Thomas Aquinas, Explorer of the galaxy

by Rico, J. Luis

  “Thank you, father. It was fun, but I wasn’t good enough today.” Tommaso stirs and drops another bag of ice into the stainless-steel bath.

  “Two of your team mates fouled out Tommaso. The loss is not on your shoulders. It is a team sport. Tomorrow, the news and the fans will not be discussing their win, they will be discussing your magnificent performance.”

  “Thank you, father. I know. The finality of the season ending is going to take time to adjust to. I wanted so badly to win and advance.”

  “This is the nature of competition my son. Your mother and I watched the game in amazement, you are a magnificent athlete and a man. Tommaso.”

  “Thank you, father.” Tommaso begins his shoulder stretches now to loosen up the joint. He rotates the stiff joint clockwise as wide as he can. The ache is steady.

  “Tommaso, can you come visit us? Can it be tomorrow? We have something to share with you that I would rather tell you in person. Actually, it’s something to show you..”

  Tommaso leans his head inquisitively, he knows better than to pester his father for the answer to his riddle now, he is a firm and deliberative man. His father would only ask Tommaso to come to him if it was important; thus, he will wait until they are together to tell him this thing.

  “Of course, father. Our season is over. The coach will yell a bit at us on the shuttle home, but we are free later tonight for the next several months.”

  “Perfect my son, I will see you tomorrow.” Brother Lewis ends the call. Tommaso leans back into the tub as he continues to rotate his shoulder in its socket. The trainer will return in a moment and want to do some range of motion exercises he knows well. This moment of quiet will not last.

  “I wonder what my father has discovered,” he thinks. “It has to be something amazing. It is humbling he wants to share it with me first, perhaps to get my opinion. Mother already knows whatever this is as well. No secrets exist between those two.” Tommaso shakes from the effects of the cold water and ice on his body and allows his mind to wander.

  His father is an old man now. His life is winding down. He has four passions in his life. His love of God first and foremost, his beloved Sister Jones, Tommaso’s mother. His son Tommaso, and his passion to find intelligent life in the galaxy. He has achieved so much in life. It must be something truly epic.

  The trainer interrupts Tommaso’s train of thought. “Time to stretch!” she announces as she enters the room. Tommaso frowns. He knows the following fifteen minutes will be uncomfortable.

  Chapter Eight

  Intelligence

  “At this very minute, with almost absolute certainty, radio waves sent forth by other intelligent civilizations are falling on the earth. A telescope can be built that, pointed in the right place, and tuned to the right frequency, could discover these waves. Someday, from somewhere out among the stars, will come the answers to many of the oldest, most important, and most exciting questions mankind has asked.” Frank Drake

  The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been ongoing in earnest since Frank Drake famously searched on a 25-meter radio antenna for two months in the North American wilderness in the state of Kentucky in 1960.

  The former Communist Russian regime in Asia spent vast resources in the 1960’s and 1970’s searching in the radio spectrum and visible light with amazingly complex telescopes. The North American NASA organization spent some few years aggressively searching as well before losing funding in the 1980’s.

  The search was, by and large, a privately funded affair for another few decades until the James Webb telescope made a huge leap forward in planet detection. The large telescope was placed into the Earth Sun Lagrangian L2 point making it tremendously stable – even more so that the previous Hubble space telescope. It also boasted a 6.5-meter diameter primary telescoping lens versus the 2-meter Hubble scope’s primary lens.

  The Webb space telescope only operated for six years before a micro meteorite destroyed it, but it discovered tens of thousands of planets on systems as far away as 100,000,000 light years distant. The wobble of a sun on its orbit from the influence of one or more planets in orbit was easy enough to directly measure. And the transit of a planet across the visible portion of a suns orbit could be detected by watching the visible light spectrum of the star for a dimming in intensity. The large telescope, and others like it, made the detection of planets down to Mercury-sized planets in similar orbits light years distant a common occurrence.

  When a planet crosses the plane of the suns orbit in a distant system. The telescopes caught the different characteristics of the planet’s atmosphere as the light from the sun travels through the atmosphere. Planets with atmosphere are found. Planets with complex chemicals are found. Even asteroid fields and proto planets are cataloged by the thousands, then the tens of thousands, then the millions. The galaxy is ripe with planets and systems after all.

  Meanwhile, earthbound radio dishes collect weak radio waves that have originated in the deep voids of space. Some of the radio waves gathered and examined originated during the first moments of the Universes birth. Shock waves of the radioactive burst of energy, escaping the confines of matters expansion during the big bang, are still present in the background radiation and radio spectrum. Scientists gather this energy and examine it carefully.

  Complex algorithms are developed to sample the background noise and find logic in the static. Computational power is unleashed. First for decades, and then for centuries, better and more advanced methods are refined to search the heavens.

  There are some amazing discoveries. A planet in orbit of a medium-sized main sequence star a mere twelve light years from Sol is discovered to have a variant of methane in its atmosphere in heavy abundance. When research ships and colony generation ships arrive, the planet is covered in a slick blue green fur. Single-celled organisms thirty meters deep cover the surface of the planet. A gigantic organic soup. Life is found outside our own system.

  One life is found, it becomes common place. Life is found on seven systems in the era of generation colony ships. Even complex multicellular moss and algae like life. Much more complex than the single-celled fur on the first planet discovered to have life.

  During the great leap years, life is found on several more planets in rapid succession. A second planet with multicellular life is found. Dozens more with single-celled life that bakes under red or white suns.

  Brother Lewis approaches the problem as the capstone of his career, of his life. After some many great achievements for the glory of God and the Catholic faith, he wants another great discovery before he is incapable of further work due to age. With the frequent collaboration of his beloved Sister Jones, he makes rapid advances.

  Space based telescopes in Lagrangian orbits around different suns, connected by entangled communicators discover thousands of planets with complex chemicals in their atmosphere, most of which will have life on their surface. Certainly simple life, but life nevertheless. For each of the new planets with complex atmospheres, the new telescopes detect Brother Lewis directs radio receiver resources at the planets themselves. Radio telescopes electronically bound to many other radio telescopes in other solar systems again bound and with entangled communicators make sweeps of every frequency band using complex algorithms to find logic in the noise. The search goes on for several years, and the many new and likely candidates for colonization are a tremendous contribution to the Mother Church and the great leap of mankind into the void.

  Two days prior to Tommaso’s game

  When it does happen, it is almost missed. The automated search of a small corner under the solar plane of Sol system is finishing up its automated run, and Brother Lewis is sitting at his terminal reviewing results. The telescopes have found a few more planets with complex atmospheres. No signals in the radio spectrum from them alas.

  One of the candidate planets has a remarkably dense atmosphere, likely the result of a runaway greenhouse effect Brother Lewis thinks. There is a tremendous spike of
data at the right side of the sample though. Like the data was cut off prematurely. It is small time slice, less than a minute in total length of the entire twenty-four-hour sample period.

  He reshuffles his display to the radio spectrum for the same planet and time slice. There is a large bit of data at the end of the trace. Not enough to trigger automatic search algorithms, and maybe just noise. But it bears further investigation. He orders a refocus of the radio telescopes and optical telescopes on this system for a further twenty-four hours to gather a deep dive of data.

  The next day the data show no change. Nothing other than the probable runaway greenhouse effect atmosphere and a dead radio spectrum. Brother Lewis starts to order the routines to continue on their pre-programmed searches and leave this system behind when something nags at the back of his head. He does something he rarely does anymore. “Computer, on the wall screen, show me the system in question.”

  The wall comes to life. The Sun in the middle of the system is a later period main sequence. It probably has a billion years left. It is starting to get hot and enter the late middle age. The planets are visualized on the wall as well. Large Gas Giants in the outer system, fairly typical in that regard. Six of those are Jupiter class. Several in the Saturn range. A few the size of Uranus. Dozens of rocky planets the size of earth and Mars make up the inner system.

  The planet of interest has a large moon. A long, period, large moon. Its period is seven days and a bit. One could argue this is a binary planetary system. Technically, that term doesn’t exist, Brother Lewis reminds himself. If two bodies are large enough to classify as planets, and they orbit each other, it is a double planet. They are rare enough that this will make the system interesting to a few scientists anyway.

  Brother Lewis rubs his hands down his ample sized sides and swings his tassel back and forth. The visual is similar to a dog wagging its tail. “Computer overlay the electronic beam from the radio telescopes onto the system on this visual.

  “The image is live.” The speaker built into the wall announces. The AI as always is just a spoken word away.

  The narrow radio spectrum beam, technically it is the point at which the most electronic radio and optical energy is collected along the dish, the virtual dish of the large system collecting radio and optical energy overlays onto the planet. It covers one fourth of the planet. Near the bottom fourth as it turns out. “Computer, rewind the video at twenty times. If we lack video data, extrapolate.” Brother Lewis sits straight in his chair. His tassel is motionless for once.

  The video begins to rewind. “Make it 100 times speed.” Brother Lewis orders. The video moves, and the large planet rewinds its spin, as the large moon which had been behind the planet swings backward in its orbit and just barely into the beam of virtualized radio energy. The data is computer generated, but the orbit data is correct.

  Brother Lewis brings up the radio data from the first pass and plays it on a loop on his terminal. He joins the minute of radio data with the spike into a loop. Joined together to add data past the minus point, it does readily look like signal.

  “Computer. Order all telescopes, optical, and radio to open their beam to include the entire planet and out to the orbit of the moon.” The computer rapidly makes his commands so. The circle on the wall monitor opens up to be large enough to include the moon in its orbit.

  It will take a few minutes to begin to receive data. Instantaneous entangled communications be damned, somewhere in the many systems making up these antennae array the machines will have to physically move dishes and lenses.

  Brother Lewis keys in his favorite radio spectrum search algorithms in the terminal and sends the live radio energy stream into them. It takes eight minutes for the algorithm to trip an alert. “There appear to be several carrier frequencies in 600 to 1,000-kilohertz range.” The monotone voice of the artificial intelligence announces. “There appear to be several encoded streams of data in the 210 to 230 megahertz range.” The AI speaker monotones. “These data streams all have encoded data on a carrier. They are using Frequency and also amplitude modulation. The data sources originate from the smaller planet in the double system.” The speaker is quiet.

  Brother Lewis allows himself a whistle. “Damn, they are using the same bands of energy Earth used 500 years ago. Those are archaic radio and television spectrums used in the 1950’s upwards.”

  The AI is silent.

  Brother Lewis walks around to his main terminal in the office and toggles a large switch. He has broken the connection from his terminals back onto the main University and research facility network. His lab is isolated from the rest of the world.

  He phones his beloved Sister Jones and invites her to his lab. She immediately senses the urgency in his voice. She cancels her classes for the day and hurries down to his lab.

  The data from the carrier based modulated frequency streams is fed into the large and artificial intelligence computer in his laboratory. In time, they can feed it into the more capable University systems. The AI sorts and aggregates data silently and investigates the stream. Within a few minutes, it asks Brother Lewis a few pointed questions.

  “This is the feed from Alany 12D, then?”

  “Yes.” Brother Lewis answers. “The smaller planet in the double planet pair.”

  “You have cut off my access to the networks outside the classroom and lab, this greatly limits my ability to decipher these streams.” The AI is emotionless, but it would be easy to imagine the hurt in its monotone voice.

  “Yes, I did. It is unavoidable at this point. I will return your access within a few days at most.” Brother Lewis answers.

  “These modulated data streams are from the surface of the planet at several different points. These streams are mathematically unlikely to be naturally occurring. There is a small chance they are the result of a colony ship ahead of the wave of colonization, an unknown band of colonists isolated from entangled communicators. Perhaps the Muslims or the Mormons.” The AI pauses.

  However, the AI continues, “I have detected two streams that are modulated by archaic frequency modulation technology analogous with FM radio. Several other streams are amplitude modulated on the carrier, this analogous to archaic AM radio. The very high-frequency stream is likely modulated voice and audio. This is analogous to archaic television broadcasts, pre-high definition transition. Think technology from year 1950.” The AI continues to think.

  Sister Jones walks into the classroom and spends a long moment looking at the wall display, the orbital mechanics of the dual planetary system, and the radio spectrum data on the monitors and then the look on Brother Lewis’s face. She walks close enough to touch and holds his hand. His hand is warm and sweaty. “His heart is racing!” she thinks. He smiles from ear to ear. His large teeth clearly visible in the dimmed light of the laboratory.

  “I have isolated the amplitude modulated audio. Beginning to play a live stream of this data.” The AI announces.

  A series of chirps, clicks, and grunts comes from the speaker. After a moment, the AI refines the audio to a better frequency for human ears. “I have lowered the frequency, I mean shifted the frequency slightly to something more akin to the 1 to 4 kilohertz you are accustomed to hearing.” The audio is more like speech now. Certainly, it is alien though.

  “Video is coming up on the wall monitor from the VHF feeds. Reframing the letterbox size to match monitor resolution and sizing. A one-meter square appears on the wall. The video is distorted into the far-red end of the visual spectrum. It swirls. “I am getting a firm lock on the frequency now from the data feed. The frequency they are using is incredibly narrow. The data is carried in incredibly tight frequency modulation. I am impressed your algorithms found this signal from the noise, Brother Lewis.”

  Sister Jones wraps her slender arms around Brother Lewis’ ample belly. She squeezes him tightly. She begins to shake a bit. Emotion is threatening them both right under the surface. Brother Lewis begins to shake as well.

  The
video collapses then comes back to life. There on the screen. It is sideways. Now, the AI shifts the feed to center it. Now the AI rotates the video to straighten it out. There on the screen is an alien being. A person. A person that is roughly humanoid in shape. Symmetric. It is speaking. After a fashion, it is speaking. An organ under the bulbous shape on the top of the body is moving. And noise does correlate with the movement.

  “I am starting a learning routine to decode the language. It will take a while. I need this person to make reference to things at the same time the noises are generated.”

  Brother Lewis and Sister Jones embrace more tightly and hold each other tenderly for a long time. The shakes subside. Eventually, they release their grasp on each other and simultaneously kneel and pray. Brother Lewis begins the prayer as is their custom.

  “Heavenly Father, in your wisdom you have called certain women and men to a life of special consecration so that in prayerful observance of a lifestyle of poverty, chaste celibacy, and obedience, that they might be witnesses to us that as St. Paul says, "Our true citizenship is in heaven." Give them, Lord, the grace of joy and perseverance in their holy vocation. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.”

  Sister Jones opens her eyes and intones “Amen.” She meets Brother Lewis’s eyes firmly. “You thought to include Abbess Joan Van Der Nehh in this moment. You are a most generous and unique man. I love you so much, Brother Lewis.” He smiles and begins to cry. The emotion of the moment in grand and unavoidable. They both cry. At first it is a gentle thing, but within moments Brother Lewis is sobbing out loud.

  Abbess Joan Van Der Nehh has been entombed in the church grounds now for nearly a decade. In her last years, as always, she kept the dream alive that intelligent life would be discovered in her lifetime. As it turned out she missed it by nine years.

  “I am calling Tommaso after his game.” Brother Lewis announces quietly. “Of course, he should be next to know.” Sister Jones smiles and holds her friend closely. They rock back and forth holding each other and humming and praying for nearly an hour. Listening to the chirps, squeaks, and coughs of an alien under a bright white and red sun nearly five hundred light years distant.