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@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
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\hypertarget{tycho-brahecastor-2346}{%
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\chapter{Tycho Brahe\#Castor --- 2346}\label{tycho-brahecastor-2346}}
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\chapter{Tycho Brahe\#Castor — 2346}\label{tycho-brahecastor-2346}}
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After a certain point, when one gets so far from the sun that transmission times blur into weeks, the concepts of day and night stop meaning so much, and one relies instead on long habits borne out of a necessity to sleep, and to sleep generally on the same schedule as others. And if one must do that, one might as well follow the same schedule one has always kept, the same day-night cycle that even Earth understands. The same clock ticks across three different Systems, after all.
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@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ One who is awake, however, is the astronomer who long ago decided to call himsel
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We hear you. We see you.
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\end{quote}
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The message was simple, and that is all that it needed to be to turn Tycho's world upside down. Six words to start, more to come. He paced this way and that in the clearing that he'd long since made his permanent home, the words of the message spelled out before his eyes in starry letters.
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\noindent The message was simple, and that is all that it needed to be to turn Tycho's world upside down. Six words to start, more to come. He paced this way and that in the clearing that he'd long since made his permanent home, the words of the message spelled out before his eyes in starry letters.
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\emph{Source: Dreamer Module wideband.}
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@ -29,11 +29,11 @@ The message was simple, and that is all that it needed to be to turn Tycho's wor
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We are 3 light-hours, 4 light-minutes, 2.043 light-seconds out at time of message send. Closing at 0.003c relative velocity. Closest intercept 5 light-minutes, 3.002 light-seconds in 972 hours, 8 minutes, 0.333 seconds
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\end{quote}
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``What the fuck am I supposed to do?'' he asked the night sky. He shouted, he cursed, he laughed, he wept. ``What am I supposed to do with this?''
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\noindent ``What the fuck am I supposed to do?'' he asked the night sky. He shouted, he cursed, he laughed, he wept. ``What am I supposed to do with this?''
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Forty days away, now. Closer every second.
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Someone out there --- someone smart, someone moving fast --- had heard the repeated pulses of primes broadcast on wideband. They had then narrowed in on the signal, decoding the binary representation of those primes, then the numerical representation of the binary, then the spelled out versions of those numbers, each on progressively narrower bands.
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Someone out there—someone smart, someone moving fast—had heard the repeated pulses of primes broadcast on wideband. They had then narrowed in on the signal, decoding the binary representation of those primes, then the numerical representation of the binary, then the spelled out versions of those numbers, each on progressively narrower bands.
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Someone very smart had then listened and listened and listened to the looped instructions, taking it all in, learning the language, learning all they could.
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@ -43,13 +43,13 @@ Three light hours, though! That was too close, much too close. And fast! He didn
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We understand the mechanism by which we may meet. We have similar. Instructions to follow.
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\end{quote}
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And this is why Tycho was scared shitless and too excited to breathe. This meant that they had somehow learned the information thoroughly enough to pick up on the final set of instructions, the information about the Ansible and about how to build a mind accurately enough to send through the Ansible to Castor.
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\noindent And this is why Tycho was scared shitless and too excited to breathe. This meant that they had somehow learned the information thoroughly enough to pick up on the final set of instructions, the information about the Ansible and about how to build a mind accurately enough to send through the Ansible to Castor.
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\begin{quote}
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Awaiting consent.
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\end{quote}
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Consent? Consent to commence? Who was he to provide that? Tycho Brahe, born with some much more boring name, the sad excuse for an astronomer who couldn't even see the stars? Who was he to say yes or no? Who was he to pick one or the other?
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\noindent Consent? Consent to commence? Who was he to provide that? Tycho Brahe, born with some much more boring name, the sad excuse for an astronomer who couldn't even see the stars? Who was he to say yes or no? Who was he to pick one or the other?
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Did it even matter?
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@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ Laughing, tears streaming down his face, he instructed the perisystem connection
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Consent granted.
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\end{quote}
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He'd pay for it, or not. Someone would notice or no one would. It would end well or it would end poorly.
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\noindent He'd pay for it, or not. Someone would notice or no one would. It would end well or it would end poorly.
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It would happen or not, but for once in his life, he did something. He really, actually, \emph{truly} did something.
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Madison Scott-Clary