* * * * *
“Such a lonely, empty view,” Lier said to himself, staring out the observation window of the darkened bridge of the Seishinna nearly a year after the launch.
He couldn’t describe his feelings to anyone who hadn’t been in space before—the strange frustration that assaulted him like severe claustrophobia or like agoraphobia, but it wasn’t quite that, either—the frustration he felt was that everything stretched away forever and forever, and no matter how far the confining ship went, they never seemed to be going anywhere.
Why was it so disconcerting that the maps of the universe, or the infinitesimally small section of it that had been determined by Seynorynaelian scientists, had no definite direction, no reference point he could fathom? What was north and what was south? Space travel was like being on the sea, where only the positions of the stars indicated the direction and location of the ship.
What if someday Seynorynaelian scientists developed a ship that could feasibly warp to another part of the universe, or pass through a theoretical “hole” in space-time—what if then, the crew emerged into a region of space that was unrecognizable even by the surrounding stars, and could never again find their way home?
He was glad he wasn’t a part of such an expedition, but that gave him small comfort.
Suddenly, Chiyenn arrived early to his shift, carrying a cup of shiyar-inn juice; Lier realized after a moment that Chiyenn had yet to notice his presence.
"Couldn't sleep?" Lier said, surprising Chiyenn, who started and barely avoided spilling his juice.
"You're up early, Captain," Chiyenn commented, recovering his nerves. Chiyenn headed over to a seat and looked out the forward viewport where Lier was staring at the distant yellowish-white star system that was reputedly their final destination.
"I wonder where Captain Nilery is at this moment," Chiyenn said thoughtfully.
"I imagine he's almost reached the other star system by now. The Velastria was scheduled to launch only two days after us." Lier shrugged.
"Think they've reached their destination?" Chiyenn wondered.
Lier understood Chiyenn's comment, but had no answer for him.
More than fifty years ago, their planet Seynorynael had been bombarded with unusual radio waves from a nearby star system, and it had taken more than forty years to process the transmissions into something coherent. What made the processing more difficult was that interstellar interference had also distorted the radio transmissions, but not unexpectedly. Seynorynael and its sister systems were located near the active center of the Great Cluster galaxy. And, though the transmissions had finally been processed, no one had yet been able to resolve any visuals from the transmitted waves; moreover, the speech—or language—used in the transmissions was still only gibberish to the Seynorynaelian population.
Some thought the transmissions only an elaborate hoax, but the random fluctuations in the frequency had convinced many scientists that it was at least a form of artificially created communication, even if others still maintained that its origins were not absolute proof of an extraterrestrial civilization that had developed less than a light-year away.
Three years after the controversy began, Seynorynael began to receive radio wave communication from another source, another yellow-white star half a light year from their planet. Within that year, Leader Maklian's council government had begun to put together an unprecedented exploration mission to visit the two planets. At the same time, scientists on Seynorynael had begun to attempt contact with the alien worlds, sending messages using well-known mathematical constants, but after forty years of transmissions, there had not been a coherent reply.
Towards the end of the starship Seishinna's construction, there had been speculation in the scientific community as to the authenticity of the signals and whether or not the explorers would find anything at the end of their long journey. But despite the reservations of a certain faction of scientists in Ariyal-synai and Melacre, the explorer spaceships Seishinna and Velastria had been finished.
After making contact on the closer planet, Lier's orders were to follow the Velastria to the other star system, located only a quarter of a light year from the first system, before returning to Seynorynael.
But all of Lier's doubts about the “success” of the mission—whatever that word meant—had been swept away several tendays after the ship cleared the space surrounding the black hole Kai-rek just beyond Valeria's system. At long last, Chiyenn had miraculously resolved a visual communication among the weaker signals they had received.
The transmission was brief, an image of a humanoid man standing on a barren surface under a dome, speaking in the same unintelligible speech of the other transmissions. The image of the humanoid was enough to send shockwaves throughout the ship.
The man in the transmission had appeared as human as the Seynorynaelians themselves, though with strikingly different pigmentation. His hair was dark. His eyes were a clear amethyst, his skin a translucent white—this made Lier question whether or not Chiyenn had resolved the image accurately. Seynorynaelians had pale grey skin.
Since it had taken so long to prove that there was an extraterrestrial source behind the transmissions, Chiyenn wondered if Captain Nilery might also discover a sentient species living in the second star system.
"Why haven't they responded to our transmission?" Lier wondered aloud, instead of answering Chiyenn's question. The Captain was not given to pointless speculation, but he couldn't understand why their attempts at communication had failed. The transmissions had been sent to a solid audience after all, that much they now knew.
"Perhaps the transmissions from Seynorynael never made it past the black hole Kai-rek." Chiyenn suggested.
“Doubtful.”
"Or else they can't figure out what we're saying to them. And if they aren't paying much attention to our radio waves, they may not have noticed that we're even out here. We've only picked up communications from them for fifty-two years.
“You really think that?”
“Who knows?” Chiyenn shrugged. "Or perhaps their communications network isn't as advanced as we think.”
Lier nodded, digesting this. “So, you’re saying they may not be able to pick up signals from outer space, or process what they do receive?" he exhaled loudly. “Somehow I doubt that, too.”
Chiyenn just shook his head.
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.” He said.
Lier kept calm, but his mind agitated his thoughts. Because he was certain that the visual communication had originated on a moon of the inhabited planet, implying that their civilization had a highly advanced level of technology, he wasn't sure why the planet's inhabitants hadn't responded to their signals.
What kind of people turned a blind eye to the signals of an alien race?!!
Perhaps a world that already knew about the existence of other races in the galaxy...
Lier decided speculation was not going to help his state of mind.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.