Out Of The Dying Planet

December 25

Doctor Jenna Murry stared at the house down the street. At three in the morning, it was the only one that still had its lights on. Inwardly, Jenna sighed. Daniel never seemed to realize that not having kids, didn't equate to not having a life. An hour earlier he'd called, and begged her to come over. Apparently, it had to do with "matters of professional interest," whatever that meant. When she asked what on earth he'd been smoking, he laughed and said, "Nothing on Earth. I'll tell you when you get here."

Jenna strode forward and rang the doorbell, but before she had lifted her finger the door swung open. There stood her friend, Doctor Daniel Khalidi, dressed in his pajamas, eyes bloodshot like he hadn't slept in days, and a smell that proved he hadn't showered in equally as long. In his right hand was a shot of whiskey, and in his left a crumpled-up wad of papers with his hastily scratched writing on them. "Come in, come in," he said. "Let's get you out of the cold, and down to my office where we can talk."

Jenna stepped inside, then held up a hand. "Hold on. I'm not going anywhere till you explain why you woke me at two in the morning to come over here and "work." Daniel, it's my first Christmas since Julia and I tied the knot. Not to mention, we don't even work together. I'm a linguistic anthropologist. You're an Astrophysicist. Why the hell do you need an anthropologist?"

Not noticing Jenna's growing irritation in the least he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the couch, before explaining, "Thirteen years ago, when you were still in college, NASA intercepted a message."

Jenna narrowed her eyes. "What kind of message?"

"It was sent over radio frequencies, in an algorithmic language, using a base 5 system. As far as who it came from, we didn't know, at the time. But it wasn't from here . . . the signal was from the Andromeda galaxy."

Jenna put her hands on her hips and sighed with exasperation. "So, you're telling me that NASA got a voice mail from Yoda?"

Ignoring the sarcastic comment, Daniel continued, "I was assigned to the project of decoding it, but after three years the agency gave up, and the project was scrapped. It was thought to be a waste of time."

"But you couldn't let it go?"

"Yep," Daniel replied. "And thirteen years later, I've finally cracked the code. This morning, I completed transcribing the message into English. Well at least, some of it. There are large portions missing. The signal we received was partially corrupted. That's why I need you. A language specialist. An expert in restorative linguistics, to help me fill in the gaps."

"Daniel, do you realize how crazy you sound? If you were anybody else, I'd tell you to see a shrink. But I know you're not crazy. Seriously though, it's Three AM on Christmas. Couldn't this have waited?"

"Well maybe, but . . ."

"Never mind. I'm here now. Get me a cup of coffee and your notes. You have me until six. After that I'm leaving to be with my wife. And while I look at this, you can take a shower."

July 31st, 19 months later

Daniel sat on the couch, waiting expectantly as Jenna transcribed the last words of the message. Today would be the final day of their project. Julia had been away working a police corruption case all this month, and Jenna didn't really have much else to do, so she and Daniel, were sitting in her apartment, putting the finishing touches on their translation. It had been nineteen months since they began their project, and since then, they had spent a couple days together each week working on it. Originally Daniel had planned to celebrate with her when they finished, but as the project continued that began to seem inappropriate. This was not something to celebrate.

Daniel had originally thought it was similar to the welcome messages that NASA had itself sent out in the past. After all it included some basic similarities. It described the location of the planet which sent it, and it gave a certain amount of information about their culture. Daniel's guess had seemed plausible at first. But as Jenna worked through the algorithmic code, filling in the gaps, using her expertise as a philologist, a horrifyingly different picture began to emerge. It described death, destruction, and fear. It read less like a welcome message, and more like an obituary. These were the last words of a dying planet. This wasn't a welcome message. It was a desperate cry for help. And most disturbingly, was the underlying sense of guilt. It was as if they were accepting blame for their own destruction.

The longer they worked, the more invested Jenna became in the project; but not because she was the first anthropologist to study an alien culture, or because she enjoyed it. The simple fact was, she felt a little responsible for this tiny planet, so earthlike in some ways, but so alien in others. They deserved to be remembered. As it was they had been forgotten for so long already.

The message was actually three separate messages, most likely sent decades, or even centuries apart. Nevertheless, these messages were related. The first and last were quite short, but the middle one was longer: around seven pages, and included a small amount of information about this planet, and its history. In addition to this they had managed to piece together more information. Firstly, the distance from Andromeda to Earth meant this message was a minimum of 80,000 years old. The fact that they had sent a message over radio waves proved that they had technology at least equal to modern Earth's. The fact that Daniel had mathematically decoded the message all but proved they had achieved a level of technology and scientific knowledge no more advanced than our own, or at the very most, within our reach. Most likely they had mastered space travel, but not at an interstellar level. They were trapped on their dying planet, helpless except to wait for the end. A variety of other details came to light through the message itself. Most likely they had destroyed themselves, through a combination of ecological collapse and a vicious war over the few remaining resources, culminating in some sort of cataclysmic epidemic. In fact, the longer she worked, the more agonizing it became rediscovering the horrific end of this civilization, that she didn't know and could never touch. And the more terrifyingly similar it seemed to Earth's current situation. Jenna couldn't help but feel these people were so very like humans, despite being from another time and galaxy.

Finally, Jenna made a few more pen strokes and then spoke. "Daniel, that's it. I've finished."

"What does it say?"

"It's the same as the first message," she answered. Almost word for word. But with one difference. I think this last fragment was sent later, most likely around 100 years later, as if they realized they probably weren't going to be rescued. While it repeats the plea for help, it adds something else; it asks whoever hears this message—that would be you and me—to remember them, and not let our planet share their fate."

Then Jenna handed the paper to Daniel, and he read aloud "We are the people of . . . we destroyed our planet, because we thought it was ours. We destroyed ourselves because we thought we would endure forever. We refused to learn, and claimed what we didn't own. We are dying. We are located in the . . . tip of the Andromeda galaxy, by the . . . star . . . on the watery planet. If anybody's listening, if anybody's out there . . . if you have the capacity, rescue us from our planet. Take us somewhere new, where we can start again. If you are hearing us, but do not have the capacity to save us, then we, the people of planet . . . plead with you. Learn from our mistakes. Do not let our destruction be in vain. Save yourselves. Save your home before it's too late."

"I hope with all my heart they were rescued, Daniel. But either way, I feel a little responsible for them, preserving their memory and all. I don't know about you, but I'll do my best to honor their request. I'm not going to let Earth share their fate . . ."