Both of them were feeling much stronger after their stay with us and Anna-two, with Bill, flew them to New York for a visit, taking in the skyscrapers, Niagara and even flying over the North Pole to show them the icy part of our world. Their time was also taken up with making documentaries and conducting press interviews. It seemed that the people of Earth couldn’t get enough of our alien visitors and all the fears of xenophobia quickly vanished. My entity told me that he was sure such hatred, including racial hatred, was naturally suppressed by their presence in our minds. It could only be a good thing.

  Later in the week, Linda and I had another dinner party with our good friends, Bill and Ronnie (Veronica). Inevitably, the time he and Anna-two had spent with the aliens came up in conversation.

  ‘They seemed happy then?’ I asked.

  ‘They did, but not so much Anna,’ said Bill.

  Linda raised her eyebrows. ‘Tell us more,’ she said.

  ‘Anna is having trouble coming to terms with Wally and Anna-one. To her mind, it is her Wally living with Anna-one. This universe belongs to her and Mary two. The whole crew of our Spirit have no place here,’ Bill said.

  ‘What made him choose to be with Anna-one?’ Linda asked.

  ‘Wally’s always wanted children, but Anna-two didn’t. When Wally discovered that Anna-one was more amenable, he and Anna-two argued and then separated,’ said Bill.

  ‘Strange,’ I said. ‘They’re actually the same person. Why do they feel differently about children?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Bill.

  ‘I can understand the animosity,’ I said. ‘If my duplicate hadn’t died on Haven, or Keradrol I should say, then he should be sitting here, not me.’

  Linda stared at me. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said. ‘You died on Keradrol. I should be grieving.’

  ‘And it was a horrible death,’ I said. ‘I am a usurper and the only reason it seems okay is that my alter ego is lying dead on that dreadful planet.’

  That seemed to kill the enjoyment of the dinner party. Ronnie took Linda’s hand in hers and looked at her sympathetically. ‘I’m in the same situation, Linda. My Bill is also lying beside Mark on that horrible world. How wonderful that I have him back.’

  ‘Ronnie spent ages looking at the video of the landing site, trying to make sense of it,’ said Bill.

  ‘I guess we’re the lucky ones,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine the situation Anna-two is in. If you and Jason were living with my other self, I think I would have real trouble with it.’

  ‘Yes, me too,’ said Bill. ‘I’d be trying to find a way for him to have an accident.’

  ‘Really?’ exclaimed Ronnie.

  ‘Oh yes. It would be as if you were having an affair with another person,’ he said.

  ‘But you know I love you.’

  ‘What? If both of us were sitting here!’ Bill said. ‘And you, too, Linda. Who would you choose? The Mark who you know gave you the Jason who’s sleeping upstairs or the duplicate one sitting at the table with us tonight? How would you choose?’

  ‘I am thankful that I don’t have to. They are the same person,’ Linda said. ‘I can see how Anna-two feels, though. She has lost her Wally, yet he is still there and living with an imposter duplicate. How do you come to terms with such a conundrum? What if they wanted to share me?’ She laughed. ‘How could I tell which Mark was in the spare room and which was in my bed?’

  ‘That’s a frightening prospect,’ said Ronnie. Then she laughed. ‘Mind you, double the sex, Linda. Think on that!’

  That night, entwined within each other’s limbs, our loving was more anxious and frantic than normal. We were both imagining the free fall moment of conception of our son on the Lunar Gateway. Surely only Linda and I could ever share that memory. But, in the back of our minds, there was the nagging thought that we now knew that there was at least one other who’d shared that intimate experience. In fact, he’d participated in it, yet now lay dead on Keradrol. How do you come to terms with such things?

  It was impossible to shrug off the thought. Perhaps, somewhere in this newly discovered entiroverse, there were many more Lindas and Marks who, at any moment, could walk into our lives and turn our cosy family world upside down in the same way that Anna-one had done to Anna-two and Wally’s relationship. As I drifted off to sleep, I had the horrible thought that this Jason was more my doppelgänger’s than mine and where was my Linda – on a different Earth, wondering why I never returned?

  26 Conference

  ‘I guess we’re about to discover what the space administration has come up with after all of those interviews with us and the Heradians,’ said Bill.

  More than a dozen of us were enjoying some hors d’oeuvres and fruit juice, tea or coffee in an anteroom while awaiting Neil and the other big cheeses who had been trying to make sense of the spolding conundrum and the existence of the entiroverse. Gradually they joined us and once we were satisfied with the snacks, we filed into a conference room at the Johnson Space Center. A long, polished mahogany table was surrounded by comfortable leather chairs. In front of each seat were water carafes, glasses, some mints, a notepad, pen and a monitor about the size of a notebook screen.

  Both Marys, Terry, and Sandra, the other senior astrophysicist, were there plus, the two Annas, Tosh, Chi, Stroya, Gurd, Bill and I from the mission teams, as well as chief pilots, Linda and Chan. Other technicians and senior administrators who only a few of us knew by name were also present.

  The room settled and Neil rose to his feet at the head of the table.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen and Heradians, thank you for attending this first meeting to discuss our plans for future missions.

  ‘We’ve been busy preparing a second vitamin supply mission to attempt to visit the original Arctur which Mark’s team had made contact with during their attempt to relocate Earth.

  ‘As far as we’re aware, they are still in the same situation that Stroya and Gurd’s planet is in, only they have had no supply mission.

  ‘Now that we know our left turns from our right turns, the first trip will be to the first Arctur you encountered. It will carry those vitamins plus two probes equipped with xardrol containers – the plant which we believe will destroy the simeral weed.

  ‘The crew,’ Neil looked down at his tablet, ‘will comprise Terry, who’ll command it, Chi, Tosh, Gurd and Anne, which is how Anna-two prefers to be called in meetings.’

  ‘Just five?’ someone asked.

  ‘Yes. Gurd will be left on that first Arctur as liaison and two more Heradians will be brought back to Earth on that mission,’ said Neil. ‘We expect it to be eight to ten days.’

  ‘The second mission, leaving more or less the same time, will be heading to Stroya and Gurd’s Arctur. It will be a new interstellar ship using the existing Spirit but extended to provide more living space and eight tanks. The new combined craft will be renamed, Pathfinder. In addition to the eight tanks, it will have two of the new Rimors with reusable heat tiles. One of the tanks will be equipped as living space and you will bring thirty-two more Heradians to Earth. So, lots of landings and lift-offs. You’ll also carry eight probes armed with xardrol containers, all for use on Herade, to be dropped in specific areas we’ve discussed with Gurd and Stroya. We want to see how the treated areas behave when they reach each other.’

  Tosh’s arm rose and Neil nodded. ‘I take it that the xardrol is being released only on Herade, not Keradrol.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Neil. ‘Keradrol, or Haven as some know it, has its own biological environment and we feel that we don’t have the right to upset its balance. It could have an adverse effect upon the marine life. At some point we’ll have an antidote to the pollen and, when we do, we’ll be able to visit the world and learn more about the sea life.’

  ‘Who is on that second mission?’ I asked, picking up the artist’s impression of Pathfinder. The main extended fuselage was central with seven of the eight tanks surrounding it and level with the rear of the ship. The eighth tank, the one equipped to transport more people, was located forward of the others and its nose was level with the most rear part of the bridge. The two Rimors were also attached ahead of the noses of the other tanks. It appeared to be a neat solution.

  ‘You’ll command it,’ said Neil. ‘Your crew will be Anna, Chan, one of the Marys, Bill and Stroya. Expect it to be between two and four weeks. We’ll want you to observe the early effect of xardrol on the weed on Herade.’

  After a lengthy question and answer session, the meeting broke up and we all left. The next morning we’d begin to train and prepare our teams for the missions.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  ‘I was hoping to be chosen for your mission,’ said Linda as she drove us home.

  ‘I guess they were thinking of Jason. These missions still have some unknowns and therefore risks attached,’ I replied.

  ‘They are only short though,’ said Linda. ‘Terry’s is only eight days and yours is likely to be just two or three weeks. Jason could stay with my mum and dad. The Moonbase duties were over six months each time.’

  ‘I’m sure Neil would have considered all of that. Maybe next time.’

  ‘We’d have been in free fall!’ she said quietly, nudging me in the arm.

  We both laughed.

  After collecting Jason from his playschool, we grabbed a fast-food lunch and headed to an amusement park for the remainder of the afternoon.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  Extending the length of the fuselage of one of the Spirits to create Pathfinder took longer than might be expected. It was over six months before it was complete and all the fuel tanks and thirty-two seat passenger module was attached.

  After saying farewell to our family and friends, we lifted off in one of the new larger SpaceX capsules and boarded our craft where we’d live in quarantine for two weeks.

  By the time we were ready to leave for Trappist-1, I was already missing Tosh’s irascible character, but having Chan and Stroya with us added a new dimension. Although we’d been training together and I’d worked with Chan on the Moonstruck mission, I hadn’t really got to know her. She was a mine of information about all things Eastern and very entertaining too. Stroya’s stories of Herade also fascinated us during downtime; she had many tales of adventure from the history of her species when they lived on the home planet. It was remarkable how their culture and society had developed along the same lines as Earth. They too had had wars, famine, periods of exploration and similar tales of gods and devils to those we humans had learned in our childhood and youth.

  ‘Hello, Neil. Pathfinder here. We’re ready to depart. Chan has spoken to Capcom and we’re in the middle of a ninety-minute countdown,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, Mark. Have a good trip. See you in a few weeks,’ said Neil

  The six of us strapped into our couches, carried out the final checks, took our fluid straws into our mouths, and Chan counted down the final few seconds.

  ‘Fire!’ she said and we were all engulfed in the awful stasis which held us while travelling through the dark matter universe. Outside the cockpit, space had turned green and we were on our way to Herade, to deposit our probes containing the weed’s nemesis, xardrol. The estimate was about ninety-three minutes.

  I got my entity to swivel my eyes to look at the dashboard clock. When it reached ninety-four I became concerned. At ninety-five I knew something was wrong. Our inability to communicate while in hyperspace was so frustrating. The journey should not be taking longer than ninety-three minutes. Something had certainly gone wrong. Could it be the additional mass of the tanks and extended size of the fuselage? The scientists had told us that those changes would have no effect, but, as the clock passed one hundred, we all must have known that our journey was not right.

  Mary’s team had built in a fail-safe to get us out of hyperspace if the target planet was missed, but Herade had been an easy world to select in the spolding device. How could we have missed it? The fail-safe would cut in at one hundred and eighty minutes, roughly twice the expected journey time so that the target planets would still be in range if we’d overshot. The anxiety was palpable as the minutes ticked by. We were relying upon the safety device to save us.

  27 Adrift

  The nightmare of hyperspace stasis ended. We were all thrown forward as Pathfinder returned to the normal universe; hopefully, the same universe from which we had left Earth. The windows were full of stars. Anna and Chan were working on their consoles, trying to establish exactly where we were, while I checked all the ship’s systems to ensure we had no mechanical or electronic failures. Mary was looking at the record of the spolding drive, searching out any anomalies.

  ‘Do we know where we are?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Might take a while to find out,’ said Chan. ‘Some of the Aquarius stars are still in front of us, but the constellation is distorted, so that could mean we are some way beyond Trappist-1.’

  ‘Give us some time, Bill,’ said Anna. ‘I’m looking behind us for the Trappist-1 system. With any luck, we should be able to target Herade or Arctur from here and get ourselves back on track.’

  ‘Who’d like some coffee?’ asked Bill. There was a general positive chorus, so he and Stroya unstrapped and headed aft to make the drinks.

  After an hour, I’d confirmed that all ship’s systems were working optimally. ‘Systems are fine. Any idea what happened, Mary?’

  ‘Just two more checks to make, but I think I know. Give me a couple of minutes,’ the astrophysicist replied.

  We’d all finished our coffee pouches when Mary unstrapped and turned to face us from her console. ‘I can see what happened. Glad we had the fail-safe to stop us. When Chan targeted Herade, she had no idea that Trappist-1 would occult Herade at the very moment we were to pass through that location.

  ‘The star, being directly in our path caused the target planet to be ignored and we carried straight on. No one’s fault. Don’t know how we could allow for it. The chances of it happening are negligible. We’d already built in a system to prevent us from coming out of the dark universe into a planetary body or star and that may be what stopped us being destroyed.’

  ‘We’re about forty light years beyond Trappist-1,’ said Bill.

  ‘Should be,’ said Mary.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ said Anna, ‘but I’ve just located Trappist-1 and it is over one hundred light years away.’

  ‘Eh? That can’t be right,’ said Mary, peering at Anna’s screen which showed the starfield we’d come from.

  ‘See,’ said Anna. ‘Sol is barely visible and none of the Trappist-1 planets is targetable.’

  Mary and Anna hunched over the screen and looked at various stars closer than Sol and Trappist-1. ‘That’s not good,’ said Mary. ‘What’s up front, Chan?’

  ‘The gas giant 91 Aquarii is just ten light years in front of us. That means we’re at least one-forty light years from Earth,’ said Chan. ‘It does have a targetable planet.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Mary, who pulled herself over to the Chinese woman’s console.

  ‘How could we have travelled a hundred and forty light years in a hundred and eighty-eight minutes if forty light years takes ninety-three?’ asked Stroya.

  ‘Worrying question,’ said Mary, continuing to work with Chan.

  I looked at other nearby stars on my console. There were none with visible planets, but 91 Aquarii was not a promising system. It comprised a triple system. From Earth, it had been worked out that there was one gas giant planet orbiting the main star. I hooked up the Celestron to the spolding device but could see no others, although it looked as if the planet had at least one rocky moon. Perhaps it had its own system like Jupiter?

  ‘None of this looks good,’ said Mary. ‘It seems as if the spolding system time dilation shortens the further you go. If you remember, we calculated that the time taken in hyperspace to reach Trappist-1 should have been one hundred days based on the time from Earth to Mars. If the time dilation shortens in relation to distance travelled, that would explain the problem we’ve just experienced.’

  ‘But the whole idea in restricting the journey time to a hundred and eighty-eight minutes was so that we could spold back to the missed target,’ said Bill.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mary, ‘but now we know it doesn’t work like that. It shows how novel the spolding drive is. We still don’t understand the physics of it fully.’

  ‘So, we can’t get back,’ said Bill.

  ‘Not directly. Even Jupiter doesn’t show up at this range,’ said Anna.

  ‘Anna, Chan and I need time to work the problem. Peace and quiet, please,’ said Mary.

  ‘I’m going to search other nearby systems,’ I said.

  Bill and Stroya left the bridge for the communal area.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  ‘I really don’t like that idea,’ I said.

  ‘But, Mark,’ said Mary, ‘we know we can target the gas giant and it’s the closest target to us.’

  ‘It’s the triple star system which worries me. The gravitational effects could be huge. What’s wrong with this simpler system I’ve found? It too has a gas giant,’ I said.

  ‘But it’s further away from Trappist-1. If we’re going to get back to Herade, we need to ensure we always head in that direction. Let’s get ourselves into a stable orbit around the 91 Aquarii planet and look more intensely for something closer to Trappist-1,’ said Mary.

  ‘What do you two think?’ I asked of the two pilots.

  ‘I’m with Mark,’ said Anna.

  ‘I think Mary’s right. It is closer to Trappist-1,’ said Chan.

  ‘I’m the expert,’ said Mary. ‘I should have the casting vote.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘There is no point having specialists on board if I don’t follow their advice. 91 Aquarii it is.’

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  Mary and Chan set up the systems ready for the jump, then we all enjoyed a nutritious lunch before climbing back into our couches to launch ourselves towards the triple star system of 91-Aquarii.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18