“On-screen.”

“Much of the text is an instructional segment, providing clues how to penetrate the message.”

“Okay.”

“Here are the opening lines.”

GREETINGS TO OUR (unknown) ACROSS THE (unknown). THE INHABITANTS OF SIGMA 2711 SEND THIS TRANS MISSION IN THE HOPE THAT COMMUNION(?) WITH ANOTHER (unknown) WILL OCCUR. KNOW THAT WE WISH YOU (unknown). THIS IS OUR FIRST ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE BEYOND OUR REALM. WE WILL LISTEN ON THIS FREQUENCY. RESPOND IF YOU ARE ABLE. OR BLINK YOUR LIGHTS(?).

“I took the liberty of substituting the name of their star. And, of course, I did some interpolation.”

“Thank you, Tommy.”

“Considering their desire to strike up a conversation, it’s unlikely they expected their message to be received so far away. This was probably aimed at a nearby system.”

“Yeah. I expect so.”

“Jason,” said Lucy, “what do you make of the last line?”

“‘Blink your lights’?”

“Yes.”

“Metaphorical. If you can’t answer, wave.” He stared at the screen. “The frequency: I assume it’s 1662.”

“On the button.” The first hydroxyl line. It was where they’d always expected it would happen. The ideal frequency.

GINNY WAS BACK within the hour. “Looks legitimate,” she said. “As far as we can tell. We’ve got confirmations through Lowell and Packer. We also ran it through ComData. They say it’s not ours, and we can’t find a bounce.” Another broad smile. “I think you’ve got one, Jason. Congratulations.”

WORD GOT AROUND quickly. People began calling minutes after Ginny had confirmed. Has it really happened? Congratulations. What have you got? We hear you’ve been able to read some of it? These were the same people who’d passed him politely in the astronomical corridors, tolerating him, the guy whose imagination had run past his common sense, who’d wasted what might have been a promising career hunting for the LGMs that even the starships couldn’t find.

But he was well beyond starship country now.

Within a few hours Tommy had more of the text. It included a physical description of the senders. They had four limbs and stood upright, but they were leaner than humans. Their heads were insectile, with large oval eyes. Bat ears rose off the skull, and they had antennas. No sign of an olfactory system. No indication of an expression, or even if the face was capable of one. “Are the features flexible?” he asked Tommy. It was an odd question, but he couldn’t resist.

“Information not provided, Jason.”

“How big are they?”

“No way to know. We share no measurement system.”

That brought Lucy into the conversation. “You’re saying they could be an inch tall?”

“It’s possible.”

Jason propped his head on his hands and stared at the image. “Judging from the relative size of the eyes, it looks as if they live in a darker environment than we do.”

“Not necessarily,” said Tommy. “The smaller a creature is, the larger its eyes should be relative to body size. They have to be big enough to gather a minimum amount of light.”

There was more. Details of the home world: broad seas, vast vegetative entanglements, which eventually got translated as jungles.

And shining cities. They seemed to be either along coastlines or bordering rivers.

“There are large sections of the transmission I still cannot read,” said Tommy. “Some aspects of the arrangement suggest they may be sound patterns. Speeches, perhaps.”

“Or music,” said Lucy.

“It is possible.”

“Translate that,” she continued, “and you could have a hell of a concert.”

Descriptions of architecture. Jason got the impression the aliens were big on architecture.

Accounts of cropped fields, purpose unknown, possibly intended as vegetative art.

“They’re poetic,” said Lucy.

“You think? Simply because they like to design buildings and grow flowers?”

“That, too.”

“What else?”

“Mostly, that they’re putting a bottle out into the dark.”

JASON CALLED HOME to tell Teresa the news. She congratulated him and carried on about what a wonderful night it was, but the enthusiasm had a false note. She didn’t really grasp the significance of the event. She was happy because he was happy. Well, it was okay. He hadn’t married her for her brains. She was a charmer, and she tried to be a good wife, so he really couldn’t ask more than that.

Just before dawn, the transmission stopped. It was over.

By then all sorts of people had begun showing up. His own staff of off-duty watchstanders. The people who had for years not noticed that the Drake Center even existed: Barkley and Lansing from Yale, Evans from Holloway, Peterson and Chokai from Lowell, DiPietro from LaSalle. By midmorning the press had arrived, followed by a gaggle of politicians. Everybody became part of the celebration.

Jason broke out the champagne that had, metaphorically, been on ice for two and a half centuries and ordered more sent over from the Quality Liquor Store in the Plaza Mall. He held an impromptu press conference. One of the media types pinned the name Sigmas on the creatures, and that became their official designation.

After she’d gotten Prissy off to school, Teresa showed up, too, along with her cousin Alice. She was clearly delighted by the attention her husband was getting, and she sat for hours enjoying the warm glow of reflected celebrity. It was, in many ways, the happiest moment of his life.

YEARS LATER, WHEN he looked back on that day, after the Sigmas had faded into history, it wasn’t the call in the night that stood out in his memory, nor Tommy’s comment, “This one might be a genuine hit,” nor even the message itself: “Greetings to our (unknown) across the (unknown).” It wasn’t even Ginny’s confirmation. “We can’t find a bounce.” It was Prissy, when she got home from school, where she’d already heard the news. It was odd: Nine years old, and she understood what her mother had missed.

“Daddy, are you going to send a message back?” she’d asked. He was home by then, exhausted, but planning to change clothes and return to the Center.

“No,” he said. “They’re too far away, love.”

“Even to just talk to them? They sent us a message. Why can’t we send one back?”

“Do you know about the pharaohs?” he asked.

“In Egypt?” Her dark eyes clouded with puzzlement. What did pharaohs have to do with anything? She was a beautiful child. Armed with her mother’s looks. But she had his brain. She’d be a heartbreaker one day.

“Yes. Do you know how long ago that was? King Tut and all that?”

She thought about it. “A long time,” she said.

“Thousands of years.”

“Yes. Why can’t we talk to the Sigmas?”

“Because they’re not there anymore,” he said. “They’re dead a long time ago. They were dead long before there were pharaohs.”

She looked baffled. “The people who sent the message died before there were pharaohs?”

“Yes. I don’t think there’s much question about that. But they weren’t really people.”

“I don’t understand. If they died that long ago, how could they send us a message?”

“It took a long time for the message to get here.”

Her dark eyes got very round. “I think it’s sad that we can’t say hello back to them.”

“I do, too, sweetheart,” he said. He looked at her and thought how she had touched ultimate truth. “They’re starting to build very fast ships. Maybe one day you’ll be able to go look.”