Day 12 – April 12 – The Message

Day 12 – April 12 – The Message

Andrew sealed the capsule and wondered if anyone would get their message. The same message was still repeating in an endless loop hours after radio contact had been lost. Inside the capsule was a copy of their logs, diary entries and even a couple of personal letters. They had been so happy when they visited the planet which had been christened New Earth. The new home of the human race – and many animal and plant species – had been completely terraformed. It seemed a utopia, a Garden of Eden, not like the spoiled and dying Earth they had come to know. 

There was no communication possible between New Earth and Earth and that is why they had been sent. Either they would find the new world ready, or they would find a barren wilderness unfit for humans. If it was the first, colonisation could begin. If it was the latter, well, other planets were also being terraformed. The people of Earth would have another decade or two to suffer in their man-made hell before being able to colonise a new world. But the world was ready.

On the way back, something terrible had gone wrong with the ship. It spiralled off course and could not get back on its course. Then the main engines died after communication with New Earth had been lost. Now they could communicate with neither the people of Earth, nor the people of New Earth; but sent out a distress call nonetheless. When they got no answer and their oxygen levels were getting depleted they changed the message of the call. “New Earth terraforming completed. Begin colonisation.” Short. Simple. But he wanted to know that the message reached someone. Anyone. Preferably his loved ones, even though that was selfish – there were billions of other people that needed saving as well. 

Jimmy took the capsule from him. “Is this it?” 

Andrew nodded. “This is it.” 

“I hope they get it before it’s too late for them – for Earth, I mean. What happens to a message if no one receives it?”

“That’s deep,” Clive joked. He always had a joke, no matter what the situation. No matter how dark and hopeless. “If nothing else,” he added, grinning his Clive-grin, “we won’t have to go to a man-made New Earth now, we can go to the real thing.”

THE END