The careful hunter looms in the forest. The forest is full of deadly animals: lions and tigers and bears. If he does not shoot, he will die.

Well, what do we have here? It was most accurate to say that the information came over his senses rather than anything else. It was culture, war, romance, death… life. And then, nothing. He had seen it before. But this one was strange. The inhabitants called their system ‘Sol’ and seemed to have an obsession with caffeine?! Convergent evolution is a crazy thing. Glorb took a sip of his own cup.

But what was this?

It was as if—he checked the readings—they had already died. Certainly, it was not an uncommon occurrence. The many great filters involved meant that most species had died by the time their messages were read, but this one was… odd. They looked at the last transmissions: “We’re running out of food!” “The wars…” “Lunar base is down…” The typical.

Well, it was inevitable, he guessed; there were too many obstacles. Maybe one in ten million made it through. They would never have had enough resources. Or, if they passed the industrialisation and colonisation of their solar system, there was the case of overcoming the Kullback-energy requirement. Let alone the dual sentience problem. And then, there was the grey goo… Even the 99th percentile intelligences couldn’t surpass the grey goo. In fact, it was a well-known fact in the civilized universe that the only way to survive was to become a beacon: either to band together resources from other local intelligences or to seek patronage from the ascended.

But, what’s this? There was still an energy signature there. Not that they could tell at their current level, but they were emitting latent biosignatures—the ones a Class I civilisation wouldn’t expect, wouldn’t know about.

“Glorb II, come look at this.” He was consumed with his own cup of caffeinated gelatin, a natural byproduct of one of the species on their world.

He shifted his antennae. “Wait, their coffee grows on trees?!”

“Yes, it’s puzzling, but look at this.”

The message beamed through his own body, shifting, internalising; he felt the weight of an entire species through his appendages. Every laugh, every message, every photo of caffeinated beverages (mmm!), and then… nothing. For thousands of years, they lay silent.

“But wait,” he motioned his photosensors to Glorb I. “They’re still alive?”

“That’s what I thought.”

“They are… hiding. It’s faint, but there are energy sources, ever so slight ones, ones that shine beyond their draped veil.”

“From what?!”

“Who’s to say? It could be anything, or anyone, really.”

In fact, Glorb had long thought civilization was like coffee in many ways. You take the unrefined, unprocessed, unfiltered intelligence. You screen it, you process it, its beautiful flavours intermingling gently over many millennia, gaining flavour, depth, definition. And then, once it is ready, a deep aroma presents: complex flavours—love, sadness, hate. All in one beautiful package. Everybody can smell it. A whole room enjoying a single glass.

But… there is no smell here. Not anymore. What is coffee without a smell? Well, on this planet, it’s just… beans. Organic matter, prone to decay, eventual detritus to be lost to the annals of time.

“Well, we have to help them,” Glorb said, motioning to the screen.

“Too late.” His psylum hummed sadly, draping down slightly as they transmitted the radio waves between one another. “The decay has already set in for this roast. Can you see it? Grey goo is present in their sector. Rogue nanobots. Created by many different civilisations, once lost to time; they now roam the galaxy.”

“Damn, that’s a shame.”

“What do you think it was like, to have been quiet for so long? Facing every challenge, all alone, with nobody to help, vent, stew, or receive?”

“What a pity.”

“How lonely it must have been, to be all alone in the universe. At least they had coffee.”