Chapter 5
‘Okay, everyone. We’re about to go to reality one. I will count down from Three. Three.. Two.. One.. Off we go’ announced Captain Moser from the Captain’s chair.
As he hit the red button, there was a brief sensation of falling but that soon settled. ‘Okay, What can we see?’ asked the Captain.
Ahead of him was a large, magnified view of New Oregon, or at least, what he knew by that name. However, the city he grew up in was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he could just about make out the outline of a small settlement on the banks of what he knew as Lake Elney amongst the trees. Where he would have expected to see Columbus, there was nothing. They were, however, surprised to see a solitary spaceship sitting in a geostationary orbit above the settlement. Otherwise, there was no sign of any other activity in space. Although they heard a small amount of radio activity, it all seemed to come from the stationary ship. They found it encouraging that it was all in English.
‘Okay, I think we’ve seen enough. I’m going to take us to reality two’ announced the Captain.
When they arrived in reality two, there was much more activity around the planet. The long-range detectors could identify several ships in the system, including a busy spaceport on the planet. There was also a bustling space station similar to Columbus, but it had fewer levels and wasn’t quite as busy as ‘their’ station. Again, all the radio signals they found were being transmitted in English. There were several cities, towns, and villages dotted around the planet, including a city much like Waterbeach in their reality.
‘I could be wrong’ announced Billy ‘but I’ve a feeling this could be Will Hunt’s reality. The space station looks similar to the one he showed me a holo of. Unless and until we contact them, we may not be sure.’
Turning to Commodore Powell, Jacob said ‘We’ll skip reality three, as we know that’s ours, so I’m heading straight to four. Last time, we weren’t there long enough to get a proper look at it.’
‘Good idea. May as well save a few minutes’
As they had previously found, reality four seemed deserted, with no sign of human life, despite checking all radio frequencies several times and looking at the planet in detail.
‘Looks as if humanity hasn’t been to this system in this reality’ observed Angela.
‘Okay, nothing more to learn here. Off to five’ said the Captain.
As they looked towards the reality five version of New Oregon, there was a substantial city on the planet and several towns of varying sizes. There was also a large space station, with a fair amount of activity around it. Again, the radio signals they intercepted were in English.
‘Captain. There’s a ship only twenty five thousand kilometres away, heading in our general direction’ announced a crew member.
‘Oh hell. And it was all going so well. We’ll see if it knows we’re here. Hopefully, they won’t see us. I will, however, prime us to go to six if that doesn’t work out’ replied the Captain.
‘I think we should just get out of here, Jacob. We said at the start that we didn’t want to attract attention. If we disappear now, they may just think they had a glitch in their detector systems and forget all about us’ said the Commodore.
‘Okay, Ma’am. Off to six.’
Reality six proved to be quite different. This time, the language in the radio broadcasts sounded vaguely Chinese. As none of the crew could recognise the language with absolute certainty, they would need to return to Columbus and play the recordings to the language experts there. The planet had a large number of cities, towns and villages on it and a comprehensive road and rail network connecting the centres of population. There also appeared to be a high number of aircraft and ocean-going ships dotted around the visible parts of the planet. Even though there was a space station in view, the design was totally different to what they were used to and had seen previously.
‘I think we’ve seen enough for now. Off to seven’ advised the Captain.
This time, there was a reasonably large city on the planet but the space station was very much in its early stages of development. All that could be seen was a central hub, with four short spokes sticking out from it but they were of different lengths and were obviously incomplete. Examining the station in more detail showed a number of small vessels moving about the location that seemed to belong to the construction crew. From this distance, they couldn’t make out any of the construction crew themselves. The language seemed to be similar to the one heard in reality six.
When they arrived in reality eight they were surprised to find that there were two space stations, with a large number of cities and towns on the planet.
‘They’ve certainly settled this reality!’ exclaimed one of the crew.
‘It suggests they settled here some time ago, and probably well before we settled New Oregon. Alternatively, they settled here with a much bigger complement of pioneers’ suggested the Commodore.
‘I’m sure we’ll find out in due course’ responded the Captain.
Having ascertained that the primary language being used was German, they decided to move on to reality nine.
In reality nine, they were surprised to find a large amount of activity on Astraeus 5, with large mechanical devices seemingly extracting material from the planet surface. Large transport vessels could clearly be seen flying above the planet. Despite all the activity on Astraeus 5, there was no space station near New Oregon, with all the space vessels landing directly at one of two visible spaceports on the planet’s surface. There also seemed to be a certain amount of space traffic leaving or approaching the other side of New Oregon. Fortunately, the centre of activity on Astraeus 5 was far enough away that they felt reasonably safe from detection. Having identified that the language spoken was Esperanto, they left the reality at the earliest opportunity, in order to minimise the risk of being seen.
In reality ten, they found themselves alone on Astraeus 5 once more, although they could see evidence around them that mining had taken place. In fact, they found themselves floating above a deep crater that wasn’t present in any of the other realities they had visited. The surface of this version of Astraeus 5 was littered with abandoned mining equipment but they were relieved that there was no sign of life after all the activity in the previous reality.
When they started to look at New Oregon, at first it appeared to be deserted. Upon closer examination, however, they could see there was a small town, which was being taken over by advancing vegetation.
‘Is there any sign of life in the town?’ asked the Commodore.
‘Hard to say from this distance, Ma’am. There’s certainly no radio activity, which would suggest that, if there is, it’s at a fairly rudimentary level by our standards’ replied the Captain.
‘It seems that there has been a developing civilisation here, especially if we also consider what they’ve done to this version of Astraeus 5. I wonder what went wrong? Oddly, I can’t see anything that suggests a spaceport. I wonder how they got the mined materials onto the planet?’ asked Billy.
‘In due course we may investigate further but that’s not our mission today’ replied the Commodore.
‘I’m getting us out of here’ announced the Captain, ‘I think we’ve seen enough for now.’
Reality eleven proved to be similar to reality five, with a reasonable sized city and several towns dotted around the planet’s surface. The space station was much smaller, however, and seemed to be under construction. There was a fair amount of radio traffic, all in Esperanto.
‘I think we’ve seen enough for now. We’ll skip zero or twelve, as we know that’s Gott’s reality and we know that the place is occupied. No point in inviting trouble. I think it’s time to get back home and see the Admiral as soon as possible. I don’t know about everyone else but I think we’ve all had a long day so, when we get back to our reality, I’ll see if the Admiral can see us tomorrow morning, so that we can discuss where we go from here’ announced the Commodore.