Unforgettable journey to other planets

Noticing Dr Capri, he said in English.

“Hello. I’ll quickly tell Yulia the information in Russian, and then she will translate it for you.”

Dr Capri nodded incomprehensibly and sat down next to Yulia on the chair. The boss began to say something very quickly to Yulia, and she answered briefly.

“When did you get the signal?” he asked.

“An hour or an hour and a half ago.”

“The signal is stable and strong. We have contacted the Chinese, they can see it. The European Space Agency also confirms the signal. NASA is still saying nothing.”

“So it’s not a mistake?”

“Yulia, what have you found out?” Mikhail asked briefly, distracted by the people around him.

“We defined the exact coordinates. It is a mountain in Nepal.”

“That’s already there. Next,” looking at the sheets in front of him, Mikhail said.

“In addition to the audio signal, the devices show magnetic radiation…”

“Yulia, everything is there. Pictures from Voyager, recordings. This is the whole golden record, and it’s not something that is posted on the Internet on NASA’s website, it’s the one itself, the original. The signal is very strong and accompanied by very strong magnetic radiation.”

“What?” Yulia turned to Dr Capri and looked at him hopefully.

Dr Capri responded to her gaze, but could not help her. He didn’t understand the Russians’ conversation.

“How did the detection work out?” Yulia and Tulu-Manchi’s silent dialogue was interrupted by her boss.

“We started the system, and I turned on the search. The equipment started giving me a targeting error. They tried to point again and again, but they couldn’t. I turned off the telescope and the system started getting a steady signal through the antennas. I used an audio simulation program, and we heard music. Then we realized it was something familiar…” Yulia didn’t have time to finish her thought.

“I’ll call you in half an hour,” Mikhail said without disconnecting his Skype, stood up from the table and started talking to someone.

Yulia looked down at the old keyboard, and only now she noticed that there were incomprehensible squiggles on it next to the usual English letters. Tulu-Manchi looked at Yulia in silence. His patience seemed to have no limits, he just waited. Yulia began to speak, staring down at the incomprehensible squiggles:

“The Chinese and ESA confirmed the signal. Everyone can see it. The signal is not the only problem, there is also strong magnetic radiation. Everyone is trying to figure out what’s going on right now,” Yulia looked up at Dr Capri.

He was calm and deciding something inside.

“The signal is coming from the territory of Nepal,” he said and stopped.

Yulia did not understand whether it was a question or a statement, and just waited to see what would happen next.

“Can you build something to register the signal under hiking conditions?” Tulu-Manchi asked.

“I don’t have the equipment,” Yulia tried to say.

“We can find something in our warehouse. Come down, I’m going to Dr Lamichen,” Dr Capri stood up with the look of a man who had made up his mind.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s happening in Nepal, so we have to go there,” the doctor said as he left the room.

Part 1 – Chapter 12

Bernard Bajolet was twiddling a phone in his hands, sitting at the conference table at the headquarters of the European Space Agency. He could not understand, since when did the ESA become involved in national security issues. But he received a personal call from the minister asking him to come to an urgent meeting. Around him sat several heads of various organizations whom he knew well. All of them were also looking at each other incomprehensibly.

“Well, gentlemen,” he thought, “what’s the news in orbit?”

Jean-Jacques Dordain, head of ESA, entered the room. Everyone turned to him mechanically.

“Madame and Monsieur, sorry to keep you waiting,” he began with undisguised excitement. “Well, about seven hours ago in Kathmandu during the installation of the anomaly detection system in outer space, a signal was detected.”

The light in the room dimmed and the desktop of the computer of one of Mr. Dordain’s assistants appeared on the big monitor. The assistant opened a map file so that everyone could understand exactly where the detection had occurred. At this time, Jean-Jacques Dordain continued:

“The signal was picked up at the Kathmandu Observatory. Roscosmos was the first to confirm it. They checked and found exactly the same anomaly. The head of Roscosmos asked us for confirmation. We did that about four hours ago. The signal is believed to be coming from the foothills in northeastern Nepal, Mount Kan-chen-junga,” he said slowly, reading from the sheet. “The signal contains information from the so-called golden recording of Voyager made in the seventies.”

“Is that a threat to national security?” someone next to Bernard Bajolet said with indignation.

The head of ESA hesitated a bit and added:

“Um. The signal itself is on a space transmission frequency, that’s not the biggest problem. Although we can’t explain that either. The biggest problem is the active magnetic anomaly.”

There is a silent pause in the room. It was interrupted by the French Minister of Security.

“Gentlemen, we are not talking about contact with aliens, but we need to understand what is going on. What resources do we have to check this quadrant?”

“We can take detailed pictures of the area,” suggested one of the generals, “we can analyze the recording to determine the type of transmitting device.”

“Okay,” the minister nodded. “What else do we know? Please, Monsieur Dordain.”

The head of the space agency began to talk:

“The recording itself is no different from the Voyager recording. We tend to assume that this is the original, not the recordings that are in the NASA archives and public sources, this is exactly the original from the Voyager record.”

“How did you figure that out?” Bernard Bajolet asked.

“The quality of the signal.”

“I thought it was just an attached disk on the Voyager plating. Is it possible that the signal is being broadcast?” asked one of the generals.

“No,” replied the minister for the head of the ESA, “so we need to get to the bottom of this situation.”

That ended the meeting, several generals began to call their teams to find out more about the situation. The minister asked all the heads of departments to stay in Paris and attend an extended meeting on the situation tomorrow. Bernard Bajolet went out into the corridor and checked his mail and his work calendar.

He dialed the number of his assistant.

“Listening,” Jean-Pierre’s voice was heard.