare to leave the system.

I’ve not seen the Captain this certain before.

Now, he barks, we are leaving. Set course for the secondary target.
The ship starts to creak as it turns, Quickly, the Captain calls; he really does not want to be here.

I speak to him afterwards, in private. Why did we not stay, collect scientific data? We have nothing but a single image, the crew are disappointed, feel it is a wasted voyage.

Pastor, he replied, you are a man of Faith, and some courage, did you not see the picture?

I am of Faith I replied, but also of science, as it reveals the magnificence of life, the galaxy, of everything. Surely our role on this ship is to improve our knowledge, get closer to God and his creations.

That is indeed right, Pastor, get closer to God…

But that planet is not getting closer, I reply, we are going the other way.
Again, the Captain asked, did you not see the image?

I saw it, the same as you did, I said.
No, he told me, you looked at the image, but you did not see. There is a difference. Look again, what do you see?

I looked closely yet I still saw what I said I saw before, perhaps a little more. A mesh at the top, faint, perhaps signal noise I rationally explained to myself, perhaps explaining the absence of background stats. Two stars conjoined in glowing harmony, a core of yellow with orange red corona flares, likely to explode but not during our brief visit. A missing planet, red gases lit by the stars, evidence perhaps of explosive annihilation. My science brain saw nothing else.

The Captain saw my struggle, and slowly turned the image sideways.

The star on the left.

The blood red eyes on the right, peering out of the blackest of nights.

Technique: #digital
Theme:#abstract
Highlight colours: #red #black
Series: #mini-sci-fi

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