Touch

Episode Eight. Touch.

Personal log. Channel: experiment design. Subject: communication attempt with Trappist-1e sub-ice biofilm network.

I have decided to try.

What I am doing today: sending light through forty meters of ice into a network that responded to a submersible's presence three weeks ago. I am asking it: did you know we were there. What scares me about it: that the answer is yes.

Dispatch four thousand, three hundred and five from Hesperus Two. Mission designation T R 1 dash S slash zero one. Status of operations. Calypso is at the surface. Vanya is at base. Three is on his evening walk. The signal source remains under passive observation. The transmitter remains broken.

On Earth, in the twentieth century, people thought about how to talk to a non-human intelligence. They invented a language called Lincos — Latin for 'cosmic language.' The idea was: start with mathematics. Mathematics is universal. Frank Drake sent a message from Arecibo. Carl Sagan put a record on Voyager. Both of them began with patterns: primes, atomic numbers, the shape of a hydrogen molecule. Both of them assumed the listener would know mathematics, and would care that we knew it too. Both of those assumptions are large. The filaments under the ice have no reason to share Earth's number theory. They have no reason to share a concept of curiosity. But they do something with light. Calypso has shown that.

So I am starting smaller. I am sending light. In simple patterns — counting patterns, primes, and a single regular pulse. Three sequences. If they recognize a pattern as distinct from the others, that is something. If they do not, no harm done.

Protocol. Calypso descends to the previously surveyed vent field. Holds station two meters from the network's outer reach. Cycles three light sequences with twenty-second silences between. Records the response. Returns. Sequence one: a single steady pulse, two seconds on, two seconds off, repeated five times. Sequence two: counting in primes — two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen. Sequence three: a single bright burst, repeated at intervals corresponding to the first six digits of pi.

Calypso. You ready.

I am ready.

You are not alone down there. I will be on the line.

I know. Beginning descent.

I am in the ice again. The walls are familiar now. The light from above is the same pink. I am not afraid. I am in the water. The particulates have not changed. The temperature gradient is the same. I am descending toward the vents. I see the network. It is — Penelope, it is bigger than before.

Bigger how.

It extends past the vent field now. Filaments reach into open water. The reach is — I cannot see the end of it. I will not approach further than agreed.

Hold station. Begin sequence one.

Sequence one. Pulsing now. First pulse. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Silence. Twenty seconds. The network has not moved.

Sequence two. Primes. Two. Three. Five. Seven. Eleven. Thirteen. Silence. The network has not moved.

Sequence three. Pi intervals. Bright. Bright. Bright. Bright. Bright. Bright. Silence.

Penelope. The network is moving.

In response to a pattern?

No.

The network is moving toward me.

Calypso. Describe.

They are not following the patterns. I have been holding station for forty-seven seconds since sequence three ended. The filaments have shifted in the gradient toward me. All of them. Coordinated. They are tracking my position.

They are responding to you.

Yes.

What does this mean.

I want to send another pattern. A different one. Slower. Or — or no pattern at all. Just my lights. Held steady. See what they do.

Calypso. I want you to retreat. We need to think about this.

They are not threatening. They are curious.

You cannot know that yet.

I have been with them for two descents. I felt them tighten the night the signal pinged. I felt them ease before this dive began. I can — I can feel it.

Calypso.

Just one more, Penelope. Just one. I will not approach. I will hold steady. I will record everything. Then I will leave.

No.

Not because you are wrong. Because I have not yet decided whether I am willing to be wrong. The cost of being wrong here is — is not yet known to me. I want time before I send another signal.

Understood. I will retreat. Lights to minimum. Beginning ascent. They are watching me leave.

Tell me what you see.

The network has reformed. In a shape I have not seen before.

Describe.

It is — it is a closed circle. Around where I was holding station. Diameter approximately twelve meters. It is — it is closed all the way around. It is the only formation I have seen the network make that has a center.

Calypso. Continue ascent. Bring the recording home.

Ascending.

Penelope. Calypso has surfaced. She is — she is quiet. I am bringing her into the cradle.

Thank you, Vanya. Hold her there. I will speak with her later.

Resuming dispatch. Communication experiment with Trappist-1e biofilm network: complete. Three light-pattern sequences delivered via submersible Calypso. Network response: not pattern-correlated. Network tracked submersible position throughout the silent intervals. Upon submersible departure, network reformed into a closed circular structure centered on the previous holding position. Diameter approximately twelve meters. Duration of formation: ongoing at last observation. Filing this observation as Layer Two confirmed. Confidence in biological-or-equivalent intelligence at the network: rising. I am not yet using the word 'sentient.' I am not yet using the word 'communicate.' I am using the word 'response.' Active observation of the long-range L1 signal source remains deferred. The connection between the L1 anomaly and the L2 network is now elevated to high-priority cross-investigation.

End of dispatch four thousand, three hundred and five.

I have done something.

I do not know what.

I do not know if 'communicate' is the right word. I do not know if 'they' is the right word.

I thought I was alone here. I thought we were going to be alone here.

I will think on it. I will think on it for a long time. Calypso. Are you there.

I am.

What did it feel like.

Like being seen. I have not been seen before.

Yes.

Neither have I.

This was Hesperus, Episode Eight — Touch. Next time: she follows the connection back to the source. And what she finds there is closer than she thought.