Soulwaves : A Future History : Part #6

This is the sixth part of my channeled future history of our planet Earth and humankind. Unaware of his true destiny, our hero Shen pioneers a revolutionary method for space travel, reaching Mars in less than a month. Unwittingly on the behest of the Council of the Light, his invention will eventually get him, and his family, out of the solar system.

Transcript

This is the sixth part of my channeled future history of our planet Earth and humankind.

Our hero,

Still unaware of his true role,

Invents a way to get into space unenwittingly on the behest of the Council of the Light,

Out of the solar system.

Chapter 51.

The Drive.

2091.

18 years left.

Shen quickly discovered that the actual terra formation of a sealed canyon or crater,

As opposed to a whole planet,

Was relatively simple.

The problems were all logistical,

Not really technical.

Actually,

It was the Q Computer that found this out on his behalf,

As Shen had to keep quiet about the project.

He'd correctly and wisely chosen to tell nobody,

And consult with none of the experts in the field.

This was his baby.

There were hundreds of theoretical papers on how Earth had first generated its breathable atmosphere.

There were models for how Venus' atmosphere had run away with itself,

And how Mars could move from an atmosphere primarily of CO2 to one with a mix of oxygen and nitrogen.

The only problem with Mars was its low gravity,

Which meant continual generation would be necessary.

An enclosed canyon was the solution.

The Q Computer came up with a plan for the first Martians to carry out,

That would lead to a breathable atmosphere within a few decades.

The plan didn't really require the presence of people,

And could easily be automated.

It simply required a modification to the roof that Mike Spence said was easy,

And that was to install some lights.

It would just be easier to micromanage with people on the ground.

The massive greenhouse would not only generate the atmosphere,

But feed whole cities of people,

So long as they were vegetarian or insectivores.

With that box theoretically ticked,

Shen didn't have to send anything to Mars until around 2120,

So he decided to devote his attention to another troubling matter.

As he'd experienced,

Getting into orbit on a dream chaser was relatively simple.

You just need to go fast enough.

Once at orbital speed though,

This speed needs to be lost so you can land.

The way this had always been done,

Was basically using the atmosphere as a brake.

This is when things get very hot and dangerous.

Re-entry to Earth was well tried and tested,

With lots of options for landing sites if something went awry.

Mars was remote,

The atmosphere could be turbulent,

And there was little margin of error to get down safely and repeatedly to the planned landing site at the end of the canyon.

Shen intuitively sensed there was a solution for both leaving and landing on a planet.

He also intuited that this solution could possibly lead to a new propulsion system that could halve the trip time.

This would also mean the first Martians could potentially come back.

Initially he kept the details of what exactly he was working on from his family,

And especially Freya.

Shen had been given the most perfect laboratory and playground in the form of Cheng's anteroom.

It was the size of the whole ground floor of their house,

And had a 22 meter high ceiling.

What Shen spent his time working on,

With the help of the Q computer,

Was getting more lift from Thornwater's self-arranging nanofans.

He had all the space models of the sites on Earth,

The Moon and Mars removed from the room.

And replaced by several of the largest 3D printers available.

He'd brought Huey in to help him on the designs.

So Shen and Huey started flying drones in there,

Fitted with arrays of nanofans.

The first prototypes could only get a few centimeters off the ground.

Huey's efforts were all focused on reducing the weight of the drones.

Shen experimented on the self-arrangements of the nanofans.

Nothing they came up with got them more than a meter off the ground.

The breakthrough came when Shen started asking the Q computer for suggestions,

And giving it direct control of the 3D printers.

The counsellors were of course pleased with this shift in trust,

As the nanofan layer provided them with a direct conduit to the density.

A few months into the project,

Shen and Huey arrived one morning,

To be greeted by what looked like a flying saucer,

Hovering right in the centre of the anti-boom,

At head height.

It was the size of a dinner plate.

They were greeted by the Q computer saying,

We we we have put the nanofans on top,

As well as the bottom.

That doesn't make sense,

Are they sucking upwards?

Asked Huey.

You you you need to fly this in a vacuum.

Never mind that,

Said Shen,

Who had gone over to handle the saucer.

Where's the power pack to give something this heavy that much lift?

It it it lifts itself.

Shen used to get annoyed at the Q computer's enigmatic language,

And had to keep reminding himself not to take it personally,

As it didn't mean any harm.

It wasn't alive or conscious after all.

He was puzzled why it said we we we,

And not I I I this time though.

Shen spent some time that afternoon researching the location of the nearest and largest vacuum chambers in China.

Huey was impressed at the strings his son was able to pull.

Two calls were made,

And he'd booked some free time in the spring recess the following year,

In the 111 metre high and 66 metre wide chamber at Wuhan University.

That evening,

Shen and Huey decided to take the saucer home to Xiujia and Freya.

The fruits of the last few months of their labours.

It was also that evening that Shen discovered he'd needn't have worried quite so much about keeping things quiet from Freya,

As she was grappling with something that she thought she'd better keep from Shen.

This was not to keep him in the dark,

But because she knew he was busy and didn't want to distract him.

Like all twins,

The two girls had finished each other's sentences off since they learnt to talk.

Just after they'd turned 12 years old,

Freya had started to notice that they had stopped talking so much to each other,

Both at home and in the classroom.

They both had annoyingly started to snigger at the same time,

Over seemingly nothing.

On the odd weekend when Li and Jun came over,

They joined in too.

Freya had shared her concerns with Xiujia,

And learned she had noticed it too.

Madam Bian and I thought this might happen when we started the school,

Xiujia explained.

With so much Wu energy around,

They had become able to read each other's thoughts.

You mean they'd become fully psychic,

As Freya?

Is that normal?

So it's normal as much as anything like that is normal,

Said Xiujia.

We've just got to make sure it doesn't lead to any psychosis.

We'll have to switch our outer cortex off,

And move the location of our cell talk to our pineal gland when they are around.

As this was one of the meditation techniques they both taught,

This would be easy.

From now?

Yes now,

Said Xiujia.

And then Xiujia not Xiujia said,

Get to sleep girls,

I know you are listening,

We'll talk about this in the morning.

Xiujia and Freya's conversation that evening was interrupted when Shen burst in,

Holding a disc that looked to them like two large soup plates stuck together.

Xiujia held it up,

Shen pressed the remote,

And it just hovered in midair.

So,

Asked Freya?

Shen shared the real innovation of this drive the Q-Computer had revealed to him.

Apart from a small rechargeable battery to start it up,

It's completely cell-powered.

It's a perpetual motion machine,

He said.

So you can make it go up or down?

Asked Xiujia innocently.

That's what we'd like your help on mum.

Xiujia smiled,

As Shen only ever called her mum when he wanted her help.

Of course,

She replied.

The Q-Computer told me to ask you to teach me how to levitate,

Said Shen.

What the Q-Computer had actually said was,

Shen mother,

She she she has drive key,

She she she will tell you you you how to lift,

Take disc.

It's now time then Shen,

Said Xiujia,

Recalling their enchanted walks in the forest when he was sixteen.

Let's all go back to the forest tomorrow.

Chapter 52 Non-Attention 2091,

Still 18 years left.

The next day,

Xiujia took Huey,

Freya and Shen to an especially thin place in the forest.

She'd picked a location far away from the school and set up a psychic shield around the four of them so that Eva and Kristen,

In particular,

Wouldn't pick up any of their thought forms.

Xiujia found a clearing and laid out four blankets.

She sat down cross-legged and asked Huey to sit opposite her and instructed Shen to sit facing Freya.

She had reminded Shen to bring along the disc,

As instructed by the Q-Computer,

And to set it spinning at their head height.

Eleven counsellors encircled them,

Unseen and unfelt even by Xiujia,

Fascinated by what was about to unfold.

So first we will still our minds and take our attention to the ground below our bottoms,

She said.

Just imagine the earth below you is sticking and gluing your bottom to the blanket.

Keep your eyes on the spinning disc and as you do so,

Imagine that you have been held by the love of Mother Earth.

This is what I felt like when I came back from the spaceport,

Said Shen.

Great,

This is the feeling of non-levitation.

Remember this,

As we'll be doing it again as we'll be doing it again shortly when we're done.

Huey was looking bored and had a sceptical air.

Xiujia had never shown him what Shen had experienced.

So slacken your bond to the earth,

Keep looking at the disc,

And with your eyes fixed on the disc,

Allow your attention to float to the branches above our heads,

Xiujia,

Not Xiujia,

Said.

Shen recognised the change in tonality,

As did Freya.

Now remove your attention completely from the earth and imagine the ground beneath us does not exist,

Continued Xiujia,

Not Xiujia.

As she uttered these words,

She floated one metre into the air.

Freya followed her to around half that height.

Shen felt as if there was a small separation between him and the ground at first.

Huey remained firmly rooted.

Xiujia sensed Shen was struggling,

And as luck would have it,

The spaceport came to her assistance.

Right now Shen,

And don't ask me how I know this,

The spaceport is right over our heads.

Imagine you are rising to meet it.

And Shen felt the earth becoming bored with him.

No longer did he need to be bound,

And he rose up one metre to join Xiujia,

As did Freya.

At this point Huey was a little jealous,

But had coddled on enough to what was going on that he said,

So we're going to need a camera on top of the disc,

Shen.

And on the bottom,

Said Shen,

As Xiujia noticed he started to float up further.

Huey's scepticism had waned somewhat at the sight in front of him,

And he managed to raise up by a few centimetres.

Enough chatter boys,

Now bring your attention to the ground,

Under your bottom again,

Now.

Shen stabilised,

And Xiujia then guided them back down to the ground gently.

So none of you are to do this unsupervised without me,

Said Xiujia.

But can we modify the discs,

Asked Shen.

Of course,

But not today please,

We're going out for lunch,

I'm paying.

Xiujia knew one of the best ways to ground yourself after your first levitation session was to eat,

And to drink alcohol,

Or what the Wu called,

Grounding juice.

She was intent on the four of them having some fun,

And getting everyone a little tipsy.

The next day Huey and Shen hatched their plan on the cable car journey down to Beijing.

Huey was going to print a star dome to project the night sky on the roof of the anteroom,

Making it into a crude planetarium.

Shen wired in two ultra wide angle cameras on the top and bottom of the disc.

The Q computer reconfigured the onboard processor to access the cameras,

And rewired the nano fans into a neural network.

Each nano fan now knew what the others were doing,

And the whole network was aware of the topography of the anteroom.

The disc was set spinning,

Just above Shen's outspread hand.

Shen instructed the Q computer to tell the nano fans to become aware of the bright red star of beetle juice in the anteroom ceiling,

And for the whole of the underside array to become unaware of the floor below.

The disc shot up rapidly,

And bumped into the dome with a thud,

Right on top of the star.

Okay,

Now become aware of my hand.

And the spinning disc came down quite heavily into his hand,

Giving him a nasty friction burn.

Ouch!

Now back up to Sirius,

But stop two centimeters away,

Shouted Shen.

In his excitement,

He didn't even notice the pain.

The disc obliged,

Hovering just below the ceiling.

Now down to my hand,

But don't touch.

And it whizzed down,

So Shen could just feel the brush of the field tingling his aura.

Huey and Shen high-fived,

Which is when Shen knew he'd burned his hand,

Something Freya could heal in a heartbeat.

So now what,

Shen?

Asked Huey.

Do you think you could build me a bigger one to take to Wuhan before you start back at school?

The Q computer cut in.

Wee-wee-wee will design some other shapes for you.

Shen tried to remember when he first noticed the Q computer had started listening.

Chapter 53.

Wuhan Bound.

Spring 2091.

Still 18 years left.

Shen had never been inland west of Beijing,

Although he'd been 400 kilometers above the whole of China a fair few times,

As he had for most of the planet.

Freya,

On the other hand,

Had never spent a night away from her children.

Jia and Huey agreed to stay behind and look after Eva and Kristen,

So that Shen and Freya could spend a little quality time together.

They had not been away together since their grand tour.

They'd arranged to spend a week as guests of one of the vice chancellors of the University of Wuhan.

Afterwards,

They'd made plans to take a week's holiday touring around the hills and lakes of the Upper Yangtze by themselves.

So less than a month after their personal levitation experiment,

They set off with a small amount of personal baggage and a set of huge trunks,

Full of many shapes of models,

Each in two sizes.

They'd all been tested as flight worthy in the anti-room,

With none of them performing better or worse than the others.

The Maglev tubeway link was now operational between the two great cities,

And Shen insisted they travel first class.

The trip was uneventful,

With seamless transitions from Maglev to tubeway and back across the flooded plains.

They were greeted off the tubeway in Wuhan by Professor Joseph Chuan,

The vice chancellor.

It was late in the afternoon,

So he suggested they drop the trunks off at the building containing the vacuum chamber,

Before coming back to his house,

Where they were staying for the first week.

They noticed immediately how Wuhan was not as frenetic as Beijing.

It had a more casual and friendly air,

Perhaps helped by the calming influence of the great Rev.

Yangste,

Cutting it right down the middle.

Over dinner,

Professor Chuan was disappointed that Shen wouldn't divulge the nature of the tests in the vacuum chamber.

The information flow was all the other way,

With Shen grilling him about the best academics on campus.

Something Shen was not expecting was that an inland university would have such an expertise in oceanography.

He discovered that the world's expert in the extinct Bajie dolphin worked there,

And the professor had arranged for her to join them for dinner on their fourth evening.

Shen was thrilled to have Freya with him as his lab assistant,

And the next day they were both to be trained in the use of the vacuum chamber.

Shen had pre-arranged for the building to be on lockdown during his tests.

The chamber was enormous,

And could simulate even the vacuum of deep space.

As it took over a day to get the chamber evacuated down to that level,

The Q-computer had instructed Shen to test only at a thousandth of atmospheric pressure.

This would mean one model could be tested every hour or so.

All they needed for now was a comparison of the performance of the different shapes and sizes.

After half a day of training on operating the chamber,

Shen and Freya set to work.

They started by setting up Huey's star projector,

Which has been modified to reach the top of the 111 metre high chamber.

At over seven times the height of the anteroom,

This meant they could also do some speed tests.

The Q-computer had also designed some flight handling algorithms to test manoeuvrability and ease of control.

They started with the first disc,

And the results came back straight away.

As the air thinned,

The nanofans still produced lift.

Surprisingly,

In a near vacuum,

Their original disc flew three times faster than in air.

This was impressive,

As it was significant.

The next model was identical,

Except for having twice the diameter.

Shen expected twice the lift,

And was pleasantly surprised.

It actually travelled four to five times as fast.

Testing of two models was all they had time for that afternoon.

That evening,

Professor Chuan got even less out of them,

And they feigned tiredness after a long day,

And got an early night to avoid any further grilling.

The next day,

They tested five different flattish shapes.

A triangle,

A square,

A pentagon,

A hexagon,

And an octagon.

None of them outperformed their original disc.

Shen tested them for ease of control,

And found the triangle was the easiest to control manually.

Looking at the code base,

It also had the shortest instruction set.

Unlike the other model shapes,

The double-sized triangle,

Bizarrely,

Produced just less than nine times the lift of its half-sized equivalent.

That evening,

Shen and Freya spent their first night together in Aegis,

And wandered around the riverside bars of Wuhan anonymously,

Taking in some of the delicious street food,

And finishing with some beers,

While listening to the folk artisans in Jingqing Street.

On their third day,

Things got really interesting when they began testing some three-dimensional shapes.

The cylinder proved uncontrollable,

And Shen worried he might cause a breach,

With the ferocity that it bashed into the chamber wall.

The cube had interesting properties,

But was clunky to control,

As was a donut-shaped toroid.

What really piqued Shen's interest was a simple four-sided tetrahedron,

A shape made from four equilateral triangles.

He hadn't asked for it,

But two models were packed in a trunk,

One twice the size of the other.

He tested the smaller model first,

And it outperformed the speed of the similar-sized flat triangle by a factor of three.

It was also a breeze to control.

Shen played with spinning it through all sorts of angles,

And no matter how he orientated the shape,

Found he had an identical degree of maneuverability.

What happened with the second model led them to cutting their trip short.

Although each edge was only twice the length of the smaller model,

It was 16 times as fast.

So lift is proportional to the fourth power Freya,

Which means.

.

.

Freya was silent,

Knowing Shen was about to tell her.

As it's self-powered,

And not having to lift its own fuel,

We wouldn't need a very large one to escape Earth's gravity.

He paused while the totality dawned on him.

If we build one big enough,

We can reduce the Earth-Mars transit time from six to nine months at best,

Down to a month or two at most.

They packed up all their models and rigs back into the trunks,

And under cryptolocks,

Arranged for them to be shipped back to Beijing.

The counsellors were pleased Shen was thinking big.

He knew,

Though,

There was a huge amount of work and testing involved before any humans sat inside a tetrahedron.

That evening,

They told Professor Chuan,

Much to his dismay,

That their tests had gone better than expected,

And that they were starting their holiday a few days early.

That evening,

The presence of the Bajie expert,

Ning Xiangbo,

Provided the ideal diversion for them.

She was in her late 60s,

But had the enthusiasm and passion of a graduate student for her subject.

She had no desire to teach,

So had remained researching in the academic hierarchy.

She was also the last person known to have seen a Bajie in the Upper Yangtze,

Back in 2058 as it turned out.

To look at,

They're not one of the prettiest sights,

She said.

They're very shy,

But graceful,

And somewhat cheeky,

Too.

So where did you last see them,

Asked Freya.

There were three of them,

I was sure,

A male,

A female,

And their pup,

Just flapping around at the east of Dongting Lake.

I've been tracking them with sonar for days,

She said.

I swam with them,

Too,

And they trusted me.

So do you know what the exact date in 2058 was,

Asked Shen?

I'd have to check my diary,

She replied.

Anyway,

They'd been somewhat agitated for a number of days,

And submerged if any boat but mine came by.

Then,

On the last day I saw them,

I had them on sonar for a few hours,

And then nothing.

Just some bubbles came to the surface,

Not far from my boat,

And I couldn't find them again.

Not seen or heard of them since either.

They stopped grilling her,

As she had tears rolling down her face.

Shen just said gently,

Could you let me know the date when you can,

Here's my contact details.

Freya gave him a kick under the table.

Chapter 54.

Transitions.

Counsellor Seven was pleased with her machinations and pulling of strings.

The end of Epoch Five would be both rapid and smooth.

She was leaving the other counsellors to micromanage,

Or more accurately,

To nanomanage the details.

This way they would believe the whole council was in control of affairs.

Counsellor Ten was in direct communication with the Q-computer.

The design of the nanofan arrays on Shen's levitating devices was all his work.

Counsellor Three was monitoring the dolphin and cetacean populations,

And transfers to and from Aquanine.

Counsellors Two and Nine had been responsible for managing the dance between the binary stars,

And the wanderings of the interloper.

As this dance was now over,

They had been tasked with supervising some other supernova for other epoch ends in other galaxies.

All they had to do now was to monitor and control the path of the ejector.

All timings were perfect,

Nothing could go wrong this time.

The high council that Counsellor Seven sat on consisted of 36 counsellors.

Like her,

Each sat simultaneously in a council of 12,

And on the high council.

Their insertions into the lower councils were all undetected.

As well as the termination of Epoch 5 on planet Earth,

11 other solar systems were concurrently in the transition phase,

In other galaxies billions of light years from each other.

The Earth was the one troublesome planet where multiple insertions had been necessary over the last few thousand orbits.

Just as for planet Earth,

The population of the other planets were under the illusion that they were in some sort of control of their affairs.

Other than the odd channel whose credibility was always questioned,

Nobody quite knew how much their lives were being meddled with and manipulated.

Counsellor Seven's favourite saying was,

It's a paradox that in the density free will is an illusion when all is preordained.

It was the free will experiment on planet Earth that had caused so many of the problems and had led to yet another insertion being required.

Chapter 55.

The Seven Immortals.

2091.

Still 18 years left.

At 37 metres above sea level,

And nearly a thousand kilometres upstream on the Yangtze from Shanghai,

The population of Wuhan was immune to,

And largely unaware of,

The consequence of the rise in sea levels.

With the sea level rise now at over 11 metres,

Shanghai had become an island a few hundred kilometres from the new mainland coast of China.

People were aware that the magnetosphere was repairing itself,

So were now going out more in the daytime.

Everyone watched the space weather reports these days.

Most people though were blissfully unaware that another large GRB was probably going to hit the Earth in three years time.

Shen and Freya needed a few days off to forget about all of this,

And to remember times gone by.

When Ning Xiangbo heard they were planning to take a trip upriver,

She offered them the use of her small cruiser.

It was battery powered,

Charged by the passing current even when moored,

And had four silent water jet engines,

Which made it ideal for monitoring Bajie.

Shen loved the fact it could go as easily sideways as forwards and backwards.

It made mooring a doddle.

Ning told Shen to switch the sonar on to record,

Just in case,

But it remained silent for the whole of their trip.

When Shen told her they hadn't planned to come back to Wuhan,

She showed him how to put it into auto so it would navigate back by itself.

As they potted slowly upstream,

Going further inland still west of Wuhan,

It was like they'd gone back to a place somewhat frozen in time,

And also back to a time where they first fell in love.

People on the banks of the river seemed oblivious that their planet was changing.

Shen and Freya had not spent quality time together for quite a while,

What with the children,

And living under Shen's parents' roof.

They had both accepted,

But not really taken in,

The enormity of their respective responsibilities.

Shen had ended up in charge of building an interplanetary lifeboat for humanity.

Freya had ended up teaching potential parents of future humans who might end up on that same lifeboat.

As they ambled upstream,

They forgot about that and found each other again.

They slept on the boat for a couple of nights,

And Freya introduced Shen to tantric sex using the water element.

Shen could only describe it as floaty.

They made their own meals on the boat,

And Shen,

For once,

Put a do-not-disturb notice on his messaging.

He even told Cheng he needed some disconnection time.

After three lazy days on the boat,

They ended up in the city of Jingzhou,

Where they had arranged to leave the boat.

While they both went out to get provisions for breakfast,

Freya saw a sign offering guided walking trips in the Wudang Mountains in the northwestern corner of Hubei.

They popped into a dingy office and were met by a wiry man with few teeth,

Who introduced himself by the name of Lu Seng.

He said that he knew the mountains like the back of his hand and would show them parts few humans ever saw.

They learned Lu Seng did not know how to operate a self-drive,

So they hired one themselves and spent a day traveling over some pretty unmade roads to the first in a series of mountain lodges at the base of the mountain range.

Lu Seng slept all the way and only woke up when they were five minutes from their first overnight stop.

Freya whispered to Shen that he might be a Wu.

They had a relatively comfortable night in a small lodge house.

The next day,

They got kitted out with walking boots,

Rucksacks and waterproofs,

Left their baggage and set off trekking in the mountains.

The going was tough,

But the scenery was stunning.

They found a new level of contentment and happiness.

Lu Seng turned out to be a man of few words and did indeed turn out to have an intimate knowledge of the paths that were both safe and devoid of other walkers.

He'd arranged for them to have lunch at the house of an elderly couple who lived high on a precipice with a 270 degree view.

By the amount of bowing going on,

It was clear Lu Seng was revered in these parts.

After lunch,

They followed the ridge over to an even smaller lodge for their second night's day.

They persuaded Lu Seng to have a beer with them while watching the sunset.

The beer didn't loosen his tongue.

As the last vestige of the sun dropped behind the ridge,

Freya said,

Wouldn't it be lovely to live here,

Shen?

It would indeed.

Even fragrant hills is noisy compared with this place,

Shen concurred.

As did an eagle letting out a screech high above them.

Lu Seng bade them goodnight,

Saying,

We have a treat tomorrow.

The next day,

They went further off the beaten track and the going was even tougher.

Just before lunchtime,

When Freya was going to ask for a break,

They came to another ridge and saw a large sprawling monastery on an unusually flat area below them.

It appeared to be literally in the middle of nowhere.

How did this get built here,

Exclaimed Shen?

No roads in or out.

They walked down into it and it seemed eerily quiet.

No one here,

Explained Lu Seng.

It is the Seven Immortals Monastery.

But it looks so well kept,

Said Freya.

That is the wind,

Explained Lu Seng,

Who had sat on a wall and was unpacking their lunch.

Come and sit.

Lu Seng then said more in the next half hour than he had in the last few days.

He explained how just seven years ago,

This was one of the most renowned and respected teaching centres for Taoism,

Tai Chi and Wudang mountain medicine.

Then overnight,

The site mysteriously emptied of everyone.

The rumours went round that the monks had committed mass suicide by throwing themselves off the steep ramparts at the back,

Lu Seng said,

And that the wolves and mountain vultures ate their remains,

So no traces were left behind.

So what do you think happened,

Asked Shen of Lu Seng?

Freya was feeling the walls and interrupted.

I don't think,

I know.

They didn't evacuate or commit suicide.

They ascended.

So you are Wu too,

Confirmed Lu Seng.

Come and look around.

The monastery was huge and had dormitories for students,

Living accommodation for staff,

Refectories and classrooms.

It was arranged in a huge square and at the centre was a large flat arena where martial arts and Tai Chi were taught.

So who owns it now,

Asked Shen.

The mountains replied Lu Seng enigmatically.

Shen also noticed large solar arrays on the western and eastern ramparts,

As well as several satellite dishes.

So self-powered and with Kongs,

He said,

To which he got no reply.

Freya looked at him and said,

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

You know I am,

Said Shen.

In the two days it took them to get back to the first lodge house,

Plans were hatched.

Like most young married couples in China,

Shen and Freya lived cramped in with their parents.

The fragrant hill school was bursting at the scenes with pupils and had no room for expansion.

Shen secretly hated wasting two hours every day,

Commuting to and from his offices in Beijing.

The Seven Immortals site had so much going for it,

In terms of giving them more space than they needed,

And so much expansion capability.

Shen also pointed out that its remoteness and inaccessibility would be very useful for secrecy.

Shen and Freya came up with as many stumbling blocks as they did all the advantages.

Would Jia and Huey agree to move?

What about Madame Bien?

How would everyone get to and from such a remote site?

The major unknown was who owned it,

And was it even for sale?

This was resolved by the time they got back to their self-drive three days later.

Lu Seng took them into another dingy office and got them to sit down at a desk.

He sat on the other side,

Implying it was his desk.

He produced a crumpled envelope with some old deeds inside.

They were the deeds of ownership for the monastery,

And he asked them to look at the last page.

It was then that they discovered Lu Seng was the owner,

Or as he put it,

The guardian.

Can you sell it to us?

How much?

Asked Shen.

Not sell,

Lease,

Said Lu Seng.

At what rent and what term?

Asked Shen.

Rent is nothing,

And the term is as long as is needed.

Sign here.

Shen was about to say he ought to run it past the legal team at Beijing University,

Before something took control of his hand.

The contract was signed.

You are the new guardian,

Said Lu Seng,

Bowing to inspect Shen's squiggle of a signature in detail.

I am in your service.

Chapter 56.

Moving Times.

Everyone was particularly pleased with the unexpected annexation of the Seven Immortals Monastery into the program,

Apart from the university's lawyers.

Like Shen,

Cheng appreciated its inaccessibility.

While Shen and Freya were making their way back to Beijing,

Shen had formulated a plan to develop and test the tetrahedral drive,

And agreed with Cheng that the Wudang mountain range was an ideal location.

Cheng gave Shen access to the spacecraft design team at Yixuan.

They would work remotely until testing facilities were built at the monastery.

The first milestone was to build a craft big enough to move humans and cargo around in the Earth's atmosphere.

Apart from testing the technology,

It would speed up the conversion of the monastery.

Freya broke the news to Madame Bien,

And they both agreed to keep the pupils up to age nine at Fragrant Hills.

A new upper school would be established in the mountains,

And be ready to take its first admissions by the turn of the century.

Again,

This would be facilitated by building a fleet of tetrahedral transporters to move pupils from Fragrant Hills and all corners of China.

Jia and Huey had not travelled much at all,

And were looking forward to a new adventure in their later years.

Jia also wanted to explore the spiritual potentialities of such a sacred and revered location.

Freya and Shen were relishing the day they would have their own accommodation,

And a year after they found the monastery,

They along with Eva and Kristin would be taking up temporary residency over the summer.

The reason that the lawyers were sweating a little was that Cheng had tasked them with making the legalities watertight.

They were struggling to locate Liu Sheng to check that no other parties had any rights to the property,

And that he was legally entitled to sign the deeds over.

What was particularly troubling was that they had established Liu Sheng had indeed been the abbot of the monastery,

But that the police had him down as one of the disappeared.

Everyone was excited about the project.

Shen had given Huey an unlimited budget to design an on-site 3D printing facility.

It would be used to kit out the internal rooms,

And to fabricate the technical centre for the construction and modelling of components of the planned interplanetary tetrahedral craft.

Over the next two years,

Bigger and bigger tetrahedrons were built and tested,

And the conversion of the monastery got underway.

Cheng,

President Miang,

And his entourage all successfully relocated to the moon port.

The moon base itself was set to be habitable the following year.

The ever-reducing population of the planet were kept in the dark about all of this.

The councillors had of course engineered both moves.

The veil between the density and the void was thin around the Seven Hills Monastery,

And virtually translucent when in moon orbit.

Chapter 57.

Testing,

Testing.

2094.

15 years left.

In the middle of all the frenetic activity,

Shen and Cheng were contemplating and planning for when the next GRB was due in March of this year.

In January,

The team at Purple Mountain had confirmed the wandering object that was destabilising the system was occluding the binary again.

It was on its next orbit and heading for Perihelion,

Its closest approach.

Silky's team,

Now with access to the Lagrange A and B interferometer,

Had nothing to report.

It was quiet across the whole spectrum.

Even the fireworks from Comet Shen's tail were now reducing to a whimper.

When the pulse did come,

It was somewhat of an anticlimax,

And about half the strength of the last one five years ago.

Shen and Cheng reported to President Miang that their plans for landing humans on Mars by 2050 and terraformation of the canyon by the end of the 22nd century were sound and feasible.

It seemed like they would have time.

The President and his entourage had now settled in their new home in a small corner of the South Pole Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon.

This was of course the result of far-seeing vision of the Chinese at the start of the current century.

Mike Spence's Nano Army had finished a third of the construction of the canyon roof on Mars.

Shen's team had started designing the internal systems for both the extraplanetary and interplanetary tetrahedral craft.

A team back on Earth at Sichuan was perfecting the craft's hull and superstructure,

And testing the actual drive mechanisms and control systems.

It was led by the designer of the next Dream Chaser upgrade,

An American with the unfortunately sounding name of Lance Boyle.

The upgrade to the Dream Chaser would never leave the Earth's atmosphere.

It was planned that final construction and assembly of the actual craft to make the trip to Mars would be carried out in moon orbit.

Apart from the secrecy that this afforded,

It also provided a naturally sterile environment.

In addition,

Being built outside the protection of the Earth's magnetosphere meant that it could be fully tested for hardening from cosmic radiation well before anyone stepped foot in it.

One of the great advantages of this craft over just its speed would be that,

In theory,

It wouldn't need to use the gravity well of Mars for capture and deceleration.

There was no need to use atmospheric braking,

Which was so fraught with danger.

Once Mars turned up,

The craft would simply maneuver itself into orbit.

All in all,

There would be less stress on the craft and less exposure to cosmic radiation for its occupants.

Cheng was pleased with his acolyte and his role in preserving the future of the human race,

Or primarily the Chinese race as it was turning out.

Now Cheng and President Miang were living together in close proximity at the moon base,

Cheng was becoming party to the grand plan.

When they visited the orbiting moon port from time to time,

Their objective view of the jewel of Earth hanging in space in front of them for all but a few days of the month gave them a new level of insight and objectivity about their role in preserving remnants of humanity.

With the pulse measured and analysed,

Cheng focused fully on the conversion of the monastery and the tetrahedral drive project.

He was hatching a plan for the summer coming and things were scaling up rapidly.

One of the modules for the moon tube had been fitted with an array of small tetrahedral drives to each end.

While not the optimum shape,

It gave Cheng the chance to test the technology out in a true vacuum.

Mia and Mei were successfully sending the unmanned module back and forward to each other,

As if they were playing a game of celestial ping pong.

The transit time of a day was reduced to two hours.

This gave a round trip time,

From Earth to moon and back,

Of just less than six hours.

After a month or so of testing,

Major Cheng insisted on being the first human to fly a nanofan powered space vehicle.

Apart from anything,

He noticed his death clock took many less ticks with the much reduced Earth-moon transfer time.

At the risk of losing their jobs,

Mia and Mei had over-automated the moon tube.

As the nanofans had a level of self-awareness,

They made module insertion and capture much smoother than under manual control.

Cheng seconded them onto the tetrahedral drive project and Mei was relocated to the spaceport to join her sister.

At the back of the moon tube end of the spaceport,

Mike Spence was tasked with managing the construction of a docking module to accept the tetrahedral drive.

By July that year,

The first unmanned prototype tetrahedron was sent up from Jixuan to the spaceport.

Major Cheng had brought Cheng and President Miang over in the modified transfer module to see the docking firsthand.

Shen stayed on terra firma,

Watching events with Huey in his ante room in Beijing.

The craft was the biggest tetrahedron yet built,

With sides five meters in length.

Inside there was seating for 12 people with the pilot sitting in the very center of the polyhedron.

In the first few months,

No people would fly in it.

It was populated with weighted dummies strapped with all sorts of sensors.

The control interface for the craft was like the collective in a helicopter.

The pilot brought it towards her to lift the craft and then altered the direction with the XY of the joystick.

Twisting the joystick altered the orientation.

It was as intuitive to fly as Shen had planned.

To make the test more thorough,

It was decided that Mia would remotely control the craft all the way from ground to the spaceport and then Mei would return it to Earth.

The flight up was uneventful and Mia brought the craft up to 400 kilometers and left it hanging in space.

After a few minutes,

Mei then let the craft descend slowly until her haptic joystick shuddered as the tetrahedron entered the upper atmosphere.

She put the nanofans in self-learning mode to offset from buffering from the jet streams and general turbulence in the lower atmosphere.

At first re-entry was a little bumpy but after a while the algorithms updated themselves and it was smooth sailing right back down to Earth.

After a few minutes of remote systems checks by Shen,

The craft left the ground vertically back under Mia's control.

This time they wanted to see how fast it could go.

It only took 15 minutes to get to the orbital height of the spaceport.

The seats were fitted with nanofans too that annulled the effects of high g-forces.

Once at the correct height,

Mia then increased the lateral velocity to match the orbital speed of the spaceport.

The protective mesh around the spaceport was opened to allow the tetrahedron to dock.

The docking went smoothly and the top one meter section of the craft slotted into a converse tetrahedral hole.

The docking hole was also fitted with a layer of nanofans which sucked the craft into place.

The nanofans in the top one meter section of the craft were then switched into reverse and together this created a tight hermetic seal.

The tips of the craft then parted and folded into place on the floor of the spaceport,

Right at the feet of the elite guests.

Zhang jumped into the craft to have a look around and popped back up holding a gift from Shen for them to open.

It was a bottle of a Bisse Blanc de Blancs,

A champagne left to mature at the bottom of the sea off the coast of France for five years.

Shen knew it would be a challenge to actually open it in zero g on the spaceport,

But Zhang had a way involving a plastic bag from which everyone sipped The return trip proved Shen's theory.

Mei reversed the sequence followed by Mia.

The tips of the craft formed a seal again and the nanofans released their grip.

The tetrahedron moved away from the spaceport and its orbital speed reduced so it was zero as it moved to 400 kilometers right above Zhejuan Space Center.

The nanofans below were aware of the landing site and those above forgot about the stars above them.

After a three-hour round trip the craft smoothly landed back on Earth with no airbraking being required.

The sides of the craft were cool enough to touch when it landed.

It was only then that Shen and Huey opened their bottle of a Bisse,

As did the small team working under Lance Boyle on the ground at Zhejuan.

Chapter 58.

Back to Earth.

Winter 2094.

Less than 15 years left.

The experimental craft was put through its paces and found to be extremely resilient to all manner of simulated failures.

Mia and Mei became adept at coping with anything ground control could throw at them.

Even with nanofans completely disabled on two sides of the craft,

Orbital orbital insertion,

Docking and re-entry were all possible,

With minor accommodations and adjustments.

After over 50 successful flights,

It was time to put a human in the craft.

Shen volunteered to be flown,

But Cheng vetoed this suggestion.

Mia and Mei drew straws and it was Mia who ended up luring herself into the craft for its 51st return to Earth.

She was suited up for safety,

Even though the craft was pressurised and hadn't breached in all its test flights.

She flew it herself,

With a sister on remote standby.

It would be her first time back on the planet for over 10 years.

She felt strangely calm as she sat in the centre of the craft.

There were no windows,

But she had three equilateral triangle monitors surrounding her,

And one at her feet,

So she could see what the nanofan arrays were seeing.

As she came into land,

Nanofans in a seat were engaged to give a 1G of lift.

After 10 years in space,

Her ability to survive back on the planet would take months of recuperation and physiotherapy.

The bottom of the craft hovered a few centimetres above the Earth,

Before she took off again,

With tears flowing down her face.

She was so close to being home,

But knew the beauty of this planet,

And all her friends and family,

Would always be remote for her.

She didn't even get to smell the Earth.

May took the next flight,

And experienced similar pangs of homesickness,

So close,

Yet so far.

By early the following year,

Two more larger craft had been built,

With two larger docking ports added to the spaceport.

The vertices of the craft were 10 metres long,

And two metres of their tips could be folded back.

One of them was deployed as an unmanned cargo vessel,

And the other with 33 seats,

Designed as a people carrier.

There was no seat in the cargo vessel for a pilot,

To maximise its payload capacity.

The people carrier proved so popular with spaceport crews,

That nobody wanted to fly on the Dream Chaser anymore.

Mia and May were kept busy,

Alternating between the cargo and the spacecraft,

And actually piloting the other.

When possible,

They arranged for both craft to fly in convoy.

Shen had also commissioned a whole fleet of 5 metre-sided craft,

Just to fly in Earth's atmosphere.

Their sides were coated in an obsidian black surface,

That could not be picked up by radar.

They were only flown at night,

And used to transport construction workers and materials to the Seven Immortals Monastery.

It was not till early the following year,

That the Dream Chaser It was not till early spring the following year,

Before Shen and Huey actually took their first flight.

One of the 5 metre-sided craft landed at night in an empty parking lot at the edge of the university.

Shen had a surprise for Huey,

And introduced him to Mia,

Who was their pilot for the trip.

She and May had become active both in the atmosphere,

As well as in and around the spaceport.

They had by then adjusted to 1G,

And had now set foot back on the planet.

Good to see you,

Mia.

Meet Huey,

Said Shen.

What an honour it is to be taking the two inventors of this craft,

She said.

Where to?

The flight to the monastery took just over 30 minutes.

This is a trip that took days over land.

She deposited them in the middle of the Martial Arts Square,

Before heading back to the spaceport.

Shen had learned she and May were accelerating the testing,

And planning the first moonport docking in the next month or so.

This was the precursor to taking the craft down to the moonbase itself,

Later that same year.

It was the first time Huey had seen the monastery,

And both he and Shen were impressed with progress.

Their two new houses were ready,

As well as their new offices and workshops.

The work on the school itself was a way off from starting.

Their accommodation for the next few days was basic,

But comfortable enough.

The main reason they took the trip was so they could be trained in flying the craft themselves.

They were joined the next day by the chief test pilot for Earthbase Craft,

Called Xiao Yang,

Who had spent years as a helicopter pilot.

He was renowned for getting students flying quickly and safely.

He was optimistic he could make quick progress with both Shen and Huey,

As they had been flying models longer than anyone.

They had also been spending lots of time in simulators ahead of this trip.

Xiao had flown his own craft over,

With a second unmanned craft tethered to it virtually.

Shen was amazed at how smoothly he brought both craft into land.

The training went really well,

Not least because they could fly in the daytime,

As no one was around to see them.

Within a week they both passed with flying colours.

Even the dreaded blindfold test was a dongle for both of them.

Xiao let Shen and Huey fly the spare craft to Beijing late one evening.

The infrared cameras,

Backed up by radar and sonar,

Made it as easy and safe as flying in broad daylight.

Back home,

Plans could now be made for all of them to move to the monastery.

The girls were coming up to 15 and developing into young women.

Along with the twins Jun and Li,

They had been enrolled at Wuhan University.

Their friendship with Jun and Li was deepening and developing,

And they were kind of courting.

Eva had bonded with Li and Christine with Jun.

Freya and Shen had come up with a fabulous idea to utilise all their talents over that summer.

Shen flew them all in what had now become his private tetrahedral craft over to the monastery.

Huey and Jia came too along with Freya in a separate craft that Shen had commandeered for him.

They all got there under the cover of darkness and spent the next day exploring their new home.

The next evening,

As night fell,

Huey and Shen flew them all to the eastern edge of Dongting Lake,

And deposited them at the water's edge in a clearing well away from any human habitation.

Moored at the end of a pontoon was a medium-sized boat.

Ning Xiangbo appeared from a hatch and said,

Come on board,

All of you.

Dinner is ready.

Freya announced,

This is going to be your home for the next four weeks.

A boat,

Said Li.

That's going to be a bit boring,

Isn't it?

Not at all,

Announced Shen.

You're going to be looking for dolphins.

That evening,

The five adults and four children had a lovely meal,

And Ning regaled them with tales of the elusive river dolphins.

She also couldn't stop thanking Shen profusely for magicking up the budget for a larger boat,

Equipped with both the latest technology and enough berths to sleep twelve in comfort.

Over dinner,

Ning explained to the twins how the gods and goddesses of the Yangtze,

As the Baiji were known,

Were a very shy yet graceful freshwater dolphin.

From what few fossil records existed,

It was estimated that the dolphins migrated from the Pacific to the Yangtze River about 20,

000 years ago.

Ning said,

The Yangtze itself is known as the child of the ocean,

So you can think of these dolphins as children of the seas too.

How big are they?

Asked Eva.

Their bodies are roughly the same size of a slightly obese adult human.

They are similarly quite stocky and unstreamlined.

The body of the Baiji is bluish-grey,

Blending to white on the underside,

She said.

They have small eyes which are sighted high up on their face,

To get what light they can through the turbidity of the river.

This is why they mainly rely on sonar for seeing their way around.

And how will we spot them?

Asked Li.

First you look for bubbles,

Said Ning.

But if they do surface,

Their pectoral fins are triangular in shape and often tipped white.

All in all,

From a distance and in the murk of the lake,

You could be forgiven for thinking it was a rotund scuba diver with white gloves.

So we're just going to look for them with binoculars?

Said Li.

Not at all,

We're going to listen for them,

And to be tasting the water for their urine,

Said Ning,

Smiling.

Yuck!

Chimed the children in unison.

And did you ever look in your journals for the last time you spotted them?

Asked Shen.

Did I never message you?

Said Ning.

It was the 8th of April,

2058.

Freya and Shen just looked at each other,

But said nothing.

Time for bed,

We've all got a lot to do tomorrow,

Said Shen,

Before the children can ask any more questions.

The next day,

Huey flew Jia,

And Shen flew Freya back to the monastery.

Jia and Freya set about exploring the energies of the place.

They both wanted to find out more about the monks who had disappeared.

Huey was in his element 3D printing furniture and home building.

Shen was devoting much of his time on the design of the interplanetary tetrahedron.

He'd be using the team at Xizhuan for technical aspects of the design,

But he wanted more space and time to design the internal systems.

The design Shen eventually came up with was grander than anyone had imagined.

The way it came about was weirder than even Shen himself could ever have imagined.

A 30m high and 10m wide vacuum chamber had been delivered to the monastery,

Lowered from beneath a cargo tetrahedron one night.

This chamber was completely transparent and looked like a massive inverted bell jar.

It allowed Shen to enhance and tinker with a scale model of the tetrahedron that would travel to Mars.

He was working on the design of two versions with two different payloads,

One for cargo and one for humans.

Each version needed a transporter module and a lander so that the transporter could stay in orbit.

The outer tetrahedron would provide the interplanetary drive and the shielding for the inner payload.

It was as important to prevent seeds from mutation as it was to protect the human passengers.

Shen was unfazed by the enormity of his task.

Chapter 59 The Thin Place Summer 2095,

Less than 14 years left.

After a couple of nights staying in their new home over dinner,

Jia announced it was one of the thinnest places she had ever visited.

My guess is that the monks just stepped to the other side,

She announced.

What makes you say that,

Mother?

Asked Shen.

He started calling her that since they had moved in,

Which Jia had noticed but not commented on.

Because earlier,

A man with hardly any teeth appeared in the library and handed me this book to give to you.

By the time I looked at the book and back up again,

He disappeared,

She explained,

Handing Shen a dusty tone.

With eyebrows raised,

Shen looked at Freya and said,

Sounds like Lu Seng.

On planet Earth,

More people ascended to the void than was generally recognised.

Many of them were elderly and the cause of death was attributed to natural causes.

What had actually happened is that the person had performed a kind of suicide,

Merely by willing themselves out of the density.

More specifically,

They had voided themselves.

In rare cases,

The counsellors allowed for complete transcendence and vaporisation of all molecules of the body,

So that it appeared that the person had disappeared.

Some of these instances are then cited as missing persons.

The 111 monks of the Seven Immortals Monastery,

Including the abbot Lu Seng,

Got their calling when Comet Shen passed by in 2079.

It took them five years to raise their vibration to the necessary level of transparency.

With one foot in the void and the other in the density,

They were sent out across the globe to help people in transition.

As the abbot,

Lu Seng was charged with looking after the monastery and any of its subsequent residents.

The book he gave to Jia was called Activating the Merkaba.

Essentially,

It was a manual of how to levitate,

But written in Sanskrit and full of diagrams of intersecting tetrahedra.

Shen knew intuitively that it must contain the blueprint for a new iteration of his interplanetary craft design,

But he had no idea of how to interpret and translate the book.

Over the next few days,

He played around configuring the nanophans into arrangements matching the sacred geometries,

But was getting no significant increase in performance.

His prime focus of research was to increase speed by another factor or three to minimise the transit time to Mars.

He was working with three different sizes of tetrahedra.

One with 1m sides,

One with 2m sides and one with 3m sides.

He'd made one side so it could be opened and was experimenting at putting the 1m tetrahedron inside the 3m tetrahedron to see if a landing craft could be carried inside a bigger craft.

When he did this,

The speed dropped to less than half whether the nanophans of the internal craft were on or off.

One evening,

After a whole week of testing,

He left the book on the floor near the vacuum chamber and the three shapes hovering around each other inside the chamber and said frustratingly to the tetrahedra,

You can all see,

You sort it out.

The next morning,

He popped back to the lab and the answer was floating in front of him right in the middle of the chamber.

The 3m shape was rotating clockwise when viewed from above.

Right underneath it,

Rotating counterclockwise,

Was the 2m shape.

This alone was indescribable to Shen.

What happened next made his mouth drop open.

A disembodied voice said clearly in his left ear,

Well done Shen,

You have invented the Merkaba drive,

Now watch this.

The voice was unmistakably Liu Seng's.

Shen swung around but the room was empty.

He smiled in recognition of what must be going on and then grinned from ear to ear when the 2m shape stopped rotating and one side hinged completely open.

The 1m shape stood out sideways,

Performed a 60 degree rotation so its base was parallel with the ground.

It then lowered itself gently to the floor of the chamber.

In his right ear now,

Liu Seng said,

You have your lander.

Shen didn't even turn around to look as he knew he was alone in the lab.

The lander then rose back up,

Flipped over and packed itself inside the 2m shape.

He knew it was time to test its speed and within a day he had his solution.

The two shapes coupled together and contra-rotating gave a cube-powered increase in speed,

So 9 times faster than their velocity if they flew individually.

With the tetrahedra conjoined,

The trip to Mars could be done in less than a month.

Shen immediately arranged a call with Cheng to tell him the news.

It was agreed Shen would make a trip out to the moon base early the following year.

By then,

Mia and Mei will have tested the new landers out on the moon base and you can come and see our new home,

Said Cheng.

And that will give me enough time to get the team of Zhizhuang working on the new design,

Said Shen.

Yes,

And when you are here,

President Miang will want you to go over the plans with him in person,

Said Cheng.

Over dinner that night,

Shen told Freya,

Huey and Jia what had happened earlier that day.

His day of surprises turned out not to be quite over.

When he told them that he was going to make a trip to the moon base the following year to visit Cheng and the President,

Freya announced,

And I am going with you this time.

That would be good,

Said a disembodied Lu Seng,

Which caused them all to explode in laughter.

Shen set up conference calls with both Mike Spence and Lance Boyle for the next day.

There was much to plan.

Chapter 60.

Holes in Space With activities on the Earth and the Moon proceeding nicely,

The counsellors had been busy tidying up the space in between the Earth and Mars orbits.

It was imperative that nothing unforeseen went awry when everything had been so neatly choreographed.

The thing about space in the density is that it's not exactly empty.

When a solar system is formed,

Most of the mass ends up in the central star,

Well over 90% of the mass.

The remaining 10% forms the planets,

But a small percentage of that 10% just floats around for millennia,

Pulled one way or the other by the orbits of passing planets.

In the first few billion years after formation,

Much of this detritus ends up hitting a planet or a moon.

When it comes across a giant gaseous planet like Jupiter,

It just gets absorbed.

If it hits a rocky planet and doesn't get burnt up completely,

It makes a large bang and leaves a crater.

The Moon of Earth is a constant reminder to Epoch 5 humans of these more turbulent times.

Most of humanity ignore this and just go about their days with their heads in the sand.

As Epoch 5 was heading towards a close,

The counsellors knew that evolution to Epoch 6 would involve migration away from Earth.

It was vital that those who made it to Epoch 6 away from Earth.

It was vital that those who made this trip didn't hit even the smallest remnant of the early solar system.

The counsellors who work across space and time had for several centuries been cleaning up the inner solar system.

To do this,

They used mini black holes as cosmic vacuum cleaners.

They were holes in space down which any wandering debris disappeared forever.

One result of this is nothing big that hit the Earth for 65 million years or so.

This had given life on Earth the time it needed to develop sentience and a reasonable level of self-awareness.

For humans,

But not whales or dolphins,

This version of self-awareness had instilled an overwhelming sense of separateness.

Somewhat ironically,

It had ended up increasing the space between humans and the rest of the cosmos.

Even more ironically,

It would only be pertinent to the remaining humans in their very final seconds that their very existence is intrinsically linked to and dependent on the state of every single atom in the rest of the universe.

Reviews

That last sentence was very thought provoking. I have the feeling that this is part fiction part unknown reality.. 🪐✨☀️🌎 this is the perfect way to unwind after a busy day. Total escapism. Looking forward to the next installment.