Ryan Taylor awakens from hibernation to a mystery that he, along with his crew, must solve in order to continue their mission. How they solve it and what they find is astounding.
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"Did you find anything?" Janet asked.
"Yeah, I found out that the engineers didn't understand the quantum effect ofcreating antimatter the way they did. Evidently, we can enter hyperspace at less than near light speed."
"That means that if we accelerate, we might end up in hyperspace," Janet said.
"Yeah, that's a good possibility."
She sighed. "Well, we need to make a course correction and slowdown in order to achieve orbit around the fourth planet."
"When?"
"Tomorrow at 1400 hours."
"Okay," I replied.
"The fourth planet has a breathable atmosphere," Sharon said. "There are island chains on the surface, but most of the planet is covered in oceans. The poles are ice covered."
"See any lights on the dark side?"
"I have, but I think they're natural. For one thing, they're two bright and accompanied by lots of smoke, an indication that they're the result of volcanic activity."
I stood up. "Oh well, we're committed to going there."
"Are we going to settle there?" Sharon asked.
"I don't know what we'll do. It depends upon what we find."
"I've traced a line of the course we were on from Earth," Janet said. "If all of the calculations were correct, I would say that we're somewhere in the Como supercluster."
"How far away from Earth?"
"Approximately 321 million light years."
"Wow! That's a . . . well, it's a long way."
"Yeah, it would take a long time to get back to Earth," she said.
"It would require twenty years. We would have to go into hibernation, and I'm not liking that idea."
"I'm definitely not getting into those things," Sharon said.
"I think we're in agreement on that," I said. "Even if we did get back alive, Earth would not be the same."
"So, what are we going to do?" Janet asked.
"Let's not worry about that until after we explore this planet we're headed to," I said. "We can survive on this vessel for a long time, assuming that it doesn't suffer major problems."
"Living on this birdcage bucket isn't exactly fun," Sharon said. "It's like being on a cheap cruise on a cargo ship."
"It's not that bad," I said. "We have food, water and air to breath, and we're shielded from a lot of the radiation in space."
