Luke shuffled into the kitchen like a zombie around half past ten and did a double-take when he saw Scott sitting at the table, working on his laptop. Luke decided to ignore him and pour himself a bowl of cereal. “I made extra eggs,” said Scott, gesturing at the stove. Luke said nothing in return, but did take some of the eggs and sat down across the table from Scott. After a long, painfully awkward silence that lasted until Luke was almost halfway done, Scott at last stopped typing, took a deep breath and went on, “Look, I’m sorry about the other day. You’re right, I’ve…I’ve been retreating too much into my head ever since we lost Sarah and, well, it’s not fair to you to have to carry something that heavy alone. But I stand by what I said, this summer is gonna be different. There’s still time.”

  “Oh that’s why you’re not in the office.” Luke’s gaze flickered up from his eggs for just a moment.

  “Actually yeah. I figured I’d be done around three today and we can hang out,” said Scott, “If you still want.”

  Luke didn’t respond directly to that, instead picking up a scribbled-on paper from the table. “What the hell are ‘Co-Moving Hypervelocity X-ray Emitters’?” he said.

  Scott took the paper from Luke. “Oh, uh, that’s what I’ve been doing lately.” Luke resisted the urge to make a snide comment about what he’d been doing lately, and Scott went on nonchalantly, “Few weeks ago, we found a pair of unique identical X-ray sources moving at around one percent of light speed into the inner Solar System. They’re not gonna hit Earth though. So we’ve been trying to focus on where they come from, but tracing their path backwards against the proper motion of the stars isn’t yielding anything.”

  Luke stared at him, dumbstruck. “Are you being deliberately obtuse right now?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re obviously alien ships. We’re seeing shitloads of X-rays because their engines are pointing towards us, which they’re doing because they’re slowing down, which they’re doing because, I don’t know, Earth is cool I guess. You really hadn’t considered it?” Luke returned to his eggs.

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  “More like it was in the back of my mind, but I really didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole without proof,” Scott admitted.

  “You know, you’re really fucking calm for a man who’s discovered aliens.”

  “I’ve discovered a hypervelocity X-ray source.”

  Luke groaned. “Okay, fine. Have you checked on the velocity lately? Like actually run the numbers?”

  “Not lately, but maybe Lauren–”

  “But logically, if these X-rays are traveling straight toward the Earth at one percent of light speed while actively slowing down…what the hell else would they be? Oh and that’s probably why you can’t figure out where it comes from, if you try reversing the deceleration, you should be able to track it better,” said Luke, speaking practically at the speed of light. He finished his speech by shoveling the last mouthful of eggs into his mouth.

  Scott held up his hands. “Okay, okay I get it. Guess I’m going to the office today after all.” He shut off his laptop and gathered his papers.

  “We,” corrected Luke, standing up, “And you still owe me a visit to the observatory.”

  Scott nodded. “Fair enough.” He reached over to try and ruffle Luke’s hair. Luke expertly dodged like a ninja, but for the first time, he smiled slightly.

  Lauren was already at her usual corner desk by the time Scott and Luke got to the office. Lauren smiled and waved at Luke, who stared in silence for a long moment before giving her a curt nod. “I’ve checked the numbers three times,” said Lauren in a hushed, almost hesitant tone, “The velocity of both objects has decreased by almost half in a matter of weeks.”

  “Oh,” said Scott vaguely, his thoughts racing at hypersonic speeds.

  “See! I told you!” crowed Luke triumphantly.

  “It…might actually be artificial,” said Lauren, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I just said that out loud,” She leaned back in her seat, playing with her hair as she gazed at the screen.

  “So maybe we should figure out where these guys come from. And get more telescope time ASAP,” ventured Scott.

  “Yes, all the telescope time!” said Lauren, her fingers flying over the keys as she threw together a quick Python script.

  It only took a few hours for Lauren’s script to find a result: reversing the deceleration up to a cruising velocity of around 7.5 percent of light speed indicated a nearest possible origin in the Tau Ceti system. The silence in the air was palpable, until Luke broke it, “Does that mean…”

  “They’ve been on the way here for 160 years,” breathed Lauren, her expression overcome with awe.