Unforgettable journey to other planets

“General assembly again. The Indians found a helicopter carrying a Russian engineer from Roscosmos and a doctor from the observatory in Kathmandu. They were the ones who detected the signal…” the assistant wanted to continue.

“I know. Car!” Monsieur Bajolet interrupted her.

“Already downstairs.”

Bernard Bajolet hung up and quickly got ready. In five minutes he was in the car. Twenty minutes later, he entered the hall he was already familiar with and sat down at his seat. There were several people in the hall besides him. Everyone looked sleep-deprived. Igor Komarov entered the hall and looked at his watch. Mr. Bajolet nodded at him in greeting. The screen began to set up a video conference call with the Indian military base.

More and more people began to enter the hall. Soon an Indian general entered the room, speaking on the phone, and informed his colleagues that the video conference should begin.

“Will we be able to start soon?” Jean-Jacques Dordain asked via microphone.

“Yes,” replied the general, “helicopter pilots are already there.”

A small conference room appeared on the screen. The camera was fixed on top and showed a simply furnished room. A great number of military men were sitting at the table.

“So, gentlemen,” the Indian general hung up his phone and began speaking into the microphone. “Our team just returned from a rescue expedition. We found the pilot, Captain Shah, the co-pilot and the military communicator. They were sent by the Nepalese military as an escort…” the general didn’t have time to finish.

“Excuse me,” Igor Komarov interrupted him, “have you found Yulia Danilina?”

“Um… No,” replied the general.

“What?! But what happened?” the head of Roscosmos began to get nervous.

“That’s why we asked Captain Shah to tell us his version of what happened. It is more about the missing plane.”

There was a pause. It was obvious that the signal had already reached the military base, but Captain Shah didn’t start any explanation.

“He doesn’t speak English, so he will be translated,” the general added. “Please, Captain Shah, tell us what happened.”

A few more seconds of silence and everyone heard the tired voice of the Nepali pilot. The Indian military interpreter began to speak:

“We left our base yesterday morning. We had two civilians with us. One was a Russian girl from Roscosmos, the other was Dr Capri from Kathmandu Observatory,” the interpreter swallowed, clearly worried. “We were moving to the specified quadrant near Kanchenjunga. Near the supposed place of the emission, all the helicopter systems shut down. We contacted the base…”

“Shut down?” the Russian general sitting next to Igor Komarov asked into the microphone. “Describe in details what happened.”

There was a pause again.

“I don’t know,” briefly, but with a shiver in his voice the Indian soldier translated, “all systems simply turned off. I hardly landed the machine.”

The captain was silent for a moment, reconstructing the chronology of events in his memory.

“No one was hurt. When we got out of the helicopter, we met an English tourist. He was alone. He saw us falling and came to help. We tried to get the helicopter going again, but we were stopped by…” first the captain and then the interpreter fell silent.

The hall filled with tension. Everyone in the hall could see the captain, torn by some inner dilemma, looking around and not finding a place, either looking at the interpreter or somewhere to the side. He looked at the man next to him in the same uniform and made up his mind:

“We saw the plane crash. It scattered right in the air, and then,” the interpreter paused and shifted his gaze to somewhere behind the camera. “Then it disappeared.”

“Is he talking about the missing Paris-Tokyo flight?” the head of ESA asked his colleagues without using the microphone.

“Yes,” several voices came from the audience.

“It all fits,” said the French general sitting next to Bernard Bajolet.

Captain Shah was silent again.

“Captain,” the Indian general asked him, “clarify what do you mean by the words ‘disappeared’.”

“I mean that the plane just disappeared right in the air. The visibility was good, and we could hear the turbines roaring. It was flying away from us at an altitude of maybe a couple of kilometers. Maybe lower. And then the whole front just disappeared in the air.”

“Maybe it was clouds or fog?” someone in the audience suggested.

“No,” the captain shook his head when the interpreter voiced the Europeans’ hypothesis.

“I saw it with my own eyes, and so did they,” the interpreter continued, and Captain Shah pointed to his subordinates, “and the civilians saw it too.”

“But where are they?” burst out from the Roscosmos head. “What happened to them?”

“We saw part of the plane, the tail part,” the interpreter clarified. “It came off the plane and fell slowly not far from us. We rushed over there.”

“Did part of the plane get out?” again the Indian military general clarified.

“Yes, but…” said the interpreter, trying to capture the intonation of the captain, “it’s hard to explain. The tail of the plane also fell unusually. There seemed to be an invisible parachute tied to it. Um. Slowly,” the interpreter transmitted a tone of uncertainty.

“What?” there was an exclamation in the audience.

“Explain,” the Indian general asked.

“It was falling like a feather, slowly,” the Indian military man translated, and Captain Shah splashed his hands in a sign that he himself understood how strange it is. “We just thought there might be people there. We left the co-pilot next to the machine, went over a couple of hills, and then we saw this Frenchman and a young girl, apparently an American. Her name was Debby, yes, Debby, and the Frenchman’s name was Jean-Pierre.”

A chill ran through Bernard Bajolet’s body. His breath collapsed for a second. He quickly found himself and, after the second time, turned on his microphone.

“Please wait. Jean-Pierre Biro? That was his name? That’s my assistant.”

The whole room looked at Bernard Bajolet. He concentrated all his attention on the image of a distant conference room somewhere in India. There was silence again, and then Captain Shah nodded.

“Biro, yes.”

Monsieur Bajolet turned on the microphone again:

“Did he survive? He… Tell me where he is.”

Captain Shah nodded to the interpreter.

“Yes, they survived. The girl’s leg was damaged. It appeared to be a closed fracture. She could not move, she was in bad condition,” the interpreter paused, while the captain was thinking of what more could be added to this description.

“We got the data,” the general sitting next to Bernard Bajolet said quietly. “It apparently was an American citizen, Debby Glandfield. She was traveling from the United States to Japan. We’re looking for her relatives right now.”

“What about the man?” Bernard turned to Captain Shah.