Chapter 3: Translation

Composing a reply took three months, four international committees, and more arguments than Maya could count. Everyone on Earth had an opinion about what humanity's first message to another civilization should say, and no two opinions were alike. Politicians wanted to project strength. Scientists wanted to exchange data. Religious leaders wanted to ask about the nature of the universe. Maya argued successfully for simplicity. The reply, transmitted from a coordinated array of radio telescopes, said: We hear you. We are ready. Tell us about yourselves. The response took eight years and seven months to arrive, accounting for the round-trip travel time of radio waves across four light-years. Maya spent those years building better equipment and learning everything she could about the mathematical language the aliens had provided. When the reply finally came, it was enormous: a compressed data package that took weeks to fully receive and months to decode. The aliens called themselves the Vael. They were a civilization roughly two thousand years older than humanity, living on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri that they had extensively modified to support their biology. They were not humanoid. The images they sent showed beings that resembled branching coral structures, translucent and radiant with bioluminescent patterns that served as their primary form of communication. They did not speak. They glowed. The Vael had detected Earth's first radio transmissions in the nineteen thirties and had been studying humanity ever since, learning languages, observing cultures, and debating among themselves whether to make contact. The decision had taken them decades. 'They were afraid of us,' Maya told the global audience during her translation broadcast. 'Not because we might attack them, but because first contact changes both civilizations permanently, and they wanted to be certain that the change would be positive. They have done this before with other species. Some contacts went well. Some did not. They wanted to get this one right.'