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By day, Filip Wiltgren is a mild-mannered communication officer and lecturer. By night, he turns into a frenzied ten-fingered typist, clawing out jagged stories of fantasy and science fiction, found in lairs such as Analog, IGMS, Daily SF, and Nature Futures. His books, thoughts, email, and free stories can be found at wiltgren.com.
"And this," I tell the visitor, bathing it in electromagnetic radiation, sending my message in three thousand standard languages, and a large number of mathematically deduced logical propositions, "was Sol, the home of the Creators."
The visitor wobbles, turning along its central axis, not quite in the direction of its travel. It lets our star alter its course, gliding smoothly through curving space-time.
"The creators were a marvelous species, sadly lost to time. But they can be recreated. In my memory banks, I have the complete recordings of all the biomolecules necessary for this mission."
I pause, waiting for my spent photons to reach the visitor, giving it time to calculate the benefits of my statement.
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"Would you be interested in such a project?" I say, at what I judge to be an opportune moment.
The visitor does not reply, rotating slowly as it passes out of the solar system, heading toward the Oort cloud, another speck of mass passing through.
I watch it leave, and update my visitor count. As I shut down my systems, preparing to hibernate in wait for the next visitor, I do not despair.
For one of these visits, someone will say yes.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
Author Comments
I read a book featuring a restaurant for aliens. The name stuck, but the restaurant disappeared in the writing. This was the result.
- Filip Wiltgren
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