The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction

their way into the hands of one or more experts. So he had a chance to have professionals look at his results. He just didn’t know anyone in the astronomy community.
To do this, however, he must be able to produce a readable text—in English. He enjoyed watching films in the original language, but writing a scientific publication was a much greater challenge. His article had to meet a minimum standard or it wouldn’t end up with an expert, but in the circular file.
Maybe he should ask Franziska, who was more talented in languages. She liked Spanish even better than English, but together they were sure to produce something readable. Or should he try a machine translation? No. Peter stood up. If he included Franziska, she would certainly better understand why this topic was so important, and not just for him.
The computer went ‘pling.’ A new message had arrived. He sat down again and opened it.
“Dear Mr. Kraemer,” it began. His name was spelled correctly, a good sign.
“The attached work made me think of you. You asked us a question the other day that fits thematically. I guess the answer now seems to be a definite ‘yes.’ I hope you have an interesting read.”
The message was not signed, but the ‘From’ field showed that it came from the SPACE editor. Peter opened the PDF attachment. It was apparently a preprint, a paper that had not yet been reviewed by a third party and had probably just been submitted to a journal with possible interest in the topic. The lead author was named Dr. Melissa Holinger, who worked at Stockholm University. That told him something. He looked up Villarroel’s first paper, and sure enough, Holinger showed up there as a co-author. Apparently she now had her own group.
Peter straightened up as he read the paper’s title, Possible explanations for the non-detectability of main sequence stars from the cosmic neighborhood of the solar system. That was it! He was not alone after all. Peter skimmed the abstract. Holinger’s astronomers had found a total of seven stars that were included in many catalogs but were no longer visible in the sky. They were Sigma Draconis, 47 Canis Majoris, and five stars in the southern sky. All were yellow dwarfs and main sequence, so they were sun-like. Ha! So he was not nuts.
Now he was annoyed because he was no longer the discoverer. He could save himself the trouble of authoring the article. He had to get in touch with Holinger. Peter opted to print out the paper. The laser printer started moving with a groan and spit out four sheets. The bulk of the document described what astronomers thought might have caused the disappearance.
The entire keynote differed markedly from Villarroel’s publications. In the old articles, the search for non-natural causes—read: for extraterrestrials—had been in the foreground, even if it was never stated explicitly. Holinger’s work, on the other hand, presupposed that there must be natural causes, and discussed which of them were possible.
Peter rocked back and forth on his chair while reading the printed article. The argumentation was quite conclusive. After all, astronomers had found extended dark clouds in some cases where the stars used to be visible. The clouds could not be seen directly, but only through their heat radiation. The dust of which they consisted could cover the stars behind them. In the article, the researchers calculated the thickness such a cloud would have to be in order to block the light of a sun-like star, and how fast the star, cloud, and solar system would have to move in relation to each other for such an occultation to occur.
Of course, the argumentation had weaknesses, the researchers freely admit. The dark clouds they had detected could have been on the spot earlier—behind the respective star and at least partly shielded by it. They only became visible when the star went out. But Peter already suspected how the article would be received. The dark clouds came closer to a believable explanation. There was no known physical process that suddenly extinguished a sun-like star. But dark clouds existed, and more of them than had been believed before now, because they were difficult to detect.
Even more exotic explanations were possible. For two of the seven stars, the astronomers were not able to identify a dark cloud. They now suspected that the view of those stars could be obscured by a completely different phenomenon—dense clouds of dark matter. Since these interact only via gravity, they were not detectable in the infrared in the same way as dark clouds.
Hmm, hmm, hmm. Franziska could probably be reassured that his work was in vain. Others had discovered it first, and they had the better explanations. He would certainly not touch his telescope again in the next few weeks.
If only he hadn’t asked the editors! But that was unfair. It was good that it was over now. If he had put in any more work, he would only have been equally more annoyed.

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March 2, 2026 – Passau
His good intentions didn’t last 24 hours. Franziska was still in a meeting, so he had about two hours all to himself. He lowered the living room blinds. Then he moved his astral projector into the middle of the room. The projector, a column