Lurranus Stories: The Unknown

2119

 

The view was breathtaking.

Looking out, Craig Donnely could see thousands of stars. Each and everyone one, a distant world. Thousands of galaxies, and in each galaxy, a few thousand more planets.

It made him feel so small. The sheer size of this huge world before him seemed to dwarf the problems back on Earth, whoever significant they may have seemed to him. After all, Earth was only a microscopic spec of dust in the infinite vastness of the universe. Like a single grain of sand in the largest beach imaginable.

He wondered which of those worlds had life.

And he wondered if these distant life forms were better than humans, or just as prone to war and destruction. He hoped the answer was the former.

He stood alone in a grand control room. At the front of the ship, and directly across from the door, where various monitors, coloured the sharp blue of the company screensaver. These monitors were surrounded by various dials and buttons, and there were three leather seats before them. The floor was made of a reflective material which caused one to be greeted by a clear copy of themselves should they look down. The roof was made of another kind of metal that was a much more murky kind of mirror, a dirty one that provided the sort of distorted image you might expect to see in an amusement park. If there were any such things still in operation. And around Craig were clear windows that gave clear views out into the depths of the universe, disturbed only by the reflections of the ship’s interior.

Just then, Craig heard the sound of sound footsteps of the metal floor behind him, and looked around.

"Ah, Ryan! Good to see you! I saw your name on the list!" The two walked up to each other and shook hands. "I sure is good to see a familiar face."

His friend Ryan McAllister, now seventy years old, strode towards him. He looked about as fit as he always was, but his hair had gone grey, his tattoos were looking faded, and his worn leather jacket, which presumably he only kept around for sentimental reasons, looked in dire need of either replacing or mending.

 "Yeah. Good to see you too, Craig." Ryan gave him a smile, but he seemed strangely distant.

He still remembered the first time they met, fifty years ago. Fifty one, to be precise. Back in the city of Edinburgh, in 2068, when Craig had saved both Ryan’s and his brother Jack’s life’s, just as they were about to be murdered by a group of thugs. He had gone down and introduced himself, and after a series of experiences they had endured together following that incident, they formed a friendship that would stand the test of time.

"How are you?" Craig asked his friend.

"I'm alright. Just getting ready for... For the long nap."

"How's Jack?" Craig asked him. "I saw he wasn't on the list. I thought maybe he just wanted to stay on Earth, which is hardly the best thing to be doing these days, but if that's what he wants to do, then fair enough. It's just that, you two being so close and all, I... Are you alright?"

Ryan's faced creased, and he sat down, looking at Craig uncertainly.

"Jack... Jack's... He's not... He’s missing... Maybe dead." Ryan barely got the words out, his head shaking, his mouth trembling with every word, and he slumped down to the floor.

Craig looked down at his feet. "I'm... I'm so sorry."

“He went in London, a few weeks ago. To help out an old friend, or something. And he’s probably fine, but...”

“Oaktrus.” Craig finished the sentence in a grave tone of voice, bitterly reflecting on the events of the last two years. The very idea of Oaktrus was one he despised. Craig believed that working together and using science was humanity’s best chance of survival. On the contrary, Oaktrus believed violence and genocide were the best efforts to achieve their goals, to decrease the population so the remaining people would be better of. They said they wanted to save the human race. When Craig heard this, he would scoff, muttering “Tell that to the dead”.

Thinking back to the moment, Craig turned to face his friend and gripped his shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s going to be fine. After all, we’ve all gotten through worse. Haven’t we?”

Ryan thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we have.”

“And that’s just talking about me. That’s not even taking the rioting into account.”

Ryan faced his friend, his eyebrows raised. “Ah... Younger you... Yeah that was something. The prodigal son... and professional asshole.”

Craig chuckled gently. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Finally. You admit it, after all these years.” Ryan laughed, looking curiously at Craig.

“Well, perhaps I may have been a... slightly unsavoury character, at times.” Craig said.

The two smiled for a few moments, before the happiness, which had moments ago came over them, drifted away, and the air around them was left with only emptiness and uncertainty.

“Like you said, he’s probably fine, but... It’s just him and everything with those terrorists and... prior to that... I thought... I thought maybe we would get somewhere. You know, with people like you. But, no matter if it looks like things are getting better... we’ll always resort to weapons over words and just make things worse.” Ryan slowly looked up, meeting Craig’s gave. “That's why I came with you. For the chance of finding... Somewhere better.” He paused, taking several deep breaths. “I kinda feel sorry for you, in a way." He said suddenly.

Craig looked slightly confused. "Why?"

"Because of the fact you’ve had to resort to this. You devote your whole life to trying to help humanity, to make it so that we're all able to live, and we have enough food or nutrition or whatever, to survive, and try to bring us back from the brink of war, only for us to end up right back where we started."

Craig looked down sadly. "You know, when I was younger, I was constantly belittled, ignored and abused, so much so that I decided to withdrawn from any human contact. They would say abusive comments, and try to make me feel insignificant, making sure to remind me on all occasions how I would never amount to anything. That was my driving force, what would keep me going. The possibility of proving them wrong, showing them that I did have something to offer the world. But who matter how hard I’ve tried, it seems that humanity is set on a certain path, and there is no way to stop them from going down that desolate route."

Ryan looked him firmly in the eye. "Well, you gave it your best shot mate. Nothing more you could've done."

"Well, there is one more thing, and that's what we're doing now. Leaving." He looked back down at Earth, admiring the false beauty that the planets surface radiated. "We have no future in this place. It's dead. We've depleted all its resources. Fuel, crops. The air tastes of pollution. The forests and plants have withered and died. Our cities are falling into ruin. Our planet is nothing more than a shadow of its former self. There's nothing left for us here, and the sooner everyone realises this, the better."

Then Craig looked away from the planet that was once his home, and looked out to the unknown depths of the distant stars, where humanities new home surely awaited them.

"But out there... Out there, that is where our future lies." He turned to look at Ryan, a glimmer of childlike awe in his eyes.

"Earth may have been our birthplace, and we owe it much, but we were never meant to die when it did.” He paused, gesturing at the windows around him. “Our future is out in the stars, not down in the dirt."

"Out there, there are millions of planets, thousands of which perfect for our needs. World's covered in wildlife, food, riches. Everything that we won't find here. Not anymore, at least."

He paused, his eyes lighting up.

"And maybe... Maybe even other beings." He smiled at Ryan. "Imagine that."

"What? Like, aliens?" Ryan asked it in a way that showed he assumed Craig was joking, but his friend remained completely serious.

"Yes. Aliens, if that's what you want to call them." Ryan looked, dumbfounded, at his friend. He'd never seen this side of him before. Craig was a man of science, not a theorist of extra terrestrial life.

"Think about it." Craig continued, looking at Ryan's expression. "Do you really think, in the unlimited vastness of space, we are the only life? That we are... It? Consider this simple logic. If we evolved here, on our planet, then why couldn't other beings have evolved on planets with similar ecosystems to our own."

"So is that why you're launching this expedition. In the hope of... meeting aliens?" Ryan asked, his face distorted with a bewildered expression.

Craig chuckled. "No, of course not! This is a colonisation mission. Our primary goal is to find a suitable new home for humanity, and begin a new life there for the four and a half thousand people on board this vessel."

Ryan looked at his friend and raised his eyebrows curiously, sensing a "but..." coming.

"But,” Craig began, confirming Ryan’s suspicions, “our secondary goal, is quite something else. It is a goal that I didn't inform Darren Hale, Justin Moore, Richard Closer or anyone else at Empirius of. To meet other life... To learn of their ways and culture... See what they are like... And maybe even meet our makers. Our Gods." He smiled again. "Imagine that."

"I thought you said you weren't a Christian, or even religious. That you were an atheist. That you didn't believe in God."

"The God as presented to us in the bible, no. But a God, as in a creator, a figure above us who we could perceive as a God, is something I could believe in. Not by any amounts a more powerful being, but a creator none the less. And if this being created us, like the bible says God created us, then he is, to us, a God. A higher being, if you will. Above us in the sequence of creation."

"So, you're say that if you create something, you are a God to it. That if we were to create life, we would be like a God to that life."

“Yes, that is what I am saying.” It sounded to Ryan as though Craig was an impatient child, annoyed at having to wait for his friend to come to the same conclusion. He smirked to himself. Some things never changed.

“Even if that someone is... I dunno, a drunken Irishman or something.”

“Well, I never said that our creator was guaranteed to be a perfect specimen.”

“Well, considering how we turned out, it would hardly be a surprise.”

“There are undeniably plenty of bad people in the world, but there are also lots of wonderful people, and to focus only on the bad would be to do the good a disservice.” Craig said sternly, staring Ryan dead in the eyes. Ryan sighed, seeing the wisdom in Craig’s words.

"But what if there's nothing there?” Ryan queried. “And we are it? Or these other beings are just as bad as us? Or they're worse, and we, despite all our many, many flaws, are actually the best that there is?" He looked eagerly at Craig, awaiting his verdict.

"Then at least we'll have our answers.”

Ryan sighed. "Yeah, I guess we would."

There was silence between the two, the only noise coming from Ryan's clicking fingers and his feet as they clattered up and down on the metal floor.

“However,” Craig began, looking down, “the likelihood is, we were the result of natural evolution. And, even if we were created, the universe is so vast it would be impossible to find them. But, like I said, this is only our secondary goal. Our primary one is, of course, the survival of the species.” Craig stopped. “Anyway.” He muttered

"Well, I'd best get in my pod then." Ryan said.

"Yes, of course. We've a long sleep ahead of us."

Ryan looked down at the floor, and found himself looking at an almost crystal clear reflection of himself, gazing at the reflective floor. “Your not kidding.” He smirked humourlessly to himself. Then a look of doubt settled over his face.

"So, just double checking here, when actually is it we wake up?" Craig looked, evidently unimpressed, at his friend. “It’s just that I... forgot.”

"In thirteen years. When we arrive. Unless, of course, something happens before that.  Either an emergency or... or someone has woken us up.”

“Right. And, um... where’s the bathroom?” Ryan asked.

“Right of the entrance to the hibernation room.” Craig responded.

“Cheers.” Ryan said.

Ryan slowly approached his friend, with a kind look in his eyes. He knew it would technically not be long they saw each other, for when he awoke it would simply like he’d simply got up after a short nap, but for some bizarre reason it almost felt like, in some capacity, the two would never see each other again.

Ryan put his hand out. Craig reached out and, with a strong grip that always surprised Ryan, shook it.

Both friends then took a look out the window, looking at the Earth. For a minute, neither spoke, although in their heads, they were both saying goodbye to the place. Reflecting on the good times, the bad. What they would miss, and what they wouldn’t. And those whom they were leaving behind.

Eventually, after a period of time neither was sure of, Ryan sighed. “Well, it’s a helluva view. If nothing else.” Then he turned and looked at Craig, in his typically charming fashion. “See you around, slick.” Craig smiled nostalgically back at him.

Then he began walking towards the rooms door. However, whilst Craig observed him, he suddenly stopped and turned around.

"Oh, and one last question." Ryan asked. Craig raised his eyebrows expectantly. "The name of the ship, The Lurranus. What's the significance of it? What does it mean?"

Craig smiled wryly, and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing, really. It’s just some name I came up with, a while ago. In Edinburgh, in fact. I thought it was representative of our journey into the unknown. I don’t know why, but that’s what I thought. Truth is though, to the rest of the world, it doesn’t mean anything.”

Ryan hunched back over, and continued walking away, his footsteps echoing in the pale silver room.

“But then again,” Craig called out after him, “neither did Santa María, Christoper Columbus’s ship, back in the day. And we all know what he did. So maybe one day it’ll mean something more.”

“Huh,” Ryan mumbled. Then he smiled at his friend one last time, gave a curt nod, and walked out the grand metal room.

Craig listened, his body seemingly in standby mode, as Ryan’s footsteps slowly faded away, as he began descending the ship’s various levels to find his hibernation pod. Then he sprung back to life, like a coiled up toy, and began making final preparations whilst humming an old tune to himself. He had long forgotten the words, but the melody had wormed its way into his head as a child, and he found the song naturally float back into his head. He hummed along, only singing the two verses he knew.

“Oh man, look at those cavemen go,” he sang quietly. “It’s the freakiest show.”

And then, still humming, he took one last look at earth, and left not only the console room, but also his former home, not looking back again after he left the room, instead looking forward to the future and out to the stars.