Liber Plutonis - Chapter 44

Verses

Verse 28

The first transmission was too regular to be weather and too ugly to be music.

Verse 29

We pointed the array beyond Neptune because that is where the error insisted on coming from.

Verse 30

Pluto crossed the display like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence nobody remembered beginning.

Verse 31

On the fourth night the signal repeated my childhood address.

Verse 32

I had not entered my childhood address into the system.

Verse 33

Dr. Vale blamed contamination. The contamination then supplied his mother's maiden name.

Verse 34

We stopped speaking near the microphones. The signal began finishing gestures instead.

Verse 35

One technician drew five circles around a smaller circle and refused to explain them.

Verse 36

By morning he had erased the smaller circle and written HOME in its place.

Verse 37

We expected terror to feel dramatic. Mostly it felt administrative, like discovering your identity had been filed elsewhere.

Verse 38

The final message contained no threat.

Verse 39

It said only: YOU HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD WHICH SIDE OF THE TELESCOPE IS LOOKING.

Verse 40

Vale destroyed the receiver.

Verse 41

The signal continued through the disconnected speaker.

Verse 42

I resigned that afternoon.

Verse 43

Last week a package arrived containing frost and a photograph of our observatory taken from above.