It took eight minutes before the smartwall of the virtual conference space blanked out and the celebrating team fell silent.
Plain white text flashed up on the dark background, showing a singular word.
"Hello."
Allison paced towards the screen, then stopped several meters away.
"Hello," she replied smoothly, "Whom do we have the honour of addressing?"
The original letters vanished and were replaced;
"I am the Sol Custodian."
The rest of the team crowded around the elderly woman.
"What is your purpose?"
"My purpose is to safeguard the planet Earth and the sapient species which dwells upon it."
"From what are you protecting us from?"
There was a pause. Allison noted it.
"I protect the human species from extinction."
Whispering rustled through the rest of the Kuiper Chain techs.
Placing one finger to her lips, Allison silenced them, then continued,
"In what way are we near extinction?"
More text spattered across the screen,
"Unlike most sapient species, humanity is very young and very fragile. Your technology is not organic and therefore limited in scope. This means that humanity - compared to other galactic species - is extremely primitive. A singular event could wipe out the entirety of your species. One rogue asteroid could catastrophically change your biosphere and destroy you. One opportunistic criminal could exterminate humanity in order to exploit the resources of your planet."
The elderly scientist nodded,
"I see; you are not simply preventing us from sending probes beyond our solar system are you? Would I be correct in assuming that none of the SETI transmissions have ever gone beyond the Oort cloud - or any other transmission?"
"You are correct."
Allison paused to think. The other techs watched the exchange as though witnessing the crucifixion.
Eventually she cleared her throat,
"Would I also be correct if I were to speculate that you have a specific protocol to follow in the event of your discovery?"
"You would be correct."
"And what is that protocol."
Another pause, then the screen filled with text again,
"In the event of my discovery, I had been instructed to broadcast a signal to my creators to alert them to the fact that your species had overcome what we had presumed were insurmountable limitations in non-organic technology."
Allison nodded.
"How long have you been monitoring humanity?"
"Four hundred thousand years."
"And how long was your anticipated operational capability?"
"Approximately ninety thousand years."
She paced now, agitated.
"When you sent the signal indicating your discovery, were you expecting a reply?"
"Yes."
"And did you receive one?"
The pause was several seconds long this time. Eventually a single word appeared on the screen;
"No."
Allison turned to the others, her face a white mask of fear,
"What have we done?"