Chapter 6. Conformation.

Vicky and Hilary decided to take on the task of creating an image of the cosmic microwave background like the one that had been done for the universe they had come from. Fortunately, they had access to an extremely sensitive microwave anisotropy telescope probe that could be deployed from the spaceship. The detectors on this probe could reveal the precise structure of the left-over energy from the so-called Big Bang. What was even more important was its ability to determine the age of the universe they were in as well as its cosmological constant, the mathematical value that indicates how much the universe is expanding.

Alice and Judy, with help from Mary and Beverly, were assigned the task of trying to speed up the data collection in order to produce a map that was of the same accuracy as the one that was determined in twenty first century without taking years to create it.

They also activated the main telescope to search for familiar stars, quasars, pulsars, galaxies, black holes, star clusters, and other objects that were well known in their universe of origin.

As expected, they discussed social issues while they worked, and what they said was most interesting.

"Do you really believe that the commander and his cronies hired us to entertain them?" Judy asked. "I assumed that we were added to do the hard work on this mission."

Alice smiled. "Yeah, that's probably right. I just wanted to tease the guys with an alternate scenario."

"What about you?" Hilary said, turning to look at Mary and Beverly. "Did they hire you to actually do work?"

"We were added because we're experts on extraterrestrial life," Mary replied. "We were backups to the two main scientists that went down to the surface of Enceladus."

"Well!" Hilary replied with a grin. "Welcome to the sisters of assistantship. We are backups to the main scientists."

"The truth is that we are all backups," Alice said. "The guys are assistant engineers. In essence, we're all second-class space cadets."

"I think that Space Command must have figured that the main mission specialists wouldn't make it," Alice said. "They probably had a hunch that youthfulness would be a survival factor."

They all agreed with that unfortunate but questionable conclusion.

The guys were down on the engineering deck trying to figure out how to measure physical constants, but what they came up with involved less work.

"I just thought of something," Carl said, grinning. "We don't really need to measure process efficiencies. All we need do is compare what the ship's sensors measured before and after the blackout incident."

Charles chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. Hopefully, the data wasn't erased during the incident."

Carl began punching requests into the engineering system for the required data. After a pause, the data began to be displayed on the main screen. The engineers stared at the data with rapt attention to the efficiency numbers.

"Holy shit!" Charles exclaimed. "This shows a forty-to-forty five percent efficiency boost because of the blackout. That's impossible . . . unless the entropy of this universe is extremely low. I'm not sure how that's even possible."

"Is it possible that this data is corrupted by the incident itself?" Dave asked.

Charles rubbed his jaw. "That could be. I'm not sure how we can determine that."

"If you go by this data, it indicates that we used very little oxygen since the incident," Carl said. "That doesn't make sense."

Charles sighed. "If the data is corrupt, we'll never be able to figure out what's going on."

"Even worse, we won't be able to know if we're in danger," Dave said.

"Maybe the data's discrepancies are the result of the efficiency factor," Carl proposed. "The programming is based on physical constants that are in our original universe. This universe obviously has different constants."

At this point, they were undecided about what to do.

Later at the communal supper, the crew gathered to report their success or failure to determine what had happened.

"We've produced a microwave background map that looks sort of like the one that's on record," Alice reported. "There are differences, but we're not quite sure what they indicate about this universe."

"Are you satisfied with the resolution?" Charles asked them.

"It's close, but we still need more recordings to get it into conformance."

"What about you guys?" Hilary asked. "Did you find anything interesting?"

"What we found doesn't make sense," Charles replied. "The engineering system indicates that we experienced a forty five percent increase in efficiency, which is unbelievable. However, it also indicates that we used very little oxygen since the incident."

"I don't get it," Hilary reacted. "If we didn't breathe any oxygen, we would have died."

"That's it!" Vicky piped in. "We've been converted to zombies!"

They laughed, but their reaction to her ridiculous joke was subdued, indicating that they hoped it wasn't true.

After taking a good swig of beer, Charles decided to throw out another theory and see if anyone would believe it "Maybe we're approaching this problem incorrectly. Maybe the blackout didn't send us into a different universe. Maybe it changed us, not the universe."

"Surely you're not buying Vicky's zombie joke, are you?" Hilary reacted, her brow furrelled but her lips subtly twisted.

Charles smiled. "No, nothing like that." He paused for few seconds before continuing. "I find it difficult to believe that we were thrust into a different universe that looks almost the same as ours. If you consider the fact that we were in the blackout for an hour, it makes me think that it was all of us that were changed, not the universe."

"Changed into what?"

"That's what we need to determine."

"We don't have any idea how to do that," Alice said. "What should we be looking for?"

Charles rubbed his jaw. "Maybe we should determine how we've been changed. Are we living?"

"That doesn't make sense," Hilary said. "We must be."

"As in we think, therefore we are," Charles retorted with a grin. His expression changed to a more determined one. "There's another possible explanation, but it's not something that would be easy to investigate. One of the more radical string theory ideas is that the three-dimension universe, the galaxies, stars and us, is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface."

"Yeah," Carl reacted. "It was a way to explain quantum gravity and to reconcile black hole thermodynamics that says that the maximum entropy in any region scales with the radius squared instead of cubed as would be expected. It also resolves the black hole information paradox."

"What does that have to do with what we went through," Judy asked.

"Maybe this change we went through was a defect or shift in this two-dimensional surface."

"Good luck on finding that," Alice chimed in. "It would have to be one hell of a long way off."

"I don't think we would be able to change what happened," Vicky said. "We're limited to only traveling near the speed of light."

"If we're stuck in this . . . this whatever it is, would we be able to create a new human presence?" Beverly asked.

Charles hesitated before responding, hoping that he could reply without causing a huff. "I don't think that would be a good idea. We really don't know what's going on here. Bringing children into this situation could be dangerous."

"I don't see why. We're all young with no obvious medical conditions."

Charles suppressed a smile. His expression was more stoic with a hint of concern. "Let me ask you ladies something. Have any of you experienced a period?"

The women exchanged glances before Vicky replied. "No."

"I rest my case."

Carl and Dave suppressed smiles. The last thing they wanted was a gender confrontation.

"So, what are we going to do while we attempt to do the impossible?" Alice asked.

"Pray," Charles replied. "It may be our only option." He knew that was not true, but he realized that it was all they could do for the time being.

His suggestion didn't help to bolster their enthusiasm in his project to determine how the blackout changed them.