[ WP ] Aliens receive a message from humanity . It 's three words , repeated continously . `` Are we alone ? ''

She jogs up to the Shar'kirar High Council, paper in her hand. She halts, the customary three meters away in front of the line of white calcium powder, the back of her hand placed over her mouth, her fingers curled loosely, and waits. 
 
 `` Speak.'' They say, as the council leader steps forward and traces a finger along her palm, pushing her middle finger straight. 
 
 She bows. `` Gratitude, our Masters. We have received a message,'' she pauses, unsure how to explain. `` From Sector 6 - the Jasiskia galaxy. Specifically, AHED -- 20043. The one we've been monitoring.'' 
 
 The pause. They understand the gravity of the situation. `` What does it say?'' 
 
 `` We ran it through multiple linguistics experts - they agree, from what we know of the planet, that it says `` Are we alone?''. They are... becoming aware. I believe it is time to contact them.'' She lets hope creep into her message. The second planet to be contacted by them, and she could be alive to see it - to even take part in it! 
 
 `` How long will it take for them to receive a signal?'' 
 
 She tilts her head and shifts it to the side, the tilts up, the action snake-like to humans, but affirming to them. `` About one calendar shift. The scientists are also starting to ready a manned personal shuttle.'' 
 
 `` Do it. I trust your judgement - you have served with us for many years.'' 
 
 `` Yes, our Masters,'' she says. She crouches down, dabs her finger into the powder, runs it down the column of her throat to cleanse herself, and exits. 
 
 -- - 
 
 We wait. We wait and wait and wait, because this is our last hope. Three years pass since we sent out that achingly hopeful message. A single question, so important, because it was what humans are. We search in the darkness of cities and space and everything in between for our fleeting connections, and hope, so desperately. 
 
 I attend every morning to read all the incoming signals. The software automatically weeds out everything unimportant, CMBR and the like - so we're left with only the unusual. 
 
 Then, one afternoon- spikes, in a pattern too conscious to be random -- 
 
 Binary, we realize. On repeat -- 
 
 `` No.'' 
 
 That night I look up to a vast glittering sea of light, a barely-connected spreading universe, and I vow to those who replied, to myself, on behalf of the human race that we would never be alone in the vastness of space again.
