The Message
A short story
The ringing phone awoke me, it was Tony on the other side. All I could think was “what the hell does he want at this ungodly hour.” I picked it up and an excited voice on the other end said, “we got a message. come quickly.” Upon hearing the words, I couldn’t fully make out at first as I was still half asleep, but I managed to blare out “what?” “The responder, it beeped, hurry up.” Those words took away what little sleep was left in me. I jumped up surprised and happy. I decided to rush in as early as possible. Without waiting to change, I grabbed the car keys and ran out. It was pitch dark and cold outside with not a soul in sight, but I could hardly bother about it.
I had been working with Tony at the National Space Observatory for the past 20 years as his second in command. Tony was the head ever since the place opened up some 40 years back. As his first and major project, he has been sending out messages with the responder out in the space with the hope of receiving a message from people of another planet. Most of us used to console him that maybe there is no life out there while trying to divert his attention into other projects. Even the US government pulled the plug on its funding 2 years ago. For Tony, however it was his passion that kept it alive. He kept the project running by putting his own funds into it at the risk of his family.
I had reached the observatory while recalling these thought. Still a little surprised though that all the efforts Tony put in had finally come to bear fruit. There were already a lot of cars in the parking, it looked like Tony had called in everyone. I rushed in and saw Karen rush through, with an expression that was mix of shock and happiness, I reached out to her to ask what’s going on, where’s Tony. She said, “he’s in the mainframe room as she rushed past with her work”. She wasn’t the only one that excited, everyone was eager to know about this message. Only Tony and I had access to the mainframe, Tony was in there with 2–3 others who were hard at work.
I rushed in to meet Tony, who embraced me and said, “IT FINALLY HAPPENED”, 40 years of my work has finally borne fruit. Now I’ll show those snobs at the Department of Defence that they were wrong.”
He went on saying “at 2 a.m. the responder started beeping, for the first time, I adjusted the frequency to a new wavelength to get a better idea of what was happening and it received signals that are not possible anywhere on this earth. According to my calculations it is from a Planet in the Gliese star system 18 light years away.”
I asked him “What does it say?”
He Said “We’ll know in a couple of minutes, the mainframe is done deciphering the message and will print out what it said in plain English”
We were discussing this when the printer turned on and the message started to print. I was nervous beyond comparison. Tony rushed for it eager to read the message. His team was looking at him with anticipation as Tony read what it said.
His excitement vanished as he read it. He looked confused. I asked him what happened? He handed me the paper. I took it from him and read…..
“Be Quiet or they will hear you”
Note: The story is inspired from the story “Radio Silence”, read it here
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