"WOW!"

White dwarf Eo has already managed to look out for the main star, when Ipparkos went to the observatory. Surrounded by a gas disk, fed by the matter of the massive, red Gelos, Eo, as usual, was pulling the huge tidal hump of his neighbor. However, the generation of Ipparkos, unlike ancestors, is accustomed to look at this spectacle with caution, and not admiration. The sight of a white dwarf, absorbing the matter of its massive neighbor, reminded scientists of the ancestral sand bowls.

Every 413 days a double star rose to the highest peak of the planet Melos - Mount Krakon, visible from the altar of the ancient observatory built by the ancestors. From that day, the Minerva, Venus and Juna marked the beginning of a new cycle. The ancient ceremonial bowl on the altar was filled with sand, which gradually poured out of it into another one, the same bowl installed below. The priests periodically changed their cups in places, symbolizing the endless cycle of the rebirth of life.

Per day, the bowls were filled exactly 42 times, according to the sacred number of ancestors. No one believed in the ancient gods, but until now the day was divided into 42 parts, each part still by 42, and so on until the necessary accuracy of time measurement. It is this benchmark of standard bowls. Ipparkos and his colleagues recalled each time they looked at a double star. The cup of Gelos, which filled the cup of Eo, was not measured at all by the cycle of endless rebirths, but by the time until ... the destruction of all life on their home planet.

Modern Ipparkos society was very little like what his parent found more than an era ago. The world was on the verge of a destructive global war between the militaristic dictatorship of the Minerovs and the joint Venezian trade union. The struggle for the resources of the drying up planet systematically provoked wars between nations, alliances constantly changed, and huge sums were spent on the military technology race. Although scientists and then did not sit idle, their work interested the authorities only from a practical point of view.

The famous collegium of mathematicians 11 epochs back studying a double star did not attract the attention of officials until they discovered the laws of interaction between Gelos and Eo. The militarists were most pleased: the open laws of gravity were well suited for calculating the trajectories of combat weapons. The best minds of the planet preferred to work on generous military projects, rather than engage in purely scientific research. The irony of the gods, it was the rare theoretical scientists who allowed the world to reveal the most terrible weapon he had ever seen!

It began all two epochs back with a large-scale project of many colleges of theorists who sought to explain the origin of the surrounding world. 42 cups per day, 413 days per cycle, 42 cycles per epoch, large-scale work of the Minerva and Venes was conducted, sponsored by the militarists, who were waiting for new gifts of nature. After 40 cycles, the result was obtained, and everyone was satisfied. Found the second planet of the system in 5 light bowls from Milos, the world of Ipparcos. The study of neighboring star systems and their planets explained the origin of the star system Gelos-Eo.

Billions of years ago, the world of the homid race was a gas giant, approaching due to tidal disturbances to the primary blue giant and its companion Gelos, then a red dwarf. A more massive star, after wasting energy over several hundred million cycles, transferred part of the mass to Gelos, throwing the remains of a massive envelope into space. This extremely powerful stellar wind blew away the main part of the atmosphere of the giant planet, leaving only the core and thin gas envelope of heavy gases. Gelos turned into a massive and stable yellow dwarf, and the loss of mass by a double star allowed Milos to move to a safer orbit, where life got its chance. The giant's core, Eo, has become evidence of the ancient sacrifice of a star made in the name of life on Milos. And the dwarf Eo, how well Ipparcos and his colleagues now know about this,

Let's go back to the reverse of these wonderful discoveries. The study of the physical characteristics of a binary star and their comparison with distant luminaries led to a cascade of revolutionary discoveries in elementary particle physics. The physical principles that allowed the star to generate energy and warm its life in Milos were used by militarists to create weapons that could lead this life to the edge of an abyss.

Such a world found in its time a much more terrible discovery of the parent Ipparkos, an astute Aristach. Thanks to the generous military, already aware of the importance of the theoretical scientific avant-garde, civilization has accumulated vast amounts of information on deep space objects. Few people in the ministries of defense could assume that it was their financial efforts that would soon lead to a complete and widespread rejection of all militarist programs on both sides of the political front.

On the table, the first ministers of the trade union laid down the time-consuming report of the Aristach group, then the head of the scientific ministry. A similar report under the heading "to familiarize immediately" received and the government of the Minerva. Active scientific work began to move around the planet, mechanical calculators, having abandoned less important matters, started checking complex calculations. The verdict was stunning.

Now, more than an epoch later, the world was one global force, united in the struggle for its survival. All economic and scientific work was subordinated to this goal. Gomid, ceased to be the enemy of another gomida. Milos has ceased to be the arena of the struggle of different nations for rare resources. The scientific ministry, which became the main one among all the others, was headed by Ipparkos for 20 cycles, who received it from his father. The scientist, led, thus, the struggle of his civilization against the more terrible and inexorable forces of nature, which once stood at the origins of its origin.

The enemy was Eo, a white dwarf, as scientific data showed, eagerly taking away an aging substance from an aging Gelos. Majestic Gelos, burning out the remnants of thermonuclear fuel, expanded to a gravitational boundary with Eo, fueling its accretion disk. The Eo Chalice should ever have filled, causing a colossal explosion of a white dwarf, and with it the death of all life on the surface of the planet. It was only a matter of time.

Time, his homides and not enough. Only 1/10 of the two billionth population of the planet managed to settle in the crust, but there was no panic. Thanks to effective propaganda, the next weapon of the militarists that helped the government so much in these difficult times, almost everyone was sure that the Cup of Eo would not overflow before a thousand ages. “Almost,” then were members of the scientific ministry itself. Ipparkos, like his father, already knew that there was enough material and temperature on the surface of Eo, and the star could explode much earlier, possibly after 1000 ages, and maybe ... tomorrow ...

Once the former civilization of the sun-worshipers, the Milosians were preparing to turn into inhabitants of Plotonia, the underground "kingdom of the dead" where the fallen gods lived. The energy of the hot bowels of Milos, once hostile to the ancestors of the Milos, was their last hope for survival. In the eyes of the Ministry of Science and 200 million was enough to preserve civilization, but only if the worst scenario of the explosion of the perfidious Eo is not realized. He exploded, like most of the observed helium dwarfs, the planet's crust will survive. But it was impossible to predict for sure whether it was enough to detonate the atmosphere of Gelos himself. With such an outcome, the much more powerful explosion of New would turn Milos into dust ...

Ipparkos and his colleagues have long been accustomed to this thought, referring to the unknown future as ancient thinkers - "do not poison the mind, fearing the inevitable." The benefit of the use of his mind was constantly. Many scientists did not leave the oppressive thought of the disappearance of the ancient and rich history of their civilization. The memory of thousands of generations may be dissolved in the silent emptiness of the universe. The ancient dispute about the expediency of the acts of nature, in this case, will be resolved, and not in favor of idealists.

However, the Ministry of Science, on the initiative of Ipparkos, nevertheless decided to try to inform the space abyss about its existence. For already ten cycles, the department of distant cosmic communications worked, sending a powerful radio signal in the plane of the galactic arms on the radiation wave of the lightest element of the Universe. The signal structure was not similar to any natural source. It was here at the beginning of the story that we found Ipparkos, as usual after work, who had glanced into the department of his friend Merkula. The latter, seeing the early sunset of the luminaries, was preparing the equipment for the next night watch, when Ipparkos, waiting for a friend, began flipping through earlier reports. His quick glance at the familiar map of the galaxy, as usual, stopped, reaching the magnificent core. At its appearance, serene childhood years came to mind, when a parent, who was so rarely around,

- See the sun, dear? Every time I met dawn, remember that I also look at them - from these words Ipparkos became less lonely in the absence of his father, “meeting” with him during each dawn.

Ipparcos reflected on something similar, stroking the core of a huge galaxy, common to all of its possible inhabitants. At such moments, the mind of homides in the ocean of the cosmic abyss seemed to him, perhaps less alone.

One of these signals, emitted a few days ago, flew in a completely opposite direction. For ten thousand years he had been breaking through the galactic dust and interstellar gas. Ipparkos and all of his generation had long been dead, but the signal from Merkula still traveled through the indifferent universe. Even at such an insane speed, over 240 epochs, the signal traveled only a third of the way to the outskirts of the galaxy, when it passed through the eight-planet system of the yellow dwarf. The calculation of genius was justified, almost ...

The inhabitants of the third planet from the stable and the young luminary, were far from unity. Nature was not so strict with them as with homides. Hostility and technical progress, driven by military spending, were still commonplace even after 5,000 years of development of the local civilization. In March 2015, the scientific community enthusiastically conducted a study of a new star, which appeared in the constellation Sagittarius, towards the center of the Galaxy, a popular area of ​​astrophysical observations.

However, soon the interest of the disappointed scientists to the new star faded away as quickly as the brightness of the flash. According to the light curve, a distance of 8-13,000 light years was established, which together with the visible brilliance made it one of the weakest among all the new stars. In spite of the fact that some scientists noted the similarity of the region with that from where an unusual radio signal was received almost 40 years ago , common sense was more likely to believe in random coincidence, rather than regularity. The news gradually dissolved in the global informational background, where only the struggle between the leading world powers of human civilization flared up.


As for errors, I will be grateful if you tell in person.