“And this signal lasted for three hours?”

“Three hours and twenty-two minutes, to be precise, Senator,” Kenny Wong blurts out, standing at attention.

Chaney motions for him to sit. “And there have been no other signals, Mr.Dodds?”

“No, sir, but we’ll continue to monitor the frequency and direction of the signal around the clock.”

“All right, assuming the signal was real, what are the implications here?”

“Well, sir, the most obvious and exciting implication is that we now have evidence that we’re not alone, that at least one more intelligent life-form does exist somewhere within our galaxy. Our next step is to determine if specific patterns or algorithms are hidden within the signal itself.”

“You think the signal may contain some sort of communication?”

“We think it’s very possible. Senator, this wasn’t just some random signal transmitted across the galaxy. This beam was purposely directed at our solar system. There’s another intelligence out there that knows we exist. By directing their beacon at Earth, they were letting us know they exist, too.”

“Sort of a neighborly, ‘how do you do,’ is that it?”

The NASA director smiles. “Yes, sir.”

“And when will your people finish their analysis?”

“Difficult to say. If an alien algorithm does exist, I’m confident our computers and team of mathematicians and cryptic code breakers will find it. Still, it could take months, years—or maybe never. How does one go about thinking like an extraterrestrial? This is exciting, but it’s all very new to us.”

“That’s not exactly true, is it, Mr.Dodds?” The raccoon eyes stare down the director. “You and I both know that SETI has been using Arecibo’s big dish to transmit messages into deep space for quite some time.”

“Just as networks have been broadcasting television signals into space at the speed of light ever since I Love Lucy first aired.”

“Don’t play games, Mr.Dodds. I’m no astronomer, but I’ve read enough to know that television signals are far too weak to have reached Orion. When this discovery is announced, there are going to be a lot of very angry, very frightened people out there who will insist that SETI brought this unknown terror upon us.”

Dodds hushes the objections from his assistants. “You’re right, Senator. SETI transmissions are stronger, but television signals are infinitely more vast, spreading out into space in all directions. Of the two, television signals are far more likely to have reached a random receiver than a narrow beacon from Arecibo. Keep in mind that the strength of the radio signal we detected was produced by an alien transmitter far and away superior to our own. We’d have to assume that the intelligence behind the signal also has radio receivers capable of detecting our weaker signals.”