Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone Read Online Free

really spread out, a big galactic empire.”
    Charles shook his head. “No, we’re talking a distance of sixteen-hundred light-years, Ken. The time it would take to cover that distance at sub-light speeds, even if they were able to push close enough to light-speed to use time dilation to their advantage ...” He shook his head again. “No, Sam’s right. They must have faster-than-light travel — whether it’s warp speed, worm holes, jump gates, it really doesn’t matter. And they almost certainly have faster-than-light communication. And that  means we’ve been wrong about how old some of these messages are.” He guffawed once. “Jesus, we’re going to have to completely rewrite the software for this. Factor in just how much we have to slow down the transmissions, factor in Sam’s date-stamp, factor in ... it makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
    “I’ll call a staff meeting for tomorrow morning. There’s going to be resistance to this, Sam, a lot of resistance. That’s just how these things are. But I want the SETI team here updated on this right away. Then we’ll work our way outward, one step at a time.”
    “I understand,” Sam said.
    Ken clapped his hands once and spread them wide. “Okay, am I the only one here who’s dying to know about that other conclusion of yours? The one that you kept secret from me. Come on, dude. Give!”
    For the first time, Sam showed obvious tension, appearing reluctant to continue. Charles raised an eyebrow.
    “Doctor Foster,” Sam lowered his voice, “it might be for the best if we kept this, um ... just between the two of us. For now.”
    “Hey!” Ken protested.
    Choosing to err on the side of caution, Charles said, “Ken, why don’t you go grab yourself another Red Bull ...”
    “But—”
    “Ken.”
    Downhearted, Ken shot Sam a dirty look as he sulked away.
    Charles turned back to Sam. “Okay, UT, you’ve got my attention.”
    Sam peered over to where the other interns were working, then rolled his chair a few inches closer to Charles, leaning forward and lowering his voice even further. Intrigued, Charles mirrored him.
    “It’s about that third transmission,” Sam said. “The last one that came through with the others.”
    “What about it?”
    “It appears ... that it originated just seventy light-years from here.”
    Charles’ jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
    “I’m not.”
    “Well, why didn’t you mention this before, in front of Ken? Doesn’t this further your theory?”
    “Oh, it does,” Sam agreed, though he still seemed unhappy about it. “Very much so.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    “Two things. First, I’m not entirely certain about it; neither is the computer. This final transmission is a little different from the others. They’re speaking the Taalu language, and it carries the Taalu ‘handwriting’ I talked about, but between the bandwidth and the date-stamp ... it’s like they were trying to keep quiet, to whisper, so to speak.”
    Charles knew all about bandwidths, but ... “What was wrong with the date-stamp?”
    “It was sort of abbreviated. Like if someone wrote the date as ‘oh-seven-forty’ instead of ‘July, Nineteen-Forty.’ ” He shrugged. “That’s just an analogy, but ... I think they were trying to broadcast covertly or something. Or hell, maybe it was just, I don’t know, a ship-to-ship transmission instead of planet-to-planet. If I’m right about their not knowing we can hear them ...”
    “Okay,” Charles admitted, “that’s a little curious. What’s the other problem?”
    Sam glanced at the interns one more time before answering. “The proximity between the Arthian’s usual point of origin and the newer ones ... Doctor Foster, they’re not just generally closer, not just spreading out like the ‘empire’ Ken mentioned. They’re getting directly closer. I mean, I cross-checked it with the astronomy database, to be sure.” He looked Charles straight in the eye.