Edwin H. Lewis Fiction 3rd Prize A Leap of Faith

Vishnu Rama Varma Thampuran

“The end is near or rather here! The world as we know it, is about to meet its end. The Indian Government and the UN are currently discussing an alliance to save what is left of the human race. While many nations have already started experiencing the grim climaxes of the Red Eclipse, citizens in other countries are out on the streets staging protests against the cloudy government measures that select the ones who will survive this disaster of apocalyptic proportions. We still don’t know how much time we have left until the massive looming ball of fire wipes out an entire era of human civilization on earth,” said an anxious news reporter on TV.

The public didn’t have access to The Apocalypse Files. The press seemed to have got a whiff. But they didn’t know what was coming for them. They didn’t know what we were up against.

Yet, I knew exactly what was coming and when it would strike. We had only 5 hours, 28 minutes and 32 seconds left. 31 seconds as we speak.

Since you might be confused, let me introduce myself properly. I have been the Commander In Chief of the rescue operation assigned by the UN for emergency evacuations. Little did the world know that India had the manpower and resources to build an inter-galactic spacecraft of its own – The Vaayuyaan. For years, the UN and countries like ours have been secretly experimenting on their own spacecrafts to escape the Red Eclipse.

The greatest catastrophic phenomena of all time had led us to our not–so–far extinction – THE GREAT CRUNCH. In layman terms, this is where the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies merged together, resulting in an inter-galactic crash.

There are at least a hundred—yes, hundred!—billion galaxies in the observable universe, all colliding with each other. Larger galaxies merge about every nine million years while the smaller ones slam into each other more often. Well, what about ‘Dark Energy’ then? Isn’t this gigantic force pulling the universe and everything in it apart? It sure is. For nearby galaxies though, gravity takes over.

Andromeda and Milky Way were no exceptions. They both contain supermassive black holes that would eventually mesh the two star systems together. As scientists from a few eons (1 eon = a billion years) ago had predicted, Andromeda was pretty far away. It cannot overcome a distance of two and a half million light years overnight. Eventually, the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way had increased its G–Pull on Andromeda’s black hole and the Big Crunch was on its way and knocking on our front door.

Well, I can assure you that it did find its way.

Finally, there was no Milky Way or Andromeda. The two spiral galaxies had become a totally different type of galaxy – an elliptical one. The new–born galaxy, Mildromena as I call it, forced the sun and our entire solar system to the outskirts of the newly formed galaxy of about 26,896 square light years width. The translocation of our solar system and the combination of black holes posed us a new threat. The atoms of plasma in the sun had begun rapidly dividing. This was what we called the Red Eclipse which would eventually swallow up the earth and the rest of the planets in the solar system.

All we had to do was flee from nature’s wrath. Sounds simple, right?

Even though I was commanding the operations, I didn’t get to play God. The UN and the respective governments of its participants did. The government-approved missions spared seats only for the ‘naturally selected’ population even though they were not the ‘fittest’ worth surviving or rather saving – business tycoons, lawyers, scientists, doctors, engineers and a few designated political leaders.

Yet, while these people could take their seats for survival, their families had to be left behind due to space and resource constraints. For the greater good of mankind, we were told. Though I did not want to relinquish my family, I had to fly the mission to save the human race.

After a few moments of uneasiness and guilt, I switched off the television and strolled down the hallway in confusion. I decided to resort to a jug of milk and wait in my basement for my call of duty. The supplies had run out. You never get caffeine when you awfully need it.

Every sip burned my throat as I stared at our family photo that stood staring back at me on my work desk. The basement was my ‘Sanctum’ that had always been a great place in feeding my intense curiosity from childhood. It was the place where I first made my own solar cells and robots. It was more than just a basement. It has been my own private lab since I joined the ISRO. Though it cost me a fortune to get oxygenators (oxygen generators), tins of hydrazine (rocket fuel) and propellers (to name a few), I really loved inventing gizmos with them. As I sat there in silence, my phone rang. I knew that it was time to face reality. It was the President’s call.

“Commander, it is time. We are at the Evacuation Base Camp, Sector 23, preparing for launch.”

I did not know how to respond. “I will be on my way in a few minutes, sir. Sorry for the delay, but we still have T – minus 48 minutes until launch.”

“The fate of the human race lies in your hands. I don’t want to risk our existence for your late arrival,” he said in concern.

It was now or never. I had to tell him my demands. “I want my family to come along too!” I blurted out in vexation.

There was a pause on the line and what I heard next was an impatient sigh from the other end.

“We have discussed this several times, Commander. The ship can sustain only a thousand of us for the next 12 years. Who knows? Maybe fewer. I am extremely sorry, but you are not the only one who has to forgo their family for a greater hope for humanity. Report to the camp right away. This is not a request, rather an order. The world is now a colossal mess. People are out on the streets demanding their reservations and you think that you could make a ‘happily ever after’ journey with your family with a whole lot of ineligible people?”

The innumerable thoughts that flooded my mind soon stabbed my conscience from all directions. I did not know what to do at that moment even though I thought I did. Should I forgo my family and rescue mankind from the verge of extinction? Or should I stay with them and follow a different survival strategy? Colliding ideas struck me in succession when all of a sudden I realised the President was still on the phone, waiting.

“Let me make myself clear. I will not launch the mission unless my family is part of it. Either we will make it together or we will all perish happily together,” I said firmly and slammed down the phone.

Just then, my granddaughter came running to me and sat on my lap. She kept telling me something. I was out of my senses with an empty glass of whisky and intense disappointment. She asked me why I was silent but I could not respond. After a while she asked me if I would take her on a drive like I had promised her earlier today. I don’t know if it was the whisky, her words or the end of the world, but my eyes were filled with beads of tears spontaneously. In that moment of sudden clarity of thought, I knew exactly what I had to do. I would bravely remain on the other side of history, where I saved my blood by taking a chance on my unsanctioned ‘spacecraft’.

Long before some geeky astronomer or scientist predicted the possibility of intergalactic space travel, I already knew that with the extensive pollution caused by the growing population around the world, we will someday have to wash our wretched hands off this beautiful planet. With this in mind, I had started making my own rocket after my graduation. Though I had to face a lot of failures of my abstract ideas, I never lost hope in myself.

Down the lane, I had to invest heavily to REAL-ise a vague idea from my distant past. After decades of sleepless nights and endless labour with unified opposition from my family, finally when I was a whisker away from reaching for the stars, I never got my sanction from the government.

The news spread like a wildfire at work. After a few months of intense depression and being a subject of mockery, my life got back on track but the only thing that I still regret is that I could not even run a test drive on my space vehicle. Of course my Cryopods, Hydrofarm and algae stocks were no match for the government sanctioned mission, but I always knew that with sufficient fuel it would sustain all of us - my family.

For those who could not understand the scientific mumbo-jumbo I just mentioned, CRYOPODS are capsules in which organic matter (living or dead) can be sustained in its alpha form forever (or for extremely long periods of time). This is accomplished by maintaining the pods at an optimal temperature at a range of about 4.7°C to 5.3°C with the supply of fresh oxygen and active intake of carbon dioxide to ensure the ideal cryosleep. The technology is so advanced that as a child you can hibernate like a bear for as long as you like but you will wake up as the same child even a hundred years later.

Well, what if there is a containment breach in the pods? That is when the hydrofarm and algae stocks take charge. The hydrofarm gives you mineral–rich water from nothing but thin air. The algae stocks are synthesised to provide enough proteins and carbohydrates to keep you alive. Unless you do not want to live the rest of your life with nothing but algae soup and water, you will have to cryosleep until you find another survivable planet in this whole wide universe.

The silence between my granddaughter and me was broken by an alarming ring from the telephone.

I knew who it was and what it was for. I took her off my lap, hurried to the phone, picked up the call and said, “The mission will have to go on without me. My Second-in-Command will take my place. For the better or worse, I am sticking with my family. If we make it, I’ll meet you on the Other Side, Mr President. Godspeed.”

I realised that we were running out of time. I summoned my family to the basement and told them what I considered my ‘Leap of Faith’. Instantaneously the small gathering turned into a bunch of chaotic electrons. I got attacked by all sorts of questions from all sides, but finally the course was set.

The clock was ticking and we had only 12 minutes left. I quickly asked them to take their most precious possessions. After a few minutes of stuffing our belongings into my experimental space vehicle, I put all of them into cryosleep for 471 years, ignoring the possibility of existential threats. I might as well hop in and sleep my way out of all the mayhem but I had a family to save and a race to foster. With controlled metabolism and respiration, I was quite optimistic that we would make it through a few hundred years. Right before I entered the launch codes for take-off, I thought again, “Are we going to make it?”

Just then I found the thermal meters in my ship rising rapidly by the moment. Apocalypse was finally at our doorstep, banging on the door to let it in.

I quickly entered the launch codes and A.B.H.A(Automated Bootstrapping and Horology Avatar) got activated. Though I was out of the world with euphoria on my first drive, I could not celebrate yet.

“A.B.H.A activated. System reading launch codes. Launch codes – valid. How would you like to launch – automatic or manual?” said the system in its iconic voice not knowing that the place from where we were about to launch was going to be reduced to mere debris in a matter of a few minutes.

“Automatic. And for God’s sake please launch already!”

“As you wish, Commander. Taking off in T-minus 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1... 0”

BANG! BOOM! BWOOF! For a brief moment, I thought my ship had succumbed to a blast. But then, I realised that we were speeding away from my house which seemed to look like a speck of dust. In an hour or so, we crossed the exosphere and were on our own. The world even minutes away from destruction looked as beautiful as it always did.

“Do you have any idea where we will have to go next?” I said absentmindedly as I witnessed my beautiful planet being fried straight to the core by a massive ball of fire.

“Negative. My program does not identify any habitable planets anywhere near you for a stretch of 14,957 light years.”

While the better half of me never lost hope, my other half rarely cared for the future. I was still consumed by the terror of my actions. After a few hours of staring into space, I got bored. After all, we were drifting off in lifeless space at a speed of 523 gigametres an hour across the new galaxy. I was taking a light nap when I was suddenly woken up by blaring alarms. I quickly switched them off and spoke to ABHA, “Is there a breach? Anything unusual?”

“Extremely remarkable. The navigation systems have found something on the coordinates 582433.1602, Gamma Sector 9041.The S.O.N.A.R in the ship has traced a wormhole in our course in search of a survivable planet.”

“What? Are you sure it’s not some sort of a glitch or a system failure?” I asked.

“Positive for the wormhole. Wormholes, believed as a hypothesis, is going to be a reality,” explained ABHA.

“The worm holes in the universe are so rare and small that travel via these could be achieved only by speeds close to that of light. While the feat could end with several tragic conclusions for the traveller, this could be the biggest breakthrough in inter–universal translocation and quantum sciences. At such speed, the journey through this marvellous new discovery could take us to an alternate or parallel universe – a place which gives the human race another chance at survival. If you are ready to fly the ship for a greater hope for humanity, please let me know. My cybernetic resources are not developed enough to handle the new course. So you will have to fly the ship on your own.”

I thought for a while and realised that we would run out of algae and water eventually when the cryopods released my family after the pre-set duration. This was my only chance at survival and I did not want to push our existence to extinction.

I was finally ready for the risk and before I knew what I was doing, I set the propellers into the required velocity and set course for the worm hole. It was literally the most unearthly experience I had had all my life. The ship violently spun, shook and jerked. The alarms were once again blaring in the whole ship but all I heard was my inner voice telling me that this was the end. Unable to control my anxiety and pacing heart, I closed my eyes and hit the Land command to land on the nearest survivable planet in the alternate universe.

I could assure you that my ship was nearly shattered into pieces while landing. Well, almost. I pulled off everything at the right intervals and we crash-landed safely. I quickly unbuckled myself and put on my exosuit. I made sure that the cryopods were fully functional and opened the hatch.

A blinding light hit me and it took me a matter of time to see properly. All I saw around me was towering blades of grass and gigantic rocks. Little did I know then that our passage through the wormhole had shrunken all of us. Or did we come to a planet where we were reduced to a mere lowly form of living?

Behind me were the smithereens of everything we had come to call as home. Ahead of us lay the future we were yet to build on another planet. This was our chance at a do over. To not repeat our mistakes. A second chance. The kind of chance you get only when you take a big leap of faith.