A few days ago, when I looked at it with the helioscope, it looked like any other star. But now it’s a solid black circle with a hazy ring of light around it. I realize why immediately.

The Petrovascope is a pretty sensitive piece of equipment. It’s fine-tuned to spot even the smallest amounts of the Petrova wavelength. A star will give off absolutely obscene amounts of light at all wavelengths. It’d be like staring at the sun with binoculars. The equipment has to protect itself from the star. It probably has a physical metal plate that it keeps between its sensors and the star at all times. So I’m looking at the back of that plate.

Good design.

I reach up to the toggle switch. This is it. If there’s no Petrova line here, I don’t know what to do. I mean, I’ll try to figure out something. But I’ll be kind of lost.

I flip the toggle.

The stars disappear. The hazy ring surrounding Tau Ceti remains. That’s to be expected. It’s the star’s corona, which will be emitting plenty of light, so some of it’s bound to be the Petrova wavelength.

I search the image desperately. Nothing at first, but then I see it. A beautiful dark-red arch coming out of the bottom-left portion of Tau Ceti.

I clap my hands. “Yes!”

The shape is unmistakable. It’s a Petrova line! Tau Ceti has a Petrova line! I do a wiggly little dance in my chair. It’s not easy in zero g but I give it my all. Now we’re getting somewhere!

There are so many experiments I’ll need to do, I don’t even know where to begin. I should see where the line leads, for starters. One of the planets, obviously, but which one and what’s interesting about it? And I should get a sample of local Astrophage to see if it’s the same as what we have back on Earth. I could do that by flying into the Petrova line itself and then scraping the dust off the hull with an EVA.

I could spend a week just writing up a list of experiments I want todo!

I spot a flash on the screen. Just a quick blip of light.

“What’s that?” I say. “Another clue?”

The flash happens again. I pan and zoom in on that portion of space. It’s nowhere near the Petrova line or Tau Ceti. Maybe a reflection from a planet or asteroid?

I can see how that might happen. A highly reflective asteroid could be bouncing enough light from Tau Ceti around that I see it on the Petrovascope, but it’s intermittent, so maybe it’s an irregular shape that’s rotating and—

The flash becomes a solid light source. It’s just… “on” now. Nonstop.

I peer at the screen. “What… what’s going on here?…”