The Orthogonal Galaxy (60 page)

Paol tried to distract
himself by studying the stars overhead. He had become so used to
the sky above him when they journeyed from the Moon to Jupiter, but
everything looked so differently now that they were heading in the
opposite direction. Frankly, he didn’t know exactly how far away
they were now either, considering that they had been propelled
quite a way down the beam before they were ejected from the stream
of particles.

Through this train of
thought, his stomach dropped. How far had they come indeed? How
long would it take them to return to Earth? For some time, they had
been traveling nearly the speed of light, and this was taking them
very quickly away from their home. Certainly, they must first send
a communication to Earth. Once they received a response, they would
be able to time their distance to the Earth by the round trip time
of the communication. That way, they could calculate whether they
would have enough fuel to race straight to Earth at full speed, or
whether an emergency mission would need to be launched to reclaim
the Star Transport in a reasonable timeframe.

As he began to turn to
Blade to ask him to relay a message to Earth, he was interrupted by
the voice of his companion.

“
Cap’n,” started Blade
softly. “I’m not sure I understand what I’m seein’
here.”

Paol looked down at the
display to which Blade was pointing. It read: “Celestial reading
locked, trajectory to Earth2 calculated.”

“
Blade, when did you first
see this?” Paol asked in dismay. “Something must be
wrong.”

“
Just now, Paol. Why I’s
just starin’ off into space, and I saw this display flashin’. When
I touched it to acknowledge the message, well… this is what it
said. Whatcha make of it, Partna’?”

“
Somehow, this hunk of
junk thinks it has found a pattern in the stars that matches the
Earth2 region of the Milky Way. But, it should’ve found Earth1
instead.”

Paol started typing on one
of the displays. Instantly, it provided a map of the galaxy. It
pinpointed Earth1 and Earth2 on far extremes of the display. The
Star Transport was represented by a green dot extremely close to
Earth2!

“
Oh, my... oh, my!” Blade
exclaimed nervously. “Why didn’t I thinks of this befo’? Stupid,
stupid!”

Joonter looked over to see
his navigator taking his seat harness off and leaning towards the
edge of his seat. His hands trembled violently as they fumbled on
the touchscreen panel ahead of him.

“
What is it, Blade?” Paol
spoke quietly, almost daring not to ask for fear of the
answer.

Paol stared intently at
his companion as he threw himself back in his seat and started
laughing uncontrollably.

“
What are you laughing
at?!” Paol exclaimed. “Star Transport is thoroughly confused about
our location, and you’re laughing? I’m not sure you understand the
gravity of our situation, Blade. Unless this thing can be convinced
of its error, we might just float in space forever!”

“
Doncha see?” Blade looked
at his partner incredulously. “Wasn’t we supposed to fall asleep
when we hit warp speed?”

“
Yes, but we didn’t.” Paol
answered simply. “Instead, we fell out of the beam at zero point
nine—” He stopped short. “Wait... are you thinking what I think
you’re thinking?”

“
How would ya’ know if ya’
fall asleep if you’re asleep the whole time?”

“
Blade, don’t be so
ridiculous. When I wake up in the morning, I know that I fell
asleep the night before.” Paol’s voice hinted of
agitation.

“
Sure
enough. But that’s
sleep
sleep. This wasn’t exactly the same. Instead of
sleeping, we were in some sort of suspended animation. Dontcha
remember? They told us that everythin’ was supposed to just
stop?”

Paol grew wide-eyed.
“Blade! If that’s so, then the only way we came out of the beam,
was when the nuclear expulsion device propelled us away from the
beam. What’s the status of the nuclear systems?”

Blade turned his head
towards Paol with a jubilant look on his face. Pointing to the
screen ahead of him, he said, “Looks fo’ ya’self,
Partna’.”

Joonter read the display.
“Nuclear Expulsion System #1: Detonated. Nuclear Expulsion System
#2: Pending. This means the system to get us to Earth2
has
gone off, and the
system to get us back to Earth1 is still waiting for our return
trip!”

“
So we really have been
out of it for a year now?” Paul asked.

Denial turned to disbelief
and disbelief to doubt. As the situation slowly dawned on the two
space travelers, they began to realize that they had just come
through the beam, twenty-seven thousand light years away from
Earth1 after all, and never even realized it until now. They had
slept through the whole thing, and not a thing had gone wrong with
the mission as they had supposed.

“
Can you look at the rest
of the list for any system abnormalities, Blade? How’s the general
health of the ship after coming through the heart of the
beam?”

“
It looks like we got
three impact sensor failures: two on the right wing and one on the
tail stabilizers. All other systems are reportin’ normal
status.”

“
Not bad,” Paol smiled.
“This thing really held up better than anybody could’ve hoped for.
We will need to inspect those three failures and any other body
damage in general. We may need to patch some holes in the Star
Shield before heading back to Earth1, but with just three failures
out of thousands of sensors, I’m feeling pretty good about our trip
home.”

“
What’s our ETA to Earth2,
Cap’n.” Blade asked.

Paol looked at a display
to his left and reported his findings. “About 137 hours. We’ll be
there in less than 6 days, since the beam gave us such a nice
boost. We’re still traveling at warp zero point eight
three.”

Blade leaned forward and
stared into the video display looking for any indication of a
blue-green planet in the distance. He saw two red circles flash on
the display.

“
Is that what you were
looking for?” Paol asked. “There’s Earth2, although we only see a
sliver of light, since we’re largely on its dark side, but over
here is Sun2, already the brightest object in the sky.”

“
We’re really doin’ this,
ain’t we Paol? We’re really on our way now.”

They continued the journey
with full smiles, giddy laughter, and more than a few tears of
relief. Having survived the jump to hyper-warp speed and seeing
their main target now almost plainly in sight, their confidence in
the mission grew by leaps and bounds.

...

Six days later, as
measured by their forced sleep cycles, they neared the planet and
descended into orbit. Their eyes hurt as they strained to see
details on Earth2. They wanted to pick up any clues as to the
nature of this new planet. While it certainly looked exactly like
the planet they had left so far away, their apprehensions grew as
they wondered whether they would be entering a friendly or a
hostile environment. Thoughts wandered through their minds. Would
there be dinosaurs? Cavemen? Or was an advanced civilization ready
to meet them? From this altitude, they could discern no signs of
civilization, but this did not concern them, because they knew they
were still too far away to recognize much of anything
man made. The fact that they only had occasional
glimpses through cloud layers complicated their
observations.

They orbited several times
as they tried to piece together the topography of the planet. Star
Transport was continuously taking photos and mapping unclouded
images to a map display on the main console of the cockpit. As
shapes began to form, the astronauts were stunned at what they
appeared to be discovering. Shapes that looked remarkably like the
Horn of Africa, the Aleutian Islands, and the archipelago of Japan
formed on the screen.

“
I can’t believe it!” Paol
responded increasing vehemence as the map grew to be more and more
convincing of an exact copy of Earth.

“
It doesn’t make no
sense,” agreed Blade. “I mean with plate tectonics and all, whose
gonna think that this planet would be in the same geographic phase
as Earth? All the continents could be in totally different
positions.”

“
Well,” replied the
captain shaking his head in disbelief, “the researchers did tell us
that all indications was that Earth2 was as identical as possible
to Earth1 in every way: distance from Sun, axial tilt, time of
revolution and rotation, mass, temperature and composition. I still
would not have imagined the same exact geographic
makeup.”

“
Looks like Florida just
came into view,” Slater pointed to the map as both astronauts
looked at the real-time imagery and noticed that the iconic North
American feature was clearly outlined below them.

It took quite some time
for the astronauts to adjust to the shocking reality that in almost
every way, the geography of Earth2 was identical to Earth1.
Eventually, it occurred to them that their mission was not to orbit
for the next six years.

“
So, where do you think we
should land?” asked Paol. “Mission control gave us guidelines to
land in a temperate zone, but even they did not know the continents
would line up like this.”

Blade stroked his chin. He
pondered the question seriously, knowing that in all likelihood,
the decision would change the entire course of the mission.
Thinking out loud, he said, “We don’t ‘xactly know how advanced
this planet is. Could be, we’re just showin’ up at the dawn of
civilization.”

“
Um… I don’t think so,
Partner,” Johannsen’s voice cracked with anticipation. “Just look
for yourself.”

Slater focused his
attention to the direction of Paol’s finger, and what he saw caused
his eyes to grow wide with concern. “That looks a whole lot like
farmin’ goin’ on down there.”

As Star Transport flew
past the Mississippi River delta and up into the Midwest, they
could see tiny squares with different shades of greens and
browns.

“
Well, that just solves it
for us,” Blade announced firmly.

“
What do you
mean?”

“
We should land in
Kansas,” Blade pursed his lips and nodded fervently. “We’re gonna
be lookin’ for hospitable. The Midwest is the place fo’
sure.”

“
Ok, then,” Paol agreed
with the assessment. “Let’s get this thing down to Kansas then.
“Can you load the coordinates for us, Blade?”

“
Yes, sir!” Blade zoomed
in on the North America region of the map that was still being
constructed by the computer, and registered a location in the
Midwest that he believed would be close to the Heartland of
Kansas.

It took several orbits of
slow and turbulent descent before the Star Transport dipped below
the highest cloud layers. On their final approach to North America,
it felt like the Atlantic Ocean would go on forever. A stillness
settled over the cabin, as both astronauts held their breath in
anticipation.

“
Down there!” Blade
exclaimed in excitement as a line of tiny islands running from
North to South indicated that they had reached the edge of the
Caribbean Sea. At the speed they were traveling, Star Transport
quickly passed by Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba before the
familiar Florida coastline came into view once again. This time,
they were low enough to spot something that convinced them of a
modern society.

“
Buildings,” Paol whistled
lowly. “Looks like a pretty advanced civilization down
there.”

Passing over the Gulf of
Mexico and into the Southern States, they continued to see
widespread evidence of a large population. As coastal communities
gave way to small towns and farming communities, they began to
realize with some trepidation that they would have to engage with a
society of beings and stay as safe as possible for the next six
years.

“
I s’ppose this really is
a parallel Earth,” Blade stated hesitantly.

Joonter hadn’t even heard
his companion’s reply. As his eyes grew wide in recognition, he
scanned the terrain below rapidly, almost frantically.

“
Whatcha see, Paol?”
Slater stared at his companion with deep interest.

“
It’s not what I see,
Blade! It’s what I don’t see. Take a look, that should be Atlanta
right there.”

As they passed by the
city, Slater looked for anything out of the ordinary, without
success. Eventually, Joonter pointed out what Blade was
missing.

“
No roads!”

Blade Slater was aghast.
“You’re right! How could there be cities with no roads connectin’
them?”

Paol Joonter breathed
heavily and responded in between gasps. “I don’t know, Blade. I do
not know. Maybe these are ancient civilizations that have no living
intelligent life in them, and the roads have simply returned to
their natural state.”

“
Wouldn’t we still see
some asphalt or some indication of roads? Indentions in the
terrain? Somethin’?” inquired Slater doubtfully.