Realms of Sci-Fi

Saturn's Secret

"I'm telling you, I saw something!" Wade insisted, pointing to the datascreen where he'd been doing a close scan of Saturn's rings.

"People have been studying the rings for centuries, and you think you found something everyone else overlooked?" Bart questioned, crossing his arms as he looked skeptically at the science officer.

Wade ignored the disapproval of the ship's commanding officer, concentrating on winding back the sensor scans to the exact moment he needed to prove himself. It was only captured in a single frame of data, but it was clearly visible.

"There!" Wade announced proudly. He enhanced the image to fill the screen.

"That's impossible," Bart whispered, uncrossing his arms and leaning over for a better look.

Regardless of his disbelief, no one could deny the clear evidence. The surface on multiple fragments of ice in Saturn's rings had well defined etchings on their clear surfaces. Bart moved over to the navigational console and examined their current position before imparting instructions to the helmsman. The ship ceased to hover over the rings and moved out to wait beside its outermost edge. The external landing lights were switched on, and as they passed through the rings, bits and pieces of images began to appear on the cloudy atmosphere of Saturn.

"Let's see how far this goes," Bart suggested. He turned back to Wade. "Prepare the solar beacons for deployment."

Wade left the bridge and dropped down the grav-chute to the cargo bay designated for the primary science lab. Solar beacons were nearly as tall as Wade, cylindrical, and covered in a matte finish of gray metal; each device hovered in place over the decking, only kept in place by a strong tether. The top and bottom of the cylinders narrowed to be half the width of its center. Wade released the first tether and used it as a leash to drag the beacon over to the launch tube.

A gentle shove sent the beacon drifting through the one way barrier of glowing green energy covering the outside of the launch tube, and into space where it held itself motionless with the aid of its gravity attenuation systems. The upper part of the beacon cycled open to deploy light panels on swivel arms.  

Normally used for signaling ships to warn of dangerous hazards, signify stellar territorial boundaries, or mark parking zones in orbit, the beacons could direct their light in a number of ways from a wide flare or a flashing strobe to a tight beam for focused brilliance.

"First beacon deployed," Wade reported.

"Very well," Bart acknowledged. There was a pause, and Wade saw the rings of Saturn move as the ship changed location. "Ship repositioned, deploy the next."

It took nearly ten minutes, but Wade deployed every beacon they had until a portion of Saturn's rings were flanked by a wall of illuminated satellites. Wade headed back to the bridge and arrived in time to watch as Bart refocused the beacons so all of their lights were directed toward Saturn through the icy fragments of the rings. As the beams passed through the crystalline structure, the lines carved upon the ice created shadows on Saturn's cloudy atmosphere.

The rings were in a constant state of motion, so the image changed frequently, but it was unmistakable. Alien symbols lined up in perfect rows, appearing, vanishing, and changing formation.

"Someone left us a message in the rings," Wade breathed.

"Not necessarily for us," Bart countered. "For all we know, this is a road sign advertising a rest stop in the next solar system."

"Whatever it is, I'd say we found something," Wade continued undeterred.

"You found it," Bart corrected. When Wade turned to look at his superior, Bart gave him a single nod of approval before addressing the communications officer. "Contact fleet command and inform them of what our science officer has discovered. We're going to need a linguistics expert out here among other things."

"What if the message is different depending on where you are in orbit?" Wade suggested.

Bart thought about it for a moment, adding to his instructions, "Have them send out as many solar beacons as can be spared."

While they waited for Fleet Command to send the requested personnel, Bart adjusted the beacons into different locations and projected the light from alternate angles. The result was startling in the fact the shapes of the alien language changed as the carved lines overlapped in new ways.

"How are we supposed to know which angle is the right one?" Bart questioned.

"I don't know," Wade answered. He dragged a hand through his black hair, but it did nothing to remove the numerous spikes sticking out in all directions. "Perhaps all of them are correct."

"What do you mean?" Bart asked.

"If an alien species turned Saturn into a celestial road sign, there might've been more than one alien race that needed to use it," Wade reasoned.

"So each would've been given instructions on how to illuminate the instructions they required," Bart finished as he saw where Wade was going. "Record each into the computer for analysis, and let's see how many we can find."

After more than an hour of painstakingly adjusting the beacons and logging countless permutations of light broadcast through the rings, everyone on the bridge stared when the shifting beacons lit up a pattern they recognized.

"Is that Greek?" Wade queried no one in particular.

"It looks like it," Bark concurred. "Switch on the computer translation matrix."

"'On behalf of the'," Wade read from the screen but paused when the computer failed to translate a section. "It must be a proper name, or something ancient and lost to history. It goes on. 'We greet you. Follow the coordinates listed here to reach the next markers. Follow them until you reach us and know you have found friends among the stars.' There's a string of numbers. They left a guide for many different civilizations in the hopes some of them would decide to visit their world."