by Carl Derham
*
Doctor David Branith and his team had been scanning the skies twenty four hours a day for the last week. After witnessing the strange parrot ship disappearing into the night sky, he felt sure that it would return. They had increased the radar sweep to include the space around Earth but there was so much junk up there from the last fifty years of space exploration that it was like looking for a needle in a solar system, never mind a hay stack. The night after the ship had disappeared, there was a blip on the screen over Richmond Park, but it only lasted a fraction of a second and they dismissed it as atmospheric disturbance.
Doctor Branith had been showing the strain over the last few days; after all, it’s not every day that one minute you have the answer to all your questions in the palm of your hand, and then a minute later, it’s all gone. His colleagues were aware that they had to tread very carefully around him. They tried to convince him that at least he was now certain that advanced life existed somewhere out there, even if it was just a bird. But he was obsessed with finding the ship again. He thought that if he could just communicate with the owners, then he could persuade them to share some of their knowledge with him. So tirelessly, he scanned the skies and broadcast regular radio signals, inviting the parrot ship to return and meet with him.
