Meanwhile, at the Senitel Observatory…
The control room was quiet in the way observatories always were – machines listening more than speaking.
Elena Cruz leaned closer to the display, watching the numbers settle, then drift.
“Tau Ceti’s baseline just shifted,” she said, almost to herself.
Caleb Moore didn’t look up right away. He was already frowning, already running the shape of the sentence through his head.
“Instrument drift?” Dr. Eric Dotner asked.
Elena shook her head. “I recalibrated twice. It shifted back.”
That made him turn. He studied the screen, then the secondary readout, then nothing at all – just the space between thoughts.
“Stars don’t do that,” Eric said.
“No,” Elena agreed.
The data held steady now, innocent again. As if it hadn’t just done something impossible.
Eric exhaled slowly. “Log it as unresolved.”
Elena’s fingers hovered over the console. “Already did.”
He hesitated. “What label did you use?”
She looked at him then, finally.
“I didn’t.”
Outside the station’s wide arc of glass, Tau Ceti burned on in perfect silence, unaware – or unconcerned – that it had just been noticed…