The Last Man Page 2

  *

  Elim slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the bright white light of the stasis room. His cubicle had already opened exposing him to the cool air of the ship. He struggled to remember his dreams, feeling them slip from his memory, a faint recollection of sitting to dinner with friends and family before he left for the stars lingered, but little more.

  Slowly he rose up and shimmied over to the edge of the cubicle, dangling his feet off of the edge. Blinking his eyes to adjust to the light his wits slowly came back to him and he remembered where he was. Sighing to himself he eased his feet on to the ground and stretched, reaching his hands almost to the ceiling then back down to his knees.

  Ready to head to the bridge and see whether this one last venture yielded any hope for either himself or his people sleeping peacefully in the belly of the ship, he paused for a second as a wave of loneliness and despair swept over him. Dropping to his knees he covered his face with his hands and wept.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there for, he didn’t really think it mattered either, a few minutes wouldn’t change anything. Slowly he rose to his feet, wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. Walking out of the room he realised this could be the last time he left stasis.

  Walking along the corridor he walked past his quarters, not bothering to step in and get changed, the bridge was more important, nothing else mattered. Reaching the entrance for the bridge he paused for a moment before he pressed the entry button that slid the door open. Steeling himself, he pressed the button and walked in, immediately looking at the view screens for a blazing star, some form of heat, of hope.

  Nothing. The screens were black apart from the usual smatterings of distant stars and galaxies the majority of which had long since extinguished.

  Elim screamed in rage, clenched his fist to punch the nearest viewscreen before he managed to restrain himself. Calming down he realised he should first check his position and confirm all systems were functioning correctly. Sitting down in front of the control panel he brought up the diagnostics screen.

  Busying himself with these tasks he took his mind off of the depressing void that filled the view screens in front of him as he ran thorough diagnostics of all the ships systems and navigational instruments.

  Suddenly a light caught his eye as he worked. Looking up he saw a glow outlining the edge of a disk on the view screen. Slowly a star emerged from behind a dark planetary body that had eclipsed its light and hidden it from view. Blinking away tears Elim stared in shock at the first burning star he had witnessed since he had begun this fateful voyage.

  Quickly he cancelled the diagnostic processes which would have taken several hours to finish and began analysing the system for habitable planetary bodies. Even if there was no atmosphere on a planet his ship had the resources to terraform a planet in the habitable zone over a period of decades.

  As the scans began Elim noticed a radio signal had been picked up on one of the radio receivers outside the ship. Frowning in confusion he enabled the audio feed, assuming it would be a random burst of noise from a supernova or some other natural event from eons ago.

  To Elim’s astonishment a voice sounded through the room, making him jump out of his seat in surprise. Elim could not understand what it was saying but it was definitely speech of some kind. Quickly he moved to one of the other screens and tried to trace the signal of the transmission.

  As he worked he realised that some of the words the voice was using were similar to some of the words of his language. “Safe” and “home” were repeated regularly as he realised the message was repeating.

  Puzzled by this he had little time to think as the computer brought up the direction of the transmission. Elim quickly compared the direction of the communication with the system scan of planetary bodies that was just finishing. Elim realised the voice was coming from a solid planet about two weeks away and one that was within the habitable zone. Elim’s eye’s grew wide as his excitement grew and he shouted at the air in excitement.

  Quickly he plotted a course towards the planet, hands shaking as he did it. After a few minutes of confirming the preliminary scans and the source of the transmission, realisation dawned on Elim. He might just have finally found a place for his people to renew their civilisation. After thousands of years of searching the dying universe for one more star that could support life he had finally found one. An analysis of the transmission was also completed by the ship’s computer, embedded in the signal was a binary code which displayed some strange symbols.

  Elim studied this strange message until Elim realised one obvious fact he had missed in his excitement. Someone, some race, was already at this potential haven for his people. Another race was already at the one last place, possibly anywhere in the universe, that his people could be reborn upon. As his excitement faded he deduced that they were unlikely to be malevolent or unreceptive to other ships hence the transmission and he had little options anyway and no weapons of any kind.

  Deciding there was little point worrying about these things now when he had no idea what would greet him, he sent an audio reply detailing who he was and a short history of his people and mission. Elim then began checking the various landing systems on the ship and went over the many processes necessary to revive his people. After so much time he had forgotten many of the procedures necessary to land the craft safely and with two weeks until he arrived, realised now was a good time to start learning.

  Elim left the system scanning for a response from the planet and left for his quarters to study, a smile and a spring in his step for the first time in years.