Poetry & Prose : THE FIRST ONE

THE FIRST ONE

By Sean Charles

The announcer's voice cut in over the music, barely able to contain itself, sounds of a microphone being hurriedly affixed to a lapel... “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a newsflash. This story is now being aired in every major city around the world. We are not alone. I repeat. We are not alone.”

Granddad nearly dropped his dinner plate as he heard the announcer continue with the story.

“The Space Exploration Commission has authorised the release of the following information. The existence of life elsewhere in the Universe has now been confirmed. We are not alone. More details follow when we have them, stay tuned. And now, some advertisements from our sponsors.”
      
Granddad stared at Grandma. Grandma was standing with her eyes closed.

“Did you hear that love? Are you OK?”
            
She opened her eyes and her eyes found the voice over the table. “It makes me angry,” she said, “to think that they spend billions and billions on space exploration and I have to wait so long for my operation. Some days I can barely stand the pain.” She wept.

 Granddad got up from the table and helped her sit down. He put the kettle on; a good cup of tea always works wonders.

The Chamber

 “...Three...Two...One...Commence power generation sequence.”

Somewhere deep underground, generators surged into life, throwing out unimaginable amounts of energy. This was no place for wires. Instead, transmission lines of pure gold, tens of feet across, carried the output from the generators to where it was needed.

Forty years after the first discovery, the realisation that there was life elsewhere, however bizarre, was the driving force to build what now stood before Captain Ka'Mil. He had to take a couple of deep breaths as he stood at the entrance to The Chamber. Not only was it a historic moment, but he was also naked and the air inside was cold. Not as cold as the floor.

That he had been chosen from thousands was still a surprise but here he was, minutes away from becoming the first one to ever travel to meet another race. Another species. His mind wandered back over the previous months and years.

All that was known was that the world he was destined for was completely alien to his world. Unimaginably different. It was hard to know what to expect. The greatest scientific minds had devised a means of transportation based upon decades of returned probe data. It could be a oneway journey and that it should be considered a suicide mission. They had said, “We are not sure how long we can maintain contact or telemetry links. You could be lost to us. We just don't know, there are too many uncertainties.”

He didn't care. He felt that this was the moment that his entire life had been leading up to. Just a player in a bigger game. Nothing to lose. Mentally he was now stronger than ever. Prepared for the transition. Focused.

“Captain, can you hear us? Please respond.”

Startled, he realised that despite having spent the last ten years training his mind to stay focused, he had in fact completely drifted from the now. His heart pounded with a new fear and anticipation of the unknown. Was he really prepared for this? To have lost focus, so easily, this close to the transition. Could he do it ?

“Captain Ka'Mil, we detect increased life signs, is everything OK with you ? Do you want to abort the mission ?”

“No, it's fine. Last minute nerves I guess. Let's get on with it.”

The Chamber lit up, incandescent white, tinged with blue. It was as though the walls themselves were the light source. The feint rhythmic hum of raw energy filled his head. Stay focused.

They had told him that at the moment of transition, it was more important than ever to remain focused, that his very existence would depend upon his ability to remain transfixed on a single thought while the operation took place. What scared him most was that his body would be staying behind.

The Chamber was designed to lift his mind from his body and channel it into a receiving vessel at the other end, in the New World. All they could say was that although they couldn't say for sure exactly where he would end up in the New World, he most definitely would arrive. It had to be this way because the new world was so different, so foreign in its material structure that his body could not possibly survive in such a dense and coarse realm.

“Please enter The Chamber now Captain, proceed with mind loop alpha four two zero and hold for five minutes.”

He walked down the slope into The Chamber proper, the hole in the wall behind him reformed leaving no visible trace of its existence. Step onto the Transition Space. Throbbing energy waves made the hairs on his naked body prickle. The air was electric. Five minutes passed. Captain Ka'Mil had been verbally performing the mind control technique now and felt better; the training was kicking in. He could do this. He could.

“OK Captain, this is possibly our last communication. Good Luck, our hearts go with you, we will speak your name forever. Remember, during the transition, use mind loop echo nine four alpha until you arrive. That will give you your best chance of survival.”

He tried to remain relaxed. He tried to remain in control of his mind, and for a while longer his body. He tried. Breathe in...hold...out....in...hold...out. His heart pounded in his chest, each beat feeling like a violent impact. Was he to die today?

A softer voice came into his head now, “Captain Ka'Mil, do you have any last questions before we proceed past the point of no return ?”

“How will I know I have arrived ? How do I keep in touch with you? How...” it was no use continuing, he should just accept the fact that here was here. Now. In The Chamber.

The energy level increased tenfold; the blue light began to become purple, then red. The softer voice came back, for the last time now: “We understand your nervousness. Today you become a hero Captain Ka'Mil. We have told you all we know, all that we have been able to discover. All we can say is that you will know when you arrive, and as long as you can keep control of your mind and stay in State, then you will always be able to talk with us and know you are not alone. Your body will be safe.”

A few moments passed. “Do it” he said. “Transcend.”

The energy in The Chamber increased again, the light blinding. Red, intense red. Painful red. The air hummed and throbbed as the waves of energy cycled around The Chamber, creating peaks and troughs of enormous magnitudes. He was at the focal point.

In the control room, the mission control team were working through the complex transition sequence...“Commence Qspace dematerialisation sequence.” Moments passed. From the view screen, somebody pointed out that his body was no longer visible.

“How do you feel Captain?”

“Fine, just fine. How long to transition?”

Hands flew across lit panels, things flashed, sounds emanated from all directions. The time was now. Now. “Commence full Subspacial Transfer Of Residual Knowledge.” The noise of the generators was matched only by the power of the vibrations coming from The Chamber.

“Looking good, we have an A1 systems check. Residual Knowledge count is one hundred percent and holding.”

More hands. More controls and lights. Alarms. “Attention, we have an inconsistency in the secondary neural feedback loops. Losing data. We have a breach on the secondary data pools.”

Ka'Mil felt strange. Like he was being rolled out and drawn into a long string. He focused on the mantra. Strange images came to him. He fought not to pay attention. Must stay focused. Must. In the control room, all hell had broken out. It was going wrong. Badly wrong. People were running and shouting at each other just to vent anxiety, to feel in control.

“Is he dead?” somebody asked.

“I don't... I don't think so, we still have a trace on him but I don't understand it. It wasn't supposed to go like that. I don't understand what happened.” He slumped over and buried his face in his hands. “One moment he was there, the next he's gone. My life's work; Simultaneous Transfer Of Residual Knowledge, a failure. I just don't understand.”

Project S.T.O.R.K. Stillborn.

Still, born.

"There you go Mrs. Browning, we've cut the cord and you can hold her now. She's beautiful, got your eyes I think!"

The slimy wet wriggling thing was lovingly handed over to its mother, who was trying hard not to cry too much for fear of not being able to see her newborn through the tears of joy that were now fighting to escape all at once.

"Oh, she's lovely".

"What's her name?" asked the nurse.

"Camilla"

"That's a nice name! Is it a family name?"

"No, it's funny really, I was sitting quietly one day and I almost felt as though she told me her name herself, clear as day it was. I was sitting there, quiet like, and all of a sudden, into my head popped, 'I am Camilla', clear as day".

 
Illustration: Tubehead, by Ishmael Fiifi Annobil
Author(s): Sean Charles