On the fourth planet, the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the system was called off. There was nowhere that the atmosphere was right; it was too thick elsewhere. There was nowhere that the oxygen and liquid water required for life existed in the proper proportions. Even allowing the remote chance that something could evolve, could survive, nothing had returned the signals they had sent using mathematics and radio waves, the universal language.

On the sixth planet, the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the system was called off. There was nowhere that the atmosphere was right; it was too thin elsewhere. There was nowhere that the sillicon and liquid ammonia required for life existed in the proper proportions. Even allowing the remote chance that something could evolve, could survive, nothing had returned the signals they had sent using infrared and polysaccharide pheromones, the universal language.

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