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By Root 951 0

Alan Pace, S.J. At thirty-nine, Father Pace was a willowy Englishman who gave the sleepy-eyed impression of someone who had seen it all and who quite possibly knew it all as well. It was a trait that worried D.W.; Pace was a last-minute replacement for Andrej Jelačić, who’d suffered a heart attack during a stress test. Andrej, still mourned, was a hard act to follow. But Alan was well qualified—a remarkable musician, if kind of a pain in the ass. Like many musicians, he had a precise and orderly mind and had, in fact, minored in mathematics. He cross-trained with Jimmy Quinn, an amateur pianist, and they had spent the months of preparation studying the growing collection of alien song fragments, along with the technical skills needed to navigate the rock to Alpha Centauri.

That left Emilio Sandoz, forty, and Anne Edwards, who like her husband was sixty-four, as the last ones up to the rock. They had remained in Puerto Rico while the others dispersed for training. A new priest was assigned to take over Emilio’s work in La Perla, and he’d shifted his effort to the clinic, where Anne supervised him in an accredited physician’s assistant course, with an emphasis on the kinds of medical emergencies they might face off Earth, without benefit of hospitals, pharmacies or elaborate equipment. For his part, Emilio once again became Anne’s language teacher, this time using Sofia’s AI program to help Anne prepare for learning the Singers’ language. Together night after night, they transcribed and studied the intercepted transmissions. They were handicapped by the utter lack of referents but picked out recurring phrases and accustomed themselves to the rhythm of the language.

They had a fair amount of material to work from, as did Alan Pace. Once established, the reception pattern became reliable. By June of 2021, most radio astronomers had returned to other projects and telescope operators simply turned toward Alpha Centauri in alternating 15-and 27-day cycles, tuning in for what seemed to be regularly scheduled concerts. The music never lasted long, the signals falling off to noise after only a few minutes. The songs always differed from one another, although a theme was repeated once. Sometimes there was the call-and-response pattern of the first song. Sometimes there was a soloist. Sometimes the music was choral.

Most exciting, in some ways, was that individual Singers came to be recognized, after a time. Of these, the most compelling had a voice of breathtaking power and sweetness, operatic in dimension but so plainly used in hypnotic, graceful chant that the listener hardly noticed its gorgeousness except to think of beauty and of truth.

This was the voice of Hlavin Kitheri, the Reshtar of Galatna, who would one day destroy Emilio Sandoz.

IF THE ANTINAUSEA patches did not entirely eliminate space sickness, they did seem to limit its duration. Both Anne and Emilio were fine by the time D.W. called out, some twelve hours after liftoff, "Thar she blows!" Floating cautiously toward the cockpit windows, they caught their first glimpse of the asteroid.

Emilio, who’d also been the recipient of George’s enthusiastic description, made a disappointed face. "What? No sour cream? No chives?"

Anne giggled and pushed off to return to her place in the cargo bay. "And no gravity," she said over her shoulder. She was grinning.

"Is that significant?" Emilio asked in a low voice, joining her in the back.

"Strap in, you two," D.W. ordered. "We still got mass and you can still bust your neck if I blow the docking."

"Shit. What does he mean, blow the docking? He never said anything about that before," Anne muttered, taking her position and fastening the straps that held her to her couch.

Emilio, also buckling up, had not forgotten the look on Anne’s face. "So, what was that about no gravity?" he pressed. "C’mon. What? What!"

"How shall I put this?" She was blushing but went on very quietly in tones of great propriety. "George and I have been married almost forty-five years and we’ve done it about all the ways it can be done, except in