The Future Is Short (17 page)
“Well, I hope your journey is successful. I apologize again for not being there in my full form.”
“You are forgiven, my Predestined.”
Ergo grabbed her hand, or at least her hand by proxy. He tried his best to look at her with hope, but knew this was probably not their last goodbye.
Onni managed a thin smile.
“Goodbye, Ergo. Safe travels.” At that her Duplicate withdrew its hand, turned, and walked away.
He turned, as well, and looked out again at the Jure. At least “she” would welcome him. And perhaps there was something out there waiting for him that would make this separation from Onni all worthwhile
Jon Ricson writes science fiction, detective, and other entertainment literature.
He resides outside Orlando, Florida, and you can often find him walking the streets of Disney or Universal soaking in the creativity.
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38.
Nōnen Títi
Exhausted, soaked through, and short of breath from the climb against the ice-cold wind, Hank and Rosa finally reached the top of the rocks above the beach. There, way below them, on the edge of the water, lay the means to their survival.
“She looks so small,” Rosa shouted over the noise of the wind in her ears.
“Hurry,” Hank answered, taking her hand and pulling her downward over the sand and rocks that littered the treacherous Queen Maud Land coastal flat, across which, from all directions, people and animals were heading towards the only refuge that would stay afloat while the super storms raged over the planet and drowned the earth.
One after the other, the storms had terrorized the land for almost ten decades now. Large portions of the continents had sunk. A hundred million people had drowned in the last year alone. Entire populations were on the move, searching for higher ground—where they were not welcome.
At times, Rosa had longed to see the places Mum and Dad so fondly remembered from before—places like San Francisco, New York, The Netherlands, and Bangladesh—but they were long gone.
The scientists had issued warnings, which the United World Government, from the safety of its Himalayan offices, refused to take seriously. One of Mum and Dad’s colleagues at the South Pole Science Observatory, Sibyl, a self-proclaimed prophet, had started to build their refuge on the new coast, a coast that had not existed until recently and yet was perfectly drawn on the map Rosa now kept safely hidden under her clothing—the ancient map of sea admiral and cartographer, Piri Mehmed.
At first, Mum and Dad had dismissed the idea of the looming disaster, until multiple cyclones and hurricanes started to form simultaneously, each fuelled by the increasingly large oceans that resulted when most of the polar ice melted, and each coinciding with the full moon. They had still trusted the technology when Sibyl had announced to the world that these storms would collide in a super storm that could wipe out humanity, and that she was willing to save only as many people and animals as could fit on her refuge.
Only when the solar storm plunged the entire planet into darkness, devoid of any working equipment, had Dad taken the map from the observatory museum and handed it to Hank and Rosa. “Run and don’t look back. They’re not going to wait. Use the map as payment; find the raft and save your lives,” he had said.
Hank and Rosa had not had a chance to think about it, no time to say goodbye. Nobody knew how much of the land would sink from under their feet; the key was to get to the refuge. There had been no time even to be sad and think of Mum and Dad being left behind for the sea to swallow.
Rosa felt her eyes go hot at the memory. Civilization seemed so far away and so long ago, yet it was only three days since they’d left the observatory; three days of walking, using the map to guide them, with only water and biscuits to sustain them, until the refuge was now only a few hundred meters away.
“Have you still got it?” Hank asked her again.
Rosa nodded, holding tightly on to him with one hand and clutching their precious map against her chest with the other. “What if she won’t accept us; what if they want to avoid inbreeding later?”
“She won’t know. The solar storm blew out all the equipment; there’s no data.”
Rosa nodded and concentrated on not falling over the rocks, while watching the last animals enter the ship. She was so tired, but there was no time to waste, so they started running again until, finally, they reached Sibyl, who welcomed them as she kissed the map and hurried them aboard.
From now on, they’d be at the mercy of water and wind; no Gulf Stream left for direction; no weather prediction without satellites. Yet they would float, while the continents sank, one by one.
Nōnen Títi (
www.nonentiti.com
), pen name of Mirjam Maclean, is a writer with a background in health care, education, and philosophy who writes fiction and nonfiction books inspired by the inborn differences that influence the beliefs, behaviour, and natural talents of every person.
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39.
Andy Lake
Well, the headline writers couldn’t resist it, could they? ‘Did Curiosity Kill the Cat?’
As head of the Mars Exploration Research Centre, only I know the answer to the mystery that has puzzled the world since that strange discovery. And by the time you read this, it’s a secret I will have taken with me to the grave.
I still remember the excitement that day 15 years ago, when the Mars Rover Curiosity found bones on the Red Planet. Extraterrestrial life had been found!
And then—the discovery of further remains that were, quite clearly, a cat. The media said Curiosity had run over the cat.
The first roadkill in outer space.
So who put the cat there?
Theories multiplied. The Chinese had been conducting secret missions, sending animals to Mars. Aliens had abducted life forms from Earth, then somehow mislaid one on the way home. Perhaps time-travelling humans had visited Mars, or Bastet, the Egyptian cat-god.
One crank cult believed a species of future felines, the creatures we evolve into over the next 10,000 years, traveled through time and lost one of their infants there.
Of course none of this is true. The truth is more prosaic, yet also bizarre. It goes back to 2003, when I was senior engineer on the Beagle 2 project—the most expensive flop in the history of the British space programme.
We had such high hopes. Beagle 2 would be launched from the orbiting Mars Express. It would bounce to a safe landing on Mars. It would open up its clam-like structure, and send back a rich vein of data about the Red Planet. But we lost contact with it after it separated from Mars Express—and that was that.
What went wrong? Investigations suggested a problem during descent. It fell too fast, and burned up. Its parachutes failed to open, or airbags failed to deploy. Its design was insufficient to withstand the heat, velocity, or impact. All logical, but incorrect.
In reality, the problem started in Baikonur in Kazakhstan, on launch day. As usual, we were in a flap. I was late. On the way to the Cosmodrome I saw on the side of the road a sack that seemed to be alive. I stopped the taxi, and went to look. Inside the sack were three young cats, in a pitiable condition. Being an animal lover, I took the cats with me. On arrival I gave them some milk in the kitchen, and left them in the care of a cleaner.
You’ve guessed the rest. Somehow, in our busy-ness, we let down our guard. Somehow, in our final check, one of the cats crept in and, I suspect, got into Beagle 2’s protective shell.
My joy at the successful launch turned to unease when I only found two cats in the rest area. Discreetly I hunted high and low, but one had gone.
Truly, as they say, no act of kindness goes unpunished. Doubly so, in this case. The poor creature I tried to rescue must have been dead soon after take-off. And the Beagle failed, at huge cost.
Maybe its weight put all our calculations out of kilter. Maybe its oozing body juices seeped into the electrics. Who knows exactly?
But how I winced whenever someone used the word ‘catastrophe’. I blushed with shame when economists talked of a ‘dead cat bounce’ during the recession.
I kept it all to myself, hoping the cat had slipped safely away before take-off. But when Rover sniffed out the cat’s bones ten years later, my fears were confirmed. Still I kept quiet.
I am not proud of this. Every day, when I look in the mirror, I see a man who is not a great and revered scientist, but a fraud. And yet …. If I had owned up, my career would have ended, at no benefit to mankind. I made the mess. I should clear it up and take us forward.
And standing behind me in the mirror, I see the shadow of bungling, hubristic humanity.
So I know we will go on, making a hash of everything we touch, undermining our hopes by our stupidity, then covering up our crimes and follies in the hope of profit, or in the self-deceiving hope of making amends. Onwards to the stars, my friends!
Andy Lake’s day job is researching, writing, and advising companies and governments about the future of work. When he takes his suit off, he writes about the future of anything. His futures are full of many opportunities which we subvert through our ignorance, recklessness, and idiosyncrasies. In short, “the future is something other than what is intended.”
http://www.andylake.co.uk