“Normally I do love your quirky choices, but when I was a kid, my grandma always made me watch this ancient kids’ show called Captain Kangaroo. The host dressed like that, and…I can’t make out with Captain Kangaroo. That’s just too weird.” She made a gagging sound.
Peyton winced.
Getting blocked by some old kids’ show host. Of course. Just my luck.
“It was worth a shot.” Peyton went to pick up one of the devices on the table to take a closer look. If he couldn’t make out with his girlfriend, he might as well inspect the tech.
Amber slapped his hand. “Don’t touch those. Do you have any idea how expensive they are?”
“Um, no? I’m guessing they cost more than a Snickers.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, they are really expensive. I’m not even sure I should have you in here, but I just thought you would find it cool. At least when you aren’t obsessing over making out with me. Geeze. Men.”
“What can I say? A beautiful nerdy woman around technology? It just puts me in the mood.” He pointed at her. “You set me up.”
Amber gave him a cool stare. “It’s a nice line, but it still sounds like a line. So you don’t care about interstellar communication because of your libido?”
I called her beautiful, but she’s not budging. Better try to salvage this before she gets really pissed off.
“Interstellar communication is cool, yeah.” Peyton forced a smile. “Even if I don’t know all the details about it. Earth’s more than enough challenge for me.”
Amber’s face brightened. “The real trick is that these receivers have to use such a wide frequency range. Because the project has funds for teleportation, that means they can put the probes directly into space without a rocket launch. Really darn far, as in AUs away. There has been some talk of actual light-year teleports, but apparently, it’s hard to do that in space versus sending to Oriceran because of the lack of previous direct magical interaction. I don’t understand all the details all that well.” She waved a hand. “At a minimum, they can get a probe into orbit.”
“Is that a lot cheaper than using a rocket? I mean, you have all those companies these days, and don’t they compete on price? Half the funeral homes offer space burials now.”
Amber nodded. “Yeah, it’s not necessarily all that much cheaper, at least not with the project being charged for the magic. I don’t quite get it. They can teleport stuff from Oriceran super-easy, but the minute we ask someone to put something in geosynchronous orbit, it’s the most complicated spell in the world.” She shrugged.
Peyton frowned. “If it’s not cheaper, what’s the advantage? Why bother?”
“The instruments don’t have to survive the forces associated with a rocket launch, which means the team can get a lot more in terms of sensitivity. True broad-spectrum signal transmission and receiving, among other things.”
He leaned toward one of the devices but kept his hands behind his back. “I’m not an expert on space communication, but isn’t that kind of overkill? I mean, they know what frequencies they need to communicate with the probes, so who cares about trying to be able to transmit and receive everything? Receiving, I guess, if you’re trying to do space exploration, but why transmission?”
Amber’s mouth made a little O. “Because we don’t know what potential frequencies a non-human or non-Oriceran intelligent civilization might be using. Signal attenuation due to the atmosphere is a killer, and if we want to have any chance of communicating with another technological civilization, our best bet is broad-spectrum transmission in space.”
Peyton blinked several times as the gears in his brain finally turned. She’d been helping with research that could be applied to spacecraft and was now helping with research for probes that could communicate with aliens. A general pattern was emerging of a project to reach out and touch someone or something alien and non-Oriceran.
Are they just doing it because of scientific curiosity, or do they know more than anyone thinks?
Amber smiled. “There’s a lot of interesting research, after all, about non-Oriceran extraterrestrials. People have spent a lot of time assuming every ancient alien thing was them, but now others are starting to question that.” She shook her head. “It’s strange how people kind of just almost forgot about the idea there could be life on other planets when we found out about Oriceran.” She shook a finger. “If you think about it, the fact there are thousands of intelligent species over there only increases the chance that somewhere close to us, in our galaxy rather than a different dimension, is another planet with an intelligent species.” She let out a sigh. “Even magic has its limits, especially at huge distances and when the magic users haven’t dealt with the other planet directly, but if we combine magic and technology, we should be able to achieve the dream of extraterrestrial contact.”
“You don’t say?” Peyton forced a smile onto his face. “That’s pretty intense. I didn’t even realize you were involved in that kind of thing. That’s crazy.” He threw up a hand. “Crazy in a good way. I mean, it’s awesome that you’re involved in that kind of thing.”
Self-control. I can’t blurt out that I know all about the secret government projects that have already proven aliens exist. Even if it scored massive points with my girlfriend, Shay would put me into a probe and send me to the edge of the Solar System or use magic to drop me into some goblin garbage dump on Oriceran.
Amber nodded and rubbed her hands together. She looked around before leaning toward Peyton. “I know it sounds crazy, but some people think that there’s non-Oriceran intelligent life on Earth right now. No one can prove it a hundred percent, though.”
Aliens like James Brownstone.
“Interesting.” He shrugged. “Considering all the weird stuff here, it
