Proxima Adventure

Chapter 5. The Uncompromising Facts.

Chapter 5. The Uncompromising Facts.

As the ship approached Earth, everyone remained focused on the main display, which displayed a planet like the Earth they left, but there were several things that were not right.

"What the hell!" Carl exclaimed. "Where are the satellites and the space station?"

"I'm not seeing any cities on the continents," Alice said. "It looks like a pristine planet never touched by humans."

"Maybe this is prehistoric Earth," Hilary suggested.

"That's not consistent with the shapes of the continents," Charles pointed out. "The great lakes were only created after the last ice age, roughly ten to twelve thousand years ago."

"This doesn't make sense," Dave said. "We've only been away from Earth for eleven months. There's no way it changed in that short time frame."

"Obviously, it's the result of the blackout," Vicky said.

"Right!" Charles said. "Somehow, the blackout event changed everything."

"It appears that this version of Earth has limited vegetation, but no signs of animal life," Hilary said.

"We'll have to send probes down to verify that," Charles said. "We can also get a readout on the atmosphere, radiation and life signs." He activated two probes and allowed the computer system to program them for a trip down to the planet.

"Look at how much ice there is at the two poles," Vicky said. "That's more like it was back in the early twentieth century."

"It's almost too pristine," Hilary commented.

After the two probes had arrived near the surface, they began to stream back data.

"Only 3.6 percent oxygen," Carl said. "That's weird."

"There's no way we could live down there," Charles pointed out. "We need at least eighteen percent."

"Much of the oxygen on the Earth we came from was produced by the oceans," Alice said. "That would suggest that there's not much in the way of sea life on this Earth."

"We were only away from Earth for sixteen months," Dave said. "It's hard to believe that something could change Earth that radically in that short of time."

"Look at the Moon!" Hilary said. "It looks like it got splashed with whatever hit Earth."

"Yeah," Alice said. "Maybe this was some sort of collision."

"A collision on Earth would show," Charles retorted. "Maybe the moon was in the energy blast that hit Earth."

"That would have been one hell of a blast," Carl said.

Charles swallowed hard before he replied. "This sort of radical change suggests something more than a simple event. This is something more fundamental, a change on a cosmic scale."

"What do you mean?" Dave asked, his brow furled with concern.

"The only possible explanation is that we're no longer in our universe."

Janet was the first to reply. "Are you suggesting that this is a different universe in a multiverse?"

"I can't see any other way to explain it. I hated String Theory when I was at the University, but it did propose the multiverse theory."

"Why would there be a universe that has a solar system just like ours except for this difference," Carl said, pointing to the display of Earth. "It's too unbelievably consequential to be like this."