SHORT STORY THE PARAMNESIA
THE PARAMNESIA
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
The hatches of the hibernation compartments began to open. The first to open his eyes was Jorge, the Spanish astronaut who was part of the 14 expedition members, in search of a habitable planet.
He looked in the mirror and, although he knew it would be like this, he was surprised. Although 65 years had passed since the doors of that cubicle were closed, he had not aged, his hair was the same.
Moments later everyone was on their feet, there were only about 40,000 km left to reach their destination. It was an exoplanet that had coincidentally been discovered in 2098 and was called Orion 2098 and was located within the Milky Way.
In 2100, they decided to send the expedition. Despite the poor conditions in which the Earth was, scientists thought that it could still last for about 200 years and that, therefore, when they returned they could evacuate a large part of the population.
A few hours later the ship landed on Orion 2098. The ship’s instruments indicated the existence of radioactivity. In order to evaluate the real possibilities of habitability, they decided to let Jorge and Natalie go down. They would do it with protective suits and with oxygen for about twelve hours.
They both left the ship using the airtight security chamber. When their feet touched the ground they connected with their companions.
—We’re already on the ground. —Jorge communicated —The Geiger counter shows high radioactivity. A short distance from here you can see an urbanized area. Everything is in darkness except for an illuminated building. Shall we get closer to see what we discover?
-Yeah. Go ahead,” the commander responded. “Go with caution and let us know of any news. Let’s see if the radioactivity is only in the area where we have parked the ship.
It took Jorge and Natalie a couple of hours to reach the illuminated building. The area of buildings they had crossed there seemed similar to London to Natalie.
From the outside of the building, through its large windows, they looked to see if they detected any movement inside. Nobody was seen.
—The place seems deserted. —Jorge communicated to the ship—we are going to enter.
-OK. Report any news.
Shortly after, both of them entered a spacious room. Just as they stepped on the ground, a large screen lit up and they began to see the image of someone, very similar to a human being, who spoke in a language intelligible to them.
They started the computer-translator, which in less than a minute detected what could be the correct translation and began transmitting it to them.
— “… We imagine that it must be you already back from the expedition,” he began to translate — as you will see, we were wrong in our assessment of the time that still lay ahead.
Surely you remember how it all started. Geopolitically our world was divided into two large blocks. The eastern one, whose leadership was held by Sodinu Sodatse through his president Eoj Nedib, who seemed to have been taken out of a nursing home. The Westerner was led by Aisur whose president Rimidalv Nitup was a power-hungry megalomaniac.
For years the latter had taken advantage of any situation to try to destabilize the other great power, even supporting strange movements of activists such as Selrac Nomedgiup, who by chance of life had reached certain levels of power in certain areas. In this case from a place called Aynulatac within Añapse.
Passivity or ineffectiveness or perhaps just being governed by personal interests prevented these manipulations from stopping.
The only thing the eastern bloc could think of is to try to give Nitup a hard time by trying to convince a neighboring nation of Aisur, namely Aniarcu, to join the OTMN eastern defense system. Its president, Rimodolov Yksenelez, an actor turned politician, allowed himself to be cajoled by these siren songs.
Nitup’s reaction was immediate and Aniarcu invaded. In response, the eastern world sent them weapons so they could defend themselves.
This absurd situation persisted for many years, until someone thought of using a nuclear device. It was never known with certainty who started it, but the truth is that by 2060, radioactivity had destroyed a large part of the planet.
In addition to the enormous loss of life in the contaminated areas, crop sites were also irretrievably lost. As a result, the feeding of the population that subsisted in uncontaminated or low-polluted areas was subject to great difficulties.
That’s why in 2100, we sent you on an expedition to the third planet in the closest solar system that seemed habitable… in the hope of being able to move our population there.
If in this sense the exploration has been a success, it is a shame because it will be of no use. If it hasn’t been either. Radioactivity spread much faster than the 200 years we had estimated. In fact, already in 2150 our world, Arreit, took its last breath.
It pains me not to be able to tell you that we wish you the best, because your survival will be limited, using protective suits, to less than a year if you are lucky enough to find food. If not, it will only be a few days… Thank you for trying…”
Disheartened, they both returned to the ship to report the situation and return to Earth… To see if there was time to do something else.
Once on the ship, once they had digested the whole situation, they decided to begin the return trip…
When the doors of the hibernation cubicles began to close, Jorge understood the paramnesia, that feeling of having already lived it, that he felt when listening to that speech on the screen of the illuminated building… That déjà vu that had made him feel a chill… An instant before his eyes closed as he entered the hibernation state, he saw clearly, Orion 2098, it was a mirror world of Earth. Then he suffered a promnesia when he felt with certainty that, upon his return to Earth, they would find only a message similar to the one he had heard.
The Paramnesia- Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés