He emerged first with a crate of unburned incense, a second time with a blasphemous but remarkable painted ceramic statuette of the Prophet, the third time with a round mirror, almost a meter across, perfect blown glass backed with silver inside a ring of something golden. My father flashed it to me in triumph, catching the sun, and then he tumbled backwards.

So how about finding some new civilizations? Are there any out there? Have our decades of listening made any progress - or are we perhaps truly alone after all?

there is / no apparition in the shroud