The remains of a supernova, a whirling neutron star, the naked hot spot on its dense surface turning it into a cosmic lighthouse, its revolution sweeping the beam emitted by its hot spot through space, and giving Earth a brief moment of daytime as it swept past the solar system.

“I seem to recall,” the secretary general said, “that a pulsar’s frequency is far faster than this. And it doesn’t emit visible light.”

Shielding his eyes with a hand and struggling to adjust to the crazy rhythm of the world, the US president said, “The high frequency is because the neutron star retains the former star’s angular momentum. The mirror may be able to somehow drain that momentum. As for visible light … do you really think that’s something the mirror can’t do?”

“There’s another thing,” the Chinese president said. “There’s no reason to believe that the pace of life for all beings in the universe is like that of humanity. The beat for their music might be on a completely different frequency. The mirror’s normal beat, for example, may be faster than even our fastest computers.”

“Yes,” the US president said, nodding. “And there’s no reason to believe that what they perceive as visible light is the same EM spectrum.”

“So you’re saying that the mirror’s music is benchmarked to human senses?” the secretary general asked in surprise.

The Chinese president shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s got to be based on something.”

The pulsar’s powerful beam swept across the empty sky like a four-trillion-kilometer-long baton, still growing at the speed of light. At this end, played on the sun by the mirror’s invisible fingers and transmitted to the cosmos at the speed of light, the sun concert began.

SUN MUSIC

A rustle like radio jamming or the endless pounding of waves on sand occasionally offered up hints of a vast desolation within its more abundant chaos and disorder. The sound went on for more than ten minutes without changing.

The Russian president broke the silence: “Like I said, we can’t understand their music.”

“Listen!” Clayderman said, pointing at the sky, but it was a long moment before the rest of them heard the melody his trained ears had picked out at once. A simple structure of just two notes, reminiscent of a clock’s tick-tock. The notes repeated, separated by lengthy gaps. Then another two-note section, and a third, and a fourth … paired tones emerging ceaselessly from the chaos like fireflies in the night.

Then a new melody emerged, four notes. Everyone turned toward Clayderman, who was listening attentively and seemed to have sensed something. The four-note phrases multiplied.