I spent a lot of time contemplating the intriguing process that was open for everyone to observe. For a moment I felt proud not only because it was a man-made creation, but also because the engineers willingly shared that magical process with the passengers onboard. It looked like they were showing off, up from some mountain peak–higher than any existing one, with their phenomenal achievement and astronautic triumph. We enjoyed the view and soaked in the information displayed on the screens which, as a matter of fact, was rather thorough.
Sometime afterwards, once I had taken in enough of the sight offered for free, I decided to go move around a little and try to find something of a more curious nature. It occurred to me to go to the other end of the spherical corridor where the steel walls started winding again. I took the entire distance for a few minutes and when I saw nothing interesting happened with the people or with the environment, I decided to give the machine one last glance before I got back wandering around the ship. I took another soaking look at it, one long enough to grasp that the capacities of that type of energy are limitless. Like a God made from a little known dark purplish-blue matter who could annihilate in the blink of an eye, it inspired awe in us. A phenomenon or just a hefty dose of Astrophysics–everyone interpreted it differently, but it was nevertheless fearsome. When I felt like leaving the place, two voices behind my back started a conversation. I turned around for a second and saw two men in white coats who certainly knew something more than me and the rest of the passengers. I listened to what they were talking without turning around, ignoring everything that happened before my eyes.
‘If only they knew what could happen. If only they knew that they wouldn’t have time to blink before they evaporate, they would be praying and weeping, roaring, kneeling here in front of the glass wall,’ mumbled one of the strangers some twenty feet behind me. His words did not create any chaos or uncertainty as his voice was drowned out by the crowd. I seemed to be the only one listening to the strangers who was unimpressed by what was going on in front of me.
‘That’s right, I’d tell them all, but I might cause panic and fear, so they’d better not know what might happen or go wrong while the engine is on. Gathering dark energy from the cosmic space is probably the most dangerous thing humanity has ever done’ the other man summarized with a hoarse voice.
‘Quite right. While we’re accumulating it we can drop right into its volume, filling in its place. The great collapse of the volume and the density of the entire ship can be contained in the same tiny spot, causing a singularity. Then a black hole will form and that’s too great a risk, no one would take the responsibility for that,’ the other one added.
‘Maybe the human kind should take it. One way or another, if something like this happens on the way to Menoetius, in a few dozen or hundred years even the Earth could be in danger. We’re risking everything . . .’ After these last words I heard nothing more. I turned around to see was happening, but the two strangers were gone. Were they real scientists or were they talking nonsense? I could not figure that one out. The crowd had swallowed them and I was swallowed by something else.
The words I heard got lodged in my throat. Could that really happen? The truth was more brutal than the wildest fantasies about global destruction. Was I the only one who heard that? No one around me reacted to that conversation in any way and I did not know what to do. My heart started beating faster and I felt strong nervous tension. I was terrified, I broke out in a cold sweat, even my vision blurred. I did not get a seizure, I ran away instead. I extricated myself from the multitude in pursuit of more space and air, away from that hellish machine. I spent the next few minutes rambling around, lost in thought about the unclear outcome of that whole thing with interstellar travels and spatial manipulators. But I had an inkling that I had to go back to the place where I slept the previous night and stay there. Maybe I was not going to see anyone or anything new that would clarify the situation for me or would soothe me with a few kind words, but at least I was going to be far away from the engine room. What I saw there made me almost jump out of my skin. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but where would I go? We were caught in a trap created by us for us, in a ticking time bomb of dark energy. I started to slowly feel the first signs of a terrifying paranoia. As I was walking with the backpack on my back I remembered about the rest of my luggage. But I did not want to go back there, there were too many people there and in the condition I was in then I could have well aroused suspicion about what I knew and what I did not know. I headed for the bow of the steel giant and felt how the fear instilled by the words of the two strangers made something inside of me explode. I was hyperactive without any plausible reason, the adrenaline made all sounds seem distant in my ears. Was it possible that the brain had activated that defense mechanism without any immediate danger, triggered only by a few sentences?
Suddenly the signal indicating it was lunchtime sounded throughout the ship. I felt no hunger or desire to eat anything and no one forced me to. That was why I decided to stay. But the few people around me left after the signal like they were sheep led by their shepherd. The corridor was completely emptied of human presence and that was exactly what I needed–some peace and deep breathing. But something else happened. That man with the bodyguards appeared from the other end of the corridor. He was headed somewhere–to have lunch or to do some business, the reason was unclear. But when he got closer to me, he seemed to recognize me and I was the only other person there.
‘Aren’t you hungry, boy?’ he asked me, looking straight into my frightened eyes. I longed to lower them to my lap, but I knew that would have been a sign of disrespect.
‘No,’ I answered explicitly, not wanting to start any conversation, but he went on.
‘Are you afraid of anything?’ he asked another question, but this time I did not answer, I just bowed my head. I had no idea what to say and whether there was any point in talking. ‘ All I want you to know is that you will hear my name time and over again while you’re here. I’ll tell you something else, too–don’t let it consume you. Whatever you’ve seen or gone through, In spite all of it, do not give in to fear. Know one thing, should you surrender to it completely, you’re lost before you’ve even started fighting in a battle where it is an active player,’ he said looking straight at me and moved ahead with his bodyguards. Who was he to speak to me about fear–maybe one of those folks because of whom we were there. Or one of the creators of these stellar machines. I did not know a thing about him and after our very short conversation he knocked on a door behind him.
‘Hello, Lieutenant Milev. How are you?’ someone opened, but I could not see who spoke. What really mattered was that I learnt his name. It sounded like a Russian name, but I was not sure. At first it made sense for a Russian to have stolen an American ship, but somehow I doubted that was the case, things seemed to be running much deeper. Not knowing what was happening around me and who was leading the crew made me really tense. Were the pilots and the engineers those who governed our lives directly or were there other people who were running all that parade? I was set on finding out.
That was why I decided to stay at that place, next to those same pipelines under which I had spent the night. But no one came out of the rooms in the seven hours I spent there. The hunger that had started growling in my stomach was so strong that when I heard the signal announcing it was dinner time, I left my post ready to come back later. And once again we followed the sign posts like quadruped mammals and squeezed between the fences that led to the next scanning of our bodies. Although we were still in the beginning of our journey, I did not want things to go on in the same vein.. That way of life subjugated us and discouraged us. We could have become slaves with no opinion or goals for a few days, let alone if we stayed longer, floating freely there in the Cosmos . . . The dinner was over for me quickly and immediately after it I left for the place. How odd it was, in the two-day stay there I spent most of the time roaming around or walking after something
or someone. The 2,500 feet long ship and the dozens of decks it had took up all of my time.
With every step I took it was as if I felt more and more the enormous scale of the machine we were in. I finally arrived at my spot and waited for the so called Mr. Milev to show up. The day went by without the honor of seeing him again. Maybe I had missed him and his tight schedule required his presence elsewhere. But I was prepared to go to any length to find out who he was and what he was doing there with us. As time went on the lights were reduced again and sleep did not fail to pass me by as I was lying cuddled on the floor under the already familiar pipelines. It had been an emotionally and physically tense day so I dozed off quickly . . .
That was not a peaceful night for me. I got startled a few times in my sleep and my entire body jumped. That was all I could remember in a brief moment of a about a few seconds at the heart of that cold evening. And it looked so . . . I was alone, completely alone in the midst of a large field that faced an enormous forest. Suddenly everything shook and the ground started vibrating. It deafened me and before I knew what happened, a gigantic wave of water appeared before me and consumed the entire forest. I got scared. So scared that I got startled and heaved my body. A second later I lay down again and fell asleep. This time the wave was standing still as though something was stopping it and keeping it in one place. The enormous water extent was about two thousand feet high and ready to consume everything in its way. I had no idea what to do–to run, hide or just accept what was coming. I looked back for a second, just like that, maybe expecting to find there something that would save me. But, alas, there was nothing there, just infinite fields. When I turned to face the wave it suddenly rushed in my direction sucked me in and I could not breathe. I was waving my hands with bated breath, fighting for my life, not giving up even for a second. Right before I was to drown, the lights in the corridor were back on and I woke up. What a relief that was, as though it had not been real and I was still alive. That was the first time I actually appreciated the fact I was there, on a powerful and tough spaceship, on my way to the New Land. I stood up, my body was all stiff yet again due to the rough floor and my joints creaked as if they had switched places. About twenty or thirty feet away from me there was an electronic information panel attached to the wall that said a lot of things. The upper right-hand corner indicated that breakfast was in twenty minutes. I decided to head to the mess hall right away because it was a long way from here. More important, though, was the information that flashed across the middle of the screen: “Nine hours until arrival, give or take one hour.” No one knew for sure, but that was of no consequence because I got really excited and something inside of me started quivering with anticipation. On the way there I heard the signal indicating it was time for breakfast and I was almost there. I took my morning portion and sat down on one of the tremendously long tables. I gobbled my meal slowly and pensively. The question that was occupying my mind was whether I should wait at that place again and was I going to see that man once more? Frankly speaking, there was no way for me to know. Still we were a few hours away from arriving on the new planet so I wanted to use the time to see something no less intriguing than the main engine. Everyone on board knew that American Pride had a rich development infrastructure at its disposal. I heard some of the people around me talking about an entire metallurgical plant and a heavy- machine-building plant a few decks down. We knew that here were many machines on board–excavators and trucks, even weapons and tanks. Some even went as far as to suggest that there was an all-terrain mobile oil drilling rig which could be mounted on both solid and aqueous surfaces. At least that was the unofficial information. I needed to see those things with my own two eyes to believe the rumors or at least to see all that I could get to. I made up my mind to first take a tour and see as much as I could and then to go back to that place where I last saw Milev and await our arrival there. I got up from the table and left the tray right in the middle so that the machine that took them could easily pick it up, but when I made a step back I did not notice there was someone behind me. I crashed into a woman who was a little short of spilling all of her food on the floor.
‘Careful, Mr. Green Eyes!’ she said as though she was scolding me, but nevertheless a smile eventually flickered across her face.
‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t on purpose,’ I apologized and headed for the farthest elevator that could take me to the lower-level decks.
As I was walking something occurred to me. I was so engulfed by the ship that I did not look the woman I pushed in the eye. Yes, I did not even notice the color of her eyes, but one thing that just came up to my mind was etched in my memory. It was her image–she was slim with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, but what impressed me the most was her beautiful smile. Even though the memory went foggy a few hours later, it kept shining in my mind. I thought of going back, I could well have risked a few minutes of my time, but did not pluck up the courage to. What would I tell her anyway? Would she still be there? A long time elapsed while I was considering all those things and I had almost reached the lowest deck. I felt so bad . . . My obsession with the ship and my curiosity had made me blind to the little things in life, depriving me of contacts with new people. At least I was left with the memory of a beautiful smile, hoping to see it again . . . With every step that got me closer to the lowest deck the incident in the mess hall faded away. Maybe my survival instinct which was governed also by my inquisitiveness and by my fear was taking the upper hand, drowning the other feelings and thrills in that stressing three-day repetitiveness. While I was shaking off the things that stood in the way of my goal, which in those three days was focused solely on my survival, I got to the lowest point of the ship in the stern where you could go without needing a security pass. There were plenty of doors and openings in front of me. Most of them were unlocked and could be open with a key card. The largest and most massive door was open at that very moment. Many people in work uniforms went in and came out of it, the incoming and outgoing influx was controlled by an electronic check point that made use of business keycards, but because of the mounting workload over the past few hours of the travel, the system was turned off and the door was left ajar. I decided to get in since no one made anything to show me that they felt disturbed by my presence. I walked in and from there on the path took me to a large escalator that led to a yet lower level on the ship and stopped in front of a gigantic barn that was drowning in the noise of the people who worked inside.
The hall was strongly lit. It was so long and wide that I could not tell what its precise size was. I started exploring it at its length–it extended over a few thousand feet ahead up to the bow. A rather large place packed with people. Some of them even looked at me from head to toe and found out I did not work there, but they did not pay much attention to that and did not even call the security to report for non-staff persons as they were uncompromisingly busy. But all that paled into insignificance compared to the things that were around me. Hundreds of excavators, tractors and cranes–some of them were covered with a canvas and ready to be used, others were being fixed and prepared to be put to work hours later. The people were in a hurry to finish the job and rushed around from place to place in the midst of a controlled turmoil. The last few hours before the landing were going to be the most tense in the entire journey. Large trays with equipment flashed past me thunderously–both by land and by air. The service machines were arranged and firmly attached to the floor on both sides of a wide aisle situated at the center of the premises. It was the main aisle that separated the hall in two lengthwise. Walking down it, I managed to take a look at the stock that was employed in building a completely new infrastructure. There was a truly impressive variety even if you did not count the military machines that were locked and kept under strict watch in the other barns.
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 39
