“Aady, are you alright?”
“Mr Yamamoto, it’s gone crazy! People think I’m trying to destroy the planet. I don’t know what to do. They keep asking questions. We can’t abort. The probes have been using the sun’s gravity to accelerate for months. They’re going in and we can’t stop them. What do I tell them? I don’t know what to tell them… they… they’re talking like I could end up in prison or something. What shou…”
“Hush, Aady, calm down,” Mr Yamamoto reassured. “It’ll be alright. I accounted for this eventuality. As we speak, my aides are preparing an observation area in the control room at the Space Center. They’re already extending invitations to reporters from the world’s top networks. They’ll be given information packs, so you only need to give a brief explanation. You and I both know there’s no danger, nothing to worry about.”
“Thank god, so you’re at the Space Center?”
“No, Aady, its best for me to remain behind the scenes. The view from afar provides better perspective. Don’t worry. Calm yourself. We both know the experiment is safe. We’re just trying to replicate what happened in the past. Once explained, everyone will calm down. This is great coverage for you too. This could be a good thing.”
“You sure, I mean, you think?”
“I know it, Aady. Relax and enjoy your time in the limelight. I chose you to be our guide as there is no one alive more capable. It seems the time has come to unveil your genius to the world. Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate your success in a style that would put the gods to shame. Kanpai!”
Into the Void
A aditya surveyed the faces of the chosen reporters seated along the back wall of the Tanegashima Control Room. Up until now he’d always scoffed at health and safety regulations. He found them to be a nuisance, the enemy of efficiency and budgets across the world. It was the sole reason humanity hadn’t returned to the moon in almost thirty years, despite incredible leaps in technology. Striving to be diligent and safe was one thing, but wilfully creating limitations that crippled progress was imbecilic. Everyone seemed to agree, so it was baffling the insanity persisted. He always wondered who these invisible champions of health and safety were. They probably lived with the leprechauns as no one he knew had ever met one.
However, today, finally, for what Aaditya supposed was the first time in human history, health and safety protocols had proven useful. Fire regulations had determined that only a handful of reporters were permitted to view proceedings from within the Control Room. Better still, they weren’t permitted to use their cameras as they might emit electromagnetic frequencies that could interfere with vital control systems. Of course, that was ridiculous and could never happen, but who could prove otherwise.
Internally, Aaditya tipped his hat to Mr Yamamoto, who’d skilfully played the politically correct hand of allowing media coverage, whilst simultaneously limiting distractions and pressures that could hinder operations. Now that Aaditya knew his every word and action wasn’t going to be broadcast live, globally, he felt empowered by the intimate set-up. Seeing the reporters sit, wide eyed and full of anticipation, pens poised over paper, he almost felt as though he was about to deliver a university lecture. They were in his world now.
“All comfortable, good,” Aaditya began before allowing anyone to respond. “Let me first introduce you to my Flight Control team, the good people seated at their stations towards the front of the room. “This is Arno Behrens, Guidance. That’s Julia Czerny, P.Coms. Araya Liendo, Control. The athletic looking one on the end, Regin D. Colon on L.Sat and finally, Serge Maiquez on Procedures. He’s got eyes on everything. I’m guessing you know who I am.” A chuckle rippled through the reporters. “Okay, let’s cut the mustard. You’ve all read your information packs so know about our discovery of the Icarus Two probe back in England, buried in the cliffs at Lyme Regis. That’s why we’re here. Not to open a black hole that will end the world as some of you have suggested, but to, if we’re lucky, if we’re really really lucky, to recreate the conditions that allowed Icarus Two to travel back through time. To increase our chances, we’ve stacked the odds. P.Coms, diagnostic and health check?”
Up until now the giant screen at the focal point of the Control Room had displayed a live video feed of the sun, hanging majestically in the velvet darkness of space. Now, either side of it, six long oblong shapes illuminated, each containing six spheres. All of the spheres were highlighted green.
“P.Coms, we’re in the green,” Julia said. “Probes are safe and in their blankets. Shield decay on all capsules is within projected tolerance.”
“Excellent,” Aaditya said, beginning to feel giddy with excitement. He turned back to the reporters. “As you can see, we’ve launched six capsules, each containing six probes. Those of you who are numerically astute may have gleaned that makes thirty-six probes in total. Guidance, how are the intersects?”
Arno tapped his keyboard and six dotted lines appeared on the screen, each leading to a different zone on the sun’s surface.
“Intersects are good. All capsules are within magnetic lines of influence. We have good sunspots. We’re approaching the edge of the release envelope. Acceleration appears slightly higher than predicted. At this velocity we’ll hit the barrier twenty minutes early. Still accelerating. The release window is shortening.”
“Okay, keep an eye on that,” Aaditya said, frowning at the screen. “Procedures, stay vigilant. This is a one shot deal.”
Aaditya checked his watch. 9.26 a.m. If the timeline for releasing the probes was shortening, he needed to explain things to the reporters as quickly as possible.
“Mary Ellis, GNN,” the short blond reporter who’d hunted Aaditya down in the car park at the Cosmo Resort announced. She stood up and stepped forwards. “This information pack says the time travel exploit is likely a natural phenomenon created by the sun. It says,” she leafed through the information pack, “it says the sun’s atmosphere is upwards of a million degrees, whereas the surface is only five-thousand degrees. It then goes on to say you believe the particles leaving the sun’s surface are so energised they create a photo-subduction zone that disguises the true temperature of the surface, that this causes photons to momentarily dip through space-time. I might be missing something here, but could you explain that in English?”
The gathered reporters chuckled.
“Sure,” Aaditya said, fizzing with excitement. He pointed to the image of the sun on the monitor at the front of the room. Here and there golden bursts erupted from the surface before falling back into the tumultuous inferno. He allowed the room a few moments to drink in the wondrous sight. “Our star,” he began, his voice crackling with emotion. He gathered himself and started again. “Our star, like all stars, is a nuclear furnace. The energy it produces is almost unimaginable. It’s so extreme it stresses the very fabric of space-time. Now, this extreme energy is imparted to all particles leaving the surface, both adding to their mass and momentum. It’s so powerful that, momentarily, the mass of some of these particles becomes almost infinite…”
“Like Einstein said, e=mc2,” one of the reporters blurted. “More energy means more mass.”
“Bingo,” Aaditya said, pointing at the reporter, “very good. It’s a little more complicated, but basically, yes. Einstein’s theory of special relativity explains it. It also explains why everyday average matter can never achieve the speed of light, as their mass would become too great. However, there is one particle we know of that does move at the speed of light. Anyone?”
“A photon, a particle of light,” the same reporter said, straightening proudly in his chair and eyeing his fellows smugly. “That’s right, people, you have my permission to acknowledge my brilliance,” he finished with a seated bow.
“Wonderful,” Aditya said, laughing with the reporters. “Photons are almost magical. They defy the rules by which everything else in the universe must adhere. This is where the real magic starts. The energy imparted to photons leaving the sun is so extreme it alter
s their state on a quantum level. They’re too full of mass and energy for the fabric of our space-time to contain. Like a heavy stone sinking into wet sand, some sink through the layers of time, to a precise point around one hundred and forty-eight million years in the past, towards the end of the Jurassic period. Then, once cooled, they snap back into our space-time. It all happens in a fraction of a second. The entire surface of the sun is a time-travel waterfall, carved out by photons, through which all matter can flow. Today, within hours, our probes will attempt to ride the current through and break free on the other side.”
Mary Ellis inhaled. Bottoms shifted on seats and eyes widened. Then a quizzical look crossed Mary’s face.
“But how will you know if you’ve succeeded. Can you track the probes through time?”
“No,” Aaditya said, shaking his head. “That’s where things get a little… well, fuzzy. We think we’ve found a solution. This is where L.Sat comes in. Regin, please bring up the feed from the L.I.A.R satellite.”
A few keystrokes later the sun on the front wall monitors disappeared and was replaced with a barren grayish-white landscape, full of craters, hills and valleys.
“Taurus-Littrow,” Regin said. “Still no new objects to report.”
“Thanks,” Aditya said. “Okay, this is a live feed from our Lunar Imaging and Reconnaissance satellite. It’s Apollo 17’s landing site on the moon. It’s very small, but you can still make out the cradle of the lunar lander, around which the ejecta blanket spreads, created as the L.E.M capsule took off carrying the astronauts back into orbit. You see it? There. You can also make out the lunar rover the astronauts used to travel around the surface, tire tracks too. There is no weather on the moon. Those tire tracks will remain there until an asteroid hits the area or the sun explodes in about five billion years. Essentially, they’ll remain there forever, unmoved for eternity.”
“What’s Apollo 17 got to do with time travel?” One of the reporters asked.
“Nothing,” Aaditya replied, “absolutely nothing. However, since the surface of the moon remains a constant, any newly introduced objects will be easy to spot. Once the probes have travelled back through time they’ll head away from the sun, then orientate themselves and fly for the surface of the moon, to this exact spot. Taurus-Littrow. It’s one of the most studied lunar landscapes, so any new objects will be immediately obvious.”
“There’s a problem though, isn’t there?” Mary Ellis said.
“Possibly,” Aaditya said, nodding and scratching his chin. “Well, probably.”
“Any successful probes should already be on the moon,” Mary continued. “You’re looking for new objects like they’ll suddenly appear. Even if the probes you’re sending into the past arrive late, even sixty million years, they should still already be there. We should be able to see them already.”
“We just don’t know,” Aaditya said, trying to remain outwardly positive. “It’s another reason we chose Taurus-Littrow, so the Apollo 17 astronauts might have found them if they were already there, which they didn’t obviously.”
“That was risky,” the RTL reporter scoffed. “You could have caused a global panic, alien probes on the moon!”
“We made sure they were marked as coming from Earth,” Aaditya said, annoyed by the brainless interruption. “We do think these things through before jumping in feet first. Anyway, we don’t fully understand the mechanics of time travel. We’re pioneers, forging through the dark in uncharted territory. Perhaps, later today the probes will all fail. A second possibility is that they’ll simply appear on the moon the moment they travel back in time, as at present they don’t exist in the past. I know it’s a mind muddler. We just don’t know. We’re writing the book on this as we go.”
“Sounds like you’re making it up as you go,” the RTL reporter added.
“It’s certainly an expensive gamble considering how much you don’t know,” the BBC reporter said.
“So was going to the moon or circumnavigating the globe in wooden ships,” Aaditya defended. “This is how human understanding advances, with…” he stopped. A light was blinking on his console at the corner of his vision. He leaned towards the monitor at his control station. “No!” He gasped, praying the alarm was a malfunction. He flicked a switch on his console and the images of the six capsules either side of the sun blazed onto the main screen.
“L.O.S on capsules one and five. They’re dead,” the Procedures controller called as two of the images of the capsules turned from green to red. “We have vibrations in all remaining capsules. They’re becoming terminal… way outside the tolerance envelope…”
“Copy that,” Arno yelled as alarms across everyone’s consoles began to flash. “Acceleration’s just jumped. It’s increasing exponentially. We’ll pass the release window in minutes at this rate. We have shimmies across the board. I’m not sure if…”
Another capsule on the monitor turned from green to red.
“Capsule three is dea…”
“Release,” Aaditya called over the voices of the controllers. “Drop the blankets, now!”
“Roger, blanket release in three…two…release…”
“Probes are failing. We just lost fo…no five…”
“Speed still increasing.”
Horrified, Aaditya stood helpless as more probes on the main monitor turned from green to blood red.
“Barrier approaching,” Arno called. “Fifteen seconds until we hit the subduction zone.”
Aaditya knew there was nothing they could do to help the probes. They were all passengers now. More probes on the monitor turned from green to red. He’d never felt so powerless.
“Go faster,” Aaditya yelled. “Speed up dammit!”
“Three…two…they’re in…”
“We have nine successful travellers,” Julia called. “Coms lost. They’re in.”
Aaditya turned to the reporters, all of whom were standing, staring as though in a trance, note pads and pens strewn on the floor at their feet. Aaditya turned slowly to Regin on L.Sat. Clothes rustled as everyone in the room shifted to follow his gaze. Regin rubbed his forehead. He inhaled, pumped his fist, and brought his hand down to his keyboard. His hand wavered and he looked at Aaditya, who nodded slowly. Regin thumbed the keyboard and the Taurus-Littrow landing site filled the far wall. Aaditya scanned the image feverishly.
“Scans show no new objects,” Regin said, his shoulders slumping as he continued to search in vain.
“There has to be,” Aaditya said, dashing to Regin’s console. “Do a sweep. One hundred square miles.”
“Already done. Secondary and tertiary scanning has swept four hundred and fifty miles in all directions. There are no new objects… I’m sorry, Aady…”
“Keep looking,” Aaditya yelled, manhandling Regin from his station and seating himself in his place. “They have to be there, they have to… “
In the background, as his fingers scrabbled across the keyboard a solitary voice said,
“Well, that was a waste of time.”
“And money,” someone else added.
“Jeez, I came to the other side of the planet for this?” A reporter scoffed. “I missed my kid’s birthday. I’ll never hear the end of it. It could be the greatest discovery of our time they said. Yeah right. Thanks for nothing.”
Genesis
E ven before the rear exit ramp of the Lockheed Starlifter cargo plane had lowered, Aaditya could feel the bitter chill from outside seeping through the hull.
“It’s minus forty-two out there,” Tim said, zipping his jacket and pulling up his fur lined hood. “We won’t be outside long, but the wind chill alone can freeze your eyeballs. Follow me and don’t stray. It’s dangerous out there.”
Aaditya zipped his jacket and pulled on his gloves. The condensation on the skeletal metal framework lining the hull of the aircraft was already turning to frost. The lights flickered as the loading ramp whirred and began to descend. The temperature dropped sharply and the steam c
oming from Aaditya’s mouth and nose intensified.
“Can this thing take off again in this cold?” Aaditya asked, noticing frost crystals creeping across the windows.
“Yeah, so long as the antifreeze doesn’t freeze.”
“I’m not in the mood,” Aaditya growled. “What is it with you two and the endless games? And why have me trek across the world every time we have a damn meeting?”
“Boss man likes to keep it interesting,” Tim said. “Besides, for you, it’s probably better than being anywhere else at the moment.”
Aaditya shook his head wearily. The public humiliation of the past few days hadn’t been funny and was definitely too sore a wound to be making light of. It wasn’t Tim’s face plastered across every newspaper on the planet, being mocked and labelled ‘the mad scientist’ or called ‘Anti Einstein.’ He’d not even been able to return home due to the swarms of reporters camping out on his front lawn. Everywhere he went, and forever more, he’d be a laughing stock. His career was as good as dead. Nothing about any of this was funny.
A gust of wind, full with sparkling ice-crystals, flurried into the cabin as the loading ramp crunched to the ground. Aaditya walked outside and gazed around in amazement. The landing strip was nestled in a snowy basin, surrounded by mountains that thrust high into a cloudless sky, in which billions of stars twinkled. The snow-glossed peaks glowed bluish white in the starlight. A delightful tingle prickled Aaditya’s skin. The anger he was harbouring seemed to ebb away. The calm the wonderland manifested was a million miles away from the chaos and noise back at home. This was exactly where he needed to be, under the gaze of the stars. Perhaps Mr Yamamoto and Tim understood that. Perhaps that’s why they’d whisked him away from the horror show at home. To offer him refuge until the storm blew over.
Aaditya lowered his gaze from the mountains and noticed a fleet of yellow JCB style diggers, loaders and trucks. One of the vehicles had a huge circular plate in front of the driver’s cabin, from which countless savage looking drill heads thrust. The fleet presented itself as an unsightly scar on the otherwise pristine snowscape.
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