Earth-shattering

Almost a thousand years after humanity left Earth in pursuit of a more fulfilling existence, a disturbing discovery is made.

   With an exhausted mind and a long drawn-out yawn in its acknowledgement, Eno Yurgey leaned back in his comfortable swivel chair. The flexible backrest inclined automatically into its new position, while a footstool slid out from underneath the chair. It was exactly what the tired man needed; he settled into a relaxed posture, and couldn’t help but concede a smile.

    As Chief Technical Officer on this outpost, short breaks during work hours were few and far between for Yurgey. Aside from him, everyone else had a specific task to do, while he was burdened with the responsibility of knowing about and meddling in whatever they did. This annoying job, officially called ‘supervision’, unfortunately also included looking after the general well-being of the outpost. Yurgey spent much of his time hearing complaints about broken coffee machines and regurgitating toilets, among other things.

    But today had been a blissfully uneventful day on Research Outpost Two, the gigantic mass of metal-ceramic composite which moved through space, in orbit around the small planet of Corpin. Only one major operation was underway, and it had just entered its last stages. A research probe had been sent to observe a new swarm of asteroids that had appeared at the outer edges of the local star system. It was fairly routine work, dull enough to wear out the most hardened workaholic.

    ‘Drilling is finished, sir,’ squeaked the operator who controlled the probe.

    Yurgey, reclined with closed eyes, acknowledged it with a barely audible grunt.

    The operator’s nimble fingers flew over the controls as he uttered terse voice commands. His eyes were fixed lazily on the hologram before him, which changed continuously and fluidly.

    Suddenly, he frowned, and bent forward to study the hologram more intently. ‘Sir, there seems to be a problem.’

    A second, louder grunt was the reply.

    ‘Sir, I think there’s something wrong with the equipment.’

    Yurgey’s eyes flew open.

    ‘What is it, Sarco?’

    Sarco, the young operator, was now hunched over the control panel. ‘I’m getting anomalous readings from the spectrometer,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen this before.’ 

    ‘What kind of anomalies?’

    ‘The variety of elements in this sample is incredible. There are seventeen of them, and not all are metallic. I don’t know if that’s common for asteroids, but in my experience it’s a first.’

    ‘Of course you don’t know, you’re not an astrogeologist,’ snapped Yurgey, now sitting upright. ‘Keld, are you seeing this?’

    Hearing no reply, Yurgey looked around and found the reason: a huge pudgy figure was reclined on a chair a few feet away, with his back to Yurgey.

    ‘Keld! KELD!’

    The massive frame stirred. ‘Mmmm?’

    ‘Get your fat a*s over here. We’ve got a problem.’

    The words had an immediate and almost comic effect, one that seemed to defy the laws of common wisdom. The outpost’s most senior astrogeologist struggled out of his chair, bleary-eyed, and waddled over to the control panel at a speed that belied his obesity. By the time he reached the panel, all traces of exhaustion were gone, save the stubble underneath his toothbrush mustache which somehow made him look older and more tired than he was.

    ‘Sorry, must’ve dozed off,’ he growled.

    ‘The probe just finished drilling, and it looks like something odd’s turned up,’ said Yurgey briskly.

    ‘Very odd, sir’ Sarco piped in. ‘Combined spectroscopy results show there’s plenty of oxygen and silicon in the asteroids. A lot of aluminum and iron as well. No one I know has seen this before. There’s more. Trace amounts of manganese, molybdenum, zinc, sodium " ’

    ‘Interesting,’ Keld cut coolly through the young man’s babble. ‘Have you checked it against the database?’

    ‘Already done, sir,’ said Sarco squeakily. ‘Nothing even close to a match.’

    Keld seated himself in one of the computer terminals, immediately assuming an air of complete absorption. ‘You checked against know compositions of asteroids, right? Check again, this time against the entire database " every substance we know.’

    ‘Sir, what could it be other than an asteroid?’

    Keld ignored him.

    Yurgey eyed the pair of them carefully. Keld, while a trouble-free pushover in normal situations, was not be messed with when his scientific curiosity was aroused, like now. He said cautiously, ‘Any chance that the spectrometer is malfunctioning?’

    ‘No,’ replied Sarco. ‘The maintenance auto-checks are totally clean.’

    Yurgey subsided into a silence, something which he was not accustomed to. He leaned back in his chair again and watched Keld, in half-amusement and half-exasperation. The single-minded scientist in the man was fully awakened, and obviously would not stop until an answer was found. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, a very audible sigh escaped Keld.

    ‘Ah, I can’t find it! There’s nothing in the database. But I have a peculiar feeling that I’ve seen this composition somewhere. I just can’t place it.’ He turned to Yurgey. ‘I need to take a closer look at it. I need it here.’

    The Chief Technical Officer groaned inwardly. Retrieval of the probe was a lot more work than he had bargained for. Reluctantly, he obliged.

    Five minutes later, the scene inside Research Outpost Two had undergone a complete, irreversible change. Gone was the languid aura of laziness. Workstations were abuzz with activity as analysts and operators geared up for the task ahead. Somnolent crew members had been roused and sent down to man the space dock. There was no time to grab a coffee, so everyone had to settle for intravenous caffeine shots " quicker and much less pleasant.

    After another five minutes, Yurgey barked, ‘All right, we’ve got the probe, nice and safe. Hear that Keld?’

    But Keld was gone. Spinning around, Yurgey spied him barging past people and machines towards a door at the far end of the spacious Control Room. Sighing, he followed.

     An elevator trip and a few flights of stairs later they stood at the entrance to the laboratory. Normally closed at all times, it had now been left open to reveal a seething mass of humanity. Dozens of scientists and machinists stood, talked, bustled around, came to a sudden stop, then stood and talked again. The hum of machinery could barely be heard over the cacophony of human voices that rose and fell in a jagged rhythm.

    At the center of the scene was a circular dais on which rested the probe. The entire object weighed over a ton, and yet was no larger than a portable quantum computer. Its hemispherical top shone brilliantly even in the subdued lighting of the lab, and was followed by a darker cylindrical lower body.

    A thin young woman with a ponytail was jabbering away at a group of technicians. ‘… yes, I know the propulsion system is state-of-the-art, but we still need to be sure … uh-huh … so what? Check the propulsive power anyway …’

    She broke off, seeing Keld approach with Yurgey in his wake, and said, ‘Sir, we were just running checks on the probe. The asteroid sample has already been sent up to the chemical lab.’

    Once in the chemical lab, Keld was in his element. He bustled around, checking equipment, barking orders, and sweating himself unnecessarily. Yurgey looked on in mild amusement as the eager scientist carried on this way for no less than five minutes, at the end of which his red and sweaty face took on the look of a man prepared to accept defeat. His enormous body seemed to grow even more massive as he heaved towards Yurgey.

    ‘I’ve checked everything! Three times! No less! I thought it was an allotrope, but our best modeling tools have ruled out allotropy. I don’t think " ’

    ‘In that case,’ said Yurgey, now starting to get irritated, ‘it would seem that the solution is to add this material to the database as a new find.’

    ‘I could do that …’ said Keld hesitantly. ‘But I have a feeling I know what it is. I can’t just add it to the database unless I’ve ruled out every possibility that it is known. That would be scientific fraud.’

    ‘Now what on earth is that supposed to mean?’

    Keld opened his mouth to retort, but for some reason he stopped before any sound came out, and stared wide-eyed at Yurgey, as though the Chief Technical Officer was the most astonishing object in the universe. Then he turned back, hurried over to a computer terminal and started to work at a furious speed. Barely a minute had passed before he erupted in joy, a victorious smile lighting up his face. ‘Found it!’ he shouted, quite unnecessarily.

    Yurgey was already at his shoulder. ‘What is it?’

    ‘Earth!’

   ‘Excuse me?’

    ‘Earth! Soil! Whatever you call it …’

   Yurgey looked on uncomprehendingly.

    ‘Don’t you understand?’ said Keld despairingly.

    ‘What, you mean the planet Earth? But why … how did it … what do you even mean?’

    The astrogeologist took a deep breath. ‘The word “earth” can refer to two things. It’s the name of a planet " our place of origin " and it is also a generic name for the substance on the planet which sustained large life forms.’

    ‘How do you know this substance is earth or soil or whatever? You said that you had checked everything.’

    ‘It’s not in any of the databases. I found it in a book on Earth I read when I was a teenager. That’s why it seemed so familiar. You see, long before humanity moved out from Earth into space colonies, soil was one of the most valuable materials for mankind. Plants grew on it, which allowed humans to practice agriculture, and thus settle into large communities. This paved the way for human civilization later on.’

    ‘Then how come I haven’t heard of it?’

    ‘Ah! Come now. Who remembers obsolete things? People in general know no more about soil than they do about coal and oil " about which I don’t expect you to know anything either. My point is, all these materials are of no use anymore, and only remain as curiosities for academics like myself. We don’t soil to grow plants anymore. The techniques of aquaponics were mastered several centuries ago when humanity still lived on Earth.’   

    ‘But what is this soil doing out in space, so far from Earth?’

    ‘As to that, I don’t have the slightest idea.’ Keld busied himself with working at the computer terminal again.

    Pacing around the large but crowded room, Yurgey mulled over the new information. Although he lacked Keld’s expertise, he could tell that this was an exceptional find. He hated exceptional finds, no matter how much joy they brought to the faces of naïve scientists back in the big colonies. They always screwed up the usual operations and overtaxed him and his staff, except masochistic scientists like Keld. A typical case was the discovery of large uranium reserves in one of Corpin’s satellites. As if anyone needed uranium anymore in the age of thermonuclear power.

    ‘Yurgey!’

    Yurgey was jerked out of his thoughts. ‘What?’ he asked peevishly.

    ‘I don’t … I don’t believe it … it’s gone! …’

    ‘What’s gone?’

    ‘… gone …’

    Yurgey walked over to the terminal where Keld was sitting wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The holographic display showed the three-dimensional map of a star system littered with spatial coordinates and other technical details. Much of it flew over his head, but he did glean enough to know that it was a record of celestial events and the star system was none other than the solar system, which included Earth, the birthplace of humanity. One particularly massive asteroid impact caught Yurgey’s eyes. It had occurred between the orbits of the two planets Venus and Mars.

    It was then that he noticed something odd.

    Between Venus and Mars was Earth, the third planet from the sun. and yet, remarkably, the map was missing its orbit and position.

    ‘Is there a glitch in the map?’

    Keld shook his head slowly.

    ‘Well?’

    One of Keld’s pudgy hands pointed at the display. Yurgey followed it and found that it indicated the same asteroid impact that had attracted his attention. He reads the detailed description of the event.

    With disbelief, he read it again.

    Earth was gone!

    That is why the asteroid impact was so big/ the Earth had been hit. From the data available, it was clear the planet had disintegrated into a mass of planetoids, leaving behind no trace of existence.

    The Blue Planet existed no more.

    Slowly, and with difficulty, Yurgey let the truth sink in. in spite of this overwhelming revelation, a small consciousness surfaced in his mind, one that demanded an answer. He looked around at Keld and found that his question was mirrored by those bespectacled eyes. The impact had occurred over 77 hours ago, but why did they come to know of it now? Didn’t anybody see it earlier, or if they didn’t they care to mention it?

    It had been almost a millennium since mankind abandoned Earth and set sail for other star systems. The original home of humanity had survived both through history and folklore, but only barely. The people today grew up in man-made space colonies knowing little more than the fact that Earth existed.

    Someone must have witnessed the destruction of Earth, in one of those observatories which tracked astronomical occurrences throughout the universe. Yurgey wondered whether they had deemed it important enough to mention it to others. It was as if no one cared.

    Suddenly, a deep hollow feeling welled up inside Yurgey. He felt an inexplicable lump in his throat. It was sadness at the loss of something he had never really known, and yet felt like a place to cherish and to call home. Now, beyond the consciousness of an oblivious humanity, it had gone away.

    Gone. Forever.