This is a NON TG element Science Fiction Fantasy. More about the signal is found, Linaria and friends work together to get to the answer and plans are in work for a special visit. Please comment on characters and flow.
 

And Now...
 
Amaria
Chapter Three
By D. L. Darrow (Sara D.)

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Chapter 3 The Hidden Truth
 
Sural, Lin and Ardin got off of the shuttle and walked into the inner corridor of Manara Space Station. “Wow, now that was an exciting ride, thank you both.” Sural exclaimed.

“I am glad you liked the trip my good friend.” Kuval said as he walked up to Sural and gave him a friendly hug and pat on the back. “Welcome to Manara.” He said as they broke the friendly embrace and the two friends smiled at each other and began reminiscing about old times as they walked towards the dining hall. Lin and Ardin could not help themselves smile as the two were talking back and forth about years past and wondered if they too would be doing the same thing when they were older. Kuval explained the functions of the work spaces as they passed them along the way.

“Here’s the dining hall; I took the liberty of assembling all of the station staff here so we can all join in the brief.” All of the staff of the station had gathered in the dining hall and were in groups chatting as Kuval lead Sural and Lin to the head of the table were there were three chairs set up. “Hello everyone, please take your seats, Sural you take the seat on the right, Lin the one in the middle and I’ll take the last one.” Sural, Lin and Kuval took their seats along with the rest of the staff. “I am sure most of you know the commissioner of ASI Sural here. He is here because of our discovery and is here to help facilitate informing the chancellor and the rest of Amaria. He is also here to make sure we have enough resources allocated to make all of this happen.” Kuval explained to the staff of Manara space station.

Sural stood and greeted everyone. “Thank you for the welcome Kuval, as you said I am here to assist you in getting all of you what you need. Keep in mind that this will become a topic of high visibility once it’s announced. Be sure and warn your families of impending contact with news media that will surely want to know more about each of you. I am having the head of the journalism department come up to the station with two news crews in five days in order to record for Amaria your discoveries. Lin you will be our star and the leader of the team.” Sural instructed eloquently to the group then smiled at Lin and indicated for her to address the group on the plan they had discussed on the way to the station.

Sural had talked Lin into accepting the lead roll and the additional task of being the face of Manara for the news crews. “Thank you Sural for this opportunity to present to the world our discovery. I know all of you have already put long hours and have worked hard to accomplish our goal of translating the audio portion of the first signal. Our plan now is to dedicate most of our efforts in decoding the video portion of the second signal. We have over four hours to work with and I am sure there is probably more. I made the suggestion of having the space probe Shamist that is almost ready for launch reprogrammed and sent in the direction of the signal. If it works as I think it will we can use it as a booster and get more and better quality signal as its distance to the original source becomes less. I am sure all of you are surprised with this as the Shamist was to be utilized for other scientific research, but I think having this capability will greatly assist us in our endeavors. Two of you will continue to work on the audio signal. I would like you Niara and Athia to focus on that aspect. I know you have a great task ahead of yourselves and if you need assistance don’t hesitate to ask. Once we are done eating I will lay out everyone else’s tasks at a meeting in Kuval’s office in one hour.” Lin explained her and Sural’s plan and she then sat back down taking a deep breath. She was wondering if everyone would accept her as the leader of the team.

“As you all know Linaria was my choice for junior apprentice on Manara and has my full confidence in team leader for this, Linaria will you please stand up?” Lin stood back up with a confused look on her face. “Everyone please rise for an announcement.” Kuval paused for a second smiled at Lin and then made his declaration. “Linaria in recognition of your continued excellence and steadfast devotion to your duties Junior Apprentice I hereby give you the distinct honor and position as a full staff member and title of sis associate scientist for Manara Space Station and the Amaria Space Institute and now have the full rights and privileges of such an appointment. You have my congratulations.” Kuval handed Lin a certificate indicating her selection, and at the same time Emil came out of the kitchen with a cake with congratulations Linaria on it and as he placed it on the table in front of her everyone at the table stood and clapped fiercely in congratulations and each of them came up to her and shook her hand, all except Anali who gave her a great big hug. As she stood in disbelief and an incredible smile and red flushed face. "By the way this was their idea.” Kuval indicating everyone seated at the table. “Everyone insisted on it, I am sure they must have been thinking the same thing because each of them came to me within minutes of each other and my office was soon overflowing with your friends.”

Lin could not believe what has just happened, she could not be happier that at this moment, and could no longer hold back here tears. “I don’t know if I truly deserver such an honor I’ve only been here three weeks, thank you everyone, you are all great friends and coworkers I accept this appointment with happiness and humility.”

“We all love you Lin, you are most welcome.” Anali said holding back her own tears for her friend.

Another round of congratulations started as everyone come up to Lin and shook her hand or gave her a friendly hug. After everyone had made their way to Lin and took their seats Sural was the last to congratulate her and handed Lin a patch for her uniforms jumper that read ‘Linaria, Associate Scientist at the top and at the bottom Manara Space Station, ASI. “Congratulations Lin, you deserved this appointment. Kuval called me last night after you and Ardin left for Amaria. You almost caught me with the certificate when you got to my office earlier.”

“I can’t thank you enough for this; I will proudly serve ASI and all of you to the best of my abilities.” Lin said with modesty. Shorty after everyone finished their cake and final congratulations as the left only Sural, Kuval, Lin and Emil remained in the dining hall. “Thank you for a wonderful night Kuval.” Lin thanked them.

“You are most welcome my dear.” Sural said with a smile. “Now I think all of us should get back to work and prepare for our next meeting shall we?”

“Yes of course, Lin would you gather your research and notes then come to my office when you’re ready. You have about 20 minutes as the celebration when a little longer than I had planned, you are going to have to make up for lost time little lady.” Kuval snickered to Lin as all three of them walked out of the dining hall, leaving Emil to clear the mess.

“See you all later at dinner, nice job Lin.” Emil yelled towards them as the disappeared down the corridor.

Lin arrived at her desk with Sural following behind her, Kuval continued to his office handing Anali a folder as he past her desk. Lin offered Sural a seat next to her desk and then sat herself she then logged onto her computer and grabbed her research folder and jotted down a few notes as she waited for her computer to log in. Lin then opened up the live feed of the signal and began recording more so she would have more data to work with for the decoding portion of the project. Sural was sitting intently watching everything she was doing for several minutes.

“You have quite a knack for this. It took me years to master this type of system.” Sural said to her with little envy.

“I had help, Ardin is a wonderful instructor and well I kind of picked it up pretty quickly.” She boasted but not on purpose. Sural could understand that she was trying to justify to herself her new position.

“You’re doing fine Lin, just keep up the good work, and of course we will all help.” Sural reassured her.

“Thanks, well here is the latest recording from quadrant seven.” Lin pointed at her computer screen. “It defiantly has more data than expected compared to the first one. I am going to run a few algorithms on it and see if we can get a look at what seems to be an image. It will take several hours to run, hopefully we will have something by the time are meeting is over.” Lin then pressed for the program to run then picked up her folders and indicated to Sural Kuval’s office and got up and led the way. Lin smiled at Anali as the passed and went into Kuval’s office. Sural took a seat in the back row of chairs; Lin took a position to the left of the screen at a podium Kuval had set up for this occasion. Members of the team began falling in and taking seats as Lin was making final preparations for her presentation. Once everyone was seated she began by turning on the screen with the remote that Kuval had conveniently placed on the podium. Everyone was sitting in silence while Lin went over everyone’s responsibilities. “Celine, you Danie, Fianne and Pardja will work with me on the video portion of the signal, Timit and Rindan I need you guys to get distance and location figured out, Quint you’ll be helping them out with calculations, otherwise you can help Celine and the rest. I think we should meet every day to discuss any issues that may arise, and I think that we can best accomplish this during evening meal. This will give Niara and Athia a chance also to give us feedback on theirs as well.” Lin explained the project ahead of them. “Are there any questions at this point?”

“I have one.” Ardin spoke up wondering why he had been excluded in the teams. “What is my job going to be?”

“Oh yah, you, um well, I guess you can help out Emil and Amil in the kitchen.” She told him laughing.

“You are bad, you know that don’t you.” Ardin told her smiling at her joke.

“No I didn’t forget about you, you are going to have the toughest job of all. I want you to handle the arduous task of getting together three linguists and see if we can translate the language if at all.” Lin told him, the look of shear fear appeared on his face, he had realized the difficulty of not only the possibility of translating the unknown language but finding three linguists to bring to the station would be demanding.

“Thanks, I think. Sural do you have any recommendations as to who I could recruit for this insane task?” Ardin asked the commissioner of Jualdia.

“I might know a few; I’ll get back with you at dinner tonight. I will make a call and have some names for you to decide from by then.”

“Thank you, I will do my best.” Ardin then sat quietly as Lin finished her presentation.

“Now that you all know your tasks I ask that you all look at the extracted recording I will be sending you later today. I have the computer running an algorithm on the signal to see if we can get an image or an idea of what we are dealing with. That’s all for now, see you all at dinner.” Lin excused them and everyone but Ardin and Kuval remained.

“I hate you, you know that don’t you.” Ardin told Lin playfully. “Just kidding, I will have my choices to you by the morning.” He then turned to Kuval and excused himself. “See you at dinner.” Then smiled at Lin. “You too, BOSS!” He turned towards the door to leave and get back to work when He stopped and turned back to Lin. “Wait a second; I just had an interesting thought what if instead of three linguist I get two and on anthropologist as well, if we do in fact get a look at an actual picture we may want an anthropologist to give us an opinion on what we are looking at.” Ardin said with a smile as if he had an epiphany.

“That is a wonderful idea Ardin, Sural what do you think about it?” Lin asked.

“I agree an anthropologist will make a great addition. I will add a few of those names to the list as well. Kuval, how will these additions affect space available on the station?” Ardin then walked out as Sural asked about station capacity he wanted to make sure the station could handle the additional personnel.

“With adding those three to the 19 we have now we will have 22 bodies that will leave space for two more for a total of 24. So if you are thinking of brining some journalists aboard keep that in mind.” Kuval explained to him. “And we have enough supplies, food and water for another week with our current inventory.”

“Ok, that’s good news, I will defiantly be considering media presence in the future, but for now I want all of us to focus on the task at hand in the mean time. I will consult with the entire team before progressing that far. I don’t want that type of attention interfering with progress.” Sural assured them of his not wanting this to go public too quickly.

“Well that’s it for now, if there is nothing else I will get back to work.” Lin asked.

“No that’s it as far as I can tell; you did a nice job Lin.” Kuval told her.

“Thank you Kuval.” Lin smiled at Kuval as she left his office and returned to her desk. Sural remained in the office to get some names for Ardin.

Lin sat at her desk and brought up the extracted data that the program that she had been running to see how much had been completed so far. The status bar showed about twenty percent done thus far. Lin audibly sighed as this would take a lot of time to finish the rest. She then sent the data to Celine and walked out of the center office down to Celine’s cubical. As she entered the mainframe area she walked up to Celine and greeted her with a frown. “Hi Celine, I sent you the data that my algorithm extracted and it’s only twenty percent done. It’s going to probably take until tomorrow afternoon to finish the entire file.” Lin explained to her a little disappointed that they did not have more to work with.

“It’s fine what you sent Lin, this task is new and I know you’re doing your best. Don’t fret this is more than I expected in this short of time. You should be happy we have anything to start with, this small of a file will give us a chance to calibrate our machines and make it a bit easier to do that.” Celine told her squashing Lin’s fears.

“Thanks Celine, I guess we should get started.” Lin said humbly, Celine, Diane and Fianne worked on the signal for the rest of the evening, as a group they all worked as a team and came together and found the signal defiantly had off set carriers and that is far but that is as far as they had gotten. After closing out the work stations they had been using and go to dinner. “I think we should call it a night and get back at it in the morning it’s about five minutes until diner anyways.” Lin told them as she yawned and got up. The four of them walked slowly to the dining hall and took seats at the almost full tables. The four girls were the last to show and Lin grabbed the glass of water that was on the table and drank it whole. Diner appeared quickly as Emil and Amil placed the food on the tables, each smiling at everyone as they progressed down the tables.

“You look a bit tired Lin.” Emil said with a slight smile trying to brighten her up.

“Yah I am tired as are all of us I am sure, thanks for the smile Emil I feel better now.” Lin smiled back at Emil thankful for his sweet attitude. Lin then informed everyone of their progress so far and let everyone else update the team on their progress as well. So far the find of the offset carrier was the only progress so far. “I know all of you have put in a hard day, we should all get a good night’s rest and start fresh in the morning.” Everyone agreed and finished eating. As they all started leaving for the night Sural stopped Ardin just before he got up to leave.

“Ardin I have a list of names for you to consider here.” Sural explained as he handed him a folder with names in it. “Just don’t reveal the purpose to any of them until you have made your choice and then explain it to them once they agree and arrive on the station.”

“Ok I will get on it right away, thanks for getting this to me early; the extra time will be nice.” Ardin thanked Sural then walked out of the dining hall. “Hey Lin, thanks again for this opportunity to select these team members. I gave it more thought today and realized this is an important decision.”

“You’re welcome Ardin. Have a good night.” Lin was pleased that Ardin took to this task easier than earlier. She then walked out of the corridor towards her room.

“Good night Lin.” Ardin said to her as they separated in the hall.

As Lin walked into the room she saw that Anali had already changed for bed. “What a day, I thought It would never end. If you don’t mind I want to call my mom and give her the good news about my appointment.” Lin asked her friend.

“Of course I don’t mind, I finally get to meet her if I can.” Anali asked excited for Lin and wanted to meat Verana.

“Sure you can talk to her with me, you’re my best friend.” Lin said as she gave Anali a hug then they walked over to the communications screen on the wall. Lin placed the call and Verana Lin’s mother answered.

“Hello Lin, it’s nice to hear from you.” Verana said with a big smile, pleased to see her daughter again after a long week.

“Hi mom, this standing next to me is Anali.” Lin pointed to Anali and embracing her arm.

“Hi Verana, it’s nice to finally meat you.”

“Same her Anali, you are a lovely young woman, in fact Lin has told me all about you.”

“She’s done the same with you. How is your flower garden coming?” Anali asked because Lin had told her that her flower garden had been trampled by some rodents.

“It’s going fine, thank you. Lin so how are you doing?” Verana was anxious to here this week’s events.

“Things are wonderful, especially today mom. I have wonderful news.” Lin told her mom hardly able to contain her excitement.

Lin’s mom’s expression changed instantly, she knew that look was genuine exhilaration in her daughters face. “What the great news honey?”

“You’re not going to believe this but I have been officially appointed to the position as an associate scientist and a full staff member here at Manara.” Lin paused so that could sink in.

“Oh my Lin, that is wonderful, I am so proud of you. How did this come about?” Verana asked with joy for her daughter.

“It just sort of happened mom, it was a group effort. Everyone got together and told Kuval how good I was performing and he decided to give me a full time position. I can’t tell you how happy I am mom. It is simply magnificent to be offered such a spot.” She told her mom not able to hold back the tears of happiness that were welling up.

“Oh now you’ve got me started, now I am crying too.” Anali whipped tears off of her cheek and looked at the screen an saw that Lin’s mom was doing the same and then gave Lin a great big hug. “This hug is for you Verana since you can’t be here in person I’m doing it for both of us.”

“Thank you Anali, you are a true friend to Lin, and I consider you now family.” Verana exclaimed to Anali with affection, Thinking of her as family and becoming so close to Lin.

“That’s wonderful Verana, thank you; your daughter has been like a sister to me. I could not be happier.” Lin then gave Anali a big hug.

“Well Lin you have done well, you keep it up and don’t forget to call me.” Lin’s mom said with a smile.

“I won’t mom, it’s getting late and we have lots to do tomorrow and need to get to bed now. I love you mom, good night.” Lin told her mom as she smiled back.

“I love you to honey, sleep well Anali you too Lin.” Verana said not forgetting to include Lin’s new friend. “Bye.”

“Bye mom.”

“Good night Verana.” Anali said and reached up and pressed the disconnect button on the com panel. “Your mom is a wonderful woman Lin; I wish mine were still around.” She told Lin a little sad.

“I’m sorry Anali, I did not know.” Lin then hugged her friend. “You are part of my family now.”

“Thank you Lin.” Anali hugged her tighter and then felt tired. “We should get to bed now.”

“Your right, I am tired.” Lin and Anali broke the hug then changed for bed, once they booth laid down they fell fast asleep.

Lin had gotten an early start the next morning with Celine and her crew trying to get the visual convert and get a look at it. Things were progressing slowly for several hours and everyone was getting frustrated about not being able to come up with a translation matrix for the video.

Timit walked in with some good news and everyone was happy for the interruption. “I have some great news, Rindan and I with the help of Pardja have located the source and distance of the signals.”

“That’s great Timit.” Lin answered him with glee then asked. “Is it possible for to show us were it is on our star map?”

“Yes it’s possible, Celine if I can borrow a terminal I will show all of you now?” Timit explained as he Celine offered him her chair and computer terminal. He then brought up a map of their home galaxy, it had arrows pointing to discoveries that the station had made. All of which except one were within close proximity to the Amarian solar system. A single blinking red arrow was pointing to a far off location half way across the swirling spear shaped galaxy in a region of space known for great amount of stars. “As you can see by the long range image of the area we now know that the signal originated in this general area. It’s about 70 solar years away from us. If the Shamist is launched on time next week we should be able to get a better view of the area and see if we can detect a solar system by the end of the month.” Timit explained to Lin, Celine and the rest.

“That’s great news Timit; at least we know that the signal did not come from one of our other space probes or satellites for sure now.” Lin said to everyone relieved and glad for the confirmation of what they already suspected.

“How is it going for you so far?” Timit asked the group.

“We are having trouble converting the video, the encoding is far different from what we use and we are trying to decode it into a file type that will display on our system for us.” Lin explained the difficulties her and Celine were having, then Timit made a suggestion.

“I know you had Pardja working with Rindan and myself, but now that part is complete maybe fresh set of eyes will reveal what you are looking for.”

That’s a good idea; we need a break from staring at these computers for so long. Why don’t you let him know we would like his help?” Lin asked Timit and nodded her thanks.

“Sure, I will be right back.” Timit then walked out to get Pardja.

Lin, Celine and the rest then stood up to stretch and took a break while waiting for Pardja. It took just a few minutes for him to arrive. “Thank you for coming Pardja.” Lin explained to him the troubles they were having.

“I will gladly help ladies; this is one of my specialties. I took a secondary course in graphics media and video editing and transmissions. Maybe this will help.”

“I certainly hope so; we are at a loss for answers right now.” Celine told him with a frown.

“It’s nothing to fret about Celine; I had similar problems earlier this year with a project.”

“He’s right Celine, that’s why we are a team and work so well together, we all fill in where and when needed.” Lin then patted Celine on the shoulder for support.

“Ok, I’ll get started then.” Pardja took a look at what the girls already had done to this point and began writing his own decoding protocol. The girls sat wide eyed as Pardja’s fingers glided over the key board effortlessly and in a short time an image appeared on the screen and then a silence fell over the room followed by a load gasp by everyone. On the screen was a figure of a person not unlike the Amarian’s, there were differences of course, but the grainy picture made a full identification difficult. But at least they could see a partial image at last.

Lin then stood up and walked over to the communications panel and made and announcement and everyone in the room understood the reason. She pressed the general announcement button the spoke. “Attention all staff, this is Lin, please report to computer center immediately, we have found something amazing and you all have got to see this.” Lin emphasized the announcement and waited for everyone to show. “Pardja will you close that image for now, I want to see everyone’s reaction at the same time.

In a short time the rest of the station staff piled into the computer center were the mainframe was located. Whispering and chattering grew loader as the room filled up as they were wondering why they were summoned.

“Ok everyone gather round and pay attention to the middle screen as I pull up what we have found.” Pardja said with a big grin as he pulled up the image on the center screen. All those that had just gathered gasped as once again the screen was filled with the blurry image of a figure with a head and arms. Soon the room erupted in muttering conversation as they were talking about the image displayed. “So what do you think of Lin’s discovery now Kuval.”

“I….uh…um….I am at a loss for words, this is just astonishing, wow.” Kuval had trouble with getting his words started as he was extremely excited about what they were seeing. “Lin this is astounding, Pardja you did a nice job on that, is there a possibility of cleaning up the image?” Kuval finally asked.

“Yes sir, I will just have to tweak the program a bit and should be able to have more by the tomorrow evening. This is just one frame from the whole recording I would like to see more as I am sure all of you do as well.” Pardja explained.

“Oh yes of course we will want to see the whole recording, we are just excited about just seeing this little bit, it sure gives us a lot to talk about.” Kuval finally said and after a deep breath then looked over at Ardin. “How is your selection going Ardin, we will need those quickly now, now that we have an image and part of the first audio to work with.”

“Funny you should ask sir, I was on my way to tell you of my selections when the call came over to meet here.”

“That’s great, who did you choose?” Kuval said anxious to hear about Ardin selections.

“For the anthropologist I chose Dr. Surmat, he came highly recommended by his colleagues, and for the linguists it’s Dr. Gilia and Dr. Lumar.” Ardin let everyone know of his choices.

“That’s great timing, I know of Dr. Surmat well, Gilia and Lumar I have heard of. Their reputations are well known, nice choices Ardin, have you spoken to them?”

“Yes, they are only aware that they are needed for consultation on a secret project for ASI, and I told them to prepare to be away for a week or more. I will meet them at ground control this evening and brief them of the actual task on the way here.”

“That a great plan Ardin, you have my approval to leave at once.” Kuval said.

“I will go also, I need to be on the ground to help coordinated anything you might need, and that will free up space for other’s as you might need.” Sural told Kuval.

“Ok sir you two have a safe trip.” Kuval said to them both. “See you tomorrow afternoon Ardin.” Kuval said turning toward Ardin.

Ardin and Sural left and headed for the Jindan.

Lin stood and asked for further help. “I know it’s getting close to lunch but I would like everyone’s help in the continued decoding and translation of these images. Say let’s get back here in one hour, which gives us time for lunch.” Everyone agreed then they set off to lunch. Emil had a spread laid out on the tables as the team entered the dining hall. “I hope you all like the food Amil and I laid out for you, I know you all have been working hard, enjoy.” Emil told them with a bright smile.

Everyone sat and loaded their plates and then enjoyed the lunch. “Thanks Emil, this is great we needed that good food to keep us going, nice job.” Lin said thanking him and the rest agreed by nodding their heads as their mouths were full of food. The staff finished and then departed the dining hall for the computer center, all thanking Emil and Amil for the lunch as they did and were quickly at work again.

The team refreshed their ideas before getting back at it then Lin had an idea that she had just vaguely remembered something from her mathematics courses. “I have it, what if the originator of this signal uses math based on ten instead of eight.” Lin enquired the group then continued. “Wouldn’t that make more sense at the data we have been looking at?”

“Your right Lin this could be the key to all of our problems.” Pardja said with a sigh of relief, he was sure he would have taken a week to think of that. “I will tweak the program and run it on the frame from before and see what we get. Lin can you help me with the math on the conversion please?”

“Of course, just tell me the line you need it in and I’ll insert the equation into the code.”

“Line 1097 if you please?” Pardja instructed her. “Thank you for the help.”

“No, thank you Pardja this just proves that our team works together and we’ve accomplished a goal.” Lin thanked him for his efforts as well. Pardja took about an hour to rewrite the code and had Lin insert her equation into the code, once that was completed he made a back up copy and then looked over at Lin and Celine who were sitting next to him. “Are you ready?” He asked as he indicated the run command on his terminal that was highlighted on the screen.

“Yes.” Both girls answered Pardja simultaneously, then Celine turned around too Dania, Fianne and asked them. “You two ready to assist with extra data storage and memory requirements?”

“We’re standing by Celine.” Fianne answered for both of them, and had allocated more space to the new program.

“Thank you, you have a go Pardja.” Lin said after giving a nod to the two girls on the other side of the computer center.

Pardja than selected run and the system began to hum and the team began to wait for what was to come in the next few hours. They took this time to contact Niara and Athia and inform them of the new program and that they should use it for their efforts as well. Niara was the one who had answered the comm.

“Thanks for the information; we’ve been struggling for hours. We will try that on our next run.” She thanked Pardja for the copy of the program he sent her and got back to work.

The team in the computer center was waiting patiently at the terminal for the program to run. Pardja brought up the progress bar and it indicated 30 percent done after about 45 minutes. He looked over at his companion team and asked if anything else could be done. “What else can we do while we wait?”

“Not much, all of this area’s computer power is dedicated to the task.” Fianne Answered and no sooner than completing that sentence the com buzzer had suppressed all the other sounds in the room. Lin got up and pressed the com button to answer the call.

“This is Lin speaking.”

“Kuval here, I have great news Lin, the Shamist launched just over an hour ago and will be in place in two months.” Kuval told her with pleasure.

“Oh, that is great news and a week ahead of time.” Lin then thanked him. “Thanks for the update.”

“You’re welcome, ASI thought it would be a great head start, and we will be linked to it once it comes online and have full access to all its systems at that time, how’s your progress so far.”

“Slow sir, we have the entire system here occupied with decoding the images with a new program. It has promise so much so we sent a copy to Niara and Athia.”

“Ok good; keep in touch see you all at diner, bye.” Kuval finished then the com went silent.

Lin sat back down at the terminal she had called her desk for the last few days. She had not been to her own real desk since starting the work in the computer center. Oh well she thought to herself. Pardja brought up the progress bar from time to time, it was agonizingly slow. The team past the time by filing paperwork and walking around each of the servers making sure they got any needed attention. The day moved slowly until it was time for diner. The progress bar showed 33 percent done and would take well into the next morning to finish the entire recording. Pardja realized this and brought this up to the others. “The status bar is at 33 percent and is going to take until at least until tomorrow. I think it would be a good idea to leave it as is and adjourn until tomorrow.”

“That probably good idea, we have no need to sit here and stare at these screens while we wait.” Lin motioned with her hand towards the monitors in front of them. They then all secured their terminals and left for the dining hall were everyone had gathered and discussed the day’s events.

Lin was in her room shortly after and was sitting on her bed massaging her neck muscles as they were tight. She then dressed for bed and fell asleep in little time and slept well that night and woke up early again. She then grabbed a light breakfast stopped by her own desk to see if she needed anything from it and proceeded to the computer center to work. As she arrived Celine and Pardja were close behind, they all sat at their respective terminals and unsecured them. Pardja quickly brought up the results of the program that was running the night prior. To everyone’s delight the status bar indicated complete and ready to view. The teams attention was focused on the center monitor as Pardja linked the video to it. A video of what could only be of that of a person appeared on the screen. It was of an alien possibly male with dark hair with a tan shirt and tie on. In the background was what looked like a graphical map of a land mass with smaller graphics of what looked like clouds and water particles under them and text of some sort that no one could even begin to decipher. The man seemed to be talking and pointing at the map and gesturing across it, as the video played the scene changed to five graphics of what appeared to be a star with clouds in front of the first and second, then just the star on the rest with the same type of text underneath. The team was perplexed at what they were looking at. The scene changed again to that of another male with grey hair and a black jacket on. Pardja then pressed pause to stop the video at this point to reflect on what they had just seen. “I think we should stop at this point to ask everyone to the big screen in Kuval’s office and get everyone opinion on this.”

Lin could not agree more. “That’s a great plan Pardja; I’ll give Kuval a heads up and make an announcement to be in his office in ten minutes.” Lin then got up and informed Kuval and made the announcement. Ten minutes later all the station staff has gathered in Kuval’s office. Lin was the first to speak and answer the multitude of questions flying around the room. “I have asked you all here because my team and I have finally found a program that would decode and display the video of the signal.” Lin nodded at Kuval and the screen on his office wall came alive and played for everyone it stopped at the same point as before and Lin gave her opinion. “It looks as if this male person is describing the map behind him and indicating the text displayed in various regions of the map. Also as you saw the scene changed to a display of solar graphics with clouds and text under the five depictions. Pardja and I discussed this on the way here and have concluded that this person is discussing this planets weather patterns. What we are unsure of is weather this is a prediction of coming events or past tense. We are pretty sure it’s a prediction and is an information type of announcement, much like our daily weather announcements on Amaria. Then the scene moved to that of a second announcer which is where we stopped the recording and came to show everyone what we have found. Any questions so far?” Lin asked as she took a moment to breathe.

“Can we see the rest of the recording Lin?” Ardin asked as he walked in with three new team members with wide eyes and jaw’s on the floor.

“Your back, that’s great.” She then looked over at the three new people standing in the door way of Kuval’s office. “Welcome to our team.” She then walked over to the first and introduced herself. “Hi I’m Linaria, but you can call me Lin, I’m the team leader of this project.” She said to the balding anthropologist with thick glassed on his face. He shook her outstretched in thanks.

“I’m Dr. Surmat; I would like to thank you for choosing me for such an important project. I was sure this was a joke until Ardin assured us on our trip here.” Surmat said then let go of Lin’s hand. She scooted over to the next new victim and offered a hand to her.

“Welcome to Manara Space Station.”

“Thank you; I’m Dr. Gilia, one of the linguists.” Gilia a short round woman said with a smile shaking Lin’s hand gracefully. Lin scooted down one more time to the last new victim.

“Glad to have you part of our team.” Lin said gratuitously to the last.

“Thanks, I’m Dr. Lumar; I can’t tell you how much this assignment means to me. Thank you all for the opportunity to serve ASI.” Lumar nodded at all that were gathered. “This is quite a welcome, to see such a thing is extraordinary.” Lumar indicated to the paused video on the screen. Lin then stepped back and nudged Kuval to say something.

“Yes welcome all of you to the Amarian Space Institute’s Space Station Manara.” Kuval said to them all then began to introduce the rest of the team, and brought Ardin and the new staff members up to dated as of their progress. It took about an hour then Kuval asked for everyone’s attention. “Now that all the pleasantries are done and you have all been briefed of our progress, with no future ado, here’s the video from the start.” Kuval pressed start on the remote and the video played again from the beginning. As the video past the point where everyone had seen it before the announcer was indicating an inset video above his head. Everyone sat in silence as they were taking in what was showing before them. Kuval pressed a button to pause the video when the inset screen stopped and addressed the group. “Any thoughts about what we just saw?” Kuval asked the group.

“It looks as if the announcer is describing some sort of structural fire that was showing in the inset video to the viewers watching.” Dr. Lumar gave his opinion. “This must be like our evening news programs back on Amaria.”

“I agree, he’s obviously informing the viewers of what is going on and with the other announcer giving weather forecasts would make a lot of sense.” Lin gave her point of view.

Everyone was soon agreeing with Lumar and Lin and the room erupted in more questions to answer. Dr Gilia and Dr. Lumar were discussing the audio for a few minutes. Dr Surmat then spoke up. “I’ve been quite so far, as I was considering a few things I could discern from the video, the species is very close to that of an Amarian, the first has a skin pigmentation close to ours which means their blood is based on iron like ours. The hair and eye coloring are pretty close as well, and upper body build is about the same, it looks like the two that we saw share the same genders but like us have different builds. We can’t determine the exact height of the male because it appears they are sitting. It appears they have five fingers on each hand like us. The man in the second scene had a finger adornment which what meaning it has can’t be determined. As you can tell I am quite please at this discovery and paid close attention to the details. I will study it in closer detail later.” More questions were raised as Lumar finished his assessment. Then Lin broke the chattering.

“I think we should all consider studying each frame closely for clues to the language, and see if we can get more out of the video. Let’s finish watching what we have, there approximately 30 more seconds left to play.” Lin then nodded at Kuval.

“Yes that’s a good idea, it will most likely reveal more questions but it might answer a few as well.” Kuval stated to the staff, everyone got quiet and watched the last 30 seconds. On the screen the video played again and the play back split in two, on the left was a black background with white text scrolling up from the bottom, on the right was a small video playing of different scenes of several types. When the picture changed again the audio volume increased and the video changed to that of a male figure sitting in front of what looked like a large viewing screen that had its own video in it. He had a cylindrical metal container in his hand that he brought up to his lips and brown liquid flowed into his mouth. The expression on his face changed to one that emulated refreshment. And that’s when the video ended.

“Well that was interesting, that man must have been thirsty or maybe he was just showing that he liked the liquid to the viewers, just like we do here with Lindinberry juice.” Lin extrapolated her thoughts.

“The written text at the lift side of the screen seems to be organized and in a clear type set. It might assist us in translating this language; it will give us something to work with.” Dr. Gilia explained. “Dr. Lumar will need some space to work and few interruptions for a few days.”

“That’s not a problem; we will set you up with a couple of work stations later in the afternoon, Ardin will you see to their needs.”

“Of course, this way please. Ardin led them out of the office to an empty cubical next to the computer center. Kuval assured them. “For the rest of you I would like everyone to get back to working on the signal and see if there is more. Lin if you would stay behind a second.” Everyone left Kuval’s office and went back to work. Lin remained as requested. “Lin my dear, this proves life on another planet, we are all going to be famous. I would like you to be the face that announces this to the masses. I’ve already discussed this with Sural and he agrees this was your discovery after all.” Kuval asked her to be the planets newest celebrity in a roundabout way.

“Of course Kuval, I’ll do my best, when do you figure it would be a good time to announce this.” Lin asked wondering if were too soon.

“Sural will return to the station in one week with journalist and a camera person. We will prepare them and then announce at the end of next week.”

“Ok sir, I will prepare a speech for the occasion, Is it ok if I get help from the linguists?”

“It’s your team, use them as you see fit.” Kuval reminded her of her position.

“Thank you Kuval, I guess I need to get back to work.”

“I won’t keep you then, off you go.”

Lin left Kuval’s office and went back to her desk and worked on a schedule for herself for the upcoming week, she needed time for both the video recording and her speech she now had to write. ‘I’ll ask Lumar or Gilia for help when I check on them later’ Lin thought to herself, then went back to work on her schedule. After finding time for both tasks she got up and went down to where Gilia and Lumar had been given space. Inside on the table were two computer terminals that were linked to the computer servers in the next room. Gilia and Lumar appeared to be hard at work and were unaware of her entrance into the sparse room. She paused to watch for a minute then asked how they were. “Sorry to bother you, I just wanted to check on you and see if you needed anything?”

“Oh hi Lin, no Ardin got us everything we needed so far, be sure and thank him for us.” Gilia answered with a generous smile.

“Ok, if you need anything more, just tell Ardin or me. Oh and on another topic, if either of you has time I could use some advice on a speech I have to write for the announcement to the people in one weeks time.

“Um sure, that would be a great pleasure for me, I would be honored to help you Lin, just let me get some headway here and I’ll get with you after the diner meeting.” Gilia offered her help without reservation.

“Thanks Gilia I really appreciate the offer of help. I know we are all busy with this work, but as this team has already proven it’s a team that works well together.” Lin thanked her then left them to their work. She felt relieved that she would have help with the speech.

Lin then went back to work with Pardja, Celine and the rest of the video team for the rest of the day. Soon everyone was again gathered in the dining hall for the evening meal and sharing of each team discoveries. Kuval stood and welcomed everyone to the tables and thanked Emil and Amil for the great feast sitting in front of them. “May I have your attention please, I would like to personally thank all of you for your exemplary hard work today, and the discoveries have been tremendous and breathtaking. I can’t express how happy with all of you and especially Lin for heading up this great team of individuals.” He raised his glass in honor of all. “I toast you all and may our team preserver throughout; and the best is yet to come.” Kuval sat back down and then everyone began to eat and talk about their day’s events. The biggest discussion had been that of Niara and Athia they had the best news so far other than the video being played to the end. Niara was their spokes person.

“We have listened to the full audio of the first recording and found structure in what is being spoken. We forwarded are results to Gilia and Lumar fist thing this morning, well I think they should be the ones to announce what we have., Gilia, Lumar you have the floor.” Gilia and Lumar stood with huge smiles and the look of relief on their faces.

Gilia thanked Niara for the opportunity to speak. “Thank you Niara, well as Niara told you she sent Lumar and me the recording of the first signal, and comparing that to the text and audio of the video signal Lumar and I have been able to translate a few key sentences from the first and the entire second recording.” Gilia then let Lumar take over from her.

“What we have so far from the two recordings, the first is quite remarkable and answers a few lingering questions, one of which is how advanced is this civilization and will they be able to understand us. Yes the will and quite frankly pretty easily if we decide to respond at some point. Here is what we have.” Lumar paused for everyone to settle from the excitement and read from the paper he had folded in the top pocket of the jumpsuit he was wearing. “Discovery, Huston, what is your current roll rate? That was the first part now here is the second. Huston, Discovery, our roll rate is zero point five degrees starboard. That’s was the second part and now for the last. Discovery, Huston roll rate zero point five confirmed, we advise re-entry at 1830 Zulu. The rest of the signal was degraded too far to get more, but does answer a lot of questions. This portion indicates transmissions between a ground controller and a space varying vessel possibly in orbit of this planet and is evidence of our first question that yes they are technologically advanced.” Lumar paused to let this new information sink in then began again. “The second signal has even more information to work with; the fact that we had text and hand gesturing also aided us on translating this language as far as we have and is a great breakthrough in further translations to come. I will now turn this back over to Gilia for the next translation.”

“Thank you Lumar, I know each of you are probably wonder how we got this done so fast, all I can say is we got lucky and found a common root in the language structure, and as Lumar suggested, with the addition of the elements in the video assisted us in the initial translation. What we got from the video confirms earlier opinions, it’s from what this planet calls a news hour and we were looking at the reporter as he was called, give a weather forecast for the next five days and then switched to another reporter and he described a structure fire that had been three peoples home and was started by an electrical surge. The news hour ends with credits of names to those associated with the broadcast and then switches to an advertisement for a liquid drink of some sort.” Niara then sat back down and Lin and Kuval stood, Kuval smiled at Lin and indicated she could go first and sat back down.

“That was impressive, we now have more to work with, and we know that this species have advanced technology but about a hundred years behind Amaria, and it seems like us they inform the populous of changing situations and broadcast them as we do. No I suggest we finish our dinners and discuss what we should do next.” Lin sat down and Kuval stood up.

“Thank you Niara, Athia that was very informative, as to what’s next. ASI mandate is very clear any information, communication or signal of any sort that proves without a doubt alien life is to be reported to the Chancellor one the discovery is confirmed and evaluated. I will call Sural tonight and let him know of our progress. I once again congratulate you all for your hard work. Lin your team was come together nicely and I have been able to just run the station. That’s all for tonight, enjoy the rest of your meal and have a great night.” Manara space station was quite that night as everyone slept well after a long day of work.

Back on Amaria Chancellor Hemis an aging black haired man was having a hard time digesting what Sural had told him tonight. He was so astonished and pleased he told Sural to take him and a broadcast crew to the station the next day. He also requested for Sural to keep his visit secret as he wanted to surprise the crew of the space station.