History
Frank thought that he offended them as the pin drop
silence extended... finally Frank couldn’t bear it any
longer and said ,
‘
I am sorry. ..’
Then the cacophony of voices started and Re raised his
voice to tell him , ‘Frank after all this, I think you
deserve to know. I can tell you only what I know and all
my co-habitants agree’
Re sighed and said that He did not know the answers for
all these questions ..None of them knew anything .they
only know that they are far superior than the gigantic
beings that lived outside their world and they could get
the knowledge from anyone even from distance away .
They were born with the knowledge gathered by their
ancestors so no evidences could be seen anywhere ... But
their inborn knowledge did not give them any knowledge
about from where they came or how they happened to live
in this cavern. ‘We thought this was our world for a long
time but we can never live with giants...’
They used only magnet and particles to get all the
energy that they needed ...a transport a maglev mobile
made of a metal never seen .
2
8
‘What , do you have a transport ? show me I can assist
you to find the make .. My hobby is ancient and
futuristic transport . Where is it..?’ Frank was eager!
Re heard his excitement and he showed him the shining
shark like contraption that was standing in between two
columns at the centre .
The shark as Frank called , was shining with a pinkish
glow in the blue light . Frank has been always interested
in air transport and he has a huge collection of models of
air planes and rockets. He has never seen anything like
this Shark.
Frank asked, ‘what is this ? are you sure this is a
transport vehicle?’
‘
Yes Frank , our knowledge is passed from generations
to generations . But there must have been some ways of
blocking selective knowledge. Because all of us know
how to travel and operate this but we do know where or
who had brought us here. In fact we are not sure how it
came inside as we know of only one entry that is the
tunnel...as you see, there is no way this could have come
through the tunnel...’ Re sounded exasperated.
‘
Well let me see’ Frank said as his excitement went up
.. but when he went near The Shark as he called it, he
was disappointed as he could not see how he could enter
.
.
.
.. the entry point was just two feet wide in the underbelly
It stood no more than six feet tall and some fifteen feet
2
9
length on its three legged stand. The contraption was
looking brand new and few entered though the hole and
asked him to look in.
Frank tentatively put his head inside the shark.. He was
taken aback with its interior...It looked as if it was made
of rose gold ,all around the nose so many gadgets
adorned the interior wall and they were showing different
statistics. He could see rows of tiny beds on either side
like a double decker beds and leaving an aisle which ran
from the nose to the tail in the fuselage.He could not see
any machines and wondered if it was powered by
MagLev or atomic power ... he knew the feasibility study
was conducted recently and still it was on paper only .
Frank searched for magnet when one of them showed
the roof and said ‘magnet’
Another one showed the floor .. he understood that it
was far superior to anything on earth as magnetic
levitation aircraft were still in experimental stage and
recalled , it could be only used for takeoff and landing ...
He asked ,’ what kind of a speed it gives?’
The answer came very confidently and Frank had
abruptly straightened got knocked on the head.
He turned to Re, ‘what??’ The one who answered
earlier again said ‘100 times the light of speed in your
time’
3
0
‘
Do you know the speed of light?’ Frank asked
scornfully and again the answer came immediately
‘300,000km/s . in your calculation’
He remembered what he studied in his aerospace
engineering class.. EPR paradox ,some quantum effects
appeared to be transmitted instantaneously so it could
reach faster than light and Harman effect which explained
something about particles reaching more than the speed of
light..
Frank stood there stunned beyond words... Finally he
asked ,’ is it a space craft then?’
Re replied, ‘we have no idea. We really don’t
know...We know only we don’t belong here because we
are far ahead in our intelligence and your time is not ours’
‘What do you mean?’ Frank thought he would come out
of a dream shortly
Re said that you age fast ,you pass one year in 365 days ,
and your life span is 100 years only but our life span is
1
2
0000 years in your time . All of us here are less than
000 years old …
Frank interrupted him and asked, ‘ how many years you
have been here?’ ..
Re did not reply for a long time and finally he said, ‘
they were not sure but approximately they have been here
for the past 1000 years or more !!!
3
1
Frank could not take all these. He had thousands of
questions but he did not know what to ask first . After a
long pause he asked how they brought their spacecraft
under the mountain.
Till now ,all the others were talking among themselves
in a hushed manner and now there was a pin drop silence .
No one moved... Frank thought he had offended them
when one of them said , ‘Frank we have been breaking
our head over it for the past 1000 years.. If we had known
that we could have made a run earlier ...Unfortunately
,that would remain a puzzle ‘
Frank was perplexed...he thought aloud.. They were
extremely intelligent, transfer of knowledge came from
one generation to another naturally, yet some specific
knowledge had been withdrawn... he asked them as an
idea came to hem..
Could you connect with anyone by your thoughts?
Re said ‘Yes’
‘Then connect with someone. ..your father.. your
teacher... someone’ Frank was so excited ..
Re looked at him with the sad smile and said , ‘ we have
tried everything... we could not connect with anyone of
our people. I think they are no more’
Frank was utterly deflated and he thought that this was
the end of the road... he felt miserable that these
3
2
wonderful people would live for other thousands of
years in this cavern like refugee and die here without
even knowing their history. .. real tragedy he thought..
Frank wanted to go out ,felt suffocated even though air
vents were there all around. He got up and said , ‘ Ok Re I
will go now... you are all welcome to come to me at
anytime but be careful’
One of them came forward and Frank squatted down and
stretched his hand to shake but instead of shaking his
hand he kissed his hand and said, ‘ I am Ro .. Remember
me ..’
It was really too much for Frank , so he touched him
gently and got up.
Re walked towards the tunnel from where they had
entered .As before Re went in first to show the way and
Frank bent down and crawled into the tunnel.
They came out of the tunnel and climbed out of the
ravine, which was filled with flood water and rushing in
the narrow gully with a loud noise.
Frank turned towards Re and asked him if there were
any means of connecting with him remotely as he noticed
his phone went dead inside the cavern.
Re clapped his hand, ‘Frank I was waiting for you to
ask’ … He took a thin chain with the pendant which had
3
3
the same pink sheen like that the shark and handed over
to him
‘Frank you have it with you at all the time . It should be
next to your skin ,touching you. If so when I want to
connect with you I can send my thoughts to you and the
same way if you think of me with concentration this
would shine and become warm .Then you can think of
the message and I would know it.. But don’t use it in front
of others and promise me that you will never tell anyone
about us…’
Frank took the chain gratefully and said, ‘Re , I promise
you I wouldn’t tell anyone ..You know it.. But now I am
going...I know the way’
He lifted Re and gave him a hug and slowly kept him
down... Re moved down and disappeared from his view in
seconds. Frank looked all around him to mark the place in
his memory but it was still dark so he turned back to look
at his house. The power must be on now ...His house
looked like an illuminated palace directly opposite to the
place where he stood .
Frank started walking towards his house thinking about
all that happened…
*
*******
3
4