Rollback

Sarah slowly lowered herself onto one of the three wooden chairs that encircled the little kitchen table. As Don and Gunter moved about the cramped space, getting down a pot and a frying pan and finding ingredients in the fridge, he felt her eyes upon him.

"What’s wrong?" she asked at last.

He hadn’t said anything, and he’d taken pains not to bang cookware or utensils together. But Sarah had known him for so long now, and even if the veneer on his body had changed his body language doubtlessly hadn’t. Whether it had been the way he’d been hanging his head, or simply the fact that he wasn’t speaking except to give Gunter the occasional perfunctory instruction that tipped her off, he couldn’t say. But he couldn’t hide his moods from her. Still, he tried to deny it, futile though he knew that would be. "Nothing."

"Did something go wrong downtown today?" she asked.

"No. I’m just tired, that’s all." He said it while bent over a chopping board, but stole a sideways glance at her, to gauge her reaction.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked, her brow knitted in concern.

"No," said Don, and he allowed himself one more, final lie — just this one last time.

"I’ll be fine."

Chapter 36

Sarah woke with a start. Her heart was pounding probably more vigorously than was healthy at her age. She looked over at the digital clock. It was 3:02 a.m. Next to her lay Don, his breathing making a gentle sound with each exhale.

The idea that had roused her was so exciting she thought about waking him, but, no, she wouldn’t do that. After all, it was a long shot, and he’d been having so much trouble sleeping lately.

Her side of the bed was the one near the window. A million years ago, when they’d chosen who would sleep where, Don had said she should have that side so she could look out at the stars anytime she wished. It was an ordeal getting out of bed.

Her joints were stiff, and her back hurt, and her leg was still healing. But she managed it, pushing off her nightstand, forcing herself to her feet as much through an effort of will as through bodily strength.

She took small, shuffling steps toward the door, paused and steadied herself for a moment by holding on to the jamb, then continued out into the corridor and made her way to the study.

The computer’s screen was blank, but it came to life the moment she touched the scroller, bringing up a suitably dim image for viewing in the darkened room.

Within moments, Gunter was there. He’d been downstairs, Sarah imagined, but he’d doubtless heard her stir. "Are you all right?" he asked. He had lowered the volume of his voice so much that Sarah could only just make it out.

She nodded. "I’m fine," she whispered. "But there’s something I’ve got to check out."

Sarah loved stories — even apocryphal ones — about ah hah! moments: Archimedes jumping out of his bath and ru

In her whole career, Sarah had only ever had one such epiphany: that time, long ago, while playing Scrabble in this very house, when she’d realized how to arrange the text of the first message from Sigma Draconis.

But now, perhaps, she was having another.

Her grandson Percy had asked her about her views on abortion, and she’d told him that she’d gone back and forth on some of the tricky points.

And she had, her whole life.

But what she’d remembered just now was another night, like this one, when she’d woken at 3:00 a.m. That night had been Sunday, February 28, 2010, the day before the response to the initial Dracon message was to be sent from Arecibo. She and Don were in their VSQ cabin at the Arecibo Observatory, the fronds slapping against its wooden walls making a constant background hushing sound.

She’d decided she wasn’t happy with her answer to question forty-six. She’d said "yes," the mother’s wishes should always trump the father’s during a mutually desired pregnancy, but then she’d found herself leaning toward "no." And so Sarah had gotten out of the narrow bed. She fired up her notebook, which contained the master version of the data that would be transmitted the next day, changed her answer to that one question, and recompiled the response file. Her notebook would be interfaced to the big dish tomorrow, and this revised version would be the one actually sent.

It didn’t matter much, she’d thought at the time, in the grand scheme of things, what one person out of a thousand said in response to any one question, but Carl Sagan’s words had echoed in her head. "Who speaks for the Earth? We do." I do.

And Sarah had wanted to give the Dracons the truest, most honest answer she could.

By that point, copies of the supposedly finalized reply had already been burned to CD-ROM, and the backup hardcopy printout Don had recently retrieved from U of T had already been made. Sarah had forgotten all about that night in Puerto Rico, some thirty-eight years in the past, until moments ago.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Gunter asked.

"Just keep me company," Sarah said.

"Of course."

While Gunter looked over her shoulder, she began to softly dictate instructions to the computer, telling it to bring up a copy of her old set of responses to the Dracon questio

"Okay," she said to the computer. "Go to my answer to question forty-six."

The highlight on the screen moved.

"Now, change that answer to ‘no,’" she said.

The display updated appropriately.

"Now, let’s recompile all my answers. First…" and she went on, giving instructions that were dutifully executed.

"Your pulse is elevated," said Gunter. "Are you okay?"

Sarah smiled. "It’s called excitement. I’ll be fine." She addressed the computer again, fighting to keep her voice steady: "Copy the compiled string into the clipboard.

Bring up the reply we received from the Dracons… Okay, load the decryption algorithm they provided." She paused to take a deep, calming breath. "All right, now paste in the clipboard contents, and run the algorithm."

The screen instantly changed, and—

Eureka!

There it was: long sequences spelled out in the vocabulary established in the first message. Sarah hadn’t looked at Dracon ideograms in decades, but she recognized a few at once. That block was the symbol for "equals," that upside-down T meant "good." But, like any language, if you don’t use it, you lose it, and she couldn’t read the rest. No matter. There were several programs available that could transliterate Dracon symbols, and Sarah told her computer to feed the displayed text into one of those. At once, the screen was filled with a rendering of the alien message in the English notation she had devised all those years ago.

Sarah used the scroller to quickly page through screen after screen of decrypted text; the message was massive. Gunter, of course, could read the screens as fast as they were displayed, and he surprised Sarah at one point by very softly saying, "Wow." After a bit, Sarah jumped back to the begi