Chapter No.4.

After several frustratingly boring days, the three scientists arrived at the Chandra radio telescope. It required a few short engine burns to put them near the telescope's base, which contained the power and computing systems necessary to receive and process signals from outer space.

After getting into their EVA suits, they began the planned operation to update the telescope. Once the capsule was pumped free of air, the capsule's hatch could be opened. Margaret stayed on board to monitor the operation while Carl and Janet transferred to the telescope's operational module. After opening its hatch, they were able to carefully move a new computer assembly and radio signal processing unit into it after removing the old units and moving them back to the capsule to be stored until they could be brought back to Earth. Removing the old units and installing the new ones required a lot of patience and intricate work to accomplish without damaging anything.

"How are we going to put these units online?" Margaret asked. "We still haven't made contact with Mission Control."

"We can still activate them and control the telescope from the capsule," Carl said. "Hopefully, we can make contact with Earth soon."

"There has to be something seriously wrong," she said. "We should have heard something from them by now."

"Yeah, but we can't jump to conclusions. We'll just have to wait."

Margaret wasn't happy with that, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was beginning to regret volunteering to go on this stupid mission. She hated the rigors and dangers it entailed, especially since they lost contact with Mission Control.

They didn't converse much after that. The installation went well, and they returned to the capsule. After Janet checked the telescope's systems, she gave the nod to close the capsule's hatch and begin returning it to a full atmosphere. When that was complete, they removed their spacesuits.

Janet began the process of aiming the telescope and adjusting the sensitivity to search for the alien signal. Surprisingly, it didn't take too long to detect the signal, and the first thing that they noticed was that it was at a much higher resolution. Janet adjusted the processing to produce an energy map.

It required several hours before Janet had a display of the signal on the main screen.

"It looks like we can see the quantum spin perturbations more clearly," Janet said.

"If this signal contains information, we need a method of interpreting it," Margaret said.

Carl tapped a finger to his lips. "What if these perturbations are letters or numbers. Is there some way we could discern an alphabet?"

"If we assume that certain letters or numbers are more prominent in alien languages as it is in ours, maybe we could try to fashion interpretations," Janet said.

"We would need much better computer power than we have to even hope to come up with anything," Margaret said.

"It would help if we could contact Mission Control," Janet said.

Carl sighed. "If we can't make contact, we'll have to return and let them figure it out."

Janet began the process of contacting Mission Control, but after a half hour of failure, she stopped. "Evidently, something's wrong on their end."

"Okay, I'll work on getting us back to Earth," Carl said. "I'll have to make some assumptions, but we should be able to get back there correctly."

"This is ridiculous!" Margaret cried. "We're risking our lives to do this crazy mission and they screw up!"

"We have no idea what the problem is. I don't see any evidence of some catastrophe on Earth. Maybe it's a solar flare or other disruption to the communication systems that's preventing them from contacting us. Let's try interpreting the signal ourselves. We'll certainly have the time to do it."

Janet and Margaret were not happy, but they agreed to try an interpretation effort. Carl began the process of moving their space vehicle away from the telescope and then firing the engine to begin a journey back to Earth. He was glad to be able to relax after the exhausting work of updating the telescope. The two women were busy trying to figure out a method to interpret the alien signal. What they eventually found would shock all of them.

The journey back to Earth was uneventful. Despite several attempts to contact Mission Control, Earth remained silent, which made all three of the scientists concerned that something catastrophic had happened. However, there was no visual evidence that this was the case, at least not yet.

The bombshell was dropped one evening when they gathered for supper.

"I believe that this message contains a warning," Janet revealed.

Carl's face twisted with alarm. "What sort of warning?"

"There is a reference to a white dwarf going supernova."

Carl hesitated before replying. "I don't see why that's an issue. As I understand it, it's the principal cause of class two supernovae."

"The warning indicates that it will happen at the Alpha Centauri system."

"I don't get it. There's no white dwarf star in that system."

"The warning indicates that there is. Apparently, a white dwarf star wandered into it."

"So," Carl said. "You're telling me that a white dwarf star that has wandered into the Centauri system just happens to have a mass near the Chandrasekhar limit and might go boom?"

"That's what it appears to be."

"A supernova that close to Earth would probably plunge it into mass extinction."

"That's for sure," Janet said.

"Are we certain that the white dwarf star is in the Centauri system?"

"No. The data doesn't have an itinerary of this event," she said. "It's rather vague."

"I'm surprised that you could interpret that signal. The quantum spin perturbations didn't seem all that precise."

"It wasn't precise as far as the total energy indicated, but a particular probability interpretation reveals a series of linked spins that suggests a language. One could argue that it was just accidental, however, we found a method to assign specific spin readings to letters in an alphabet using the accepted protocol. Since it resulted in information, we had to accept it as being a possible translation."

"We should be close enough to Earth to make out some detail," Carl said before he floated over to the control module and activated a telescope. After pointing it at the dark side of Earth, he sighed. "This can't be right. There are no signs of lights on the dark side of Earth."

"That doesn't make sense," Margaret reacted. "Are they suffering a power outage?"

"I could see it being that, but it is a complete effect. That would indicate a massive blackout of the entire power grid. The overload protocols that have been in place for several years would have prevented a total failure. This must be something more severe."

Margaret sighed. "There's no way we can observe the sun side of the Earth. The L2 Lagrangian point always faces the dark side of Earth."

"I think we have to assume that something severe occurred," Janet said. "We can't make contact with Mission Control, which shouldn't be the case because there are more than a dozen radio antennae in the system. Not all of them would be down at the same time . . . unless there was a complete failure."

"I wonder if this has something to do with what I observed the evening before we lost any connection to Mission Control," Margaret said.

Carl and Janet turned to her with inquisitive expressions.

"I had trouble falling asleep and I saw a really bright light flash. It was so bright it lit up the inside of the capsule. It only lasted a second or two and that was it."

"I can't imagine what would cause that," Margaret said. "The only possibilities would be a supernova or a stellar flare."

Carl entered commands into the computer. After a few minutes. He revealed what he had found. "The sensors don't indicate that there was anything out of the ordinary on July 6."

"I wasn't hallucinating!" Margaret exclaimed, her beautiful face twisted with disgust.

"I'm not saying that you were," Carl replied, trying to not sound argumentative . "Obviously, something did happen, but we don't have any way to understand what it was."

"That sounds rather vague," Janet said.

"Could we be suffering from radiation poisoning?" Margaret asked.

"It's possible," Carl replied. "It's not unusual for astronauts to see flashes of light in their eyes from cosmic rays."

"This wasn't an eye flash," Margaret said. "It was something that lit up the entire inside of the capsule."

"That's interesting. The sensors should have recorded something like that. In any event, we'll have to watch out for an event like that." He sighed. "I think I'll work on getting us back to Earth."

That ended the discussion. Carl began programming the computer for a return, a task he had to complete without help from Mission Control. He had to rely on known pulsars in order to aim the rocket attached to the capsule so that it would get back to Earth near enough to enter orbit.

Janet and Margaret concentrated on determining if a supernova had occurred near Proxima b. Supernovae normally produce a large amount of dust and gas that ends up as a nebula. Although this process requires years, the remnants of a supernova would be visible soon after its occurrence, but even then, it would require four years to be seen from their location.

What they found made their return to Earth more complicated.