The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction by Brandon Morris (heaven official's blessing novel english .txt) 📗

pointing cameras and microphones at him and shouting questions. Peter surrendered and described again and again in great detail how he saved the VSS Astra with a cloth handkerchief.

April 4, 2026 – In Transit

“Can I get you another drink?” the stewardess asked.

“No, thanks. I have everything I need,” said Peter.

He’d treated himself to business class for the overnight flight from Houston to Frankfurt. He had just under 20,000 euros left over from his mother’s house. Now he could spend that, too. He took the notebook from the empty seat next to him. Francesca had said she didn’t want to hear from him again until the matter was closed.

It was time for a message.

“Dear Francesca,” he wrote. “I have good news. SigmaLaunch has confirmed that the beacon, whose signal should save the solar system from destruction, is no longer trying to leave its orbit. So it is now fulfilling the task I gave it for the next two years, and I have also succeeded in my task, at least in the aspects I have control over. I will be home tomorrow at noon. I would be very happy if you were there too. In the last weeks, you probably had the impression that I only had my hobby in mind. But, I was thinking about you all the time. If the catastrophe that I believed was coming would have only affected me, I wouldn’t have had the strength to prevent it. The necessary energy was given to me by thoughts of you. Even though I admit that this sounds corny, it is the truth. I really hope you can forgive me for having seemed to ignore you. Yours, Peter.”

April 15, 2026 – Fonimagoodhoo

“It’s so dreamy here,” Franziska said.

“It’s great that you like it,” Peter said.

His wife had been smiling ever since they’d arrived on this island paradise. Yesterday afternoon they’d even had sex. It was almost as if they were newly in love. The turquoise sea, the white beach, the vegetation with all its shades of green, and the delicious food seemed to have an almost magical effect. It had been a good idea to spend the last euros from the house sale this way.

“I’m going to get something else from the buffet,” Franziska said as she stood up.

As soon as she left, restaurant chef Majib was standing next to the table.

“How are you?” he asked in English, as he did every morning. “Everything good?”

“Everything is fine.”

“If you need anything—”

“Then we’ll get back to you.”

Peter’s cellphone vibrated. There was Internet access only in the restaurant. Should he get his phone out? It would be a good opportunity. Franziska seemed to be waiting at the buffet for an order. The chef was preparing custom omelets again today.

His phone vibrated once again. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the display. He had a new e-mail. The sender couldn’t be seen in full, but the e-mail address ended in .se, so the message came from Sweden. He immediately thought of Stockholm University—Melissa Holinger, the astronomer. The message could only be from her.

Peter unlocked the device and opened the message.

“Hello, Mr. Kraemer,” he read. “I’m still curious about your theory. Have you made any progress yourself?”

Oh, you bet I have.

“I read about your heroic action at Virgin and wondered if it had anything to do with your research subject. But anyway, that’s not why I’m writing to you. I made measurements again on the stars we both studied. We had, after all, come across the fact that radio emission at a certain frequency correlated negatively with whether a star disappeared on a certain spherical shell.”

We? I’m the one who came up with it!

“I have now taken a closer look at these stars, and I am sorry to inform you that we must have been mistaken. One of the stars where the supposedly protective signal was definitely detectable has now also disappeared. So we can no longer assume a correlation.”

What the hell?

His beautiful theory had just collapsed. If the signal didn’t protect against the destruction of a star, then his beacon couldn’t protect the solar system from death, either. He involuntarily looked up, as if the sky was about to collapse then and there. But all he saw was the artistic wooden construction of the ceiling, in which large lamps had been embedded so as to give off a very soft light.

“Honey? Do you want to try some of my omelet? It’s delicious. Now, please put that stupid cellphone back in your pocket.”

Majib pulled back her chair so she could sit comfortably. He looked at his wife. Franziska was beautiful. She always tanned quickly.

It would be good to follow her request, but the message was important. Either the sun would be destroyed in a few days... or his calculation could have been inaccurate, and he had spent a good half million euros in vain.

His eyes returned to his wife. No one else mattered. Let someone else save the world this time. He turned off the phone, tucked it into a pocket of his shorts, and reached for his fork. He took a bite of the omelet. He slipped the warm mixture into his mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, and tried to determine the flavors. Egg—of course. Spring onions. Salt. An exotic spice he didn’t recognize...

“Yes,” he said, “it really is delicious.”

5th of the Spring Month 1897 – Lokkor

“Wormitor, come over here!”

The old Explorer came shuffling up to him on his six skinny legs. Krognatur realized that he had been disrespectful again. His colleague had already survived eight winters. He should have brought the imaging device to his elder.

But Wormitor did not complain. He never complained. Maybe it was because he’d grown up in the middle of the brood war. Krognatur was lucky. He belonged to the first intermediate generation and would never have to experience a brood war. Only his children’s children were threatened with