Chapter No.58. Realization.

We returned to Earth while avoiding going near the hyperspace node that was only two light years away from the solar system. After achieving orbit, we settled down to a boring scan of Earth.

"Earth looks the same, sir," Sharon reported. "I don't see any changes that would be suspicious."

"Actually, there isn't all that much evidence of human activity," Janet said. "There's no evidence of any new colonies or cities. They must be hiding like rats."

"Maybe Earth isn't as habitable as we thought it is," I said.

"That's the way I see it," she said.

"That's good news. It means we didn't wonder into another timeline."

Bridget came to the command station with the astrolabe and sat down next to me. "Sir, I think I've found the reason we don't see a lot of humans on Earth."

"Oh, really?"

She held the astrolabe up and pointed to a lever. "See this fourth lever. I believe it indicates how the nodes move over cosmic time. I've set up where I think the node that we've gone through was located not too long after the last missions from Earth launched."

I stared at the astrolabe but failed to ascertain the location. "Where was it located?"

She pointed at a numerical reference. "See this coordinate. It matches Earth's."

"If that node was located at Earth's position, it would indicate that the timeline of the planet was changed."

"Yes, and it was changed to a timeline that had no humans."

My right eyebrow shot up before it settled down. "If that's the case where did the humans we see here now come from?"

"Mars."

I smiled. "Okay, I see what you mean. Earth's timeline changed but Mars' didn't. Some of the people from Mars came to Earth."

"That's the way I see it, sir."

"How often does the node affect Earth?"

"My calculation indicates it's several billion years between shifts. It has to do with how the solar system bobs up and down as it circles around the Milky Way galaxy and how the galaxy moves in the universe."

I smiled again. "That's comforting."

"That makes sense," Janet said. "It means that we're in the timeline we got shifted into when we went through that node at the beginning of our mission, but I don't think that it's the timeline we're in now. Humans on Mars were abducted in that timeline. Even worse, we have no idea what happened to Earth in our timeline of origin."

"I agree, and I don't see any good reason for us to try and locate our origin timeline or the timeline we first entered. We know enough about this timeline to be aware of the risks. I don't think the astrolabe can indicate what each timeline is like."

"That's right, sir," Bridget said. "It only indicates where the nodes are located and how they shift with time."

"So, now that we know where the humans went, are we going to live on Earth?" Natale asked.

"I don't see that as being safe. We would have to literally kill people to keep them from attacking us."

"What about the other habitable planets we've explored?"

"Most of them are disasters. There's only two that had humans in a seemingly safe situation, but one of them was a religious cult that we would not fit into and the other was already occupied and would consider us as interlopers."

"So, are you saying we can't live on a planet?"

"No, I'm just pointing out why we shouldn't live on the habitable planets we've investigated. There could be a suitable planet or moon out there that we haven't discovered yet."

"This ship is safer than any planet," Kali said. "Any so-called habitable planet would be dangerous because of the risk of infection and possible intelligent species. One way we could enjoy Earth would be if we could find a location that no one else has found."

"That might be our only safe choice." I looked at Janet and Sharon. "I'll leave that up to you two. In the meantime, Kali and I will see if we can make this crew deck more, shall we say, comfortable."

Kali gave me a funny look. "How could we change this deck?"

"Well, for one thing, we don't need the hibernation pods and associated equipment. That stuff alone takes up at least a quarter of the deck's space. There is also space near them that could be utilized."

"How are we going to move those pods?"

"I believe that they'll fit into the axel tube. If we stop the wheels from spinning, we might be able to move them down into engineering, especially if we take them apart. Another option would be to use them to make more private bedrooms."

"We'd have to put up walls," she said. "Do we have materials to do that?"

"I think there's flexible polymeric material that we could utilize for that."

"That would be a big improvement," Kali said.

"What do you want us to do, sir?" Natale asked.

"You and Bridget could survey the agricultural deck for a possible location for a place to hang out."

Natale and Bridget exchanged glances before Natale turned to me. "Yeah, we can do that, sir."

"Good. If we make this vessel more comfortable, it would make exploring more enjoyable."

"Before we do that, I would like to make improvements to the ship's laser weapon," Kali said.

"That's would be a sensible improvement. It would also help if we could enhance the shielding."

She smiled. "If we put our minds together, we might be able to do that."

At this point I realized that we were finally reconciled to our fate and making the best of it.

But there is no rest for the wicked.