by Kumar Lomash
Kevin now understood what his role was going to be among Hums and Humans. He did not ask for the royal genes any more than Tim asked for the skills to make an axe but it was something they both ended up having anyways. Tim might not have valued his own skills, much like Kevin didn’t value his lineage, but when it came to contributing to the society, they both owed what they had. They could not choose to pretend being average individuals even if it bought them acceptance and trust of those they loved. Kevin could have to, as he expected of Tim, break the trust of his friends and risk hurting them to do what was necessary. Kevin’s responsibilities were far more critical after all, he had been told that the future of two civilizations depended on him.
Boris knew he had made his point. Kevin sat there for hours pondering over the implications of his conclusion. He wasn’t sad anymore as his path was clear before him and was thankful to Boris for helping him realise his duties. He had come to Boris this evening with a lot of uncertainty and confusion, mostly due to his feelings towards Joti and Gollow. A few hours ago, he was not sure what he should do. Should he assist Joti and Gollow to put up a fight against the Hums? This would certainly make them happy and was what they expected of him after all. Or, should he follow Boris to Peele and do what only he can do? Joti and Gollow would hate him for leaving them and going to their enemies in a time of crisis but this was the only way Kevin could influence the Hums into negotiating peace with Humans. Kevin was no longer confused. He felt better and left Boris’ cabin to go to his own level.
Meanwhile, Joti and Gollow met during dinner and started wondering where Kevin was. She told Gollow she might have seen Kevin entering the elevator but didn’t know where he was going. Upon more prodding, she confessed she was ignoring Kevin deliberately because she didn't want to discuss the issue of the Hums with him. Gollow showed support for how she felt and expressed concern at how Kevin talked about the Hums.
“I just don’t understand what Holum told him that made him so pro Hums.”, Joti sounded helpless
“Holum?”, Gollow was surprised.
“Yes, it appears that Holum knew about the aliens all along.”, Joti clarified.
“It can’t be.”, Gollow respected Holum a lot and refused to accept that he might have been a part of the Hums’ plan to destroy humans.
“It’s true Gollow. I saw it myself.”, Joti stressed.
Gollow seemed angry. He was trying to control himself but his emotions were showing. He smashed his hands on the table and said, “politicians are filthy”.
Joti was concerned about Gollow’s outburst and asked him to quickly finish his dinner so that they could go outside the canteen and discuss the matter in private. Gollow realised his mistake and apologised for being so careless. They finished their dinner quietly and took a walk around Joti’s cabin.
“What should we do now?”, Joti asked as soon as she realised they were alone.
“Impeach Holum, to begin with.”, Gollow stated clearly.
“I am more worried about Kevin, Gollow. I want him to be on our side.”, Joti sounded worried.
“Oh, he is on our side for sure. He is just confused that’s all. Once we kick Holum out, he will realise that he was being misled.”. Gollow trusted Kevin completely. He didn’t want Kevin’s girlfriend to think that Kevin was a traitor. He was doing what guys do when talking to their friend’s girlfriend.
Joti wanted to bring up Boris but didn’t know if that would be right on her part. Gollow seemed to know nothing about the aliens apart from what little he had heard from Gollard. Also, she was not sure how he would react to knowing that Boris was in fact a Hum. She steered the conversation towards Francis.
“What if we take Kevin to Francis?”, Joti asked.
“What good would that do?”. Gollow thought of Francis as someone who talked a lot but did nothing and hated such people. Moreover, he had never liked Francis because he always thought him to be too weak to take a stand or lead from the front.
“With Holum on the other side, whom else can we trust?”, Joti saw Francis as the answer to all her troubles. She wanted Francis to talk Kevin out of feeling so much for the Hums. She also wanted him to lead the Union when Holum was overthrown.
“Why not Ibu?”, Gollow asked.
“I don’t know. Ibu is very close to Holum. I am not sure if we can trust him. Moreover, I have known Francis since my childhood. He is a very wise and respected angel.”, Joti argued.
“Ya, but I doubt Francis has it in himself to be a leader.”, Gollow replied. He wanted to go into the details of why he thought Francis was a bad leader but stopped because Joti clearly felt close to Francis.
“We will think of that later, can we take Kevin to him at least? He might convince him.”, Joti wanted Gollow to help her bring Kevin to Francis.
Gollow agreed that Kevin needed some sense being talked into but was not sure if Francis was the guy so agreed only halfheartedly.
As they talked more about Hums and the future of the Union, they saw Kevin walking towards them. He was smiling at them in a friendly manner. As they waited for him to come nearer, Joti asked Gollow discretely, to keep their plan a secret until the time was right for Kevin to meet Francis. Gollow agreed.
“What are you guys talking about?”, Kevin asked casually.
“Nothing. Union stuff.”, Joti answered.
Kevin looked at Joti. He was smiling nervously. He knew they had not been talking recently and that she was avoiding talking to him on purpose. He was not angry though. He somehow felt that her reaction to the recent findings was justified and no longer felt the need to convince both of them to see things from his point of view. He knew what he had to do and that Joti and Gollow would eventually understand. Joti on the other hand felt trapped. She wanted to be with Kevin with all her heart but was not prepared to have a conversation, which was inevitable if they talked. She felt trapped because she didn’t want Gollow to see her ignoring Kevin. They talked about irrelevant things and stayed clear of the real issues which were bothering them all. Soon, Gollow felt that he should leave and let them both sort things out but Joti followed suit and left too. Kevin saw Joti enter her cabin and Gollow walk towards his own. He realised they both must have been discussing him earlier and the situation became awkward when he walked straight into them. He went into his cabin and started preparing to sleep but suddenly felt hungry. Maybe skipping dinner was not a good idea after all. Things were still as bad as they were a couple of hours ago but he was now confident they would eventually be alright and felt better.
05. Stage 11
A couple of days passed by and the spaceship was now closer to its descent to Nole. Officers in the Union were working day and night to make sure that their landing, followed by the disembarkation of Humans on Nole, went smoothly. Joti was really enjoying her duties as the Executive Secretary. Holum trusted her completely and gave increasingly more autonomy to her. She was doing back to back meetings with ministers and key office holders to make sure that everyone was working towards a smooth stage 11 and 12. All the senior officers along with the ministers knew about the aliens but they did a good job of keeping those facts to themselves. The rest of the people only thought that all the precautions were being taken as a contingency plan. Joti’s busy schedule provided her the distraction that she needed from her personal life. While working, she felt that she was fulfilling her destiny. Js were the best of the best that Humans had but Joti was the best placed of all the Js to contribute towards the betterment of the human civilization. Other Js were also placed at high offices in the Union but being the Executive Secretary to the President himself was an exceptionally critical position to hold. Moreover, she proved she deserved it with every hour that she spent in that position. It was only a few days since she had taken over but she looked like she was born with the qualities to be a leader.
She was the oldest of the Js on the ship and was 23 when she left Earth along with the others. She was a child of the Union itself. Holum had his eyes on
her ever since she was in school. He was visiting her school that day for giving a talk when he first met her. She asked him questions which were too complicated even for him to understand, let alone a 9 year old girl. He knew then and there that Js were going to be the brightest of them all as claimed by the genetic engineers. Over time he realised that there was something exceptional about Joti which made her, his favourite. Holum asked Garry to recruit her in the Union when she was only 14. She was promoted over people twice her age year after year and by the time she was 19, she was reporting directly to Garry. When the list of the people who would be brought to Nole was being made, Holum was willing to make exceptions to get Joti on but it was not necessary. Joti had already earned her free pass to Nole by being indispensable to the Union. She was one of the first non ministers to be told about the Nole project and had planned the whole thing with Garry. This is why she was so confused when she was asked to keep an eye on Kevin, weeks before he was scheduled to be brought to the Union headquarters. She thought it a job too trivial and one that could have been taken care of by anyone else. She didn’t know back then that Kevin was Holum’s priority. Joti was already among the top officials in the Union when Humans left Earth. So, her promotion to the highest non-elected position in the Union wouldn’t have surprised anyone.
Meanwhile, Kevin spent his days and nights studying more about Humans and Hums. Ibu and Boris, separately, were his source of information apart from the huge database that Moji was. Kevin would talk to Moji day in and day out gathering information on key events that had happened on Earth. He was interested in the history of humans and the technology that existed. Although he knew whatever the Union had today was no better than stone age tools when compared to what the Hums might have, he still wanted to understand where humans stood on their own. As he learnt more about the hums and the humans, he understood that human society was not very different from the hum society after all. Hums were technically more advanced, sure, but they had the same problems that humans did. He learnt from Boris that they were every bit as corrupt as humans and that nothing kept them united in the absence of an external threat. They were divided geographically, into states. These states were pseudo independent social and economical entities. Although hums didn’t have countries, or armies standing on borders, they had virtual borders in the social and economic structures. Kevin appreciated the fact that crimes like murders and rapes were virtually non-existent among the hums but Boris insisted that economic crimes happened on a daily basis and that they were no less severe than physical ones. Once Boris said, “The greed of businessmen destroys more lives in the long run than guns, tanks or even nuclear bombs”. He told Kevin that a good poison is one that kills slowly and is very hard to detect while the perfect poison, like bad economic policies and governance, is one which never kills and thus is never diagnosed as such.
More days passed by with everyone preparing for Nole. Much hadn't changed for the people on the spaceship except for a handful who now knew about the Hums. Finally, the day came when the spaceship left its geostationary orbit and started descending. A huge siren, as usual, marked the beginning of stage 11. This was going to be a rather short stage, the ride to Nole. It had been announced earlier that the spaceship would land on Nole within 20 hours of leaving orbit. The announcement had come from Joti who was slowly becoming the face of the Union even for people outside it. The descent started in the morning, after breakfast and was scheduled to be completed before breakfast the next day. It was planned this way because leaving orbit and landing on the planet was bound to cause motion sickness to the passengers. The spaceship was already mimicking the day-night cycle of Nole, so the simulated day on the spaceship overlapped exactly with the day on Nole but this hadn’t always been the case. When the spaceship left Earth, it simulated its days and nights with Earth. During the deep sleep of almost 3 centuries, the spaceship shifted to Nole’s cycle, specifically to the time zone of the preferred landing spot on Nole. This was the same place where the first unmanned probe had landed.
Everyone was excited and talked about nothing but Nole throughout the day. Kevin too found a spot near a window and enjoyed the view. He did not tell anyone around him that it was not his first time as he had been warned against it. He knew only those close to him knew about it. Kevin was happy seeing so much of positive energy all around. He felt convinced that someday Humans and the Hums would definitely be able to coexist.
As the spaceship approached the designated landing site on Nole, Joti and her colleagues reviewed the disembarkation plan. Joti was aware that due to the preponement of stage 11, the gravity on the spaceship was still short of Nole’s. She also felt that though many soldiers were already on Nole, it would not be wise to let everyone disembark at the same time. She came up with a protocol for everyone to follow. She decided that 500 humans would be chosen at random everyday to be allowed outside the spaceship. Once chosen, the person would be allowed to step outside everyday, starting that day. So, on the first day 500 people in total would be allowed outside. On the second day a total of 1000 and so on. Everyone was expected to get back to the spaceship during nights anyways because it was not recommended to sleep in the open. Moreover, the only bed that anyone had was the one assigned to them on the spaceship. The spaceship was designed to be a self contained colony, a small town in itself.
After making all the important decisions and assigning responsibilities to the respective department leaders, Joti, on Holum’s insistence, decided to take some personal time. She was not sure how she would spend these couple of days though. Off late, her work had been a much desired distraction from her personal life. She knew she needed to make things right with Kevin but this was one area where she was governed more by her heart than her mind. As much as she longed for those casual chats with Kevin where he had made everything look so simple and easy, she was afraid her attempt to convince him one last time might not work. The greatest fear that people have with using their last resort is that there would be no hope beyond it. As long as one has not tried it, there is hope that it will fix the problem. Francis was Joti’s last resort and she wanted to hang on to this possibility for some more time.
As the spaceship prepared for landing, Gollard had the huge responsibility to provide security and manage the disembarkation of the twenty thousand odd passengers. He looked for volunteers who would help implement the disembarkation policy handed over to him. He promoted a few of his existing men to be leaders who would lead small groups of soldiers and volunteers in carrying out the orders and promoted some existing leaders to report directly to him so that he could manage the overall stage 12 efficiently. Gollow was one of the three “second in command officers” who reported directly to Gollard. Being a seasoned soldier who had combat training he was made incharge of the defense. The other two second in command officers were in charge of the spaceship’s security and Nole exploration.
Officers of the Union on the ship and Gollard’s men on the landing site made sure that the landing went smooth. The enormous size of the spaceship was much evident now that it was on the ground.
A loud siren marked the end of stage 11 on the spaceship. The siren was so loud that it created ripples in the lake nearby. Some of the men on the outside closed their ears with their hands to protect them but they had smiles on their faces none the less. Everyone rejoiced on finally being able to land on their destination planet.
06. Stage 12
Stage 12, the final of all the stages had started. This was supposed to last 40 days during which most of the humans would step on Nole for the first time. Everything was going as per plan. Joti slept that whole day and woke up only in the evening. She used to sleep only sparingly before this too and that too mostly in her office chair. She woke up to see Kevin looking at her, standing near her bed. She was delighted to see him. What could be better than to open her eyes and see his smile? He had always had this effect on her which made life’s complications look small in front of the grand adventure that l
ife itself was. She forgot for a moment that things between them had been rough lately. She had been in a good mood after having seen the spaceship arrive at its new home and now with Kevin smiling in front of her, she felt as though all her personal and professional problems were fixed for good.
“Hey, how long have you been staring at me?”, She asked, still lying down on the bed.
“A couple of minutes.”, Kevin replied and approached the bed.
“How did you know that I was going to wake up on my own right at this moment?”, Joti wondered if Kevin had been standing there for hours waiting for her to wake up.
“Moji told me. He has this very useful utility where he can look at your eyelid movements and predict whether you are in deep sleep or coming out of it. I didn't know he would be this accurate.”, Kevin told the truth.
“So, you had a robot look at me the whole time I was sleeping?”, Joti asked, still smiling.
“Yes, I did.”, Kevin was now sitting on the bed. Joti had indicated that he could sit.