24 Billion and counting

Chapter 1 1994 England

The sun was a glowing red disc poised on a flat table of cloud. The glow edged in fire the three wings and vertical column of each of the twenty four wind-generators thrusting through the white plain of vapour. They seemed not earthbound, but rooted in the cloudscape. 

Away from the setting sun the sky darkened, so that in the east it was cobalt, with a half moon sharply defined in silver. Every windmill was static. The sheep and the wild birds who normally were to be heard making babbling cries, had left a well of silence. 

I heard a pop, like a toy balloon being punctured, and an orange translucent sphere materialised in the glare of the sunset. I felt intense pressure to concentrate on it. I could not take my eyes or my mind from it. I was enthralled by it. It had no size or location because it could have been a half penny size bubble in front of my nose, or something monstrous on the horizon. 

The sphere swelled and within I saw purple sky, a small intensely bright light like a sun, flat orange desert and frail transmission lines on fragile pylons. The sphere expanded silently until I felt it embraced me, my old car, my time. Then with a sparkling shatter and a bang as if the engine I had just shut into its metal case had backfired, the sphere disappeared and deposited at my feet a white spacesuit. The feeling of having no will of my own vanished. If the incident took more than ten seconds I would have been surprised. 

The glass of the helmet was white frosted as though it had arrived colder than the chill of this October evening. Above the glass was the logo of NASA. The instructions on the suit were in English. 

The crystals melted and my blood ran cold, for through the quarter sphere of golden tinted glass, I saw a face like that I shaved every morning. There were two of us, or of me, one in a spacesuit from somewhen, and one owning a small hotel by a Lancashire mill town in 1994. 

If I were to have time to make sense of this, I had to conceal the newcomer from the gaze of passers by. 

I struggled with his weight, and after removing the big box life support system from his back, heaved him into the passenger seat. He seemed unconscious but breathing. Fiddling with velcro strips and plastic clips and a quarter turn seal I removed the helmet, noticing on one side of it a burn or scar. The uncanny likeness was more evident now I could see him clearly. We were more than twins. If someone had computer mapped our faces, every pore, every full and vacant follicle of our greying heads, would have corresponded. 

The man stirred and opened his eyes. His shock was like mine. He muttered, "God I must be dreaming." 

"You fell unconscious into my time - 1994. I'm Chris Williamson. We're in England on Earth. We're something I don't understand. I'd have called us clones but I don't see how that can be. Do you need anything right now?" 

He looked at me carefully, and then in my voice recognised from tapes and videos, but with a more trans-Atlantic cum Australian accent, said, "Well - Chris - I'm Lewis Ferrand from 2145 and I've just had an accident with a power line on Mars. I don't know how I came here and we're not cloning people. You're as much of a surprise to me. I'm not hungry or thirsty or in pain. If you took me somewhere else I'd have to deal with more than I have to already. I'll stay here if it's all the same to you." 

He examined the car. "Nice vehicle. I don't see what all the controls are for. Which computer service do you use?" 

"We have a technology gap. It's manually controlled,  including managing the engine. I go where I want." 

"We can only do that on Mars. On Earth you ride on a bus or a conveyor or in a compucar. You choose a destination and wait." 

He examined the road, the static fog pool, the stationary windmills, and the tranquil moorland. "Is this a theme park? Is there a general strike?"