1.
- so, you love me?
- I don't know..
- it does not matter though
- why?
- because the words have lost gravity up here, like everything else.
- LOVE is not just a word
- what else it is?
- it's LOVE.
We were floating down the Milkyway, in a cheap spacecraft stolen from the ISRO hub. Apart from Pritha the other living being on-board was our precious Petunia sapling.
We have chosen the Petunia sapling for 2 specific reasons -
1. Because you need to keep a plant in a spaceship so that you can come back to earth - like in Wall-e.
2. Because Petunia reminds us of the great chapter in Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy and adds humor to our otherwise doomed travel.
We were having our dinner when Pritha realized that we were actually lost. So she started.
- Seriously, Drik, does it not scare you that we are going nowhere?
- It used to scare me long back in the earth, Pritha. When I used to sit in front of a dumb mainframe terminal, catering to the Danish clients. I used to think every day in the backseat of my night-cab - "I am not going anywhere, I am not going anywhere".
- But we are not going anywhere Drik, look through your porthole, do you recognize any of these stars?
- I don't have to Pritha, I don't care. I am light-years away from earth, I am in a spaceship of my own and I am traveling through the middle of the milky-way. Where else would I like to go? I don't want to reach anywhere Pritha. I am already there...
2.
I was sleeping when it happened. Pritha was probably awake all night. Girls are like that, they want to settle down, even in the endless vacuum, they look for shelters. Pritha was up with all her astronomical charts trying to figure out where exactly we were when it happened.
- Drik! Drik! Do you feel it Drik!
I was numb with a pain in my elbow, must have hit something in sleep when the gravity came in.
- Where the hell are we?
- hahaha ... look who's asking now... Mr. Space-rover, I have no idea. But we are being pulled, that much I know.
- Yeah, you don't have to be a Hawkins to know that, my elbow tells it. But what is it, a star?
- mmm ... nops, I don't see anything glowing nearby, could be a planet though, they are always difficult to locate...
- A planet? back into another solar system!... man, I hope they don't have IT down there.
Our Spacecraft wobbled.
- Oh wow, that is interesting, we've got some torque here.
- Shouldn't we be docking gently through the gravity gradients?
- Yes, we should, unless we have irregularities...
- Irregular gravity? you mean pulled by different bodies...!!
- That's one option.
- go ahead...
- I dunno, maybe gravity is not fixed here, what about pulsating gravity?
- no... you are losing me Mr. Drik-instine...
- yeah... I am talking nonsense I guess... let's find out the monster!
Pritha was right, there was not much to see through the portholes. Our radio telescope was tracking the nearest large object 0.5 lightyears away - a red giant. We have got a few meteoroid clusters here and there but not big enough to create such a gravity.
- What's the g?
- mmm .... 3.23 ... and steadily increasing
- excellent ... prepare for a Crashdown, you can wear a seatbelt if you like
- Come on... we can create back thrusts and have a safe landing
- unless the gravity is a little stronger
- stronger like what?
- like in a black hole...!
- It's not a black hole
- Why not, our radio telescope tracks nothing, the meteor clusters are not big enough, we don't see any planetary system... black hole would be a logical conclusion...
- no, it can not be a black hole...... because...
- because?
- oh my...
And right at that moment, both of us knew for sure, that it was not a black hole.
3.
How do I describe It? Or shall I say Him?
It was transparent with a hint of blue.
It was more like the jelly beans, only thinner in density.
Our spaceship was halfway buried into it, after the soft crash-landing through the jelly-like surface. The whole thing had a bluish after-glow which was pulsating with a slowly changing rhythm. The frequency decreasing ever so slightly every time. It reminded me of the rotating light of a lighthouse I saw in my childhood.
The lighthouse by the Sea of Eternity!
We started talking to it through very-low-frequency infrared signals. Any frequency more than that was able to penetrate it and returned nothing.
Pritha spotted it first.
- You know Drik, why your radio-telescope didn't catch it?
- why?
- because it's so thin Drik, its like water, it does not reflect our strong signals.
- so what do you suggest?
- go soft Drik, use lower frequencies...
When we started decreasing our frequencies it first gave out a very feeble signal in form of tremor.
- I told you Drik, she is a tender thing, be gentle and she will reward you.
When we went even lower the planet started changing itself. The blue started to fade and purple emerged. A purple so light and soft that we stared at it for days.
- Don't do anything else Drik, let it be this way and let us look at it. I can stare at it for eternity.
- Enjoy your eternity Pritha, I am going for a nap.
After a few days, I became restless and started pushing it a little further, trying even lower frequencies with apparently no result. The thing stayed as it is, with the purple haze pulsating softly.
The humming started at near-zero signal input. A deep bass sound coming from all directions. It was barely audible. It was so thin that we had to hold our breath to listen to it. We started our amplifier on-board. The sound-analyzer gave a flat frequency display, horizontal, without any ups and downs.
Our infra-red emitter was at its lowest, so we could not go further down. We kept it on, and the humming continued. 7 days of this and our ears were adapted to the sound so well that it felt like silence.
One day I felt the music.
- Do you hear the music Pritha?
- where
- I am not sure if it is there, its as if it is coming from within.
- shh
- ...
- yes, I can Drik, its music, it's coming from everywhere. The humming! its a music!
It was buried deep into the humming. Our ears have adapted so well over the last months that the music was audible. The music was structured, like a piece of western classical - Clear, orderly with surges of ups and downs creating a perfect harmony.
- It's telling us something
- so I guess...
- what is it, Drik
- I don't know Pritha, I don't know what that animal tells us
- You think its living?
- What else Pritha? it responds to our inputs, it changes itself, it creates music. What else do you need to call it living?
- But, it does not breathe, it does not eat, it does not reproduce...
- You are referring to a particular type of life that emerged on the earth by chance. There can be other forms of life Pritha. Which can be entirely different. Like this one. A whole big living planet. Full of life.
- And we are the parasites.
- yes, and it's not throwing us out yet!
- But we are good parasites Drik, we will not harm it.
- Do you want to get out?
- Let's get out Drik.
- Take the cylinders.
- No Drik lets get out like this. Let's see what it does to us.
- The jelly would kill us Pritha, we won't have a second.
- It might not kill us Drik, the mother planet, it can not kill.
We opened the sliding doors of the spaceship. And the jelly came in rushing. We did not stop it, we did not hold our breath. The jelly went in through my windpipe - to my lungs - I failed to take breaths. I felt like being sunk thousands of feet below the sea-level and sinking deeper. Everything went black a moment later.
4.
Then the violet light shone again. I was breathing again. I saw Pritha a few meters away. Smiling.
I shouted,
- We are alive Pritha
- yeah, It did not kill us
- How I am breathing, I do not understand it Pritha
- It knows us now, Drik, it transforms itself to air when it gets in.
- So, I am breathing the planet Pritha!!! I am breathing in life!
- yes Drik, it is trying to keep us alive, it loves us
- It's changing itself to keep us alive! Why Pritha? it does not have to...
- that's what love is Drik, you do things when you are in it, things you don't have to...
- ...
- you OK?
- Do you love me Pritha?
- does it matter, Drik?
- it does Pritha, it does. Its the difference between being alive and being dead.
- I don't know Drik, I have to find out, maybe I do...
Then we saw the Petunia plant floating out of the spacecraft waving its freshly grown leaves. And a bunch of purple flowers stood out boldly.
- so, you love me?
- I don't know..
- it does not matter though
- why?
- because the words have lost gravity up here, like everything else.
- LOVE is not just a word
- what else it is?
- it's LOVE.
We were floating down the Milkyway, in a cheap spacecraft stolen from the ISRO hub. Apart from Pritha the other living being on-board was our precious Petunia sapling.
We have chosen the Petunia sapling for 2 specific reasons -
1. Because you need to keep a plant in a spaceship so that you can come back to earth - like in Wall-e.
2. Because Petunia reminds us of the great chapter in Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy and adds humor to our otherwise doomed travel.
We were having our dinner when Pritha realized that we were actually lost. So she started.
- Seriously, Drik, does it not scare you that we are going nowhere?
- It used to scare me long back in the earth, Pritha. When I used to sit in front of a dumb mainframe terminal, catering to the Danish clients. I used to think every day in the backseat of my night-cab - "I am not going anywhere, I am not going anywhere".
- But we are not going anywhere Drik, look through your porthole, do you recognize any of these stars?
- I don't have to Pritha, I don't care. I am light-years away from earth, I am in a spaceship of my own and I am traveling through the middle of the milky-way. Where else would I like to go? I don't want to reach anywhere Pritha. I am already there...
2.
I was sleeping when it happened. Pritha was probably awake all night. Girls are like that, they want to settle down, even in the endless vacuum, they look for shelters. Pritha was up with all her astronomical charts trying to figure out where exactly we were when it happened.
- Drik! Drik! Do you feel it Drik!
I was numb with a pain in my elbow, must have hit something in sleep when the gravity came in.
- Where the hell are we?
- hahaha ... look who's asking now... Mr. Space-rover, I have no idea. But we are being pulled, that much I know.
- Yeah, you don't have to be a Hawkins to know that, my elbow tells it. But what is it, a star?
- mmm ... nops, I don't see anything glowing nearby, could be a planet though, they are always difficult to locate...
- A planet? back into another solar system!... man, I hope they don't have IT down there.
Our Spacecraft wobbled.
- Oh wow, that is interesting, we've got some torque here.
- Shouldn't we be docking gently through the gravity gradients?
- Yes, we should, unless we have irregularities...
- Irregular gravity? you mean pulled by different bodies...!!
- That's one option.
- go ahead...
- I dunno, maybe gravity is not fixed here, what about pulsating gravity?
- no... you are losing me Mr. Drik-instine...
- yeah... I am talking nonsense I guess... let's find out the monster!
Pritha was right, there was not much to see through the portholes. Our radio telescope was tracking the nearest large object 0.5 lightyears away - a red giant. We have got a few meteoroid clusters here and there but not big enough to create such a gravity.
- What's the g?
- mmm .... 3.23 ... and steadily increasing
- excellent ... prepare for a Crashdown, you can wear a seatbelt if you like
- Come on... we can create back thrusts and have a safe landing
- unless the gravity is a little stronger
- stronger like what?
- like in a black hole...!
- It's not a black hole
- Why not, our radio telescope tracks nothing, the meteor clusters are not big enough, we don't see any planetary system... black hole would be a logical conclusion...
- no, it can not be a black hole...... because...
- because?
- oh my...
And right at that moment, both of us knew for sure, that it was not a black hole.
3.
How do I describe It? Or shall I say Him?
It was transparent with a hint of blue.
It was more like the jelly beans, only thinner in density.
Our spaceship was halfway buried into it, after the soft crash-landing through the jelly-like surface. The whole thing had a bluish after-glow which was pulsating with a slowly changing rhythm. The frequency decreasing ever so slightly every time. It reminded me of the rotating light of a lighthouse I saw in my childhood.
The lighthouse by the Sea of Eternity!
We started talking to it through very-low-frequency infrared signals. Any frequency more than that was able to penetrate it and returned nothing.
Pritha spotted it first.
- You know Drik, why your radio-telescope didn't catch it?
- why?
- because it's so thin Drik, its like water, it does not reflect our strong signals.
- so what do you suggest?
- go soft Drik, use lower frequencies...
When we started decreasing our frequencies it first gave out a very feeble signal in form of tremor.
- I told you Drik, she is a tender thing, be gentle and she will reward you.
When we went even lower the planet started changing itself. The blue started to fade and purple emerged. A purple so light and soft that we stared at it for days.
- Don't do anything else Drik, let it be this way and let us look at it. I can stare at it for eternity.
- Enjoy your eternity Pritha, I am going for a nap.
After a few days, I became restless and started pushing it a little further, trying even lower frequencies with apparently no result. The thing stayed as it is, with the purple haze pulsating softly.
The humming started at near-zero signal input. A deep bass sound coming from all directions. It was barely audible. It was so thin that we had to hold our breath to listen to it. We started our amplifier on-board. The sound-analyzer gave a flat frequency display, horizontal, without any ups and downs.
Our infra-red emitter was at its lowest, so we could not go further down. We kept it on, and the humming continued. 7 days of this and our ears were adapted to the sound so well that it felt like silence.
One day I felt the music.
- Do you hear the music Pritha?
- where
- I am not sure if it is there, its as if it is coming from within.
- shh
- ...
- yes, I can Drik, its music, it's coming from everywhere. The humming! its a music!
It was buried deep into the humming. Our ears have adapted so well over the last months that the music was audible. The music was structured, like a piece of western classical - Clear, orderly with surges of ups and downs creating a perfect harmony.
- It's telling us something
- so I guess...
- what is it, Drik
- I don't know Pritha, I don't know what that animal tells us
- You think its living?
- What else Pritha? it responds to our inputs, it changes itself, it creates music. What else do you need to call it living?
- But, it does not breathe, it does not eat, it does not reproduce...
- You are referring to a particular type of life that emerged on the earth by chance. There can be other forms of life Pritha. Which can be entirely different. Like this one. A whole big living planet. Full of life.
- And we are the parasites.
- yes, and it's not throwing us out yet!
- But we are good parasites Drik, we will not harm it.
- Do you want to get out?
- Let's get out Drik.
- Take the cylinders.
- No Drik lets get out like this. Let's see what it does to us.
- The jelly would kill us Pritha, we won't have a second.
- It might not kill us Drik, the mother planet, it can not kill.
We opened the sliding doors of the spaceship. And the jelly came in rushing. We did not stop it, we did not hold our breath. The jelly went in through my windpipe - to my lungs - I failed to take breaths. I felt like being sunk thousands of feet below the sea-level and sinking deeper. Everything went black a moment later.
4.
Then the violet light shone again. I was breathing again. I saw Pritha a few meters away. Smiling.
I shouted,
- We are alive Pritha
- yeah, It did not kill us
- How I am breathing, I do not understand it Pritha
- It knows us now, Drik, it transforms itself to air when it gets in.
- So, I am breathing the planet Pritha!!! I am breathing in life!
- yes Drik, it is trying to keep us alive, it loves us
- It's changing itself to keep us alive! Why Pritha? it does not have to...
- that's what love is Drik, you do things when you are in it, things you don't have to...
- ...
- you OK?
- Do you love me Pritha?
- does it matter, Drik?
- it does Pritha, it does. Its the difference between being alive and being dead.
- I don't know Drik, I have to find out, maybe I do...
Then we saw the Petunia plant floating out of the spacecraft waving its freshly grown leaves. And a bunch of purple flowers stood out boldly.
