“Frequency modulation is perfect for transmitting binary data,” Zavada continued. “It’s kind of like Morse code, only simpler. Instead of dots and dashes, you just have ones and zeroes — on and off.”
“We tried looking for a binary message,” Soter answered. Contrary to many of the news reports that had been circulated, no one had actually ‘heard’ the Wow! Signal. The only recorded data from the Big Ear was the computer printout, and that was only the mean values of signal strength calculated every few seconds. There was no recording of the signal and no way to know if it had been modulated to contain a message. “Lots of ones, but they were all in the background…”
His voice trailed off as he saw, with the same clarity that had fueled his recognition of a pattern in the Wow! Signal, that they actually had received a binary message. He pushed the newspaper away to reveal the printout of data received from the Gemini-Auriga sky survey. He looked at it and then turned it for Zavada’s inspection. “What do you see?”
“Background noise.”
Soter shook his head. “Think more literally. You see ones. A lot of ones.” As with the data from the Big Ear, the numeral ‘1’ was used to signify a faint pulse of radiation — white noise from stars and other objects that emitted very faint but detectable electro-magnetic radiation. The universe was a noisy place, but most of the noise was at a very low frequency. The radiation the telescope had detected was in the low range, but that was to be expected. It was rare to see anything greater than a four.
“Yeah, and a lot empty spaces in between.”
“Not spaces,” Soter countered. “Zeroes.”
Zavada gaped at him. “Are you saying there’s a binary code hidden in the background noise?” He didn’t wait for a response, but took the thick stack of paper and began studying it with the practiced eye of someone fluent in machine language. After a few seconds, he turned to the next page, then the next. “I’ll be damned.”
Soter moved around the desk to look over Zavada’s shoulder. “What do you see?”
Zavada took out a pen and began scribbling furiously on the margin of the printout. After a few minutes, he straightened and showed Soter what he had produced.
101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000
“There’s a repeating pattern here. Do you see it?” Zavada added some lines.
101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000101000011101000110000010000000
“It repeats after thirty digits, over and over again.”
“Can you tell what it says?”
“Every binary number starts with one. If the thirty digits are a single number…” Zavada did some calculations on the paper. “Six hundred seventy-eight million, seven hundred fifteen thousand, five hundred and twenty.”
Soter took the pen and wrote the number down.
678,715,520
It was a multiple of ten…nothing helpful there. The prime factorization was interesting though.
2^7 5 • 7 • 151499
“It might not be one number,” Zavada cautioned. “See these long strings of zeroes? Four and five at a time? If this were my message, I’d use double-zeroes or triple-zeroes as spaces between individual numbers.”
10100
-
{20–58 — 24–32} or {10–29 — 12–16}
Soter felt a tingling at the base of his neck. There was something important here. He hastily wrote out an alphanumeric key like the one he had used in interpreting the Wow! Signal. The first set of numbers didn’t work. Fifty-eight was beyond the alphanumeric range. The second set however was within the range.
1010 = 10 = A 11101 = 29 = T 1100 = 12 = C 10000 = 16 = G
“A,T,C,G,” he said aloud. There was something familiar about those letters. “And this just keeps repeating?”
Zavada leafed through the printout, nodding in the affirmative after a quick scan of each page. Then, without warning, he stopped and backtracked. “No. There’s a change here. It’s similar… Okay, it’s definitely the same four distinct values, but not in the same order.”
10100001010000101000101000010000000110000010000000110000011000001100000100000001000000010000000
“The first several iterations were to give us the key,” Soter murmured. “To make sure we would notice the pattern. Can you break it down into sets using these values?” He tapped his key.
Zavada, with the eagerness of a kid opening presents on Christmas morning, began converting binary to alphanumeric.
AAAAGCGCCCGGG
Soter gasped. Now he knew why the four letters looked so familiar. “I need to show this to Chris.”
He was certain that the team’s xenobiologist, would confirm his discovery. They had indeed received a second transmission, from exactly where the Wow! Signal had told them to look…a message cleverly disguised as fluctuations in background radiation, a message that no one would ever notice unless they were actively looking for it…a message that contained just four discrete values, but which could be assembled to create something marvelous.
The letters, ATCG stood for adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine — the four nucleobases that formed the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule.
Someone, somewhere out in space, perhaps hundreds of light years away, had sent them a message coded in DNA.
FLOOD
44
Jenna stood alone in the small galley, staring at the unopened bottle of water like she might gain some insight from the light refracting through it. Reality had become a very fluid substance in the last few hours. The revelations, each one more incredible than the last, had poured down on her, washing away the foundations of everything she believed about herself. She would have rejected every word, demanded to be given her life back, if not for the simple fact that, deep down, she knew it was all true.
Mercy came to join her a few seconds later. “You okay, honey?”
Jenna continued to stare at the bottle. “How did you…?” She didn’t know how to finish the question.
Mercy hugged her. Jenna did not resist, but neither did she return the embrace.
“I was the first,” Mercy began. “I suppose that’s obvious to you now. Back in ‘78, gene splicing was a completely new field. The Human Genome Project wouldn’t be started for several more years, but biologists had already started mapping DNA. Soter’s team was able to identify several of the gene sequences in the message and recognized that it was human DNA. They found human donors who were a close match and cultivated several in vitro embryos. A ready supply of genetic material. Of those, I was the closest match. In the years that followed, as gene science improved and computers got faster, they were able to fine-tune the process. Meanwhile, I grew up. I had a pretty normal childhood, I guess. It seemed normal anyway.