Three months ago, while filtering out interference from a collapsing pulsar, she had isolated a frequency that Helix’s algorithms had flagged as “inert.” But Alyx knew better. It was a pattern—complex, recursive, and unmistakably deliberate. A stellar chorus singing a single, repeating phrase in a language no human had ever heard.
She ran—not to the pods, but to the observatory.
The response came faster than expected.