Unforgettable journey to other planets. Venera Harrison

a minute several people had gathered around Jean-Jacques Dordain’s table: Igor Komarov, Charles Bolden and others.

      Charles Bolden began:

      “We have checked the signal quality and determined that this is definitely a recording from Voyager 2. This is it.”

      “Okay,” reasoned the head of the ESA aloud. “We have a signal that we sent into space to inform about our location.”

      “But the signal is coming from the Earth,” added Igor.

      “On the frequency of space transmissions,” Charles nodded.

      “A weather anomaly, an electromagnetic flare…” Jean-Jacques Dordain pondered. “We need at least something. Some kind of clue.”

      Monsieur Dordain’s young assistant couldn’t take it anymore:

      “Perhaps our message has been received,” he hesitated, “and now it has been sent to us using some device that exists on the Earth.”

      Everyone turned to the assistant.

      “A little more realistic, Francois,” said Monsieur Dordain grudgingly.

      At the other end of the hall, Bernard Bajolet was sitting at his desk, dialing Jean-Pierre’s phone for the third time. “The mobile phone you are trying to call has been switched off, Please Try again Later.” He closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. Then he called the accounting department.

      “Good afternoon, this is Bernard Bajolet, please find me the phone number of my assistant’s wife, Jean-Pierre Biro,” he paused. “As quickly as possible.”

      Part 2 – Chapter 22

      Debby listened intensely. She searched for something to latch onto in the surrounding sounds, but found nothing. All she could hear was the wind rubbing against the hull of the plane. It sounded like a whistle or a hum. Debby closed her eyes and felt her rib cage rise and fall heavily. She listened to her unnaturally loud breathing. Someone ran to the door and stopped. She heard Jean-Pierre shouting outside in English:

      “Hurry, we’re here!”

      He ran inside, out of breath, but with burning eyes. His face said, “we are saved!”

      “There are people! They are coming to us!” he swallowed. “How do you feel?”

      Debby closed her eyes and exhaled, her lips expressing either a smile or despair. The pain didn’t stop for a moment, but she felt joy. Now they were going to get help. Consciousness, clouded by pain, suddenly sank into euphoria.

      Jean-Pierre looked out again.

      “We are here!” he shouted, calling out to the people.

      Debby began to listen to what was going on outside. She could hear several people approaching.

      Two Nepalese military men, a tourist, an elderly man, and a girl approached what was left of the tail section of the plane. Jean-Pierre raised his hand up, examining their clothes. He strained to think what could be the reason for such a combination of civilians and military, people of different nationalities, and in the middle of the mountains, where not a hint of civilization was visible. Jean-Pierre saw that the young man was carrying a hiking backpack on his shoulders, while the others were not even wearing warm clothes. The Frenchman tried to push the thoughts away. Somewhere deep inside there was a doubt, “They can’t help.” The group came closer to Jean-Pierre, and a civilian who was older than the others stepped forward.

      “Hey, what happened?” Dr Capri asked briefly in English.

      “Hi, I’m Jean-Pierre Biro. I was on a Paris-Tokyo flight. I don’t know exactly what happened, but the tail of our plane fell off and we…”

      “We? Who’s with you?”

      “There’s a woman here who needs help. It looks like a closed leg fracture,” Jean-Pierre pointed to the ajar door of the toilet.

      Dr Capri began to translate Jean-Pierre’s report into Nepali. Yulia and David moved toward the mangled part of the plane, Jean-Pierre guiding them.

      David looked at the massive steel tail that was wedged between two huge blocks of rock, assessed the slope of the mountain with doubt, and shifted his eyebrows. “Some sort of mystery. Two plane crashes in an hour. What’s going on here?” He followed Jean-Pierre and couldn’t believe the man in front of him was a plane crash survivor.

      Debby saw shadows outside. Strange faces peeked into the room. When Debby saw Yulia, she stopped feeling pain for a second.

      “Oh!” she let out a relieved shout along with a smile.

      Yulia walked in and took her hand. She stood awkwardly, half-bent, in the confined space.

      “Hi,” David said, standing behind Yulia. “We’ll help you. How are you feeling?”

      Debby was relieved to see Yulia and David, but instantly she was tired, and somehow she felt sleepy. She felt almost safe.

      “Hi,” Debby said to both David and Yulia, and to all the people who looked through the doorway of the toilet room one by one.

      She saw Jean-Pierre’s face and felt like she’d known him almost all her life.

      “I’m fine, but I can’t move my leg,” Debby added.

      The helicopter captain and Dr Capri tried to approach Debby. To do so, they had to push Yulia and David outside. They sat squatting near Debby’s legs, which were lying in the doorway.

      “Yes, it’s a closed fracture, she needs to go to the hospital right away,” the helicopter captain said in Nepali, examining Debby’s leg.

      “What can we do, the helicopter is broken, right?” looking at Debby, Dr Capri asked the captain.

      “We have to get the helicopter working and take her to the nearest town with a hospital,” said the captain, “otherwise… based on the blue toes on her leg…” he paused again. “We need to try to get the helicopter up, or find a village nearby.”

      “Can you get a helicopter up here?” Dr Capri asked.

      “If we can take off,” said the captain as he stood up, “but it would be better to take her to the helicopter.”

      They moved away from the room, making some space for Yulia and David. Jean-Pierre approached them to discuss the plan. They agreed that the girl had a closed fracture and many bruises, and they needed to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

      “It’s amazing how you survived,” Dr Capri shook his head. “Surviving a plane crash.”

      “Now we need to help the American girl and send rescuers to search for the plane,” concluded Jean-Pierre.

      Captain Shah nodded:

      “Yes, and as fast as we could.”

      He put the first aid kit he had taken from the helicopter in front of him and pulled out a painkiller. He put the liquid in a syringe and went into the tail section of the plane to give Debby the injection.

      Dr Capri looked around at everyone standing outside.

      In the middle of the beautiful mountain landscape, standing next to the wreckage, were people who shouldn’t have been here at all. And the doctor understood that very well. He knew this country, he knew what was possible here and what was not. What he saw in front of him in no way fit into his already complicated plans for the day.

      He looked at Yulia, who did not fully, but certainly understood the complexity of the whole situation better than anyone else. She knew for a fact that the helicopter would almost certainly not take off. She knew for a fact that the plane had crashed for the same reason that their helicopter. And so David’s phone went crazy for the same reason. And it all started with that signal they detected in Kathmandu. And the source of that signal is somewhere near here.

      The doctor shifted his gaze to David, who emerged from the remains of the plane. He was sitting beside his backpack, opening it and taking out his goods. Captain Shah showed him to keep