Endless Voyage
Rise and fall of humanity
by
pradipkumar raol
&
prakash vaidya
Part - 5
The White House was decorated with flooding lights. Guests started arriving after six O’clock. Relatives of First Lady and some of the White house staff were warmly welcoming them. Guests were Governors of states, Mayors, Ambassadors, high ranking officials of the army, NASA administrator, F.B.I. Chief, Press Reporters, Hollywood stars, eminent people from literary world and some business tycoons.
Special invitees were Pandit Suryashankar and his daughter Madhumalini who was equally an exponent of music. Rock star Mark Jackson also attracted lot of awe and attraction.
Right at 7:30pm. Catherine standing in the balcony gazed upon her guests with enchanting smile. As she came down everybody greeted her with clapping. And the song ‘Happy birthday to you’ filled the atmosphere.
Slowly she came down with natural ease. She looked like an angle; her innocent face greeted everyone with smile.
In the central hall, there was a huge birthday cake on the table which was decorated well. There were thirteen candles on it. Amidst loud clapping and singing she extinguished all of them in a single sweep of her blow,.
Everybody wished her and congratulated her. They presented her with precious gifts. Thereafter, Pandit Suryashanker and his daughter Madhumalini played almost divine classical music for the guests. With their fine artistry they managed to make local music connoisseurs sit up. All the guests were in fact spell bound when rock star Mark Jackson danced to the tunes of sitar of Madhumalini and his assistants. Everybody was enjoying, some were drinking best of wines and enjoying their food. Many were busy in gossiping. Some were stealing their glances at Hollywood actresses who were busy in flaunting their glamour and sex appeal. Some media persons were clicking their cameras. Security check up was completed long ago; even then secret service & security staff including Home Land Security were busy in their work.
The party was at its peak and everybody was enjoying it. Having drinks, talking to their friends and were feeling elevated for being invited by the president. But one of the distinguished guests, a senator from Texas had something on his mind and he wanted to go early. He looked at his watch. Thought he was getting late. Informing the president about his urgency to leave the party in mid-way, he came out. Then he returned after some time and spoke loudly in order to attract attention, ‘Excuse me please! Ladies and gentlemen! Sorry to interrupt you! But I have to tell you something and that is everyone loves president’s daughter and we are all here because of her, to wish her on her birthday, everybody is enjoying the party with much joy and exuberance. So how can the nature miss such an opportunity? Therefore, without much ado let me state the fact and it is a fact, no matter even if my eyes couldn’t believe it. And that is that the Sun God himself does not want to leave the party till it is over. According to my watch the time is 22:17, and I have confirmed that it is functioning rightly. Usually during this time of the year and season the sun sets around 20:30 pm. Nevertheless, things seem peculiar, rather extraordinary at least to me. The Sun has not set even now.’
The senator thus finished quite eloquently and looked around in order to see the impact on everybody’s faces.
But, the responses were different from what he had expected. They were of satire and disbelief, as if someone has said a big joke, or someone has gone out of his mind.
Actually they started laughing and clapping, ‘well, well!!’ ‘Amazing,’ ‘call him here!’ ‘You have a very good sense of crude humor!’ Were the various responses he heard from the elegant crowd. Someone from the crowd even dared to ask, ‘have you taken more of it?’ he was referring to the wine.
‘Please, please, please, listen to me, the Senator cried out loudly, ‘you can see it for yourself, the sun is still there on the west direction.’
David came outside, and saw it. He had mixed feelings of amusement and surprise he was really lost in thoughts that what he is looking at. Is it sun or some kind of an image? He quickly came back and uttered somewhat hesitantly, ‘President, there is something strange, a miracle or may be extraordinary…’ Before, the president can gather as to what had happened many rushed outside to get the firsthand experience. They too started asking questions to others as if the other fellow might have the answer. ‘What is happening, what is wrong with the sun? Who did this, is it magic? At the same time White House chief of staff came to the President and reported in an official manner the facts of the entire matter. The President became slightly perplexed and became anxious so he too came out. And he blurted out ‘oh Jesus! I can’t believe this!’ someone responded for all, ‘we are all baffled, and cannot believe our own eyes sir!!’ President looked at his watch. It was 10:30 pm. He started gazing at the sun and then looked at David and spoke in an urgent manner, ‘do something David, quickly, He seemed excited now. David also could not conceive as to how to respond to that. He suddenly took out his cell phone and sent some instructions and orders to NASA personnel.
When this seemed a reality to many of them, they started calling somewhere or the others, to friends, to family, government offices, just to confirm from other sources, some of them just drove to their houses. But one thing was certain that those who believed this event to be even half-truth their minds were slowly griped by an unknown fear. While on the other hand media photographers, forgetting the commotion around them started shooting the amazing pictures of sun.
President was now impatient. He spoke in a whispering voice near the ears of David, ‘David, what happened?’
‘Sir, you will come to know very soon,’ he replied, not being sure himself. Moving from there the president took the secretary of state to one side and uttered in a matter of fact tone, “now, let us wait for more feedback, then if necessary we may declare a national emergency.” ‘Absolutely, sir’
In the sky near the horizon the sun was laughing at the feebleness of human nature.
♣♣♣
NASA was established on 29 July, 1958. Its headquarters was in Washington, D. C. It had achieved great heights in the field of space explorations. ‘Apollo mission to the moon, ‘Sky Lab,’ Atlantic space shuttle, and International Space Station were few of its many success stories. Besides such space programs NASA also bears the responsibilities of long term civilian and military aerospace research. And to create more awareness about the earth, programs like “Solar System” and ‘New Horizons’ were initiated. The finest example of such programs was ‘Hubble Space Telescope.’
But right now, NASA’s Deputy Administrator Mr. Ruther ford was in a great dilemma, because what David had asked him to do was otherwise very simple but such observations and verification are only carried out for special conditions. Also he did not clarify as to why he wanted these checkups to be done. According to him there was nothing unusual happening in the space or on the earth. Then why this need arise? Nevertheless, Mr. Rutherford instructed his staff do to the same. Within minutes, he was given a twenty page report. He studied it carefully and found nothing startling or unusual. Only one thing looked strange and i.e. the time of sun-set was lengthening. But he did not give it much importance, he missed it completely on the contrary he felt relieved, tension disappeared, he even smiled to himself and thought that David was unnecessarily worrying. However, he informed him about his finding.
Everybody saw that the sun was very slowly going down the horizon and exactly at 22:45 it was completely gone.
Everybody came inside the large room. Reporters gathered around Richard David and started asking questions:
‘What is this happening?’ ‘Why it is happening like this?’
‘This happened only in America or has it occurred somewhere else also?’ ‘Is there any change in the space?’
‘Any influence of UFO, comet, asteroid?’
In midst of such inquiries cameras were flickering with jet speed. Mr. David kept his cool and answered, ‘Please, please settle down, I cannot tell you anything about this as why it happened, and how it happened cannot be made out at this juncture. And according to my conviction it is not only for humans but it is a first incident of a kind even for the planet earth’
‘No, No, No, we want the answers right now, tomorrow people will ask us,’ the media persons argued vehemently.
Hearing this David looked at the President but instantly Under Secretary came forward to help him and intervened, ‘look here, all of you please, and it is not in the best interest of the people of USA to state about something without proper investigations. And tomorrow there will be a press conference at 9:30 am. Please, retain your composure.’
‘How will we report the matter without any details?’
‘See, gentlemen, it is your problem, nevertheless you can report it as an astronomical event. Do not report in a manner to excite and incite people, no media hype. Please, understand the gravity of the situation.’
They turned to the President, ‘anything more? Any comment?’
‘Now it is enough! Richard spoke with annoyance, sounding exasperated.
The crowd dispersed slowly, unwilling to go from there. David, Defense Secretary George, Head of F.B.I. stayed with the President. They were all in a hyper mood at that time and stared discussing with each other, Never, such a thing like that has happened, and why so suddenly without any seeming cause.
David informed them as a knowledgeable person in this kind of subject that, this event is unique and rarest of rare incident. This has never occurred in the history before. No significant object has been reported in the space near earth to have been responsible for this to happen even then the sun set came about at 10:45 pm. This matter should be thoroughly investigated.
‘Well! Mr. David, along with such investigation we must also find out its universality, I mean such effect is localized or universal? And in which countries it has happened?’ President said this unaware of his gross ignorance in scientific matters.
‘Of course, Sir let me explain. According to the principles of physics this event can’t be only for America. As a ‘heavenly body’ the Sun’s strange behavior must have a universal effect. I mean to all the countries. We must be alert. This seems to be a universal disaster,’ Richard David replied with great concern and seriousness.
‘I hope not!!!’ President suddenly cried out.
‘Sir, shall we visit NASA? There, we would be able to get firsthand information.’
‘Yeah, Let us move.’
They are all seated in the main observatory. President said to David, ‘you have made us observe the space and explained to us that there are no astral bodies there, responsible for this delayed sunset, then why it happened in the first place?
He could not reply to this question put forth by the president, so he thought it wise to remain quiet. But beneath the external signs of normalcy one could sense the tension, doubt and fear.
