Would someone from another planet require the same nutrients? Would they even recognize Terran food as nourishment? What would sustain them if they weren’t carbon-based?
She lingered by the library doors, the scent of old paper and ozone from the nearby server racks blending into the cool night air. Paul’s words circled in her mind. What would nourish something born beneath a red sun, or in methane seas, or under the crushing skies of a gas giant?
If they weren’t carbon-based—if life elsewhere drew vitality from silicon or ammonia rather than water—would the very idea of “food” even apply? Maybe nourishment was a process, not an act. Maybe they didn’t eat at all, but harmonized.
The thought made her shiver, half in wonder, half in unease. Human biology was the product of billions of years of terrestrial evolution. What, she wondered, would an alien organism find appetizing—the sugars in her blood, the oxygen in her breath, or something humans couldn’t even perceive?
Her phone buzzed.
PAUL: You still at the library?
SARAH: Just leaving. Can’t stop thinking about your alien diet theory.
PAUL: Funny you say that. Check your inbox when you get home. SETI flagged something unusual tonight.
“Unusual” in Paul’s vocabulary usually meant a new pattern in the static—a signal that almost, but not quite, whispered intent.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
By the time she reached her apartment, the sky had faded to a misty indigo. Her inbox blinked with one new message:
Subject: Re: Possible Biogenic Transmission – 22:13 UTC
Attached was a short audio file. No message body. No explanation.
She hesitated, then pressed play.
The sound was soft—not static, not speech—something between a hum and a pulse, rhythmic, layered. Beneath it, a pattern emerged. Almost like breathing.
Sarah leaned closer, staring at the waveform on her screen. She replayed the last few seconds, isolating the strange modulation that caught her attention. It wasn’t random noise—there was structure, repetition. Almost… coordinates.
She frowned and opened her analysis software, aligning the signal against SETI’s reference library. The results came back with a faint chime: No known terrestrial match.
Her pulse quickened. She typed a message to Paul.
SARAH: I filtered the audio. There’s something embedded—a pulse signature. Looks like a coordinate set.
His reply came fast.
PAUL: We saw it too. That’s the weird part. The coordinates point to lunar orbit. The far side.
Sarah blinked at the screen.
SARAH: A reflection? Satellite bounce?
PAUL: Already ruled that out. It’s… different. The Deep Sky Array picked up a faint distortion near Tycho’s shadow line. Something big enough to register, but not enough to identify. It’s like there’s something hiding behind the moon.
She opened the latest lunar telemetry logs. There—at 22:13 UTC—a brief, localized gravitational anomaly. Not strong, but too precise to dismiss.
A whisper of static crept through her speakers. The file wasn’t playing. The speakers weren’t even active. Yet that same rhythm pulsed again—softer now, almost waiting.
The timestamp matched the anomaly exactly.
Sarah’s breath caught.
Whatever the signal was—it wasn’t just broadcasting.
It was synchronizing.