Approximately one kilometre above the ground, two men walked along a large gantry at a gentle pace. One was relatively short and rather tubby, with a bad comb-over advertising the fact that he was balding rather than concealing it; the other was taller and thinner who had a habit of pushing his glasses higher up his nose every few seconds, regardless of what he was doing.
The shorter man said, ‘So how many ships are we talking about?’
The bespectacled man replied, ‘Two “deep space class” vessels are being constructed. The term that the engineers are using is “Mega-ship”, which I think is probably a more accurate description of what we are trying to build. Quite frankly, we have never tried building anything this big before. No one has.’
‘And how many people will each Mega-ship hold?’ inquired the tubby man as he walked, his eyes wandering all over the skeleton of one of these ships that was currently being constructed.
The gantry upon which the two men walked snaked all around the enormous structure, allowing them to observe progress from any angle they desired.
‘Around five hundred thousand people,’ came the reply from the tall man.
The shorter man’s forehead creased and his eyes narrowed at this news.
‘But...that means that we can only transport a million people from the whole of the UK!’ he spat incredulously.
‘That’s correct,’ said the taller man with a hint of regret creeping into his voice.
‘But the population of the UK is now over eighty million people! What will happen to the rest of them?’
‘I suppose they will be left behind. We simply do not have the resources left to build any more ships.’
The tubby man considered this for a few moments before shrugging and saying, ‘Oh well, as long as me and my family are taken care of, it doesn’t really matter. What about the other countries? What are they doing?’
‘Most are doing exactly what we are doing – building giant ships to take people away from the Earth and off into deep space in search of habitable planets to colonise. The Americans, for example, are building seven Mega-ships if my sources are accurate. They currently have a population of over four hundred million. At that rate, they will barely be able to save one percent of their people when the time comes to launch the ships.’
‘You say that as if they’re inferior. We’re only doing slightly better than they are, if you are simply talking about percentages of people saved.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’
The two men continued to walk in silence for a few minutes, before the short man looked forlornly at the partly constructed ship below and said, ‘Is there no other solution? Is this the only way to save ourselves – to leave everything behind forever?’
The taller man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a single finger and replied, ‘The only viable solution that the world’s greatest minds can come up with. We have gone past the point of no return, we have used up all the planet’s fossil fuels and polluted the environment past recovery with the thoughtless dumping of waste materials and the like. Our population has exploded out of control and the planet simply cannot cope with this number of human beings on it – the soil is now increasingly infertile, the plants are dying and the oceans are largely lifeless. One way or another, millions and millions of humans are going to have to die to restore some kind of balance in nature. Perhaps in time, the planet will be able to heal itself – but not any time soon and certainly not with all these humans on it.’
‘That seems a bit cold....and that’s coming from me!’ said the shorter man, slightly taken aback by the words that the taller man spoke.
‘Some people regard science as cold. I am a scientist so it is in my nature to be analytical. I am merely stating the known facts – I am in no way happy about it. I am just as upset as anyone else about all the suffering and death which is occurring now and will continue to occur for the next few centuries on this planet, if the human race even survives that long without us.’
Another pause, again broken by the short man.
‘I take it public unrest is increasing?’
‘Yes and I’m sure it will become widespread violent rioting when people find out that most of them are not going to be saved.’
‘I see.’
The short man stared at the skeleton of the ship below and uncharacteristically shed a tear as he thought about what he, and others like him, had helped to do to the planet which had given birth to his very race. Thinking about what the future held for himself and for the poor people who would be left behind on a dying planet, he said in a voice no louder than a whisper, ‘May God help us all.’
Aboard the Mega-ship “Intrepid” in deep space
Earth Date: 2303 AD