Unforgettable journey to other planets

“He was fine. There were a few bruises on his face, but he was fine. That’s why we were surprised. You see? The tail of the plane was falling very slowly.”

There were rustles and questions in the hall. Many people were looking at Monsieur Bajolet, discussing something. Others asked questions to the captain, but it all turned into unrelated chatter. The head of ESA took the situation into his own hands.

“Gentlemen, please be quiet!” he looked at the screen. “Please, what happened next? Why don’t we see the scientists and the rescued passengers with you?”

Captain Shah continued:

“The woman was in serious condition, and we decided to return to the helicopter. By then a strong wind had risen, and we had constructed a stretcher. The weather was rapidly worsening. The civilians took the girl, and we moved forward with Dr Capri. Then… I don’t know how we lost sight of him; we tried to go back, but visibility was zero. Snow and wind everywhere. We couldn’t find them. Half an hour later, we found our helicopter and co-pilot. We decided to wait for the wind to calm down, but it only got stronger.”

The Indian general, who was sitting behind a desk at the European Space Agency building, came into the conversation:

“After a couple of hours, we found them near the helicopter. After that, a rescue team went out with the Nepalese military to look for civilians, but all we found was an inverted tail section. The team split into two groups. One took the captain’s team back to our base, and the other stayed in the quad to search for survivors. We have no more news so far,” the general finished.

“Is there still bad weather in the area?” someone from the hall clarified.

“Yes, the weather is constantly changing, but in total the conditions are bad. We hope that the civilians found some shelter nearby. There’s a big storm out there.”

Several people ran into the ESA room. One of them immediately ran up to Jean-Jacques Dordain. Two others to Charles Bolden. The audience froze.

“Just a second,” said the Indian general.

The man was explaining something emotionally to the head of the European Space Agency, then he started pointing at the other two and his laptop screen. Jean-Jacques Dordain silently asked, “are you sure?”, and the man nodded briefly.

Monsieur Dordain looked around the room, remembered the video conference call, and, indicating with his hand to the panting man that he should wait a second, began:

“Gentlemen, you might have more questions, but we need to interrupt the videoconference urgently. New information has come up.”

The head of ESA looked at the scientist standing next to him, then at the head of NASA. Between them there was a short discussion without words. Charles Bolden nodded to share the bad news with colleagues. Jean-Jacques Dordain gathered air into his lungs:

“Okay,” he made sure the video was off. “Gentlemen, we’ve received reports from our probes that the Sun’s activity is dropping dramatically. We’re trying to figure out what happened, but the brightness of the Sun…” Jean-Jacques couldn’t find the words. “I think it would be better if Dr Pierre Edo explain what we are observing now.”

A gray-haired but very young man sat down next to the head of the ESA and turned on his microphone. He calmly began to explain:

“We are observing a decrease of solar activity right now. This is represented by a decrease in brightness, but in the near future, climatic anomalies await us. The normal brightness or absolute stellar magnitude of the Sun is 4.7. An hour ago, this value fell to 4.2. The dynamic of the decline is very fast. We assume that by the end of the day, the value will be 2.”

The people in the room didn’t know how to react to this. They whispered, but did not decide to ask a question.

The doctor waited a second and asked himself:

“What does this mean for us? A drop in the Sun’s luminosity, and therefore in heat output, by more than half would create a new ice age on Earth.”

The audience erupted in shouts. Questions poured in from all sides about how the data had been obtained, who had confirmed it, and what it might be related to.

The doctor turned to someone at the table and said nonchalantly.

“Exactly,” he waited until everyone at the table had calmed down. “What has it to do with?” he repeated. “We got a signal from Voyager, then we found out it malfunctioned, and now the Sun is fading. My opinion,” he looked at the head of ESA. “We must find the connection between all these events as soon as possible.”

Part 3 – Chapter 30

“We thought it was the way out of the cave: we were blinded by the light, it felt like there was a storm around,” David told Van the story of their journey while the little creature floated through the air beside him.

“Yes, yes,” Van squeaked expertly, “you changed bodies.”

“What?” said Dr Capri, looking at his hand.

“Changed bodies,” Van repeated. “In new planets, you have to change bodies in order to get there. And how did you think it would work?”

“We didn’t think anything,” Jean-Pierre grinned. “We didn’t really expect that there are little…” he thought for a second, “little men walking around on the Sun.”

“I’m not a man,” Van hissed grudgingly. “I’m Valikhilya,” he shook his little head in a sign of utter despair.

He sped up to get away from Jean-Pierre. Debby, noticing how offended Van was, grinned and indicated with her eyes that Jean-Pierre should apologize. Jean-Pierre declined without a word.

They were all walking through a vast valley that shimmered yellow, orange, and red under their feet. Somewhere in the distance, high flames were erupting and flying off the surface into the blackening sky like huge glowing ribbons.

“Wow,” Jean-Pierre said, impressed by the sight. “And what is that?”

Van remained silent and pointed away from the travelers, indicating that he only accompanied them and did not want to join in the conversation.

“Van,” David called out to him.

Silence. Dr Capri turned to Jean-Pierre. So did all the other earthlings.

“What?!” replied Jean-Pierre in a mute rebuke. “All right.”

He took a few wide steps to get closer to the flying Valikhilya ahead of him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to offend you.”

“Van cannot be offended,” the little creature replied without looking, “but,” he paused meaningfully, “you can’t call one living being by another. I’m Valikhilya, and I’m proud of it.”

“I see it,” Jean-Pierre smiled.

Van shook his head, inviting everyone to move on.

“So there are no people here?” David asked.

“People are a form of body. In order to travel to other planets, you have to adapt to life on them. If your body is not suitable, you have to change it.”

“I don’t understand,” said Yulia.

“A human being is,” Van tried to find a word, “one way to live on the Earth. To live on another planet, you need another way.”

“We use spacesuits for that,” David said.

“I know,” Van replied, expressing some level of distaste. “I don’t imagine how that’s possible.”

David looked at the doctor and smiled.