“Thank you, Kelly. Switch the image onto the holographic interface, please.”
“Good day, Councillor! Hello, Lora! ” a 3D image of Jane Forest, hovering over the projector, was greeting them by joining her hands in a welcoming gesture . “We have a small report about the object delivered on Titanium 10 hours ago.”
“We were just reading the medical report.”
“Well, their report is probably the most detailed. The IT department will need more time than we had previously thought to reconstruct all the data. So far, they have been able to define the exact date of the ship’s departure from Earth, it’s the 13>th January, 2077 according to the Earth calendar. The spacecraft with the rescue capsule on board was travelling at super-light speed for a long time and, initially, its trajectory was almost the same as ours… We can suggest that it was deliberately trying to follow the ‘Solar Flotilla’; but, for some reason, it was jolted out of hyperspace before reaching its goal. The reason why the rescue capsule subsequently separated from the mother ship remains unknown.”
“This is very interesting…” mused the councillor.
“Unfortunately, we can only speculate about the events, basing our conclusions on assumptions: not facts. The biggest problem is that we don’t have the mother ship that carried the capsule.”
“Thank you, Miss Forest. I’d appreciate it if I received all the details electronically.”
“Of course, my report is ready.”
Jean rubbed his chin thoughtfully and turned to Lora.
“How’s our guest doing?”
“Not very well. The life support system that has been keeping him alive all these years is far from perfect and eventually caused brain malnutrition. Doctor Borshchevsky sounded hopeful, but didn’t give any accurate prediction about the length of the therapy.”
“I see. So all we can do is wait. Did you say something about a virus earlier?”
“Yes, the doctor said that he has discovered some kind of antibodies in the blood of this man. We can check the report…”
“Of course,” the councillor swiped the sensor panel with his hand, causing the holographic interface to display a series of pages.
“From the look of it, he acquired these antibodies while already in flight,” said Lora, studying the notes carefully.
“It’s an unknown disease. It hadn’t existed before our launch from Earth, but we also haven’t encountered it on other planets. The causative agent could’ve appeared much later…”
“The origin of the virus is still unknown…” added Lora.
“We still only have very meagre information. We can only guess whether the infection was present in the ship from the beginning of its launch or it appeared while in flight, causing the rescue capsules to detach from the mother ship…”
The girl shook her head thoughtfully.
“What if it was an attempt to ask for our help? What if an unknown epidemic struck the people, threatening them with total extinction, and those two were the only survivors?”
Jean raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Your assumptions are impressively fatalistic.”
“You’re so right. I don’t understand what’s been happening to me…”
“You just attach great importance to what’s gone on…”
Lora looked at Jean, puzzled.
“How can I not?”
“What do you mean? How can anyone not think so much and not assume the worst?” the councillor asked her calmly.
“It’s not about my assumptions, though the finding has been really haunting me. It’s just that we are talking about Earth! Our home!” the girl realized that she almost shouted the last words.
