‘But what changed then? Because I don’t have a penny to my name and yet here I am,’ I asked astounded at all those things that had happened behind everybody’s backs.
‘We stole them,’ he said with a small smile dancing on his face.
‘But how’s that even possible? Weren’t they kept at the most modern military bases in the world?’ I fired question after question, unable to process how things had even gotten to that.
Suddenly a bell rang. Milev stood up and went over to open the door to a man dressed in white who was obviously coming from the kitchen. He was rolling a serving trolley with dishes hidden under classical hotel plate covers.
‘Leave it, we’ll take it from here. I’ll call you later to come and take the utensils,’ Milev said and sent the man away. He removed the lids of the dishes one by one–each one better looking and smelling than the previous. Roasted salmon, steaks, ribs, seafood salads,
steamed vegetables, hors d'oeuvres . . . That was just the beginning, on top of that there was no shortage of a variety of desserts and alcoholic drinks. It had been long since I had last seen so much delicious food in one place and my mouth instinctively started watering. I was finally going to feel like a real human again. If that was to be my last evening as a living being, I was at least going to be pleasantly wined and dined. But despite the hunger which grew stronger at the sight of the food, there was another type of hunger that was eating me up from the inside. I wanted to get the answers to the questions I had asked Milev minutes before.
´Please, take what you like,’ he said and placed the cutlery and the food on the table. As I was filling my plate and my glass, I decided to pick up the conversation where we left it off.
‘How did it all happen, if it’s not a secret, of course?’ I asked yet another question, hoping to get more information. Cruel as our life might have been there, on that bluish-green patch of earth, I could not allow my destiny and that of the entire human race to be determined by a pack of old fella with lots of money. We are humans, not beasts, we deserve equality.
‘No, it’s no longer a secret. How, you’re asking, I just could not bear to watch such injustice take place.’ From there on our conversation grew ever more interesting and Milev became ever more emotional. It felt like it was difficult for him to let the words go out of his mouth and they seemed to be verbalized for the first time. ‘If I hadn’t been chosen to be one of those who left in a fair way, I would have accepted my faith. But when I got acquainted with the plans of big shots such as Konrad Radeberg, I could not sit by idly.’
‘You knew Radeberg? Was he actually as bad a person considering all the investments he did without asking for anything in return?’
‘Yes, I knew him. Although I knew a great deal about him. My colleagues at NATO reported to me everything that had to do with him. Even the two investigators who exposed him in the end were acquaintances of mine. Unfortunately, one of them is no longer among the living and it’s precisely Radeberg who’s at fault for that,’ he continued revealing one shocking fact after another. And as a reporter, as a person whose calling was to cover news and events I felt like I had been blind all along. ‘Boy, you have no idea just what sort of people existed and probably still exist closed in some underground bunker. They fostered no appreciation for human life, even that of the livestock seemed to be more honorable compared to the destinies of certain people. Konrad was the very proof of that. Perhaps those like him are now rotting in the ground,’ he finished and took a gulp of the wine he had poured himself as he was speaking to me. He took small sips with such pleasure that you would think they were the last he was to ever taste.
‘All right, but how did you manage to deal with them? How do you get to steal something from a place that can’t be broken into?’ I kept asking questions, shocked, while my stomach continued to remind me of its needs even more conspicuously. I started devouring bits from the diverse portion of food I had compiled from the different dishes and went on listening.
‘This is a very long and difficult to sum up story, I don’t want to bore you, besides it’s late enough already. Are you sure you want to hear it?’ he answered with a question of his own and that was exactly what I had been waiting for. It was an opportunity to learn first-hand the facts from the man who had been directly in charge of the entire exodus operation and of the preservation of our species. I was not going to leave without receiving all the answers.
‘Yes, I’m absolutely positive about that! Still that’s my job; moreover I want to know for myself who and why bestowed me the honor to be by your side right here in this very moment.’ I demonstrated my staunch determination while the Balkan held his eyes locked on mine. At first he thought twice about whether to share with me anything, but then he seemed to decide to actually honor the curiosity and the firmness I was displaying just so I could achieve my goal. Then he started talking. He laid out the story in chronological order from the time when he left his former employment as a head of personal security. Thorough in his account, Milev recounted almost everything about his meeting the Great Omar Saadi as he called him. From what he said I learnt that, following Milev’s suggestion, he had devised the plan of attack on the military bases. It was precisely Saadi’s very life that had been lost without a trace or memory, but he was the man thanks to whom ordinary people like me were granted a fair chance on par with the more prominent ones. He referred to it as a “selection” or a “computer-programmed system for selection of transstellar migrants. I, on the other hand, thought of it as mere luck . . .
Then the Officer proceeded with the stories of the other participants in the mission who were no less integral to the outcome. He told me about his relationship with Harry and Alice and their share in the entire affair and about their meet-ups which led to the birth of their blossoming love. I was most impressed by the way he spoke of Harry. He narrated when and how he first met Rogers and, how the young man had changed his life.
‘Harry was a good boy, but he was very prone to getting into trouble. I had to employ a bit of intimidation and teach him a lesson, I just had to,’ the Balkan repeated a couple of times. ‘I only hope he is not full of hatred for me because I tried to help him, to spur him to build and reveal his true genius,’ he said of the man who was almost my age and who might turn out to be one of the smartest and most remarkable people onboard the ship, something I did not even suspect. ‘I’m proud of him. He finally found something to fight for, something he wasn’t doing just for the money and the thrill of it. He is completely engulfed by love and that was the most beautiful thing that could have happened to him and that could give meaning to his messy life. I really hope he doesn’t hate me.’ Milev finished, still drinking and even taking in more and more of the alcohol.
I remained completely silent after his words. He left me totally shocked with the events and details that he let me in on regarding the people who were related, directly or not, to our interplanetary travel. I was very surprised by the truth about the terroristic group of Al Nadir which was rendered by the media as harmless and malleable in its goals. Apparently that was really far from true and its goals were invisible to the police and the military and everything had happened right under their noses. The more I thought, the more I realized that now we were reaping the fruits of its labor. Perhaps Al Nadir were no terrorists at all, but simply people who thought differently and who were fighting for equality and freedom.
With the advance of the evening all the things that the Balkan “dumped” on my head seemed to me too many and too intricate. But I made the connections between what the events he spoke of since I had heard a lot being in the reporting line of work. We indulged ourselves with a good deal of alcohol and the more the Officer drank, the greater the secrets he divulged became and I could not decide if they were shocking or terrifying. The last thing he shared was all the unheard-of action that took place outside Johnson air base. He had had one too many drinks and he even began slurring his words. Despite his intoxication
which I believed was absolutely sought for, I knew that he was not exaggerating like ordinary people do when wasted, but instead he used the alcohol as a means to let out easily the deeply-kept secrets and pain.
‘Many people lost their lives because of me and that will probably continue to happen tomorrow,’ the Officer went on with considerably reddened eyes, visibly quite drunk already. ‘Boy, do you think I’m a bad person?’ He asked me a very tough question, his look blurred and his speech seriously slurred. At first I didn’t know what to tell him, I still did not know him well personally, but more or less I knew certain things about his personality and the events surrounding his life in the previous few months. So I decided to put forth what I saw in him.
´I don´t think so. Life is self-sacrifice, life is war and contest. You chose to take the side of the weak. That, in itself, shows that you’re a winner. Do not lie to yourself, Lieutenant, evil people are weak. They pick the easy way–the one of money and power–over doing something good for others without expecting to gain anything out of it. You’re not a bad person, no, Milev, you’re Great and that makes you good in every sense of the word.’ I shared my opinion based on my personal impression which other people also shared. Many would agree with me–the military, the crews of both ships. But my words, instead of making him happy or of provoking his thoughts, made him stiffen. His eyes went even redder and tears started streaming down his face. Maybe everything that had happened had a severe emotional impact on him and probably my words had struck a chord with him. Only he knew what it was.
‘Great, who needs to be great? I don’t even have anyone with whom to share that greatness. I have no wife, children or a family. I had no time for friends to whom I could tell anything or take off some of my load. Maybe I’m just doomed to be alone forever, to not have someone to rely on and to have myself only to count on . . .’ After saying that, already finished his dinner, he poured himself almost a full glass of whiskey which he drained in an instant. He got off the table and went over to a mirror that was pinned to the wall about ten feet away. He wiped his tears off with a napkin and stared at his image with a dim look in his eyes.
‘What is it, Lieutenant?’ I asked him, worried, as he was already steadily rocking back and forth and it was growing increasingly difficult for him to keep his balance.
‘Over the past few days, every morning when I wake up, I go to wash and shave and can’t stop looking at my face in the mirror. I stare at it for hours and keep asking myself the same question. How many have to die so that the others could live? This will forever weigh heavy on my heart until my dying hour strikes me down. I’ve already forgotten for how long I’ve been hurting for their deaths, but I want this to stop. He pressed his right hand to the wall, leaned on it and bowed his head so he did not have to see his face, the face he seemed to fear, his tears dripped down and landed on his feet. ‘I don’t want to see these eyes again, they’re eyes of death and ruin. I won’t be able to live with myself if one more wretched soul has to fly out of this world because I will know it will be because of me! The hell of insanity will settle in my mind forever!‘
‘Don’t think that, it’s not true!’ I tried to help him calm a little although it was absolutely pointless. Milev took a step back from the mirror, losing his balance and headed for the insides of the room.
‘Tomorrow will be the day that seals our fate. We’ll see whether we’ll deserve our place here and whether we’ll live to tell. There isn’t much time left.’ Those were his last words that evening. He got to his bed, propping on the walls, and lied down with his clothes on. Drunk as a lord he instantly fell asleep, resting on one side, affected both by the alcohol and the weariness. The way the evening unfolded left me slightly worried, but there was nothing I could do. I pulled the blanket over him and walked out of the room. I felt pity for him. That man who looked so strong and confident crumbled in a matter of hours under the influence of a few drinks. The strong memories from the past and the heavy responsibilities spearheaded a vicious attack against his mind. His consciousness was what held him together because despite the tears he was a very strong person who was not going to let his weaknesses drag him down. His regrets and self-doubts could only scratch the surface of his personality just for a moment during one of the long lonely nights spent in the company of alcohol and a pair of ears like mine . . .
After our one-on-one meeting I did not want to go back to my place. I was nervous, upset and shocked. I needed to distract myself because being alone along with the things that I got to know earlier on were going to drive me insane. How was it possible? Random people like Milev and General Saadi designed such a plan and executed it. Maybe there were not so random after all, or the system had allowed them to carry all that out. The more I roamed around the corridors, the more I realized how deeply rotten the Earth’s society was at its core and that we should never restore it to its previous form. It was just that no one there could guarantee us that we would be safe there, let alone secure us a chance to stay alive. Everything was too complicated for someone like me to give it a cardinal assessment. Moreover, my opinion on whether we should stay or go would be a distant moan in the ears of our commanders. The worst part was that even if I could find someone willing to listen to me, there was no guarantee that I would be right. One way or another, the day after was going to give us the answer . . .
I needed to go out and get some fresh air. I felt like the walls were coming closer to one another, like they were pressing in on me and like the corridors were becoming longer and longer. The high concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere was going to refresh me, yet the gravity would not stop causing trouble to my legs and my back which hurt every now and then as though I had sore muscles. Perhaps I would get used to that soon, but right now it was an obstacle. A minute later my eyes landed upon the door that the day before had led me out onto that magical place on the ship´s terrace. I opened it with a jerk and sprang out as if something was chasing me. I felt the freshness of the splashes of rainwater caught by the wind and whizzed over onto the large open balcony. I took a few deep breaths–the air was so light and untainted that I could hardly get enough of it. I breathed like I had never breathed before and the unpleasant feeling of fear and anxiety were slowly wearing off as I had stood with my head hung over the railing and let it get wetted by the rain. Suddenly I got startled by something.
´Is everything fine with you, boy?’ I found a large and palpably strong hand on my shoulder. I turned my head to the left, startled, to see the face of the person who got concerned about my condition. It was Thomas Ivanov himself.
‘I’m all right, just felt a little dizzy,’ I answered, surprised by the face-to-face interaction with him.
‘Are you sure? You look quite pale to me. Do you have family, relatives, someone we can call in case we need to take you to the infirmary?’ the Colonel asked again.
‘No, I’m alone on board. I just needed a bit of fresh air, thanks for your concern. Maybe I need to sit.’ I turned around and looked for a comfortable place to sit. I found one about fifteen feet away from us.
‘You’re the journalist, right?’
‘Yes, my name is Nolan Stokes, pleased to meet you, Sir!’ I introduced myself, supposing that Ivanov did not have the faintest idea what my name was and knew me just as the news boy. I stretched my arm and we shook hands as was customary. I still had not recuperated fully, but that did not prevent me from realizing, judging by the handshake, that that man was exceptionally physically strong, he had a proud and jaunty stance. The Colonel did not introduce himself, he just nodded approvingly instead. Probably he knew that I was aware who he was.
‘Come sit with me,’ he invited me over to the closest bench on which he had obviously been sitting until a while before. What a surprise and what a compliment that was! A man of such rank struck a conversation with me and even offered me his company. Oddly enough, humaneness perhaps was not a quality peculiar only to Milev, but to most of our leaders, although most of
them still had not revealed that. ‘Come sit with me, I’m alone anyway,’ he prompted me once again, settling on the other end of the bench before, like a hermit, subsiding into the dark background of the rainy weather. There were almost no people in this part of the ship. You could see the contours of two or three silhouettes in the distance, but not a sound came in from that direction. Perhaps that balcony was meant only for the members of the officer crew because of its direct access to the bridge and that was not a place everyone was allowed to enter. In spite of that, in the late night the lonely ones had walked out to get a bit of seclusion. Maybe that was exactly what Thomas was hoping to find there, who knows . . . A few minutes of awkward silence passed, or at least that was how I experienced it. At some point, though, once I had relaxed and had begun to accept and realize everything I had heard earlier on, I decided to head back to my quarters. I turned and made to stand up, but at that very instant Thomas spoke.
‘Have you ever thought that you would find yourself in a place different than your home planet?’ He asked a rather bizarre question, even more uncommon than that of the Bulgarian. I did not even expect him to initiate a conversation with me a second time, let alone ask something of the sort. I turned to him to see him gazing into the horizon over the ledge which merged with the murky distance.
´Not really, at least for as long as I remember,’ I replied and a few seconds of silence followed. But in the meantime I remembered something else and I just felt like sharing it. Maybe it was some intention to be more sincere or friendly with the commander-in-chief of the German ship. So I tried to keep the conversation going. ‘Well, perhaps, as a child, I had pictured myself as an astronaut who leaves his home planet in search of new worlds. Mere child’s reflections and wishes, nothing serious that I can remember now or that I have lent any importance to.’
‘Child’s dreams are a good thing. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re a child or an adult–they’re something one needs to follow through to the end because truly happy are only those who manage to turn them into reality. Trivial as it might sound, if you don’t work towards achieving your own happiness, in the end it will slip through your fingers,’ the Russian noted, shaking his head after he finished his last sentence.
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 50