Writing for Fun
February 2017
Another World - Pete Norman
‘They’re here!’
The cry was both excited and full of optimism. As a single entity the whole group surged across to the huge picture window to press their faces against the cold glass. I shared neither their enthusiasm nor their optimism but nevertheless there was a certain innate curiosity that even I, in my present mood, could not ignore and, somewhat reluctantly, I followed.
They were indeed here – a long line of buses stretching along the face of the vast building for as far as the eye could see, each one bright yellow and shiny new, each one identical to the last except for the National flag displayed in the facia. As they passed, some of the emblems were familiar and some unknown but the overwhelming impression was that of either a United Nations rally or the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.
It had begun.
We had been prisoners for weeks now, locked within the antiseptic confines of these rooms, unable to venture out, unable to see or to hold our loved ones, unable to smell the fresh air or to feel the breeze on our faces. It seemed particularly cruel to deprive us of all of those things that we would never experience in our lives again . . . ever.
In the beginning it had all seemed so exciting, an amazing adventure, the ability to live the Sci-Fi dream, to boldly go . . .
When the advertisements had started to fill the newspaper pages, the TV screens and the Internet, millions around the globe filled in the questionnaires, rang the free-phone numbers, sent the e-mails, each one insanely optimistic that they were about to embark on a new life – a Brave New World . . .
If I had known then what I knew now I would have been far less enthusiastic about the whole plan but that was then and here I am now, staring out of the window with the rest of the group, waiting for my turn to be transported to another world, to start the human race anew, to populate another planet . . .
The interviews had been conducted in many stages, with the successful applicants passing on to the next stage and the losers passing back through the entrance doors, returning defeated to their humdrum, miserable lives. Gradually the numbers in the room dwindled until there were just twenty one of us left and from them a Controller was to be selected.
As I had passed through each successive stage I had grown in stature, my confidence had elevated. As the structure of the interviews became more and more intense I was certain that amongst the combatants I was the round peg in the round hole, I knew that the Controller’s job was mine and I was prepared to sell my soul to be the last man standing. I am ashamed to admit that during that time I gave little thought to my life outside this building . . . to my life on planet Earth.
When I was selected I wanted to punch the air in triumph – I had won – there-can-be-only-one!
Those who had not been shortlisted for the Controller’s post, the cannon fodder, were labelled ‘pioneers’ and it would be my task to supervise and mould them into an effective and productive unit.
After a comprehensive briefing I joined my new team in the quarters which were to be our home – and our prison – during the period of intensive training. We were all young, all fit and healthy, free from disease and genetically sound, of good disposition and intellect. We appeared at first glance to be an idealized cross section of society.
We had been subjected to vigorous medical and mental examination – we were all fit for purpose. Everything so far had been designed to flatter, to create the notion of the chosen ones, the elite, la crème de la crème, but looking around the room I had the uneasy feeling that we had been here before – 80 years before – in Nazi Germany. Everyone in this room appeared to be quintessentially masculine or feminine, there was no hint of sexual diversity. I began to wonder whether any form of disability or deformity might have been allowed to pass the test, whether it was only the Master Race, with perfect DNA, that would be permitted to begin life anew, that disease and abnormality would never be allowed to proliferate in the new Utopia.
The days that followed settled into a rigid routine – each morning I was taken in great detail through the mechanics of our role and each afternoon I would patiently disseminate all of this information to my team.
I told them that we are twenty one British people – each hand-picked – and that across the globe twenty one individuals have been similarly selected from each of the other nations. That we have been selected to colonize Proxima B, a small Earth like planet orbiting our nearest sun, a mere 4.2 light years away. That such a venture would have been unthinkable just a decade ago, but with the advent of the plasma drive even such an unthinkable distance is now a possibility, although the journey will be long and it will be necessary for us to travel in a state of stasis – in hibernation – and that we will be awoken only at the point of landing.
I told them that advance teams of scientists and engineers had been sent ahead of us and that there is already sufficient terraforming to enable us to subsist with immediate effect; that it will be our responsibility to assist with preparing the ground for the next tranche.
The group had bonded well, they had not subdivided into cliques, which had been an early concern, but they were cooperative, helpful and were melding into a dynamic team fit to face anything the new world could throw at them.
However, now, as I stood watching the buses winding their way past the window I could think of nothing but the final briefing I had received just a few minutes before, a briefing I was expressly forbidden to communicate with the group until we had landed – until we had been awoken from stasis.
It was the last piece of the jigsaw but a piece so devastating that I would have given anything to have been spared the disclosure myself until I too was past the point of no return . . . but that was not to be. I was the Controller, I had a responsibility not only to my team but to the entire human race and the rationale behind the order was irrefutable.
My thoughts were for my parents, for my friends, for everyone I had ever held dear in my life. The cream of the United Kingdom was in this room and everyone not in this room was either destined for a future flight – should prevailing circumstances permit – or were destined to remain behind on Mother Earth.
The buses slowed and the one with the Union Flag came to a halt directly outside our door. A faint buzz signalled the by-pass of the lock and a uniformed guard, his face concealed behind a mask, led us out to the bus. The excitement amongst the group was palpable, all talk was of the exciting things to come, but I could only feel a desperate sense of loss of what was not to come, of all that I was leaving behind. I had tried to voice this opinion but those who had been detailed to educate and prepare us would not be drawn into such unaccommodating ideology.
The rocket was enormous – far larger than the Atlas – but, with the superior power of the plasma drive, it could carry a much greater payload.
One by one the buses stopped on the tarmac beneath the towering behemoth and group after group disgorged from them and made their way to the wire framed lifts that carried them high above to the entrance portal.
As our bus grew nearer the feeling of inevitability grew stronger and the conversation dwindled to a few anxious whispers. When the doors finally opened we filed obediently out and into the lift, up and up and up to the small door where we stepped from sunshine into the gloom and into our uncertain future.
As the rocket was enormous so the space within was claustrophobic, there was barely room to pass through the entrance and down the ladders to our designated deck. We were settled onto padded platforms and a cannula inserted into the arm through which the drugs would pass to induce stasis and through which nutrients would flow to preserve us throughout the long flight.
We lay for what seemed an eternity while the decks above us were filled one after the other and then, finally, a dull clunk signalled the closure of the portal. A deathly hush enveloped the group with the exception of a muffled sob from the other side.
I closed my eyes to shut out the reality but I could still visualise the volcanic caldera at Yellowstone National Park. It is truly immense – 1,500 square miles to be precise – and for decades it has been flexing its muscles. It has erupted just three times in the last two million years and scientists have long been convinced that it is overdue for the next. It was always thought that if it were ever to erupt again it would be a global catastrophe and that the extinction of every living thing upon the planet was inevitable.
All of this of course was common knowledge but the fact that had to be withheld from my team and from the population at large was that eruption was now known to be both imminent and irrevocable.
Mankind as a species had to be preserved. With a faint hiss I could feel a cold sensation in my arm as the drug entered my bloodstream . . .
We were on our way . . . ours was a one way trip, for by the time we arrived there would be nothing to come back to.