"But why are we only just receiving it now?"
"I have no idea. Perhaps their previous transmissions lacked sufficient power. Perhaps they had maintained their silence deliberately."
“So, they broke their silence to send this to us. It must be important!”
The control room was busier than it had been in half a century. Under normal conditions it was staffed by five kerbals who monitored Ikonia’s modest array of radio telescopes. Three hours earlier, the delicate instruments had detected a whisper from the direction of Ravos. The total amount of energy received was less than the kinetic energy of a snowflake touching the ground, but it sent tectonic shockwaves through Ikonia. Now, nearly one hundred kerbals crowded into the small room, spilling out the door and into the corridor beyond. A few stark pixels displayed on the main screen held the entirety of their attention. They formed a single line of text.
UPDATE. STANDBY.
"What could they mean by 'update'?"
"Maybe it contains images of Selenya!"
"No, no, this message was sent in 2110. They’d only been travelling for 27 years."
"They're turning around. I bet they waited until the troubles on Kerbin subsided and now they're crawling back home, the cowards."
"No. This 'update' is old, even for them. For some reason they've only now decided to send it."
"Then it must be good news!"
Someone shouted, and several hundred pairs of eyes snapped back to the screen. A grainy video feed had appeared.
