The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction

off a third of the list.”
“So, found anything?”
“Not so far, so I’m going to stay with the two missing ones for now.”
“And you’re going to keep at it?”
“Of course. Scientifically, this is a sensation.”
“So you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. How many nights?”
“I don’t know yet, honey. But don’t worry, I’m taking tonight and tomorrow off.”
In fact, the weather forecast predicted rain first and then fog moving in. But if he gave that as the reason for why he had time tonight, Franziska wouldn’t be happy.
“That’s fine, Peter. I’m going to meet Greta again this evening. I’m sure you need some time for yourself. Haven’t you wanted to call your friend Manfred for a long time?”
That was true. He just hadn’t gotten around to it. But in reality, the call would probably be over inside of three minutes.
“What are you planning to do? I could be the driver. Then you could have your drinks without having to spend the night at Greta’s. You hate sleeping in strange beds.”
Greta did not like him. She claimed they couldn’t hold a decent conversation, but he didn’t think that was necessarily true.
“Oh, come on, you’re better off getting some rest. José asked us if we’d like to show him a bit of Munich nightlife. It’s going to be very late. He had a showing in a Munich movie theater once before.”
Franziska had said she was going to go out with Greta, but it turned out that the Colombian director was behind it after all. Of course, that was because he was such an interesting person. He must have had a difficult childhood.
Peter looked at his wife, who was looking absently at the jam. No, she’s not thinking about the great night with José. Don’t be silly. You’re happily married, and Franziska is just tired.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “If I’d have to wander around bars until the wee hours of the morning, no, I’d rather sleep in. I hope you’re good hosts.”

March 1, 2026 – Passau
It was all crap. Peter deleted the highlighted text he’d written the night before. It said what he meant to say, but it still didn’t come across the way he thought it should. He had read one or two astronomy papers before, but writing one himself was something else. Besides, if you’ve spent the whole time waiting for your wife to come home, how could you be expected to pull your thoughts together and write something professional-looking?
But he’d waited in vain. Franziska came home at around ten o’clock in the morning, this time wearing her own blouse but smelling like smoke again. He was no expert, but today there seemed to be a lingering sweetish aroma. Of course, maybe that was because of his prejudice against José—not every Colombian was a member of a drug cartel.
Franziska tried to reassure him by describing the director as a cultured, empathetic, and intellectual person. But that didn’t help to soothe him, because that was exactly the kind of guy she was attracted to. Now the guy just needed to have curly hair, a healthy complexion, and a giant crucifix. Peter almost asked about his hair, but stopped himself in time. It might inadvertently make Franziska think about him all the more.
You fool, do you think she wouldn’t have picked up on that? He silenced his inner voice.
In any case, Franziska didn’t have a date for today. Every Sunday evening, they watched Tatort, the long-running German crime scene show, on TV. He wouldn’t be able to get out of watching it with her, even if there was a major conjunction going on up in the heavens.
Enough with the stars. Now it was time to prep for his 8th grade class, third period tomorrow. Peter closed the notebook, stood up, went to the shelf with his school supplies, and took out the folder with his preparations. He’d taught every grade level in physics, but the last time he’d had 8th graders was three years ago. That had been the class with the five mathematics geniuses, which was why he’d probably have to adjust the material a bit now. It was amazing how much a class could benefit from a few outstanding and enthusiastic students.
He sat down at the desk again, opened the folder, and read a few lines. Crap. He really didn’t feel like dealing with 8th grade level physics right now. How many times had he taught this same material? Peter leaned back in his office chair, listening. A toilet flushed somewhere. Dusk was setting in. Nothing could be heard from Franziska’s room. She was also preparing for her lessons.
Sunday afternoon was always like this. It was usually quite comfortable. At six, they would have dinner, and at eight on the dot, he would turn on the evening news. Hopefully Franziska didn’t want to change that. Maybe he should get her a bouquet of flowers again tomorrow. She’d think he was feeling guilty, but she’d be happy anyway.
Peter switched the computer back on. He could always do tomorrow’s lesson from the textbook. He couldn’t solve this conundrum alone. Surely there must be astronomers who were interested in disappearing stars? Of course, there was Villarroel and her group, but the last paper had already sounded a bit hopeless. Basically, it was always came down to a matter of finding natural causes for the fact that images from different decades sometimes showed different stars.
But that was not his problem at all. He wasn’t talking about obscure points of light on photo plates from the 1960s that couldn’t be found in photos of the same region 30 years later. It was about named stars that simply no longer shone in the sky without a previous explosion. Could there be a natural cause for this? He needed to summarize his data in an article. It was unlikely that any well-known science magazine would pick it up, but the submissions would go into peer review, so they would find