Srtym Page

"S-R-T-Y-M," she said into the void, her voice trembling. "We see your map. But what's at the 'M'?"

The screen flickered. And in the blackness of space, at the coordinates of the non-existent "M," a star winked into being where no star had ever been before. "S-R-T-Y-M," she said into the void, her voice trembling

She was the senior linguist at the Arecibo Deep Space Listening Post, a job that for twelve years had consisted of drinking bad coffee while the universe hummed its static lullaby. Then, three hours ago, the hum had changed. And in the blackness of space, at the

"None," she said. But then she flipped the sequence. She tried it backwards. M-y-t-r-s. Still nonsense. She tried a Caesar cipher, shifting each letter by one. T-s-u-z-n. Nothing. "None," she said

For ten agonizing seconds, there was only static. Then, a new transmission. Shorter this time. A single word.

It looked like a cat had walked across a keyboard. That was the first thought of Dr. Elara Vance when she saw the transmission:

"srtym."