Trees

He unceremoniously opened the door of the dining chamber, slightly sickened by the idea of yet another day of bolting down a laboratory made sandwich. There, in a corner of the room, sat his daughter, munching her food but looked lost in deep thought. He picked up his sandwich and a tumbler of water and sat down beside her. She looked at him sideways and asked in a dreamy voice, “Dad, have you ever seen a real tree?”

He knew it was time he started disappointing her with his answers. In the 4 years they had lived on the ship, he had strived to adapt to the closed atmosphere, to show his daughter, that the conditions they lived in were absolutely normal. But she had started taking school sessions in the higher laboratories. And he knew that soon, a whole lost world would be introduced to her.

“Yes, dear, I have seen a number of them.”

“I want to see one too! The robot down at the school said that humans would live close to trees. We are humans, right Dad, then why don’t we live close to any? The robot said they came out of the ground, then why can’t we have a tree coming out of our family chamber ground, Dad? Can you make a tree come out for me, Dad! Please!”

“My dear.. They don’t just come out. Trees grow. They grow out of soil towards the sun and take all the water and help from the soil on land so they can grow. Our family chamber ground is made of steel. It cannot grow a tree. A tree needs soil, land and the sun.”

“The sun? I want to see it too.”
The words hit him. She had not seen the sun in four years. And she was too small to remember how it was like before that.

“Darling, let me tell you this. I am going to the chief office now. Your mom is there now. I’ll tell them you want to see the sun and a tree. We’ll do what we can dear. We will.” He smiled at her encouragingly. Inside his head, ideas were forming plans. He needed to talk to other parents aboard.

Two weeks later, he came to the family chamber later than the usual time, but there she was, not asleep but sketching a virtual tree on the common doodle board he had made for the children.

“You can see a real one!” He exclaimed while she was still not looking. She turned, startled. But the innocent little face lit up with a smile immediately. She ran to his side as he bent down to talk to her. “And so will all your friends. My dear, we are going to go on land. And we are going to plant a sapling and see a tree grow.”

He had taken the child’s wish to heart. He was a scientist, like a number of people aboard. He was living and working with the best minds in the world, but he also knew, that one day, all of those would be dead and the young ones would have to continue the struggle for survival of the human race. They had two ways to do it: Either continue the struggle with newer and more technology, with their limited resources, or go back to the lost world and start building it again. The school sessions were preparation for the former, and planting a sapling, for the latter.

The next day, he set out with a team of 5 more members. They had to reach land. They had only last year, been able to connect with one of the satellites in the atmosphere, and it had taken a few months to actually make it get pictures for them. The waters had receded by a few meters. The ship was equipped with external devices, so they knew that the temperature was still high, meaning they had to wear the suits, he hated them. They were once meant only for people going into space. But now, to get out of the ship, one had to wear them. The conditions outside were too extreme for anything that lived a -100 MSL and above. The ship was stationed at the bottom of a water body once called the Indian Ocean. The vessel they had to travel in had to gain about 2000 meters to reach the surface and about a thousand nautical miles to reach the continent shelf.

The team got into the vessel, attached to the second highest level of the ship. The pilot, a friend, smiled at him. It was the first time in four years that the pilot could use his only skill: the one because of which he was allowed on the ship. He was the best pilot there was. And that had saved him.

The crew sat tight. The vessel detached. And off they went. Twenty minutes later, they were at surface. The crew then switched on the radar and newly installed GPS connected to the lone communicating satellite. They had to head north. The region once known as the Himalayas, the highest mountains on earth, was the one secure point they could reach without a predictable danger. The waters, having receded rapidly since the end of the rains, had first exposed these great mountains. The surface journey was an agony. With clenched jaws, the crew moved across the waters below which were entire cities, countless societies and more than a billion corpses.

The scientist was silent. After months of trying to forget the memories, these few minutes brought it all back.

It was the last day on earth. The temperature had reached its peak. The last ice cap had melted. The endless rain had started and he, with his wife and baby were on one of the last ships that had left the shores to never return, because after that day, there was nothing going to be left to return to. They were on the ship because they were inventors. They had genius and the last people who wished to survive needed them. But everyone else, everything that had mattered, everything they had built, was getting destroyed by the minute. The earth had spoken, and yielded its last weapon. But humans with their extraordinary gift had a grand plan made to even survive through this.

The ship was built in stages. It took years. It took the best minds of the world. And it was known to only those best minds. Over years of inventions and technologies, they managed to make a ship that would help them survive in the deepest corners of the ocean, using the water and minerals available there, coupled with the increased penetration of sunlight into the atmosphere. The world did not have the resources to make something like the ship available to all the people of the world. They all were seven billion. The ship was meant for 700: 700 of the cleverest people alive at that time, 700 people from literally all walks of life, irrespective of where they came from.

“We’re close.” The first words spoken in the last few hours broke the chain of the scientist’s thoughts. Back to the present, he held himself up. They had to get out on the land, and build an enclosure. The material they had was an improvised greenhouse fabric. It took the heat of the sun in, but kept the UV rays out. They also had to take back soil samples, if they got any left from the erosion.

36 hours later, the scientist-father walked into a hall crowded with parents and children. They were all waiting for the verdict of the team.

The tired scientist looked at the room. There were hapless adults and curious children, all silent as he put together his words. “Children! Get  ready to be a part of your first mission. Starting tomorrow, you shall be trained for a mission called ‘Trees’. We will prepare you for land and you shall be the first humans to plant trees back on our earth.”

The hall erupted. The steel walls vibrated as crowd clapped the hardest they could in four years. An engineer in the corner took note of this.

It was another eight weeks before the little girl walked out of the vessels and put her first step on real land. She carried with her a cascade with a small laboratory sapling. She carefully took it to one of the enclosures about a few hundred meters away. “But Dad, you told me about the Himalayas. Where are they? I see no mountains like your photographs.” The father smiled at her and replied. “They are farther east from here dear. It would take longer to reach them now. But trust me, your tree will grow better here than there.” The girl needed nothing more. “Okay Daddy!”

The father looked ahead at the enclosures. They walked inside and with the father’s help, the little girl planted her first sapling. As he watched her push the earth around it, he signed. The temperature was reducing. Soon, they won’t need the enclosure. The trees would actually survive. And the people of the ship would finally be able to come back to the lost world, and create a new world, a better world, right where the first men built the first civilization.

6/2/2015