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power of a planet.  
    Brian reached for his coffee.  He had joined the programme starry-eyed and straight out of M.I.T. – the geek equivalent of a Hooters waitress landing a supporting role in Dallas – The Movie .  But eight years and two thousand days and nights later he had experienced nothing but a blip here, a beep there and one unfortunate piece of static that he had got everyone very, very excited about, then very disappointed and slightly angry about.  He hadn’t invented S.E.T.I@Home, Marius had – damn his German techno wizardry.  But to Marius’ credit it was a damn fine idea.  Now the disappointment of not hearing anything from space could be spread across the entire planet and not just the entire office. 
    Then the tweets started on the ‘members only’ @SETIInstitute page.  
    STARGEEZER42: ‘The silence in grid 164x678y790z – it’s movin.’
    Final_Frontier: ‘Moving gap in static 165x677y790z, anyone else see this?’
    Life@LibertySHIP: ‘Yep S.E.T.I. HQ are you getting this?’
    STARGEEZER42:  ‘S.E.T.I.? Brian u on duty?’
    STARGEEZER42: ‘Brian….’
    STARGEEZER42: ‘BRIAN OMFG RU F*#%$# AWAKE!?????????????????’
    Brian jump-started his brain and switched on everything that had a switch.  
    Brian2@SETI: ‘Getting - thanks.’
    STARGEEZER42: ‘I’m claimin this 1!’
    Brian2@SETI: ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself STARG – remember 2013? Prob nothing, what you got?’
    STARGEEZER42: ‘Dnt know – like said - just BIG space in background noise – but movin! – am mapping – CALL UR PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
     
    Brian called Marius; it wasn’t quite time to call the entire cavalry, especially after last time.  “Marius!  Marius?  Are you logged in?  Check this shit out!  What the fuck is it?”
    Brian could hear Marius knocking over glasses, drop his phone and apologise to a muffled female voice somewhere in the background as he clambered to his workstation.
    “Marius, you there?”
    Marius answered in his half-German-half-British accent.  “Yeah Brian, I’m seeing this for sure – but I’m a flying fucking whale if I could tell you what it is.  It is not broadcasting, but it is blocking right?  Which means it is either very big or very close, but hopefully not both, yah?”
    “What should I do?” Brian asked, knowing what the answer would be.
    “Call everybody.”
     
     
     

Chapter 11
     
     
    Within an hour Brian was in the S.E.T.I main meeting room, surrounded by people both in person and dialled in on secure videoconference.  Some had made the effort to don dishevelled suits; Marius had turned up in jeans and a slightly German looking leather jacket - he might have come on his motorbike but he was still a geek.
    A microphone clicked on over the teleconference.  “So what do we have here?” said one of the non-scientists, with a voice like a senator. 
     “We’re still trying to figure that out sir,” said Brian’s boss weakly; a man who had been wearing the same faded brown suit since Brian joined the office.  Was this who he was aspiring to be?  Time to chip in and redeem some reputation.
    Before he could speak Marius interjected.  “We’re calling it the swathe sir.”
    The swathe ? Nobody had mentioned that word until Marius had just said it.  Brian’s father had once told him that everybody blags it, but Marius took this to the extreme and annoyingly always seemed to get away with it.
    “The swathe?” said the man who sounded like a senator, “What the hell does that mean and it better mean something - should we be concerned?”
    Brian’s boss looked at him and Marius, willing them to speak but also willing them not say anything that would get him into trouble later.
    This time Brian made sure he spoke first.  “Sir, this… ‘swathe’… our array picked it up a few hours ago.  People monitoring our signals on the web as part of our cloud observation team spotted it first.  We’ve been tracking it since.  If I