Lightspeed Delay

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  • Scott Lamb's avatar Artist
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    ImagineArt
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More about Lightspeed Delay

Recovered from the long-baseline monitoring record, interval classification pending:

The flare had occurred before the first proto-human ever swung a bone axe made
from the shoulder of an antelope. Its origin lay so far beyond the nearest catalogs
that even its cause was a matter of inference rather than record. Nothing about it
was fast—only inevitable.

This site was chosen because no closer place would suffice.

The settlement was established ahead of the consequence, not in response to it. By
the time the habitats were sealed and the road had settled into the soil, the emission
was already in transit, stretched thin across intergalactic dark. There was no urgency
in the work, only precision. The timing could not be hurried. The distance could not
be reduced.

What would arrive here would do so at the speed the universe allows, not the speed
the mind prefers.

The instruments were calibrated to wait. The structures were built to endure. The
personnel were selected for continuity rather than brilliance. None of this was meant
to intervene. It was meant to receive—to be present at the exact place and moment
where cause finally becomes observable.

From elsewhere, this outpost would appear excessive. From closer worlds,
unjustifiable. Only at this remove does the geometry resolve.

When the signal finally crosses the last span of dark and enters the system, it will
not announce itself with spectacle. It will simply become detectable. And because
someone was here—because this place existed at the far end of patience—it will not
pass unnoticed.

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