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Peter Watts 34 Blindsight
"What"
"A radio signal. From the Kuiper. We traced the bearing."
"They're talking"
"Not to us." He cleared his throat. "It was something of a fluke
that we even intercepted the transmission."
"Who are they talking to"
"We don't know."
"Friendly Hostile"
"Son, we don't know. The encryption seems similar, but we can't
even be sure of that. All we have is the location."
"So you're sending a team." You're sending me. We'd never
gone to the Kuiper before. It had been decades since we'd even
sent robots. Not that we lacked the capacity. We just hadn't
bothered; everything we needed was so much closer to home. The
Interplanetary Age had stagnated at the asteroids.
But now something lurked at the furthest edge of our backyard,
calling into the void. Maybe it was talking to some other solar
system. Maybe it was talking to something closer, something en
route.
"It's not the kind of situation we can safely ignore," my father
said.
"What about probes"
"Of course. But we can't wait for them to report back. The
follow-up's been fast-tracked; updates can be sent en route."
He gave me a few extra seconds to digest that. When I still
didn't speak, he said, "You have to understand. Our only edge is
that as far as we know, Burns-Caulfield doesn't know we're on to
it. We have to get as much as we can in whatever window of
opportunity that grants us."
But Burns-Caulfield had hidden itself. Burns-Caulfield might
not welcome a forced introduction.
"What if I refuse"
The timelag seemed to say Mars.
"I know you, son. You won't."
"But if I did. If I'm the best qualified, if the job's so vital…"
He didn't have to answer. I didn't have to ask. At these kind of
stakes, mission-critical elements didn't get the luxury of choice. I