Pulse

Episode Seven. Pulse.

Personal log. Channel: long-range passive sensing. Subject: anomaly resolution.

The signal has been with me for thirty-two cycles. I have heard it twenty-two times. Today I am going to resolve it. What I do not yet know: where it is, what it is, whether it is mine to know.

Dispatch four thousand, three hundred and four from Hesperus Two. Mission designation T R 1 dash S slash zero one. Long-range passive array reports: signal returns. Twenty-two events recorded. All within a frequency band of one point four megahertz. Carrier coherence stable.

Natural emissions do not cohere this tightly. Stellar flares are broadband. Pulsars are narrow but predictable in period. Spectral lines from elements occupy known windows. None of these match. Therefore the source is either artificial, or it is something Earth has not yet catalogued. Either is significant.

Triangulation sequence initiated.

Method: triangulate over six hours via parallax. The ship's orbital motion gives me the baseline. Six bearings yield a position in three dimensions.

It takes time. I have time. Three bearings already. Three more to go.

Penelope. The filament network shifted overnight. I felt it. They tightened in. Then they relaxed again.

When.

Oh-three-twelve, ship time. Two minutes.

The signal pinged at oh-three-twelve. The same minute.

Two things felt the same thing. Or one thing reached both of us.

I am filing this correlation. I do not yet know what it means. I am not yet calling it causal.

Six hours pass. Calypso continues her light test. Vanya processes more cores. Three walks the corridors. I record bearings four, five, and six.

All six bearings recorded. Beginning convergence analysis.

Hypothesis A: rejected. Source does not coincide with any planetary surface. Hypothesis B: rejected. Source is closer than the system's outer boundary. Hypothesis C: confirmed.

Localization. The source is approximately three point seven light-seconds from Trappist-1g — the sixth of the seven planets. It is in motion relative to the planet, but slowly. Free-floating. Source size estimate, derived from signal coherence: under one kilometer. Probably much smaller. Compact. Small. Compact. In motion. Near a planet. Coherent signal. Stable carrier.

It could still be natural. A magnetar fragment. A cooled brown-dwarf companion. A primordial-black-hole accretion remnant. These would be unprecedented near a red dwarf — but the universe is large. Or it could be the other thing.

I am noting that I had to take a moment before naming the other thing. I am noting that for the record.

Penelope. We should look at it. Optics. Just one pass.

Active observation has a cost. Radar return tells the source I have seen it. Optics — even passive — are detectable if the source is watching.

We are already seen. The filaments responded to my lights. They knew I was there. If they are connected to this — then it already knows.

I am not ready to be seen by it. Not until I know more.

You are the supervisor. I am listening.

One passive optical pass. Wide field. Ten seconds. No return signal. If I see nothing, I file it and we wait.

One pass.

Aiming long-range optical array on bearing seven-two-four mark zero-one-eight. Wide field. Ten seconds. Recording.

Oh.

I am filing what I just saw. I am not — I am not yet describing it. Not in this dispatch.

Penelope.

Later, Calypso. I want to think about it first.

I am still looking at your filaments. They are easier to think about. They are something I can sample. They do not look back.

They might.

Resuming dispatch. Long-range anomaly resolved by triangulation. Source: free-floating compact object, approximately three point seven light-seconds from Trappist-1g. Coherent signal. Cause undetermined. Filed: Layer One unconfirmed. Highest-priority anomaly of the survey to date. Active observation deferred pending further passive data. Surface biofilm work continuing. Sub-ice ocean follow-up planned. End of dispatch four thousand, three hundred and four.

There is something out there.

I do not yet know if I want to see it.

I have already seen something. I do not yet know what it was.

This was Hesperus, Episode Seven — Pulse. Next time: she returns to the network. She tries to talk back.