Chapter 18

"Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
-Dylan Thomas

The next day they were all seated in the lounge together to watch Laufa's interview, which was due to air at six in the evening. Laufa had been taken under heavy guard about an hour before to the Copenhagen studios, Damian, of course, accompanying him.

"Who is this Dr. Jørgenson?" Svaltu asked. "Is he famous in your world?"

"He's a very brilliant scientist," answered her translator, a young woman named Ariel. "Kind of like an Einstein of our generation."

"A who?"

"Oh… hmm, never mind."

"Oh, come now, Svaltu," said Marco, a little irritated. "I've read about him in all their history books – World War II?"

"Yes, I read about World War II," said Svaltu stiffly.

"He's the one who invented the nuclear bomb."

"Well, that was part Oppenheimer," interjected Elizabeth.

"Yes, exactly," said Marco. "Einstein's the one who re-discovered the Theory of Relativity."

"Re-discovered?" asked Elizabeth.

"Well, discovered," said Marco. "We had discovered it before, of course, but he was the first of your people –"

Marco was cut off by shushing from the others as the program began. The moderator was a beautiful, blonde-haired anchor named Svetlana.

"Welcome to our show tonight, where we will be hosting our very own, Dr. Erick Jørgenson from Copenhagen, in an exclusive interview with the leader and chief scientist of the Vellorians, Laufa!"

The camera turned to show both men seated at a circular table, Dr. Jørgenson in his sixties but venerable-looking with grayish-white chair. He was dressed smartly in a suit and tie. He was an opposite image of the man sitting across from him. Laufa, even while seated, was a head taller than Dr. Jørgenson. He was dressed in a dark blue suit and golden tie, and his black hair was brushed back, revealing those stark yellow eyes, so bright in comparison with Dr. Jørgenson's watery blue ones. Laufa seemed young and fit, while Dr. Jørgenson had wrinkles and was a little stooped. To think that one was so much older than the other was incredible.

Dr. Jørgenson soon proved himself to be a mental match to the Vellorian. He began by asking about their spaceship and how it worked. "I have had the opportunity to look inside it and study it a little bit."

"It is quite simple, Erick," said Laufa. "We use a type of technology that allows us to travel close to the speed of light – a theory similar to the one your Einstein discovered and called E equals mc squared."

"And would you explain to us how that works, Laufa?" asked Svetlana.

"Certainly – I shall do my best. This theory among our people was developed by a scientist named Agroa. She postulated that the nature of time changes while moving at the speed of light, so that at the speed of light, time will stop. That also means that if any mass travels near the speed of light, time will slow down for it. That is how we were able to travel what would normally have been hundreds of thousands of years, but only sixty-five years passed for us in the ship."

"Therefore – thousands of years may have passed on your planet when for you it was only sixty-five," said Dr. Jørgenson.

"Yes, that is right."

"Then, you all have made a great sacrifice. If you return, everyone you know may be different. Your whole society may have changed or fallen."

Laufa nodded silently.

"Why would you all make such a sacrifice?"

"It is not such a great sacrifice for us. It is what we were trained for all our lives."

"Will you then be returning?"

"Not until we have shared all our knowledge and technology with you, and helped you in all ways we can."

"Speaking about your technology, I'd like to ask something about the type of technology you've developed on your own planet."

"Sure."

"Have you developed controlled nuclear fusion?"

"Yes, indeed," said Laufa. "How do you think we were able to travel so far here?"

"And you can control it?"

"Certainly."

" – Because here the most we've been able to do is produce it artificially underground, but we cannot control it in the least."

"Dr. Jørgenson, could you please explain what you mean by nuclear fusion? – for us laymen," said Svetlana.

"Yes. Nuclear fusion – different from fission which creates atomic bombs – is when two Hydrogen atoms are pushed together so that they fuse into Helium and give out massive energy – enough to keep the world's cities running for one hundred years. So far we can only produce it in an uncontrollable state, in an underground tube seventeen miles long, attempting to fuse the two together. It would be like controlling the sun – indefinite energy." He turned to Laufa. "How have you been able to control the reaction?"

Laufa launched into a detailed explanation, which Elizabeth did not in the least understand.

Dr. Jørgenson moved on to more questions. Had the Vellorians ever succeeded in penetrating to the center of a planet? (The iron in the core would be priceless.) Had they developed a spatial snaring device to capture meteors and stop them from crashing onto the surface of the planet?

Laufa did mention something fascinating that Vellorian astrophysicists had been working on – re-directing the motion of remote stars. They had attempted to blow up a star near another star and re-direct its route.

"And what would be the use of that?" asked Dr. Jørgenson.

"Think how useful it could be, if we could re-direct the course of stars or even planets – we could control our own orbit around our sun – you see how valuable that could be, in case there were environmental changes, or our sun began to expand or retract. And what a method of space travel! We could move our own planet, still spinning, through the galaxies, making our sun follow us. Hundreds of thousands of years of travelling would be no trouble then."

"Fascinating! And how close have your people come?"

"It's just a theory right now, but we have managed to explode some stars – we cannot control, however, what direction they move in."

"Maybe your people have perfected this technology now and are even using it."

Laufa looked unconvinced. "I don't think so."

"And we have time for one more question, Dr. Jørgenson."

"Thank you very much, Svetlana." Dr. Jørgenson looked very eager and excited. "One last question, which I've been wanting to ask you ever since you landed. You said, in your speech before the U.N., that you had been – or your people had been – here before."

Laufa nodded.

"Did you – create us?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Laufa, as if he had not understood. The crowd had become completely silent, as everyone listened, rapt.

"Did your people – your ancestors – come to Earth and plant life here? Did you bioengineer us?"

The whole world sat silent and waited, as comprehension dawned upon his face.

"No," he said.

Dr. Jørgenson looked disappointed.

"You didn't plant us here, as a seed colony?"

"No."

"This seems strange," said Dr. Jørgenson, "because you look so like us. We are so similar physiologically."

"Life formed from the elements of matter that coalesced at the beginning of time," explained Laufa patiently.

"Yes, yes, I know, but – we are not descended from you?"

"Absolutely not," said Laufa firmly.

Dr. Jørgenson looked deeply disappointed, but pressed on nonetheless. "But you say your people have visited Earth before."

"Yes, on several occasions."

"And when was the most recent? Before now, I mean."

"About … seven or eight thousand years ago," said Laufa.

Dr. Jørgenson looked delighted. "Really? And what was your purpose then?"

"To study your people – to see if we could learn anything from them or augment their society in any way. We came into contact with the ancient Egyptians, and some of the peoples in the modern-day Middle-East. When we were there last, many miles of the land was uninhabitable due to great radiation spikes, but now, I have read that is not the case."

"Fascinating! And why was there radiation there?"

"We have no idea," Laufa responded. "We assumed it was because of some dangerous scientific experimentation, but it's impossible to say."

"Thank you so much, Laufa, Dr. Jørgenson," Svetlana interrupted. "I'm afraid we've run out of time. We thank you all for coming and hope you have a happy holiday season. Good night!"