Unforgettable journey to other planets

Jean-Pierre woke up at 4 a.m. There was no need to get up, but he could not bring himself to sleep any further. He got up, took a shower, and went for a run around the 20th arrondissement. He walked out of the house where he and his wife had rented an apartment and felt the cold air begin to tingle his face. He thought of Audrey. She, like Jean-Pierre, was from Rouen, but they had moved to Paris for work. She did not like Paris, but she liked how happy her husband was when he left for work in the morning and how tiredly satisfied he was in the evening. Audrey felt impenetrable protection and confidence around Jean-Pierre, and she didn’t care what city they lived in.

Jean-Pierre looked at the entrance to the Porte de Bagnolet subway, straightened his back, and ran in the direction of Еdouard Vaillant Square. It had been a long time since he had run in the morning and he felt annoyed about it. Although Audrey never joined him on the run, it was as if Jean-Pierre had been with her that time. He liked to dream of them going to the south or just having a free night and he would take her to a restaurant. But right now Jean-Pierre couldn’t let go of thoughts of work.

“What was the meeting that made the patron cancel his visit to Tokyo? So, I know he got a message from the European Space Agency, about an urgent meeting. He called right after it. How did he sound? Calm, as always. But he apologized for keeping me busy. That doesn’t sound like him. He was always very kind to me, but he never apologized. How strange. Does apologizing mean he thinks he’s to blame?”

Jean-Pierre ran into the park and felt the smell change. The air was cooler and more humid. There were no people, only the occasional car tangentially hitting the park grounds. The pleasant noise of the sneakers’ soles against the embankment on the pathway sounded like a most inspiring soundtrack. Jean-Pierre continued to ponder:

“I see three possibilities. One, the patron just decided to take a break from the crazy pace; he recently turned 58. He’s much more tired than I am. That’s a good option, but it’s not about him at all. The second option, he knows something about this conference that I don’t. Either it’s not important at all, or it’s just idle talk. But we’ve been preparing so much, haven’t we? Maybe he wants to test me. My knowledge and confidence. Maybe I’m up for a promotion. Stop.”

Jean-Pierre turned quickly onto a side track to change course of thought.

“This is all nonsense. There was a meeting at the ESA where the Minister of Security was. It was called without warning. Why the space agency? I don’t remember any urgent or important space projects.”

The coolness of the morning and the silence penetrated between the wet strands of Jean-Pierre’s hair. He could feel the sweat droplets running between the hair on his temples. With each step, with each touch of his sneakers on the ground, fatigue and heaviness fell from Jean-Pierre’s shoulders. He felt his muscles rejoice and it communicated to his thoughts. He suddenly felt that he really wanted to do something nice for Audrey, for the boss, for his mother, and for all people in the world.

“Gotta do the order in the best way,” Jean-Pierre thought, speeding up.

Part 1 – Chapter 8

Dr Capri shouted something to the worker in Nepali. Yulia watched carefully. The worker turned the antenna a millimeter to the left and looked at the doctor.

“No,” Yulia shook her hands, “let him check the wire to the antenna, there is no signal from it, and turn the repeater to the left, it is crookedly attached.”

“Okay, Yulia,” said the doctor calmly, “I think that after this antenna we should take a break. Maybe you should see Kathmandu.”

“Dr Capri, the system doesn’t work, and I have tickets to Moscow the day after tomorrow,” said Yulia tiredly and frustrated.

“It seems to me, Yulia, that you and I should go…” Dr Capri turned his eyes to the screen and forgot what he wanted to say next.

The indicators began to change on the laptop screen. The graph of the received signal twitched upward. The program showed that the observatory was receiving all kinds of signals – electromagnetic, audio. Yulia turned quickly to the display.

“What a nonsense is that?” Yulia said incredulously.

She looked outside and saw that the worker was smiling at her with a wide smile. He shouted something from the stepladder, but she didn’t understand.

“He says the wire from the antenna was not fully inserted,” Dr Capri explained. “Did it work?”

“I don’t know,” Yulia said embarrassedly, turning to her laptop, “that’s not the signal we’re supposed to get.”

“And what is it?” the doctor was surprised, sitting down on the chair next to Yulia.

“We should get the usual background space noise, equalize its density and set zero coordinates, so that the system understands where the reference point is. The system checks the field for anomalies and if such anomalies are detected, points the telescope there and takes a picture of that area,” Yulia said, typing something on the keyboard.

“So,” forcing her to continue, Dr Capri stretched out.

“The antennas and repeaters are working. That’s the fact. But they’re finding a recurring anomaly, the telescope can’t get a focus there,” Yulia pointed to the recurring ‘impossible coordinates’ message.

“What kind of anomaly do the system see? Perhaps they caught some radio wave or TV signal?” the doctor suggested.

“Looks like it,” said Yulia, trying to control the program.

Dr Capri stood up and stretched, dispersing tiredness and sleepiness. He realized that if they had received a signal, even though it was wrong, then the technique was working and now they just needed to adjust it. He wanted to suggest that Yulia go downstairs for half an hour for some tea and then take care of the technical issues afterwards.

“Yulia,” he turned to her, but met her concerned look. “What’s wrong?” with a sharp change in tone, the doctor asked.

“It’s a cosmic signal and strong electromagnetic radiation,” Yulia looked into the space in front of her, “I’m a hundred percent sure of it. But the signal is too distinct. There’s sound and everything else,” she turned to the computer again and started typing something.

“Wait a minute, Yulia,” Dr Capri said, hoping she was just tired, “how can we tell what kind of signal we’re picking up?”

“Now I’m going to try to get that signal and convert it to audio. Damn it!” she yelled.

“What?” the doctor tensed up.

“The program is looking for the signal over and over again, trying to point the telescope there. It’s recording in half-second bursts. I could…” she hesitated, biting her lower lip, “tell the program that the telescope is pointed at the object. Please, disconnect the telescope wire from the control box,” she tossed to the doctor.

Dr Capri, justifying the meaning of his name, which can be translated as ‘mighty man’, immediately ripped one of the wire from the box. Yulia began typing the coordinates into the command line. She copied the data from another window and let the program know that the telescope was already manually pointed to the correct coordinates. The error message stopped appearing on the display. Everything looked calm. Yulia began to receive a steady and clear signal. All devices showed bursts of energy. The electromagnetic spectra were off the charts. She tried to extract the audio signal from the pile of data the system was showing and picking up.

“It seems to be working. The signal is strong, it’s at 8450 MHz. It’s the frequency used to transmit data from spacecraft to Earth. But if the signal is from…” Yulia shook her head to get the interfering thought out of her head. “The telescope can’t aim at the object because the object is on Earth.”

“Can we locate the source of the signal?” Dr Capri asked.

“Yes,” she pointed to the display. “Okay, let’s put this as the zero point. Here,” Yulia pointed at the numbers.

Dr Capri wrote down the coordinates ‘27°41'53.0"N 88°08'15.4"E’ with a pencil on a sheet in his notebook and went to the computer at the other end of the room. He quickly entered the data into the search query and saw the name of one of the largest mountains in the world, Kanchenjunga.

“Yulia, I checked the coordinates,” the doctor began to speak loudly from his desk, “it is the northeastern border of Nepal, the Kanchenjunga mountain.”

Yulia was sitting at the table, her left ear placed over the small speaker of her laptop, she held her right hand outstretched upward, letting the doctor know to stop shouting. Dr Capri ran up to Yulia and lowered his head closer to the laptop, too. They tried to breathe quietly, but the sound was almost inaudible. Yulia tried to turn up the volume. It was the maximum, but apart from the hissing, only isolated almost elusive sounds came through.

Dr Capri ran to the second computer and unplugged the small speakers from it. Ten seconds later, Yulia hooked them up to the laptop and turned the volume to maximum.

The noise increased. Then the sound became some kind of gurgling and finally the room was filled with some rustling and thumping.

“Is that thunder?” Yulia whispered.

The sound began to change again. It was the sound of water. Dr Capri checked the speaker wire, hoping the hissing and rustling would disappear. But then they heard birds singing. Dr Capri sat down in the chair next to Yulia and listened to the sound of birds trilling first, then the growling of wild animals, and then the screams of chimpanzees coming from the speakers.

Yulia and Dr Capri’s faces frowned. The tension was going away and was replaced by frustration and even some embarrassment. Yulia lowered her eyes to the floor and thought to herself, “I caught the educational channel on several million worth of equipment.”

Sounds kept pouring out of the speakers: a phone call, a steamer horn, the sound of a train and some kind of tractor.

Yulia was afraid to raise her eyes to Dr Capri because she couldn’t explain why two days of tuning space gear had resulted in them simply catching a television or radio signal from some station.

At that moment, the cry of a newborn baby was heard. Dr Capri touched Yulia’s hand.

“It’s very strange sounds,” he said, as the crunch of snow beneath feet sounded in the background.

Classical music began to play. Something snapped in Yulia and Tulu-Manchi’s chest. Yulia’s breath hitched and she tried to catch her breath, but Dr Capri beat her to it.