Apocalypse Read online

  “The sixth stage is where all the matter in the universe starts getting compressed smaller and smaller by black holes. Do you see the veil of the dress hanging down on the left side? That is the depiction of a black hole. The two pieces of cloth running down with a gap in the middle is its event horizon.

  “The small circle between them is the matter in the universe getting compressed into energy. All matter finally turns into pure energy and gets under Shiva’s right foot in the form of a dwarf, waiting for the next cosmic dance to create a new universe. This is the cosmic cycle that goes on forever.”

  Andrea was impressed with Rajaraja’s description of the Nataraja statue and said, “The Theory of Nataraja is the best theory I have heard in my entire life. Its the only one that perfectly explains the time before the big bang. Thank you for sharing this information with us.”

  In a few minutes, the train entered the station. The signboard was made in pure gold with the letters ‘RAJARAJA PALACE’ engraved on it. The doors opened after the train came to a complete halt. The guards stepped out and stood on either side of the door.

  A massive crowd of people from Kumari had gathered outside the railway station, waiting to catch a glimpse of their King.

  Devi, the queen of Kumari and wife of Rajaraja Cholan, along with Madhavan, their son, and the crown prince of Kumari, were waiting to receive the King.

  Devi was the epitome of grace and beauty. She was wearing a traditional saree made from the famous Kanchipuram silk. It was a light green saree designed with a forest theme. A variety of wild animals and birds, including deer, elephant, tiger, monkeys, peacock, and eagle, were elegantly woven into the saree’s design.

  Madhavan was a teenager, fourteen years old. He looked precisely like Rajaraja. Devi often said that Madhavan’s mannerisms closely resembled that of his father.

  Rajaraja Cholan’s pet calf Amudha was anxiously waiting for his arrival as well. Amudha was six months old and had white fur all over her body. Her ears and legs alone had black hair.

  The mother cow had died immediately after giving birth to Amudha. Rajaraja was visiting the Royal Stable and Cowshed at that time. By the time Amudha got up on her foot, Rajaraja was standing in front of her. Amudha thought that Rajaraja was her mother and thus began the bond between them.

  As soon as the crowd saw Rajaraja getting down on the platform, they started cheering and shouted the words ‘Rajaraja Cholan Valga’ repeatedly in the Tamil language which meant ‘Long Live Rajaraja Cholan.’

  Devi and Madhavan bowed before Rajaraja. He smiled at them and nodded his head.

  Amudha ran towards Rajaraja, making a “Maaa” sound. Rajaraja hugged Amudha and slowly patted on its head. He never felt the want of a daughter, as Amudha was already in that place. He saw Amudha and Madhavan as his two eyes.

  The list of dignitaries arriving at Kumari was prepared well in advance, and one officer each from the Kumari administration was assigned to each of the fifteen country leaders. One car was assigned to each of the leaders and their officials.

  Two flags were kept on each of the cars, the flag on the right side was the flag of Kumari, and the flag on the left side was the national flag of the respective leader going in that car. As soon as all the leaders got in their allocated cars, Rajaraja’s elite royal security guards on horsebacks wearing complete body armor with the royal spear in their hands formed two lines, one on either side of the road.

  There was a motorcade with riders on five motorcycles in the front. They started moving first, and the cars followed the motorcade, one behind the other. The horses flanked the vehicles on either side of the road.

  The railway station was at the southeast corner of the palace. The palace was built on forty-five acres of land, two-thirds of the front portion were aesthetically landscaped gardens with roads leading to the palace. There were fountains on either side of the road with different colored lights, with the water making various geometric patterns. The lights on either side of the road looked like jasmine flowers hanging down, and on the top of them was a lotus flower. The Jasmine flowers were glowing white in color, and the Lotus flowers were pink in color. They gave out a bright fluorescent light.

  The palace got bigger and bigger as the convoy got closer to it. There were children lined up on either side of the road, waving the Kumari flag and cheering the leaders coming in procession.

  The sound of fighter aircraft was heard from afar, and it slowly started to increase. Within a few seconds, the sound got so loud that the ground shook. The dignitaries looked up in the sky and saw twenty-five spaceships in a triangular formation flying above the convoy, throwing rose petals on their path as they passed by. Unlike the small fighter aircraft on the Earth, each one of these spaceships was bigger than a twelve-storied building, yet their speed multiple times faster than a typical fighter aircraft.

  As soon as the convoy reached the palace entrance, Rajaraja got down from the car, followed by Devi, Madhavan, and Amudha.

  The Commander-in-Chief of the Kumari Army, Manian Brahmarayan, marched forward towards Rajaraja to receive him. Manian had bravely fought alongside Rajaraja in many battles and won numerous awards for his valor and bravery.

  He lowered his sword in front of Rajaraja and lifted it back up, pointing the sword towards the sky. He invited the visiting dignitaries to walk with him to take the guard of honor.

  Soldiers from the Kumari Army, Navy, and Air-force were present for the guard of honor. The path where the dignitaries were to review the guard of honor was strewn with rose petals. Manian stood in the front with the dignitaries lined up behind him.

  The soldiers were lined up in three rows to their right. A group of musicians with various instruments was standing beside them. The first three musicians had wind instruments in their hands made of metal, called the Horn. The middle one was in shape of the letter S, and the other two were shaped like the letter C. They started blowing the Horn and created a piece of high-pitched music that kept echoing from the palace walls. As they continued, the other set of musicians, thirty-six in number, started playing the percussion instrument called Parai. The frame was made of neem wood, covered with animal skin membrane. The two sticks used to strike the membrane were made from bamboo.

  All the thirty-six artistes moved in unison, their moves were gracious and a delight to watch. There was something special about the sound made by the Parai instrument. The vibrations produced by the music reverberated in everyone’s heart like the primordial sound that always existed in the universe. Even after the music stopped, everyone could feel the beat of the Parai go on within them.

  After the guard of honor was completed, the dignitaries were taken to a platform close to the palace entrance and made to stand in a straight line facing the crowd that had gathered.

  It was time to introduce the ministers of Kumari. A lady read out the names of the ministers one by one through the microphone.

  Each minister walked by, bowed before Rajaraja, and went on to greet each of the dignitaries.

  After the introductions, Rajaraja took Devi’s left hand and started walking into the palace, asking all the guests to follow him.

  The palace was made with granite stones and stood at the height of two hundred and sixty-one feet. As soon as everyone entered the palace, they opened their mouths wide in amazement. The interior was laid with the most gorgeous marble stones, twenty-seven varieties in total.

  The main hall extended as high as the building’s ceiling. The architecture of this hall was unique. It had four shapes built one on top of the other. The first quarter of the hall attached to the floor was in the shape of a square. Above the square was the second quarter in the form of a hexagon. The third quarter was an Octagon, and the top was a dome.

  Every area of the wall had a large marble stone with a unique mathematical pattern drawn on it that was never repeated anywhere in the hall.

  Four Chola era bronze statues were kept, one on each side of the wall. They were dancers shown in th
e most difficult of dance poses. The amount of gold mixed in these statues was higher, giving a golden sheen to the finish. The intricate carvings made them come to life.

  The Roman glass design on the ceiling dome had a contrasting color to the marble stones, that accentuated the overall design. The architecture and materials used clearly showed the trade links between Rajaraja and the Roman and Egyptian kingdoms.

  The next hall had a life-sized golden tiger in its entrance. Rajaraja had the leaping tiger symbol take a prominent place across Kumari. This hall had lots of stones and other artifacts placed along the side of the wall with the names of the planets and asteroids from which they were sourced.

  The third hall served as a history museum for the Chola empire. Fresco paintings lined the wall with portraits of some of the Chola kings starting from the early Chola period. Manu Needhi, Karikalan, Kotchenganan, Perunarkilli, Vijalaya, Aditya I, Parantaka I, Gandaraditya, Arinjaya, Sundara, Aditya II, Uttama and more medieval and later Chola kings. Apart from the frescos, there were other artifacts from the Sangam era like Styluses that were used to write on palm leaves, rare palm-leaf manuscripts, body armor, knives, spears, battle-axes, elephant goads, swords and other weapons like boomerangs, bows, and arrows.

  Rajaraja entered into a vast conference room with a long oval-shaped table in the middle that could seat two hundred and seventy guests. He sat at one end of the table, on the throne made of pure gold. He asked all the delegates to take their seats and invited Manian to brief the guests.

  Manian stood up from the chair and walked towards a projector that was placed in the middle of the table. As soon as he switched on the projector, a three-dimensional display appeared above them. It showed the image of the black hole in 3D.

  Manian said, “Good evening, dear guests, what you see here is a 3D rendering of Kalasuryan. This is a type one black hole that has been moving towards us from the Andromeda Galaxy for the past three thousand years. We have been closely tracking Kalasuryan for over a thousand years.

  You already know that this is traveling towards the Earth at an incredible speed. As your scientists have correctly predicted, Kalasuryan will swallow the Earth on the 21st of December. The gravitational pull of Kalasuryan will be enormous, and there is nothing we can do to save the Earth. The place that you are seated right now is called Kumari. It is a mini world in itself. We have built this place under the Indian Ocean, and the surface area of this mini world is 2.13 million square miles.”

  Manian pointed to the center of Kumari and said, “Kumari has a molten iron core rotating at a very high speed to create artificial gravity, similar to the Earth’s gravity. This way, the people of Kumari do not get homesick in space.”

  Manian continued, “The next layer around the molten iron is a nuclear fusion reactor that generates the power needed for the internal functioning of Kumari. The current reserves will give us enough energy for the next three million years.

  “The propulsion system that will drive Kumari uses anti-matter that can keep working as long as there is matter left in this universe.

  “The outer layer is solid rock above which there is a layer of soil with a composition similar to that of the Earth.

  “The sky that you saw outside is artificially created. Kumari is enclosed by a seven-feet thick layer of diamond crystals, each in the shape of a hexagon that is one mile in diameter. Each crystal has an inbuilt propulsion system with autopilot enabled. The protective layer can assemble and disassemble itself as needed. This layer helps protect Kumari from external threats like asteroids, enemy fire, and cosmic radiation. It also helps in providing an Earth-like atmosphere, including day and night, as well as weather and seasons.

  “These diamond crystals are made from a special type of diamond that is stronger than any known element on Earth and has been sourced from deep outer space.

  “These crystals help us trap energy coming to us in the form of billions of high energy neutrinos, which is also a secondary source of energy for Kumari.

  “It also acts as a backup source of energy when we need to run maintenance on the nuclear fusion reactor.

  “Kumari is designed from the ground up as an interstellar spaceship. It is designed to carry three-hundred million human beings and a variety of flora and fauna. You will be surprised to know that we have over nine thousand species of animals in Kumari that are extinct on the surface of the Earth.

  “The architecture of Kumari is designed in such a way that the environment is self-sustainable. We plan to take off from the Earth twenty-one days before Kalasuryan engulfs the Earth on the 30th of November.

  Andrea raised her hand and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Go ahead,” replied Manian.

  Andrea went on to say, “If you have known for the past thousand years that such an event would happen and destroy the Earth, why didn’t you tell us about this earlier? We could have prepared ourselves to save all the people on Earth.”

  Rajaraja looked at Andrea with a slightly disappointed and angry face and jumped in to answer, saying, “Your predecessors have spent over ten trillion dollars during the cold war based on an imaginative threat from the Russians. However, they did not have the spine to sign a four hundred and fifty billion dollar project to carry humans to Mars. Do not start pointing fingers here, try and understand the gravity of the situation we have at hand. Cooperating with each other would be the best way forward.”

  Andrea was perplexed. No one had ever spoken to her in that tone since she became the president two years ago, but now she felt like she had a new boss.

  Rajaraja continued to speak, “Throughout history, human beings have always put power over wisdom. Don’t you think we have been naive to believe that we are invincible, to believe that no power in this universe can destroy us?

  “I have traveled across the universe a lot more than you could ever imagine, and let me tell you this: you have no idea of the kind of catastrophes that happen in various parts of the universe and the scale at which they occur. We did not want to jeopardize Kumari, and our sole purpose in our life has been to save humanity from total annihilation.

  “We have tried to warn you of this danger from Kalasuryan on a few occasions. To mention two specific instances, one was through the Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. We beamed all the equations needed to identify and track black holes directly to his brain. He did take all of them to the western world, yet humanity was too preoccupied to even understand what those equations meant.

  “The second more explicit attempt was when we provided the knowledge of black holes to an Indian American astrophysicist named Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in the year 1930. Yet the scientists of those time brushed him aside, saying that black holes were impossible to exist in nature. What we have seen is that human beings preoccupy themselves, fighting over petty things like parking spaces and national boundaries.

  “Humanity as a whole has not done enough to come together and think about protecting humans as a species from unknown threats.

  “I would love to tell you the entire story of the sacrifices we had to make to build Kumari and bring it to where we are today, but I will make it brief due to the paucity of time.

  “All of us had to fake our own deaths in front of our families. I could see my son Rajendra Cholan through all the battles and expeditions that he undertook. Yet I could not stay by his side as his father. I have seen generations of Chola kings and royal family killed and badly mistreated by our enemies. We had the weaponry at Kumari to annihilate those who did these atrocities, yet we patiently stayed back and let history play out. Any action from our side would have exposed us and jeopardized Kumari.

  “All the sacrifices that my people and I had to make, we willingly did it as we were able to put behind our petty regional differences and thought about humanity as a species. After going through the various parts of the universe and looking at the ugly things that happened around us, these did not seem significant to us.

  “I
can tell you this; we are the most beautiful species in the entire universe. In spite of the various differences we have created within ourselves through religion, color, caste, and social status, we are still the most beautiful species in this universe. We definitely deserve a chance to save our species and carry us forward into the future.

  “I would strongly urge you to support us with our efforts in saving the human race. Let me know if you have any questions that I can help answer.”

  Lee Wong, the Chinese Foreign Minister, raised his hand and asked, “Can we add more people to the list that you have created?”

  Rajaraja replied, “We have already decided on the list. We consider this as a purely humanitarian mission and will not encourage any political influences in our decisions and operations. Are there any other questions?” asked Rajaraja with a stern voice.

  There was complete silence in the room for the next minute. Rajaraja then said, “It is time for us to have dinner together.” He raised his hand and waved at the security guards standing at the other end of the hall. They immediately walked out, and then about thirty men and women carrying various dishes walked into the room and started serving an elaborate dinner to all the guests.

  All the utensils on the table, including the plates, were made of pure gold. The food was brought in mud pots.

  Andrea turned towards Devi and asked, “Why do you use mud pots to bring the food when all the plates are in gold?”

  Devi replied, “In Kumari, we use mud pots for cooking all our food. The flavor we get when using mud pots is superior to what we get when using pots made of metal.”

  Andrea noticed that all the guests were served first and then the residents of Kumari. She asked Devi the reason to which she replied, “It is in our culture to feed the guests first, and then eat ourselves. We would be glad to go on an empty stomach if needed, but we ensure that our guests are taken care of. This has been imprinted in our culture for thousands of years.”

  “That’s interesting,” replied Andrea smiling at Devi.