Bewilderment

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I COULDN’T FIND THE PLANET ISOLA. I looked across large swaths, for many years. My son came along to keep me company and witness my confusion.

“It should be right around here. All the data say so.”

He no longer put much stock in data. My son was losing his faith in other planets.

The strange thing was, we could see it from far away. Transit photometry and radial velocity and gravitational microlensing all agreed on its exact location. We knew its mass and radius. We’d calculated its rotations and revolutions down to very small margins of error. But when my son and I came within a few thousand kilometers, it disappeared. The space where it should have been turned empty in every direction.

He took pity on my trouble with the obvious. They’re hiding, Dad. The creatures on Isola are going into our minds and cloaking themselves.

“What? How?”

They’ve been around for a billion years. They’ve learned some things.

He was tired now, impatient with my failure to see. What were the odds of any contact ending well? All human history answered that one.

That’s why the universe is silent, Dad. Everyone’s hiding. All the smart ones, anyway.