Chapter 44
“Hello Yves. I’m sorry for the late notice, but I won’t be able to make it back to Sophia this evening. An emergency meeting was called by the EU Consensus Board, and Director General Brożek asked that I remain here in Paris to attend the meeting with her. I’m really excited that she’s seeing me as her ‘+1’ these days! Anyway, please apologize to Kim and Stella for me and since I won’t be able to make it back for dinner with them. Let them know I really do want to come over and hopefully we can plan a date for next week. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
Yves read the message quickly, his lips pursing more tightly the longer he read.
Instead of typing a response, Yves clicked the ‘Appeller’ button on the top of the message next to Hanna’s name.
“Hi. Please leave a message and I’ll respond as I am able”, Hanna’s voicemail answered.
“Hanna, pick up the call, please,” Yves said into his commblock. “This is the third time in a month that these last minute changes have come up, and the second time you’re not able to go to Kim and Stella’s. I really don’t feel like explaining your absence this time, and think you should call them yourself. And call me back, since I think we need to talk about things, okay? Well,.. take care.”
Yves had barely left the voicemail when his message alert sounded.
“Sorry I can’t pick up the call, Yves. Director Brozek and I are walking into a preliminary briefing now – – with the Consensus Board Chair. She needs me to review the translation of a message she received from the alien comm channel! I think this will be big news and will call you either later tonight or tomorrow on the way home. Warmest 💗💗💗! “
As soon as he saw the heart symbols, the ESA astronomer’s middle finger slammed on the trash icon, deleting the message. He threw the commblock on the cushion next to him, frustration being the main emotion on his face, and stormed out of the room.
After five minutes, Yves returned and retrieved a name from his contact list, clicking on the “Appeler” button next to the name.
“Hello Stella? Yes, I’m doing well. I, uh, need to see if we can reschedule our dinner again. Yes, Hanna is still in Paris.”
Late the next morning, Yves was at his desk, reviewing notes for the noon press briefing, when he heard a knock on his workstation wall.
“Hullo there,” Hanna said. “Hope you don’t mind me stopping by.”
Yves looked up from his screen and slowly turned his chair to face the speaker.
“From what I remember from your message, you were going to call me last night or on your trip back this morning,” he said. “Since you are here, it looks like you didn’t follow through on that promise either.”
Hanna’s shoulders dropped. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I really wanted to, but I’ve been totally preoccupied with that meeting I was talking about. I mean, it’s incredible what’s going to happen! And you’ll need to…”
“Sorry, not now” Yves interrupted, standing up. “I’ve got to get down to the conference room for the briefing.”
“Oh, yes,” Hanna said. “Give me a minute and you can include some up-to-the-minute information…”
Yves started walking away. “These briefings are now a weekly affair, so I don’t want to keep them waiting any longer,” he said.
“OK, no problem. I’ll send you the information and you can just read what I send so you don’t have to worry about the wording,” Hanna offered.
“No!” Yves interjected. “You could have called me earlier this morning with the news. It can wait until next week, or, if it’s really that important, we’ll call them back later today after you and I have a chance to talk”
He didn’t wait for a response, and started down the stairwell to the conference room two floors below where his workspace was located.
Yves walked into the conference room and surveyed the space. “One-fourth of the people that were here just four months ago,” he thought to himself. “Are things that predictable? Have people lost interest? Have people lost faith?”
Someone cleared her throat, which made Yves break out of his reverie and look to the back of the room. The ESA Broadcast Engineer motioned with her head to the podium. Yves nodded and walked up to the stand.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today.” He looked around the room again quickly. “Does anyone know if Bernadette will be joining us? I haven’t seen her for the past couple of sessions.”
A reporter from the middle of the room spoke up. “I heard she quit her job at Sky at the start of the year. Something about wanting to return to her family in the Pyrenees.”
“I don’t blame her,” a man in the back joined in. “I’ve got to admit I’ve been thinking about the same thing.”
“Um, ok, no Bernadette,” Yves jumped in. “So, we’ll get started. Ready to broadcast, Ignace?”
The engineer nodded her head, pushed a button on her console, and a light on the screen above her shoulder and a light on the podium at which Yves was standing both turned green.
Yves smiled, looked at the camera in the back of the room. “Good afternoon, everyone,” he said while tapping a button on the podium console to bring up his notes. “and welcome to the briefing for Wednesday, 23 January, 2092.”
“According to our estimates, we think the milestone of twenty-four million people who have left Earth has passed within ten days, plus or minus, from today. We also estimate that only five million people have arrived at Nova. So the vast majority of people are still in transit.”
“All elevators are fully operational with the exception of the new site in the state of Georgia in the United States. Construction of the elevator at Redbug,… sorry, Redbud, Georgia is underway, with an estimated completion in the first week of March. I’m sure the NASA livecast is showing a 24-hour feed if you are interested in watching the progress, so we’ll leave it to them to provide details.”
“The EU Consensus Board has again made a formal request to the alien representatives that a new series of transmissions from Nova be enabled as they consider extending the license to operate the elevators on EU soil past the current mandate authorized through the end of February, 2092. No response has yet been received. We are working with our counterparts across the globe to provide a common front on this position, and hope to have agreement from our sister agencies in the other parts of the world by next week, if possible.”
“The Board would also like to…”
Yves paused as a top priority alert popped on his console.
The message was from Hanna. “Please share the news that the alien representatives have indicated they will be increasing the transfer rate to 9 departures per site per day. And they have shared the expectation that they want everyone to leave Earth, as they feel human existence is not sustainable on this planet. They…“
“Yves?” a reporter in the front row interrupted Yves’s silent reading.
“Um, yes?” Yves said, looking up with a bewildered countenance.
“You stopped sharing your notes,” the reporter said. “Is some news coming in?”
“Um, no,” Yves said, with an uncertain tone to go along with his expression. “No news.”
The uncertain expression was replaced by a look of resolve. “In fact, I have to say that today’s press briefing is ending early. Thank you, all! We’ll need to adjourn for today and meet again next week.”
And with that, Yves walked away from the podium.
He was nearly out the door before the reporters realized he was serious, and started shouting out questions.
“Did the Consensus Board just get a response from the aliens?”
“Is one of our sites experiencing location issues like the site in Georgia?”
Yves made his way briskly back up the stairwell. Upon reaching his workstation, the ESA astronomer put on his overcoat, stuffed his commblock (which hadn’t stopped buzzing since he had entered the stairwell) into a pocket, grabbed his work tablet, and started walking away. He stopped, returned to his desk, picked up the replica of the century-old Hubble telescope, gently stowed it away in an inner coat pocket, and then returned to departing the building.
Before he made it back to the stairwell, a half-dozen people were converging on his location. He ignored the voices except for one.
“Yves! Is everything alright? Didn’t you get my message?” Hanna said as she walked up.
Yves looked around at the doorways, reached between the two people standing between him and Hanna, grabbed his housemate by the wrist, and pulled her through an entry with “Chambre Privee” written on the door.
“Ow!,” Hanna said, pulling her arm away once past the threshold. “Why are you squeezing so hard?”
Yves quickly closed the door and pushed the electronic lock button. Then he whirled around to face Hanna.
“Mon dieu! What are you thinking when you send me a text like that in the middle of the press conference!” he practically shouted.
“Is that what you are worked up about? That I sent you a text during your presentation?” Hanna said, rubbing her wrist.
“It’s not that you sent me a message. It is what is in the message that I can’t believe,” he replied. “I still cannot comprehend the enormousness of what that message means.”
“It isn’t that big of a switch, if you think about it,” Hanna said. “I mean three departures a day versus nine does allow a lot more people to…”
“That’s not it,” Yves interrupted. “They could schedule thirty departures a day, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s the second part of the message that made me so I couldn’t even think downstairs.”
Hanna gave him a confused look.
Yves set down his tablet and pulled out his commblock.
“And they have shared the expectation that they want everyone to leave Earth, as they feel human existence is not sustainable on this planet.” he read from the text.
Hanna crossed her arms. “Keep reading,” she said.
“They have said they will arrange for an orderly and calm departure for everyone over the next thirty years, and ask people to plan for their successful future on Nova,” Yves finished. “How is that last sentence supposed to make me feel any less concerned?”
“Thirty years, Yves. That’s three decades!” Hanna responded. “It’s not like they are pushing us all into the vacuum of space next week.”
“Hanna! Oh my God! They are giving us a deadline!” Yves said, ferociously tapping his finger into the palm of his hand. “They are telling us we can’t stay here. They have decided that humans cannot exist on our own planet,” he finished with a wide gesture of his arms.
Hanna stood for a moment, letting Yves catch his breath.
“They are doing us a favor,” she said calmly. “They are helping us out of the mess for whom we only have ourselves to blame, and for which we’ve not done anything to prevent a disaster that will wipe out the majority of the human population because of our stupidity and stubbornness.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Yves said. “You agree with them, don’t you? You think it’s ok for them to make decisions for us and box us up and send us somewhere else.”
“Oh come on, Yves, don’t tell me that you haven’t seen how this can solve so many problems,” Hanna responded. “We talked about what sorry shape the world was in back when we were in university. And I remember you saying we had less than a century before famine and natural disaster started killing more people in one month than all of the wars of the last two-hundred years combined. And now when the solution literally comes falling out of the sky, you’re telling me that it’s a bad idea?”
Yves countered, “You wanted me to tell people we’re being forcibly removed from the planet and…”
Hanna interrupted, “It’s an orderly and calm departure taking place over decades.”
“We have thirty years for eleven billion people to leave a place that it’s taken us twenty-thousand years to populate. That’s almost four-hundred million people a year. Thirty-million people a month. That’s more in one month than have left Earth since when the aliens first arrived,” Yves rattled off. “But it’s not about the numbers, Hanna. Nobody ever really cares about the numbers. It’s about the fact that they said humans – cannot – stay – here!”
“Have you really been this naive the whole time?” Hanna said, uncrossing her arms. “You’ve seen what their technology can do. We’re powerless against it. And you’ve read practically every communication they’ve sent to us.”
“Have I?” Yves said. “I’m starting to feel like there is a lot of communication I’ve missed.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Yves, you are their spokesperson,” Hanna said.
“I most certainly am not!” the astronomer countered. “You are the one translating their messages, sending them messages in return. If it is anyone, it is you who are their spokesperson.”
“I’m one of hundreds of people from around the globe that are the primary communicator with the aliens for a given locale,” the xenolinguist replied. “You, lover, are the one that people see and hear on the broadcasts, more than any other person around the world. Do a global survey and see who the population of this planet thinks is the spokesperson for the aliens.”
“Well, that is over. I’m done with the press conferences,” Yves said. “I am not going to deliver an avis d’expulsion to all of humanity. The ESA can hire someone else.”
“Yves, please, this is important! We must communicate this to the world, and we must do it quickly,” Hanna implored. “The aliens know how trusted you are, and because of that, they told us first. But if we can’t deliver the message today, it will be shared with all of the nations at once. And that will be chaos!”
“I agree sending you a message like that was a bad idea,” she continued. “And again, I apologize I did not call you on the way here this morning. I sometimes think I can relate to the aliens better than humans, and I was thinking about how lucky we were to have them help us like this, and thinking about how we can begin organizing our departure, getting the people most vulnerable to the worsening conditions off the planet and to a better start on Nova before the rich try to get there and take control like they have here. We can make such a huge positive impact on the lives of billions, allow our own planet to truly heal, and be seen as the couple that worked together to save humanity!”
Yves stared at her, not saying a word.
After an awkward silence, Hanna asked “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m trying to determine two things,” Yves said. “I am trying to understand if you are serious. And if you are, I’m trying to think back in time and figure out when you changed.”
Hanna crossed her arms again.
“Leave then,” she motioned with her head. “Run away from your first real chance to make a difference in this world. If you don’t see the right thing to do when it is handed to you, then I will take on that responsibility myself.”
“It is my turn to say please, this is important,” Yves said in a much calmer tone that he’d been using the entire conversation since they entered the privacy room. “You cannot give this message in a press conference. People will react. They will do it quickly. And it will not go well.”
“I said you should go, Yves,” Hanna responded. “And don’t plan on coming back. The ESA does not need your services any longer.”
“Shouldn’t that be for my boss to decide?” Yves questioned.
Hanna did not respond.
Yves picked up his tablet, looked at Hanna again, and walked to the door.
“Oh,” Hanna said as Yves pushed the unlock button next to the threshold. “and since we’re parting ways here, I think it only appropriate we part ways elsewhere. I’ll send someone over later today to collect my things from your apartment. But it wouldn’t surprise me if you become persona non grata here in this area, so you might think about moving to a new location.”
Yves turned around. “I care about you in my heart, Hanna. I know the girl who is looking for adventure and caring about people at the same time is still in you. It is not too late. Leave here with me.”
Hanna’s eyes narrowed. “Go!”
Yves opened the door, walked through the small group of people assembled on the other side, and heard Hanna say to the crowd, ‘Organize an emergency press conference to start in thirty minutes. I’ll be presenting. And tell Gisele to come up to my office and help me get ready.”
The one-time ESA astronomer walked to the front lobby, handed his work tablet to the security clerk sitting there, and proceeded outside to the transpod waiting station. He looked up at the sky to see clouds moving in to hide the sun, and he wiped away a tear getting ready to fall from the corner of his eye.