Quiet Planet

In 2031, humanity sent its first message to the stars.Twenty-four years later, a reply arrives from Tau Ceti. It is short, careful and impossibly polite. It sends our own greeting back, so we know it was received. Then, in the faintest signal of all, it asks us to stop broadcasting. Immediately.Linguist Imogen Hale grew up between two languages: spoken English and the British Sign Language of her Deaf parents. She knows that silence can be grammar, and that the smallest sign in a sentence is often the one that matters most. When she reads the reply, she doesn't see a rude request. She sees a whisper.Sent four hundred million miles to a dark object hidden in Jupiter's orbit, Imogen and the crew of the survey ship Courtesy must switch off every transmitter and learn to speak with their hands to the patient intelligence waiting inside. What it tells them will change everything.The aliens aren't hiding from us. They're hiding from something that listens. And on Earth, the whole world is preparing to say hello again.A first-contact mystery about language, sacrifice and the courage it takes to keep quiet.