Space for Evolution

by Zurab Andguladze

  “You seem to be in a very good mood,” Veana’d said, smiling happily.

  “Finally, I have seen you again. What other mood should I be in?” Iase’d said with enthusiasm. “In addition, when I landed at the cosmodrome in the Namib Desert yesterday, I spoke with my parents and promised them I’d bring them a special guest.”

  “Iase, how can you change the subject so easily? Like when in the first minutes of our acquaintance, you informed me that your parents were making you get married. You have an outstanding ability to surprise me!” Veana had giggled again, although she couldn’t completely hide her perplexity.

  She wanted to say something else, but Iase didn’t allow her—he began to speak quickly and energetically, “The main unexpectedness is ahead of us, and it looks like this: I and one beautiful lady are now going to get to an airport! Isn’t that a real surprise?”

  Such a proposal obviously confused Veana. For a while, she looked at him with wide eyes and then asked, “Is this a joke?”

  Instead of answering her question, he began to acquaint her with a sequence of upcoming steps, thereby showing her that he had carefully thought out the future. “Today is Friday. We have a weekend ahead. If you need any goods for travel, I will buy them for you.”

  Veana was clearly trying to gather her thoughts. She even rubbed her temples. Iase grasped what was happening.

  “I promised my parents a surprise,” he began, “but we can arrange it for your family first. Let’s go, introduce me to your parents, and then we will present them with our plan.”

  Veana continued to look at him perplexedly, but then she nodded and softly asked, “A plan? What plan, Iase?”

  Hearing her words, he instantly rid his face of the remnants of a smile and looked directly into her eyes.

  “Veana,” he said, taking his sweetheart’s hand in his own. “After we parted ways two months ago, the only time I didn’t think of you was when I slept. Even while working, even in moments when I was dealing with huge containers with thermonuclear fuel inside them, your face always floated somewhere above my thoughts.”

  “Oh!” she whispered.

  Iase softened his gaze, smiled again, and continued gently, “The time for thinking is over. I finally realized that my life without you would remain as dull and gray as it was before I met you.”

  He felt that the closer he got to the point, the more difficult it would be for him to speak, but what could he do?

  “Veana, I love you and would like you to marry me.”

  She raised her eye lashes and looked into Iase’s eyes, but didn’t speak immediately. Even her cheerful temper had left her; meanwhile, Iase’s heart started to throb feverishly, as though awaiting bad news. He tensed up internally.

  But nothing terrible happened. Veana said fondly, almost in a whisper, “I love you, too, Iase, and I agree to marry you.”

  Only these pictures were the ones that mattered, although there were other events, significant and happy. First of all, their wedding. And also Veana’s joyful face when he told her that after this first expedition left for the Eridanus constellation, he would leave space. Let others create the rest of the five expeditions. Yet these memories didn’t manage to overshadow reality.

  Chapter 6

  Iason desperately longed that his life would not end that day; he wanted to continue to participate in it, to see how Meliton and Taso, his relatives, and his friends, would live. What would happen to the stellar aspirations of humanity?

  Above all, he felt a towering, inconsolable grief, drawing from the realization that he and Veana would never have the family that they had started so happily. They would never show the world the fruit of their love. He would leave, and no trace of his existence would remain anywhere.

  Iason didn’t understand what to do. Inevitable death was approaching him, and he saw no way to escape it; no smart device could help him, because, despite all humanity’s multifarious abilities, they still had to obey the laws of nature.

  What should he do, then? Should he cry? Scream in despair? Beg for help? None of that could help him—instead, it would only humiliate him, and his loved ones as well. No, all that remained for him was to say goodbye to his family with dignity.

  “Condor One…Iase.” Finally, Françoise Proset violated the official protocol of space communication. “Condor Two will try—”

  “Françoise, we all know that he can’t catch me. This is the reality. So let’s not talk about it anymore. I just want to say goodbye to my family,” Iason cut her off abruptly. “Please, set up a private channel for me simultaneously to Georgia and Norway.”

  “Of course, Iase, and you know…” it seemed that the boss was struggling more and more to pronounce each word. “We have already made the calculation, and now we know with full confidence that a hydrogen bomb would have exploded within the next one and a half seconds. Iase, it looks like you saved the whole Project, and maybe mankind’s dream itself, let alone many lives.”

  Iase interrupted her again, this time more calmly, “You know, Francoise, right now, when I’m essentially shaking the hand of death,” here a bitter chuckle sounded in the ether, “I’ve realized that in the last moments of my life I don’t want to see the sadness of my dear ones. Let them remain happy in my memory. Just tell them that I thought of them to the very end. Please discard the conference call.”

  “Iase, what can we do for you? You deserve every reward from the progressive part of humanity.”

  “I didn’t do this because of a reward… you know that. So I can’t say anything about it.”

  “Iase,” the director of mission control continued solemnly. “You know that, if this Project reaches its goal, all of humanity will forever remember your name as the hero who saved our plan to become an interstellar species.”

  In response to these words a rather long silence reigned on the radio channel. All the staff, both on the ISS and on Earth, already believed that the connection had finally ceased, when Iase spoke again, and now in a somewhat different voice: “You mentioned an ambition to become an interstellar species, didn’t you, Françoise?”

  The chief answered with slight confusion, “Yes, why?”

  “I think that I’m not quite so disinterested. All my life I’ve wanted to reach the stars, even knowing that it is impossible. I’m not sure whether it is mercenary or not, but I wish you to ask the people: I want the SQP project to send my DNA sample, and not like the nameless genotypes of the other candidates, but under my own name. I know that I don’t satisfy the selection rule in one case, because I have no children. But, instead of making a new life, I would give my own—perhaps my life is worth this clause?”

  After quite a long pause, Françoise Proset firmly answered, “We will definitely ask the people.”

  At that moment, Iase felt a strong collision with the earth’s atmosphere, and plunged into the air ocean below at orbital velocity. A moment later, his EVA suit first glowed red and then burst into flames, transforming him into a shooting star. Maybe someone saw this flaming dot in the sky and managed to make a wish. Then the falling star went out and turned into ash. These remnants, picked up by the wind, scattered in the air and overtime settled on the surface of Iason’s home planet.

  Chapter 7

  Veana removed the expedition from her mind as a source of boundless sadness. Whatever happiness it would bring to humanity centuries later didn’t matter; it had already destroyed her personal future forever. The life she had been envisioning with Iase and their family had disappeared before it had even started.

  Her hopeless grief grew even darker when she remembered from time to time that there remained no evidence that her husband had ever lived on this world. Nobody had seen his body, and he had no grave. There was no place where one could lay flowers, retire, and honor his memory. Even the work of his hands had disappeared forever into the vast expanses of the galaxy. And, most importantly, no one would ever say, ‘my father sacrificed his life for mankind’.

 
; However, Veana still had a space to escape from her endless sorrow. She sometimes met Iase in her dreams, where she could talk to him, lean on him, laugh with him; there they could look in each other’s eyes and see love… Such dates, at least for a while, diluted the gloom of her grief.

  Until Iase’s last shift, the newlyweds hadn’t had time to decide where to buy housing. The language barrier hampered them —for Veana, the Georgian language seemed difficult; for Iase, Norwegian looked no less complicated. They’d thought about America, but Veana mentioned a couple of times that if the Norwegian ambassador had managed to learn Georgian, why shouldn’t she try, too?

  This barrier didn’t disappear even after Iase’s death. It showed itself every time during her communications with his parents, Meliton and Taso, due to their poor English. Despite this, Veana spoke to them every week.

  But today the language troubles looked like mere imperceptible trifles. Today Veana had informed the old couple that their unified efforts had achieved the needed result. From now on, they all had the hope that, thanks to technology and science, Iase hadn’t died forever. Of course, along with this encouraging news, they also well understood that no one yet knew if Iase would actually get another chance.

  In order for Iase to be lucky, the expedition must first avoid a crash during the flight. The lander had to successfully land on a distant celestial body; the natural conditions of the planet had to be really suitable; machines had to correctly assemble molecules of earthly life; local creatures must not destroy the terrestrial biology; programs had to operate smoothly, and properly establish and develop a colony, and raise the children… It was not so easy to believe in the implementation of all of this, but what else could they do?

  That evening, after Veana had finished talking with Meliton and Taso, she went onto the inner balcony of her cozy two-room apartment. Here she didn’t just stand and relax, but she did something that she hadn’t even wanted to think about after Iase’s death. Since that disastrous day, Veana had never looked at the sky, even on the night when a great number of people were trying to discern the ship that was departing for the Eridanus constellation, after it had been repaired within seven months. She couldn’t bring herself to look at what had caused the death of her love.

  But this day, inspired by the final agreement with the SQP administration and the signing of all the documents, she dared to look at the starry ceiling of Earth.

  It had been very difficult, and had taken almost two years. DNA donors for the SQP project had to be absolutely healthy, just as their closest relatives and ancestors had been. They had to be between thirty and thirty-five years old; have a higher education, a family, and at least two children whom they had personally caused and given birth to; they and their ancestors should have had no problems with the law and fiscal institutions; and then there were other requirements.

  Out of those who had met all these criteria, the computer randomly selected a copy of the DNA, including it in the composition of the next expedition without specifying the name of the donor. Iase met all of these conditions, with the exception of the one concerning children.

  Veana, Taso, and Meliton, and their friends and supporters, turned to the international community and explained in detail what a huge catastrophe Iason Azgo had prevented. Scientists estimated that the detonation in the rocket engine would have been propagated into the deuterium storage with a high degree of certainty. The result would have been a thermonuclear explosion of unimaginable magnitude. Such a gigantic burst would have affected the entire population of one hemisphere of Earth, and caused numerous cases of radiation sickness, mostly fatal.

  This information led to a huge number of requests for an exception for Iason Azgo. In the end, given public opinion, the board of the SQP project had been forced to agree with Veana’s constant and indefatigable demand, as well as with the last will of the deceased astronaut himself. They’d decided that his genotype would be included in one of the subsequent expeditions, determined by lot. By the time of this decision, the expedition that he had helped to create had long since flown away.

  Therefore, from this day the sky had ceased to be a source of bitter memories for her. It wouldn’t be soon, but still, before her life ended, Iase’s dream would come true—he would go on a journey to a distant world.

  Veana stood for a while on the balcony, looking at the Milky Way. Gradually she felt ready to overcome one more obstacle, previously inaccessible to her. When Iase’s personal belongings had arrived from space, she’d put the bag in the corner of the room and hadn’t opened it since. Every time she had seen it, something had pushed her away.

  Veana knew the reason. It contained, among other things, a recording intended for her, but until today she hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at it. After all, the video wasn’t at all like her dreams, where she met a living Iase and could talk with him.

  The entry should answer her old question, when during their first meeting she had asked Iase to explain to her why he had become an astronaut in the first place. At that time, he had refused to do so, saying that it was a very important theme for him, and he didn’t want to just describe this part of his life in a nutshell, but to tell her everything in detail. Later he’d decided to record his history in space, in his free time between shifts.

  Now Veana felt enough strength and courage to watch the video. She resolutely left the balcony and returned to the adjoining living room. The yellowish glow of a standing lamp partially illuminated a leather sofa on the left and a large table in the center of the room. In addition, in the right corner, where faint light barely reached at dusk, a bulky gray backpack could be seen.

  Veana turned on an overhead light and brightened the room. She dragged the bag over to the couch, sat down, and unzipped it. Parting its dusty edges, she began to take things out and neatly put them next to her. She was looking for a computer. There should have been a record in the memory of the device, in which Iase would tell her how it happened that he had chosen such a rare profession.

  Eventually, Veana found a folded tablet. She took it and leaned against the back of the sofa. Sitting comfortably, she opened the device, turned it on, and connected it to a large screen on the opposite wall. After wandering a little among the electronic files, she found an entry called “For Veana, About an Astronaut.” The widow took a deep breath and pressed play.

  In the next moment, Iase appeared on the big screen, slightly out of breath. He was sitting in midair against the backdrop of a porthole, through which Veana could see part of the interstellar machine. Or rather, it was the top of a huge spherical container stretching into the darkness of space.

  With a mischievous smile, he said, “Hi, Veana, are you ready to watch the work of a great director? I see you are. Then let’s get started.” He spoke, relaxed and cheerful, although a light excitement still seeped through his voice. After all, he had set out to show what he had created, in an area completely unknown to him. In response to Iase’s greeting, Veana smiled sadly at the screen. It was still incredibly difficult for her to just sit and look at him without breaking down. But she had been heading toward this moment for too long, and so now she managed to control herself.

  “I was working on my fitness, so my breathing hasn’t yet fully recovered, but this is nothing; the artistic level of the film won’t suffer from it.”

  Continuing to speak, Iase drew near to the camera. “It happened while I was a schoolboy, and I spent my holidays in my grandparents’ village. You’ll surely enjoy this place.”

  Veana focused all her thoughts on the content of the story, trying not to cry.

  “One summer, our former neighbor came back to my father’s native village—if you remember, it is called Samtie—also on a vacation from across the ocean.”

  Iase raised his index finger, emphasizing the following words: “Our neighbor had been and remains a matter of pride, not only for his co-villagers but for the entire region.”

  Iase took a deep breath, finall
y calmed his body, and resumed the conversation. “There was a good reason for this—a man from a distant mountain village had become a scientist of such reputation that he was invited to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”

  Before the next sentence, as if gathering his thoughts, Iase paused for a second.

  “His arrival was always a big event for the village. From him, the peasants learned firsthand about the latest news in science, and life in the world in general. After all, television, or the network in their opinion, reported everything very briefly, or embellished everything, even to the level of gossip.”

  “Meliton’s home country is located in one of the foothills that surround my native Colchis valley, from the south. Agricultural machinery can’t be used on its very steep slopes—the residents cultivate their land in the old way. You will see later.”

  Veana suppressed her tears again. The recording continued, “The day he came was a corn-weeding one. In the summer, the neighbors usually work until noon and then hide in the shade of trees. They sit on the grass by the cold-water stream, then dine, chat, or sleep. In short, they’re waiting for the heat to subside and of course, at such a time, they’re ready to talk on any topic, ha-ha!”

  Iase, as if checking something, nodded at his own thought.

  “That day, I joined them during such a siesta. I can’t remember exactly why; perhaps because of the heat, I didn’t want to go to the river until evening, or perhaps the presence of such an important guest attracted me. I went into the shade of the trees, greeted everyone, and began to listen. The conversation concerned a topic really far from agriculture. After all, why should peasants talk about corn with an eminent scientist?”

  Here Iase stopped and brought the webcam closer. He leaned over and pulled out a thin, transparent tube from somewhere to his right.