“What the hell is happening?” The mind boggled technician asked.
“We got their input just a few hours ago. Now our satellites are trailing them. The distance that it covers between any two satellites in the time taken by the craft gives the value of the speed which you are demanding, sir.”
“And are you fulfilling it?”
“They are traveling at 0.8 times the speed of light and they are heading straight upon the earth surface.”
“And what does the catastrophe scenario tells us?”
“That, we would see no tomorrow.”
The technician nodded grimly. He strode immediately outside the cube. It was inevitable; he had to call the council. They would have to their own prodigious brainchild, or else get fried by it.
*****************
“Does the amount 2.5 million sounds very less to you, master technician?” The president of Russia asked.
“I would have to say that in front of 3.5 billion, yes.” The master technician replied.
“And we have no contact with the craft?” The prime minister of India asked.
“May I know why?” The president of America interrupted.
“You see sir, when we designed that craft, we have to keep open to all the possible catastrophes that could befall on the ship. And one of them was the scathing radiation which they could encounter, of course, they new material we discovered would null all of their effects, but we still had to establish contact with them. So it was decided that we would so set their computer system that it would receive only the waves having speed same as that of the craft, rest all will be discarded, but considering their distance, the wave at 0.8 times the speed of light would take 12 hours to reach them, in the same time it would collide with earth.”
“So the only option with us is to destroy the ship and the people inside it.” The prime minister of England asked.
“I think that is inevitable. I suggest…….”
“YOU ARE NOT GOING TO COMMIT THIS GODDAMN FRIGGING MISTAKE!!!!!!”
The door of the 3-d imager burst open, the light from the door shadowing the world leaders’ virtual faces.
The master technician turned around, astonished. Dang it! The world famous controversialist was standing at the door.
“I tried to stop him sir, but he would not listen, and of course I can’t bodily harm such an old man.” The guard said sheepishly.
“I know that I disturbed your august gathering, but I have important piece of information to share.” He raised his palm in front of the master technician who wanted to say something as a retort.
The old man shoved the guard outside with his weak feeble hands, closed the door behind him, and strode in front of the 3-d imager.
“Listen, leaders, a craft carrying about 2.5 million human beings, including children couldn’t possibly be heading on to undertake a suicidal mission, just to have momentary satisfying an idea to rampage earth, after which they themselves would not survive.”
“What’s your point, Venkat?” The Prime minister of India asked.
The master technician was aghast to see this snatcher of other’s discovery hurtling into his cube, but Venkat held all attention from the leaders who were right now, down in their bunkers.
“My point is that, 0.8 times the speed of light is the ultimate speed of that craft, the people inside it must be silently squished inside the craft, it is also the maximum bearable capacity of the metal of the craft after which it would start dismantling, and the mass goes on increasing as with the speed, so the fuel required to thrust it must be the all of it. No one would be hell bent to spent the entire fuel, plus get squished due to the weight just to destroy the earth, when the risk on their lives is three fold.”
“As you all are discussing, the craft comes hurtling at us, we have to destroy it before it destroys us.” The master technician said, getting irritated.
“And destroy the only invention, which would never be built again.” Venkat replied.
“I knew it; you would never care about human lives, and how could you when they obstructed your dark matter handled craft. Leaders don’t listen to this man he is a goner, a robo….”
“I only ask you to initiate the inquiry of all those things that went into the craft that are unaccounted for.”
“What are you trying to say?” The technician asked, with a hint of sarcasm.
“I can more than wager that a time initiated bomb is threatening them to travel at this speed.”
“That craft is bomb proof. It’s a small world out there, even if some of it got bombed, it would not affect the motion of the ship, or the life of any other people, the impact of the bomb could be stifled out…”
“But not where it still matters….”
Once again the door burst open.
“Sir you have to see this, this is almost impossible an idea but…”
“What the hell?” The master technician asked baffled at the outpourings.
“They have sent us a signal.”
*****************
“The signal was originally send some 8 hours ago.”
“It plainly states that while checking the components of the machinery parts, as they were nearing their landing, they discovered something that should not have been there in the first place, it threatens to blow up the anti matter loaded engine. It would of course be a catastrophe.” Venkat said. “They discovered that they would have to choose between dying when they discovered the bomb, or speed up towards earth and delay their deaths. And the machine room was sealed long before the launch itself from the space near the earth, so it is not possible to implant the bomb unless you have an authority…….”
“We will leave this blame game for later, but first of all we have to handle this crisis level headedly.” The master technician said, looking around the 3-d images. The leaders nodded. “See this message was sent 8 hours ago, but for them it was actually send 24 hours ago.”
The leaders gaped at him with utter incomprehension.
“Whoseover planted the bomb would have taken into account that the people onboard discover the instrument much later to cause any flaw in his plan. So when the seal was broken as to check the instruments before landing, the bomb activated to life, so they were alarmed and send the signal. Now your majesties may have certain idea of what Einstein’s relativity means. Time slows down and all that. We won’t delve in detail. So according to Einstein’s relativity, as the craft slows down for us, we would receive the same signals earlier than what they considered it would be send. Now placing 0.8c into the equation, we receive the same signal one third time faster than it was sent by them. So it would take 24 hours for them to send a signal and 8 hours for us to receive it. So when I said, it was sent 8 hours ago, it means it was considering our frame of reference, 8 hours ago. Now if we were to send a signal now as to inform them how to subdue anti matter bomb, of course at 0.8c, a technology which they are not well versed in as it was discovered after their original launch, it would take us 12 hours to send, but if you are an intelligent bomber, you would not give them 12 hours. As a result they are by now having less than 12 hours to live.”
The leaders had to have some time to digest this information.
“But we can at least try?” The president of China asked.
“Why even try what is futile. Of course, their deaths would be deeply regretted, but there is no other way out, you can’t sacrifice a majority on the behest of minority. You…..”
“Let’s go deeper into Einstein’s relativity.” Venkat stated
“Venkat…”
Venkat once again held his hand out. “Time does indeed slow down for accelerated thing which is observed. What master technician told is only partially correct. It would indeed take us 12 hours to send, but they would receive it in just four hours.”
“What?” The leaders cried in unison.
“Einstein’s relativity works other way round also. And our master technician did not want to delve deeper into the subject of relativity, but I would. Tell me whose frame of reference is correct, theirs or ours.”
“I don’t understand the question.” The President of America asked.
“Who is in accelerated motion?”
“They are.”
“We would observe them performing tasks slowly, if we could see them.”
“So?”
“The signal may not have been send 24 hours ago by them.”
“How?”
“See this way, when observed by them, we would be slow, when observed by us, they would be slow. But we are not in accelerated motion with them, they are. So their point of observation is wrong. Now the calculation is wholly correct. Master technician again misguided you. The fact that the signal receives three times earlier has only something to do with their slowness as seen from us.
Now if they were traveling away from us at 0.8c, then it would three times the original time for them to receive the signal, and it would, as seen from their point of view three times for us to receive their signal. But now they are coming towards us, so according to relativity, it takes one third times less time to receive the signal then to send it. Take an example of two twins, one in the craft, nearly at the speed of light, and other on earth. Now the person in craft would be younger than one on the earth. But the man in craft would think that his brother would be older than him! But this of course doesn’t happen as he was in motion with his brother and not the other way round. Similar is this case. So they may not have sent the signal 24 hours ago. Even they would and they only had twelve hours, they would receive the signal in 4 hours and have nearly eight hours to diffuse the bomb.”
“So we send them the information regarding the diffusing the bomb.”
“And also the arrest of our master technician.”
What?”
The technician was slumped in his chair, his face some what glum.
“He just said something which he should not have. How can a bomb invented after the launch, be still in the craft which was launched, and he himself was the discoverer of the bomb. So he presented the discovery to the world after he had secretly placed one of those on the rockets. Plus the bullshit he presented you was to derail you from the facts. He did not consider their checking the equipments before landing, true the bomb got activated as it neared the earth, not that the bomber feared its being known and signals exchanged, but it got activated as it neared its target, that is earth. You know that you would not risk earth, so the ship would be destroyed. And so along with it would die the space age, as humans would be then paranoid not to continue further space adventure, and they would be bounded only to earth. And the love of master technician for earth is well known.”
Two guards entered the room; they have already been alerted to arrest the master technician.
“You would forget the earth, the planet which gave birth to you, you would forget it whole.” The technician said, totally defeated.
Alienman 