A Religion of Thirst
Logan Domineck
We watched the sky. The cold, dark sky, laid against the equally lifeless ground.
Silence reigned, except for the faint sounds of the shouts we had made years ago, finally reaching us. It turned out that a silent planet carried sound very well.
He and I stared at the sky, silent. We already knew for what we were watching.
“You’re sure it’s tonight?” he asks, checking the board, covered in equations. There wasn’t much light, only a single star in the otherwise still sky.
“Yeah, man. This was pretty much the…. Fourth or fifth thing I figured after the sun went blam.”
“So you did it when we still had light?”
“Yeah, of course I did. Do you think I’d calculate the lifetime of the last star we can see on the back of my hand?”
“I guess not,” he replied simply, sitting back on the ground. The cold seeped through the suits we were both wearing, environmental suits that could keep us alive through just about anything. Not that we needed the help, but it was for comfort. Standing on the frozen remains of the atmosphere wasn’t the most relaxing thing when you could feel the frozen oxygen through the soles of your rapidly freezing shoes.
“So this is it?” he asks again, lazily reaching a hand up to the star, seeming like he was trying to grab it out of the sky, like he could hold one little spark in his hands for the rest of time.
Truly, he meant for the rest of time. We weren’t the last humans, standing on a dead planet with a frozen atmosphere out of random chance.
I remembered the announcement clearly, that we had finally found a way for immortality to come. Hardly a day went by when I didn’t think about it, but now especially, I couldn’t help but reminisce. Some aliens-or maybe something else- out there had made a deal with us. We sacrifice things, and some of us get to outlast everything. The greater the value of our sacrifice, the more of us get to live on.
So, humans being humans, we blew up the sun.
It took us a few generations, granted, but we had all the time in the world. It was eternity on the line! And it worked. The sun was shattered into a small, dark ball, and most of the planets in the solar system (excluding the shielded earth) were destroyed in the fallout.
Two immortals were created. The two of us, standing in the ruins of our hopes and dreams. If a star wasn’t enough to give us more than two people, then what could we sacrifice? What could we possibly give that was more valuable?
This is what I thought of when I was watching the star. This is what I was thinking when it stopped.
It just stopped. The last star in the endlessly dark sky, the last light in what had become an endless black night had closed, with no fanfare and no trumpets. The last bit of light to reach this cold world had passed. Ultima Lux, as we named it. The last light in a dead galaxy.
I looked to him. Or at least, I looked in his direction. Even with endless years to acclimate to the darkness, not even our perfect eyes could see in absolute darkness.
“Ready to go?” I asked him, and he knew what I meant.
“Yep. You’re sure you know where we’re going?”
I rolled my eyes again. He was just trying to annoy me.
“Yes, I’m sure. You sure we can use Hydrogen as fuel?”
I couldn’t see, but I imagined him rolling his eyes back.
“Yes, I’m sure. I built the engine myself.”
“Then let’s go.” I reply, standing up and walking away, walking to a sizable metal tube off to the side, one I knew how to navigate like the back of my hand. He follows.
This construct has as much resemblance to 21st century spaceships as a blade of dried grass does to supertensile carbon tube cables. Each and every element of the ship had been researched and painstakingly constructed over centuries by masters of every discipline known to man- i.e. us. For it had one purpose and one purpose only- to take us far away. Away from the quiet. Away from the cold. Away from the dark.
We knew what to do by heart. We knew perfectly how the ship worked. We knew every inch, every curve and every little piece of metal and switch.
He put a hand on the shoulder of my suit, steading us for the impending launch. I did the same to him.
We turned our keys. The ship started, a sound like a roaring dragon, waking from a deep slumber under the earth.
The frozen atmosphere vaporized for miles in every direction, giving us the boost we needed to escape the gravity well.
The energy of the hydrogen reactor constantly breaking down ambient energy powered the lights we installed. For a moment, I was blinded, before my eyes adjusted to the highest level of light seen on earth in millennia. We could see color. We could see each other. We could see the inside of the ship, for all we needed it.
As one, we turned and looked back at the frozen, dark ball we were leaving. There wasn’t much to see, a dark sphere on the back of a dark sphere.
We turned back to face the future, out there in some distant and young galaxy where the stars were infant, and not yet dead. We would outlive that one too. And the next, and the next, and the next. There was always more to see, after all. There was always more to learn. And when entropy reigned and the universe was collapsing, back to a single, infinite point?
Well, that would be quite a sight to see.
Logan Domineck
We watched the sky. The cold, dark sky, laid against the equally lifeless ground.
Silence reigned, except for the faint sounds of the shouts we had made years ago, finally reaching us. It turned out that a silent planet carried sound very well.
He and I stared at the sky, silent. We already knew for what we were watching.
“You’re sure it’s tonight?” he asks, checking the board, covered in equations. There wasn’t much light, only a single star in the otherwise still sky.
“Yeah, man. This was pretty much the…. Fourth or fifth thing I figured after the sun went blam.”
“So you did it when we still had light?”
“Yeah, of course I did. Do you think I’d calculate the lifetime of the last star we can see on the back of my hand?”
“I guess not,” he replied simply, sitting back on the ground. The cold seeped through the suits we were both wearing, environmental suits that could keep us alive through just about anything. Not that we needed the help, but it was for comfort. Standing on the frozen remains of the atmosphere wasn’t the most relaxing thing when you could feel the frozen oxygen through the soles of your rapidly freezing shoes.
“So this is it?” he asks again, lazily reaching a hand up to the star, seeming like he was trying to grab it out of the sky, like he could hold one little spark in his hands for the rest of time.
Truly, he meant for the rest of time. We weren’t the last humans, standing on a dead planet with a frozen atmosphere out of random chance.
I remembered the announcement clearly, that we had finally found a way for immortality to come. Hardly a day went by when I didn’t think about it, but now especially, I couldn’t help but reminisce. Some aliens-or maybe something else- out there had made a deal with us. We sacrifice things, and some of us get to outlast everything. The greater the value of our sacrifice, the more of us get to live on.
So, humans being humans, we blew up the sun.
It took us a few generations, granted, but we had all the time in the world. It was eternity on the line! And it worked. The sun was shattered into a small, dark ball, and most of the planets in the solar system (excluding the shielded earth) were destroyed in the fallout.
Two immortals were created. The two of us, standing in the ruins of our hopes and dreams. If a star wasn’t enough to give us more than two people, then what could we sacrifice? What could we possibly give that was more valuable?
This is what I thought of when I was watching the star. This is what I was thinking when it stopped.
It just stopped. The last star in the endlessly dark sky, the last light in what had become an endless black night had closed, with no fanfare and no trumpets. The last bit of light to reach this cold world had passed. Ultima Lux, as we named it. The last light in a dead galaxy.
I looked to him. Or at least, I looked in his direction. Even with endless years to acclimate to the darkness, not even our perfect eyes could see in absolute darkness.
“Ready to go?” I asked him, and he knew what I meant.
“Yep. You’re sure you know where we’re going?”
I rolled my eyes again. He was just trying to annoy me.
“Yes, I’m sure. You sure we can use Hydrogen as fuel?”
I couldn’t see, but I imagined him rolling his eyes back.
“Yes, I’m sure. I built the engine myself.”
“Then let’s go.” I reply, standing up and walking away, walking to a sizable metal tube off to the side, one I knew how to navigate like the back of my hand. He follows.
This construct has as much resemblance to 21st century spaceships as a blade of dried grass does to supertensile carbon tube cables. Each and every element of the ship had been researched and painstakingly constructed over centuries by masters of every discipline known to man- i.e. us. For it had one purpose and one purpose only- to take us far away. Away from the quiet. Away from the cold. Away from the dark.
We knew what to do by heart. We knew perfectly how the ship worked. We knew every inch, every curve and every little piece of metal and switch.
He put a hand on the shoulder of my suit, steading us for the impending launch. I did the same to him.
We turned our keys. The ship started, a sound like a roaring dragon, waking from a deep slumber under the earth.
The frozen atmosphere vaporized for miles in every direction, giving us the boost we needed to escape the gravity well.
The energy of the hydrogen reactor constantly breaking down ambient energy powered the lights we installed. For a moment, I was blinded, before my eyes adjusted to the highest level of light seen on earth in millennia. We could see color. We could see each other. We could see the inside of the ship, for all we needed it.
As one, we turned and looked back at the frozen, dark ball we were leaving. There wasn’t much to see, a dark sphere on the back of a dark sphere.
We turned back to face the future, out there in some distant and young galaxy where the stars were infant, and not yet dead. We would outlive that one too. And the next, and the next, and the next. There was always more to see, after all. There was always more to learn. And when entropy reigned and the universe was collapsing, back to a single, infinite point?
Well, that would be quite a sight to see.