Rollback

Don looked on with interest, but Carl was talking to Emily while Angela was making sure her children were being careful with their drinks, and—

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Sarah.

"What is it?" asked Don.

"Are you sure?" Sarah said, into the mouthpiece. "Are you positive it’s not — No, no, of course you’d check. Sorry. But — my God!"

"Sarah," said Don, "what is it?"

"Hang on, Lenore," Sarah said into the phone, then she covered the mouthpiece with a trembling hand. "It’s Lenore Darby," she said, looking up at him. He gathered he should know the name, but couldn’t place it immediately — the story of his life, these days — and his face must have conveyed that. "You know," said Sarah. "She’s doing her master’s; you met her at the last astro-department Christmas party."

"Yes?"

"Well," said Sarah, sounding as though she couldn’t believe that she was uttering these words, "Lenore says a reply has been received."

"What?" said Carl, now standing on the other side of her chair.

Sarah turned to face her son, but Don knew what she meant before she spoke again; he knew precisely what she meant, and he staggered a half-pace backward, groping for the edge of a book-case for support. "A reply has been received," repeated Sarah. "The aliens from Sigma Draconis have responded to the radio message my team sent all those years ago."

Chapter 2

Most jokes get tired with repetition, but some become old friends, causing a smile whenever they come to mind. For Don Halifax, one such was a quip Conan O’Brien had made decades ago. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones had just an-nounced the birth of their baby girl. "Congratulations," O’Brien had said. "And if she’s anything like her mother, right now her future husband is in his mid-forties."

There was no such age gap between Don and Sarah. They’d both been born in 1960 and had gone through life in lockstep. They’d both been twenty-seven when they’d gotten married; thirty-two when Carl, their first child, had been born; and forty-eight when—

As Don stood, looking at Sarah, the moment came back to him, and he shook his head in amazement. It had been front-page news, back when there were front pages, all over the world. On March first, 2009, a radio message had been received from a planet orbiting the star Sigma Draconis.

The world had puzzled over the message for months, trying to make sense of what the aliens had said. And then, finally, Sarah Halifax herself had figured out what they were getting at, and it was she who had led the team composing the official reply that had been sent on the one-year anniversary of the receipt of the original signal.

The public had initially been hungry for more news, but Sigma Draconis was 18.8 light-years from Earth, meaning the reply wouldn’t reach there until 2028, and any response the Dracons might make couldn’t have gotten here until October 2047 at the earliest.

And a few TV shows and webcasts had dutifully done little pieces last fall noting that a response could be received "any day now." But none was. Not in October, not in November, not in December, not in January, not…

Not until right now.

No sooner had Sarah gotten off the phone with Lenore than it rang again. The call, as she revealed in a stage whisper while holding her hand over the mouthpiece, was from CNN. Don remembered the pandemonium the last time, when she had figured out the purpose of the first message — God, where had the decades gone?

Everyone was now standing or sitting in a semicircle, looking at Sarah. Even the children had recognized that something major was going on, although they had no idea what.

"No," Sarah was saying. "No, I have no comment. No, you can’t. It’s my anniversary today. I’m not going to let it be ruined by strangers in the house. What?

No, no. Look, I really have to go. All right, then. All right, then. Yes, yes.

Good-bye." She pushed the button that terminated the call, then looked up at Don, and lifted her frail shoulders a bit. "Sorry for all the bother," she said. "It’s—"

The phone rang again, an electronic bleeping that Don disliked at the best of times.

Carl, taking command, took the hand-set from his mother and flicked off the ringer.

"They can leave a message if they like."

Sarah frowned. "But what if somebody needs help?"

Carl spread his arms. "Your whole family is here. Who else would call for help?

Relax, Mom. Let’s enjoy the rest of the party."

Don looked around the room. Carl had been sixteen when his mother had been briefly famous, but Emily had been just ten, and hadn’t really understood what had been going on. She was staring at Sarah with astonishment on her narrow face.

Phones in the other rooms were ringing, but they were easy enough to ignore. "So," he said, "did — what was her name? Lenore? Did she say anything about the message’s content?"

Sarah shook her head. "No. Just that it was definitely from Sigma Draconis, and seems to begin, at least, with the same symbol set used last time."

Angela said, "Aren’t you dying to know what the reply says?"