Who knows what's out there?

For a change, a little bit of micro-fiction...

Planet Esca

At first it was nothing more than numbers – subtle patterns rhythmically describing the dimming of already faint light from its parent star. Later, after untold terabytes of data were crunched by the SETI 2.0 quantum super-computer, the tell-tale specturm of modulated emissions proclaimed the presence of liquid water, clouds and even the red/infrared interface suggesting large-scale vegetation. Seas or large lakes, a functioning system of recognisable weather and abundant photosynthetic life – key indicators of a potentially habitable exoplanet.

Following desperate decades of debate, recrimination, invention and construction, it crystallised as the destination of the Granule, humanity’s first and only sporecraft, created with the last available energy and resources. The Sun still burned, and our but we had wasted too much to be able to build machines to harness its output.

Now, during the last expected generation before planetfall, our mathematicians tell us we are moving too fast, and have flown too far into the Great Maw to slow or turn sharply enough before it closes behind us. Escape is impossible, the ‘planet’ a bright dangling lure in the abyss. If only our ancestors had recognised that pair of fiery red giants for what they really were, watching our inexorable approach.