The New World

“In time, we are going to have visitors from Earth. They will accuse us of stealing the ships, taking charge of the planet, and acting independently. Didn’t you promise there was no way people on Earth could know about us? Didn't you promise they would not send a rescue team to Eirawat?” Minal asked, concerned with his pine straw brows furrowed. If the file with the written consent was not a foul play orchestrated by him, I thought, he need not be concerned that much.

You may be wondering how I ended up with that question from Minal – one of my crewmates.

We had landed on Eirawat only hours ago.

"Never had such a long nap before," Minal said as we walked in slow trot on the rocky surface of Eirawat – our new home; I thought fifty years was indeed an exceptionally long nap for crossing ten LY for astronauts who have had a maximum of six months hibernation in training.

We both strolled on the terrain to get a feel of the rocky planet.

"This feels much like walking on Mars except that there were no moons," Minal said as he stared at the sky.

There were three moons in the reddish glowing-fire-like sky - just how much we predicted Eirawat would have by transit spectrograph from Earth.

"This is the third planet I am stepping on; the second one was on Mars. I would say Mars was adamant; terraforming failed, colony was a little success, but mutations and radiation made it too hard to be tamed for our tastes; Otherwise, by now, I would have been competing with someone to be the ruler of the red planet." Minal added further and cracked into laughter. Astronauts take pride in the number of celestial bodies they step on, but with Eirawat, it was not the same because it could be their last.

I would not say I liked the way he was more focused on administering the planet rather than looking to contribute towards desired results. For an administration to ensure better management, it must be hierarchical - one leads a bunch of subordinates who are, in turn, leaders. But shouldn't the desired result be the focal point of determining leadership? shouldn't morals and ethics be essential aspects of those desired results?

"Oh! Were you three on the same Mars Colonization project, too?" I asked; although I was the one who picked them and put them in their seats in my project, I cared too little about people's past.

"How else did you think we ended up in your project? We were in a ‘resource pool' and had already undergone specific training for colonization projects. You can’t find a grade A+ in ISRO better than me in building permanent habitats, establishing water recycling units, and terraforming greenhouse domes." Minal said and winked at me.

I recalled that Praful, Tapan, and I were all in grade A.

"I thought it was for the knowledge of terraforming we have been put into this project; looks like this planet is going to put our patience to the test here," Minal added further as he rolled his eyes all over the planetary terrain.

"The more these moons are trying to take life away from this planet, the more I want to implant life on it," I said to give him hope.

Minal was one of the three other crewmates I had brought to planet Eirawat to help me along with twenty thousand healthy embryos; the colonization vehicle named ‘ECV’ (Eirawat Colonization Vehicle) stood a few yards away like a giant metallic eagle taking a good look at the reddish-black world from the horizon; the other two were Praful and Tapan; I recruited all of them in the first place.

"It's so dim and calm here," Minal said as he looked around.

"Of course, it's a faint star. What else do you expect?" I said, shrugging off my shoulders.

"It’s not very different in positioning around its star – more like Earth's distant future. That is enough evidence to prove that even if Earth did not suffer an environmental crisis, it would have come to this stage anyway in the distant future," Minal said and chuckled.

"What?" I stared at Minal and asked.

"I mean, what's wrong in treating a planet the way we did if it was going to become like this in the distant future anyway?" he said.

I smiled.

"Yes, except that we are now down with a never-dying guilt infested in us," I said. Minal nodded his head.

Eirawat’s surface had craters all over it; a thin layer of dust covered its surface; tiny storms that looked like tornados came to life, weakened, and vanished later owing to the thin atmosphere.

"There is no sign of dendritic structures here: valleys, channels, or tributaries; even the photos taken during descent don't show any of it. Wondering how we will thrive on this hostile planet," Minal said with his brows furrowed, still trying to judge the planet's conditions with his expert knowledge.

"We may have to science it somehow or find another way to get around it," I said as I was busy collecting data for the 'Arrival report' to be sent back to Earth in a palmtop computer; the template was already hardcoded in the computer’s memory; I had to enter the numerals that would make the template more meaningful. Scenes of deserted streets, dense smoke-covered ruined cities, washed-away shores, and fallen historical monuments on Earth took that smile away.

Earth had suffered an environmental crisis because of natural disasters and incurable viral infections; Infections were on a killing spree, depopulating at a planetary level. The weather system collapsed; Tsunamis further screwed up Earth’s perfect composure; Governments failed as social order crashed; We were looking for a secondary Earth to get migrated to.

Yes.

We failed to keep up with our home, and it gave up on all of us.

Suddenly, beeping noises from our suits startled us; I inspected my suit and found it to be the body sensors. Minal and I hurried back to the spaceship. I looked up at the spaceship's phantom displays in the crew compartment flight deck: bright screens and blinking glyphs, the wall of clocks hovering in mid-air, sandbox simulations, flickering images through external cam, the scale model of our new home - planet Eirawat. The spectrum sampler of Tulia - Eirawat's host star – blinked '3000K' in red, referring to its temperature; that meant Tulia was a cold star apart from being a yellow dwarf.

"It's the effect of the infrared; we could get a burning sensation, headache, nausea, and dizziness. So, put off your biosensors and try to finish whatever you do. We cannot be out for long," I announced on the radio. As I did mine, so did Minal; we returned to wherever we were on the terrain to complete the arrival report.

Right on cue, the planetary terrain we stood on quaked a bit; a hole opened on the surface, throwing trapped air at high pressure into space. We held ourselves to a rock to prevent the eruptions from ejecting us to space.

Along with the trapped air, something organic came out and fell on the ground in front of me; it was black; neither it had limbs like an animal, nor was it greenish like a regular Earthly plant. Intrigued by its peculiar appearance, I handed over the palmtop computer to Minal, asked him to finish the arrival report, and returned to the lab in the spaceship with a test sample of the organic.

Upon testing in the lab, it seemed to have developed a ‘special’ pigment that harvested infrared from Tulia; the fact that it yielded ATP (Adenosine triphosphate) was enough to conclude that it converted infrared into energy using anoxygenic photosynthesis.

By now, Minal returned to the spaceship.

Considering its third-kind nature, I named it 'NETI' - a fancy name to mean 'neither plant nor animal'; it had evolved to have wide blades, thin stripes, and tall holdfasts with longer node spacing.

“The aerial photographs taken during descent show volcanic eruptions. As predicted earlier, the gravity of three moons constantly shifts the planet’s tectonic plates, causing eruptions randomly and unexpectedly throughout the surface of the planet; I think we would always have to hold on to something all the time to prevent the eruptions from ejecting us to space.” Minal said. Tapan and Praful joined us shortly after.

I took the responsibility of verifying, validating, and reconciling the report about our safe landing to be sent back to Earth; this involved mentioning the shortest route taken to reach Eirawat, any obstacles on the path, listing out the precise number of pulsars crossed in the journey as this would later help check feasibility for internet facilities, listing out corrupted neutrino transmissions which could indicate misuse by pirates and so on; the heavy lifting part for me in this involved setting up the transponder unit and tuning it to match the frequency shift.

Once done, I sent the report to ISRO, Earth.

Meanwhile, Minal, Praful, and Tapan were responsible for scanning the terrain and executing an optimal management strategy. We got a workable map of the planet’s surface by collating the prints from the onboard mapping system, aerial photographs taken during the descent, and results of geometric calculations.

During our 50 years of transit, as we were in hibernation chambers, we did not realize high energy cosmic rays fried the ‘sender’ communication systems; unbeknownst to us, the reference points used by the communication algorithms in the onboard computers were all messed up.

When I sent the ‘Arrival Report’ to Earth, based on the corrupted reference points, the faulty communication manager got confused and sent the pre-recorded SOS signal back to Earth while giving me the false impression that it was the report about our safe landing on Eirawat.

We decided to wait for a response from Earth before anything on Eirawat. ISRO always believed in minimalism - more accomplishments with fewer resources. So, we identified a stable part near the northern pole on Eirawat, parked the ECV, and went on a long nap for 20 years in the ship’s hibernation chambers.

We were disappointed to realize there was no response from Earth even after the long nap; it pushed us to inspect the communication instrumentation and debug comm algorithms line by line to discover the fault in the communication manager's reference points. The lack of response from Earth to our SOS signals stood as enough evidence to prove folks on Earth gave up on us; I mean, does the owner of a stray dog deserve the dog? If he genuinely deserves it, why would his dog become a stray?

Right on cue, "Warning. Breach detected in solid fuel oxygen generator," the ship's onboard monitoring system blared. Upon inspection, we found that a rock swiftly ejected by the escape of trapped air had damaged the hull of the oxygen generator; depleted oxygen in storage pushed us all to race with time.

I must admit, as a leader of the expedition team, I felt like a high-flying kite left loose in mid-air or left alone in a leaking boat in the middle of the ocean; being responsible for three crewmates and twenty thousand healthy embryos felt like a ton of weight over my shoulders; at one point, I wanted to relieve myself from bearing weight my shoulders struggled to carry; In my mind, I had given up on myself as I had no other choice.

Space travelers should be courageous, I know. But that never meant they should mimic bots with metal bodies and silicon brains; if they have a biological mind and heart, they should bend wherever their body chemistry yields or gives up. In a world of autonomous robots and algorithms, I thought that is the best way to differentiate us from them.

At first, we thought about fixing the comm instrumentation.

“Comm should not be our priority, mates. Moreover, what if we cannot fix the corrupted reference points? We have already wasted twenty valuable years. If it were Mars, I would have been halfway through the rulership now.” Minal said, his face registered regrets.

"We can't go back; We can't wait anymore. The clock is ticking," Tapan said with his brows raised and eyes widened.

"Careful, mates! We are running out of oxygen. It is time to prioritize things and make moves. Communications or Oxygen? We must be quick," Praful said firmly.

I had a clear idea of the mess we were in; as stray dogs, we were free to act on our own, but as tamed ones, we were answerable. With no response from Earth, Minal, Praful, and Tapan wanted to know who we were on Eirawat. Since I recruited them all and put them in their seats, Minal, Praful, and Tapan waited on me consciously for validation and approval for the next step.

“Given the ten light years between Eirawat and Earth, they would not dare send a rescue team to Eirawat. We are stray dogs here; there is no point in spending time communicating with them. There is no way they could know anything about us unless we send signals to them. So, survival is our priority now,” I said.

"Yes. Remember, ISRO's conservatism has always been epic. We used to take forty days to reach our moon, while other countries made it in three days. So, I second Sivan," Praful said with a smirk.

"Your promising words are our foundation here, mate," Minal said, looking into my eyes.

“As an A+ in terraforming, I can tell it is quite challenging to terraform this planet. I am yet to science it out, but if I am successful, I would want to be the planet's ruler,” he added. I was surprised at his audacity in putting forth his intentions with everyone at the table.

"What if you couldn't?" I asked to know if he had a plan B in mind.

Minal thought for a moment.

"I never failed in anything that could make me a leader; that's how I got A plus," he said with a wink.

But I wanted him to think straighter than that.

"We can't risk our last supply of oxygen. We could turn into human-NETI hybrids; that way, we would not need terraforming, and there would be no greenhouse domes, habitats, or water recycling units. As a human-NETI hybrid, we could hold on to the planet's surface using the sprouting holdfasts.” I said in a composed manner.

“The way this conversation is going between the two of you, I feel like this whole plot is about terraforming Eirawat?” Praful sighed.

“No. It’s just survival,” I shrugged my shoulders.

Praful, Minal, and Tapan remained silent, assimilating what I said. After a short while, Praful and Tapan nodded; reluctance filled Minal's nod, which meant he had nothing solid to back his words up. On the other hand, I did not mind Minal becoming the planet's ruler. Still, I also did not think terraforming was a better idea than hybridization, considering the nature of the planet’s surface.

To prove the concept, we assessed it ourselves, and the results were fulfilling.

The feeling of a sprouting NETI from inside began with shortness of breath; I felt a combination of burning sensation, dizziness, headache, and nausea. When it happened for the first time, I panicked and evaluated myself in the poly med pod in the spaceship. The med pod took blood samples and scanned my whole body once.

In the end,

'Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease' blinked in bright red.

As my body slowly adapted to the biochemistry of NETIs, the burning sensation, headache, dizziness, and nausea I was experiencing as part of exposure to Infrared gradually subsided; I coughed and felt listless, but it all settled eventually with no pain. From then on, I did not feel the urge to eat and stopped consuming Spaceship’s recycled water by mouth; I felt like my cellular biology had adapted to using ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), which was the byproduct of the NETIs part of me that took infrared as its prime energy source.

Blades sprouted out from my fingertips; stipes grew in place of brows; holdfasts grew from my feet, went down into the ground, and held me tight. If I moved, old holdfasts gave way as new holdfasts sprouted out and continued to hold me back to the ground. The sight of thin NETIs sprouting out of humans, clasping with one another, and forming thickets was blissful; I was sure if our idea of breeding worked at the planetary level, Eirawat would look like a giant ghostly ball if seen from a spaceship.

We decided to share the healthy embryos amongst us, utilize all of them, turn them all into human-NETI hybrids, and allow them to breed on the surface of Eirawat.

Right on cue, Minal handed over a file to me. With furrowed brows, I took it and glanced it over. It claimed that, in the event of a successful landing, Minal deserved 'Ruler' rank or any other rank equivalent to the planet's ruler.

At first, what I saw startled me and shook me hard.

"Is this even legit? I have never heard of such written assurances given to space explorers in my career ever," I uttered as Praful and Tapan looked over the file from either side.

"Yes. This is so strange!" Praful and Tapan joined.

"I am surprised that none of you are aware. For what else did you think I took this project?" Minal said.

I thought for a moment.

"Why are we getting to see it so late? I do not see the point in negotiating for rulership with this document already in place," I scowled.

"I thought terraforming was a better way to bond me with the rulership than a written consent; imagine how people could get emotionally bonded with you when they know you are the reason behind the oxygen keeping them alive," he said.

"If you could excuse us, I need to have a word with Praful and Tapan," I said. Minal's high audacity does not mean I should ignore Praful and Tapan.

Minal shrugged off his shoulders before slipping into the next cabin, leaving us alone.

"Is it even a legitimate document?" Praful asked, puzzled.

With tools, we evaluated the document for foul play. The file – a drafted and signed document on a letterhead - had every signature, every logo, and every stamping required at its proper place to prove it was legit.

"If this is foul play, Minal has done a pretty good job in cooking up a flawless file," Praful said.

"Given that the comm instrumentation is offline and there is no way to cross-check this with folks on Earth, are you guys ok with him taking over?" I asked Praful and Tapan. They looked at each other once.

"If you ask me, I will say leading is a headache; It's more politics, worrying too much over the status quo and less performance. It is okay if Minal finds solace in that headache. I mean, it's always the passenger who ends up enjoying all the colors and wonderful scenes offered by a scenic highway, not the driver; if a simple urge to drive would keep me away from enjoying all the colors and scenes, I would say, it's not worth driving; It's fascinating, to see how some people could get lost in the mere act of driving, ignoring the beautiful sights of everything else in the way. I do not care who leads; sad that it is not helping here to take sides between you," Tapan sighed.

"Yes. I second that. Imagine a journey with only passengers and no one interested in driving. I am glad we have someone mad enough about the mere act of driving. I knew him from the bench times; he used to jump from one project to another. It looks like the guy was somehow trying to become a ruler somewhere." Praful said.

With us stranded on a hostile planet and unable to prove foul play in Minal's file, I thought the benefit of the doubt would be in favor of Minal.

With my complete support and encouragement, Minal became ‘Sira’ – the new control center of the planet. I hoped Minal would use his position to achieve the desired results. My promising words became the foundation for formulating an independent administration comprising the four of us, with Minal as the key decision-maker on Eirawat and me as the chief of his advisors.

For better management, Minal, Praful, and Tapan divided the planetary surface into four regions– deep black, dull black, dim black, and pale black and assigned one for each of us; mine was deep black. Employing all forms of breeding to multiply our head count and spread evenly throughout the planet was our immediate objective. We conducted a hybrid transformation process on the embryos in all regions in parallel. By turning into hybrids, humans acquired the ability to survive in infrared from Tulia. NETIs developed the ability to move around, enabling them to spread all over the planet; thus, as organic life forms, we mutually benefitted.

Initially, I thought the region I owned picked up on the breeding at a slow pace; At the end of the first year in Eirawat, when we all met and shared the results of our breeding efforts, I realized I was running behind on yields; Minal, Praful and Tapan celebrated their success and ridiculed my futile efforts.

Digging further revealed that the region was a desert covered by a thin layer of healthy soil, which explained how it passed the soil test; even that healthy soil was in constant motion due to mild storms. When other regions flourished with breeding, the region I owned continued to resist NETIs; years passed with no development in my area. This rendered the hybrid conversion efforts meaningless; I had to return a sizable portion of my share of the healthy embryos to Minal, Praful, and Tapan, as I could not use them all in my region. This led their regions to flourish even more.

A close look at the partition strategy hinted at what had happened behind my back. The partition strategy isolated the desert region from other fertile areas. If my crewmates wanted me to co-exist with them with dignity and respect, they could have each shared a part of the desert region that could have turned the non-vegetative desert into a vegetative state. Desertion has always been contagious; once infected, it spreads out; vegetating has always been the way to stop it from advancing. Thus, I saw disrespect, humility, and dishonor waiting for me in the partition logic primarily framed by Minal.

That was when I realized that while I was busy collecting data for the report, Minal intentionally assigned all the flourishing regions to themselves, leaving the desert for me; I realized, in his thirst for leadership, I was the first one to be given up; between Praful and Tapan, I wondered, whom would Minal give up on next; even while naming the regions, he hadn't missed the chance of cooking up ways to ridicule me - 'deep black' for a piece of landmass showing high resistance to blackish NETIs.

"But what is the point? Who is competing with whom? Where is the need for elimination? Why hurry? We should be okay with primitive governance just enough to manage breeding," I said as I shrugged off my shoulders.

Minal let out a deep sigh.

"I never fail to do what it takes to be a leader. You own the hybridization idea, but would there be a god if there was no one to worship? Would he be a creator if he struggled to create? You are a victim of your idea, Sivan. It is better to be safe today than sorry later. I mean, who would not crave the ruler's seat? As a grade A+, I think the rulership should eventually end with me. So, what is wrong if the process starts with you? It should start with someone." Minal said as he shrugged off his shoulders with a wink.

"Safe today than sorry later, huh?" I chuckled.

"That's how we forced ourselves to leave Earth." I almost yelled.

"That's probably not in the process, Sivan. Remember, Eirawat is Earth's distant future; eventuality did not favor Earth. So, stop accusing; we all are victims like you," Minal said and left out a deep sigh.

The fact that Minal assumed a non-existent competition and stepped forward applying a known knowledge surprised me. It made me recall a wise man's words: 'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?'.

I thought any more exchange of words with him would be a passable waste of time; I felt like he was dodging and trying to distract me from accusing him. Even if a tree fell in a forest and no one was around to hear it, it would have made an impact that would have influenced things that connect the rest of the world to it. I mean, the advantages of believing it this way always outweighed the benefits of not believing in it; I mean, I realized I should not have missed considering Minal's desire to rule before putting him in his seat.

Minal did not seem to have even the slightest guilt about wronging me; I felt like I was putting myself down by expecting it from people incapable of it.

I felt like betrayal and treachery hit me for the second time in the new world; I never thought I would have to deal with them again that soon in Eirawat. I struggled to fight back as this betrayal by the three of my crewmates, whom I elected in the first place to be my crewmates, weakened me; my self-esteem shattered; I began to doubt myself and my ability to judge others; I felt like being forced to live in morbid pre-occupation; Even if I fought, I knew I would be the one facing further damages as I was alone against three of them.

In the abysmal depth of thought, I felt heartbroken inside. I felt like I was a corpse with an invincible spirit, having to undergo punishments for my past deeds in hell. With no interest in fighting for fair partitioning, I chose to immerse myself in turning the desert into a vegetative one. No matter how hard it would be, I was determined to do it until my last breath; even when I stumbled upon leisure hours here and there, I filled them by keeping myself engaged, fixing the comm terminals to battle negative thoughts. I should do something that would inspire somebody somewhere.

Recently, when I fixed and maintained the comm terminals, I picked up a message from deep space. As I analyzed the received content, I realized it was from ISRO, Earth; as a sincere citizen abiding by the laws of the new world, I forwarded the received content to Minal’s desk.

Sitting outside Sira’s office room, as I rolled my eyes around, the 'Planetary chemical composition tracking chart' screen fell in my view.

“No way!” I hollered.

I rushed to the storeroom where we had dumped the PAM fluorometry devices as we thought we no longer needed them. I brought it and injected the inspection needle into my body stipe; it felt a bit itchy for some time at that spot.

The green indicator in the PAM fluorometry glowed as a sign of successful detection of the PSII protein system. That proved the special pigment itself had evolved to be capable of oxygenic photosynthesis. Staring at the figures blinking on the screen, I cracked into laughter.

Once called in, I stood up and walked into Sira’s office. There, it was a fascinating sight to see Minal; it was challenging to say if his NETI body stipe was bent, making him look like he was standing erect, or if he was sitting on a grown-up NETI stipe spine; Minal's frond fingers were tapping on his stipe; even though his body parts turned into stipes of NETIs, his face was still expressive; He looked concerned and restless.

This was when he asked what he asked about my promise.

I smiled, nodding; I had a fair idea of what he wanted to know.

“Long-range scans can detect the absorption of infrared by oxygen molecule collision; 20000 healthy embryos in ECV followed by a substantial rise in the planet’s oxygen levels are dots anyone could connect and infer about what is going on here; SOS signals - although not our fault - could have led them misunderstand our original intentions, Minal,” I said gently.

“Oxygen molecule collision!” he said, chuckled, and later brooded.

“You could’ve at the least speculated this ahead of time and alerted us all? We could have done something to continue to keep us in blind spots.” Minal almost yelled at me.

I smiled again.

“I think you should ask this question to yourself, Praful, and Tapan because what I own is a large piece of desert that is hard to vegetate and hence cannot contribute even at the smallest level to the overall oxygen rise in the planet. Anoxygenic photosynthesis was the way of life for NETIs until we landed here,” I said and sighed deeply.

Minal stared into my eyes without a blink.

“Milk turns curdled if you add salt to it. Turning into hybrids must have worked like a switch, turning anoxygenic photosynthesis to oxygenic photosynthesis. Remember our first year-end meeting? That is one year of transit spectrograph; it is too long for an automated space telescope to miss noticing the menu of gases on Eirawat from Earth. The culture of ISRO has always been unique: 'Even a failed one deserves a second chance'; no wonder ISRO kept Eirawat in watch the whole time. But, during this time, I was battling with the desert for a pinch of blackish NETIs; you three had the earliest chance of knowing the event that triggered oxygenic photosynthesis. Overall, I do not think I deserve this question, Minal.” I said as I turned and walked out of his office without waiting for his response.

I knew he could not stop me.

I intended to return to my region and embrace my conviction of turning it into a vegetative one. I knew it would not be easy, it may not even be possible, and I may not even be successful. But that is not the point. Doing the right thing could be the most challenging thing; it could isolate you, push you to earn your enemies, or even put you in unimaginable trouble; it could force you to take odd routes. The point is that doing the right thing lifts the responsibility off your shoulders; you are no longer responsible for the aftereffects of the wrongdoings of most others, and that is the most incredible relief you could ever experience.

THE END

Bio: Ramprasath is a Computer Engineer, and writer, at work on short stories and a novel. He lives, works, and plays in the Atlanta, Georgia, USA since 2014. His work has appeared in Madswirl, Quailbell Magazine, and Boston Literary Magazine.
Here are his recent appearances:
1. 'Honorable Mention' in L.Ron Hubbard Writer's of the Future Contest, 2024
2. MetaStellar, January 2024
3. Sci-Fi Shorts, December 2023
4. Aphelion Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, April 2023
5. 'Honorable Mention' in Allegory Magazine, Issue 46/73, 2024
6. Altered Reality, 2024.

E-mail: Ramprasath Rengasamy

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