Chapter No 12.

The next morning, they were happily enjoying a breakfast of cereal and strong coffee. The children had orange juice to drink.

Carl nearly spilled his coffee when a woman suddenly appeared out of thin air. She seemed totally confused and panicked.

Alicia and Josh both exploded emotionally with screeches.

"Mother!" Alicia screamed.

Josh began to cry, but it was a reaction of joy.

The woman hugged both children, kissing them and bawling.

Janet and Margaret were emotionally overwhelmed by this display of familial love. Carl was confused.

After settling down, the woman stared at Cary, Margaret and Janet. "Who are you?" she blurted.

"I'm Carl Walker." He gestured to the two women. "This is Margaret Spenser and Janet Foster. We were sent to the Chandra Radio Telescope to update it so that we could get a better signal from an alien source. On July 6, Margaret saw a bright light flash, as did your daughter. We don't know if this had anything to do with what happened, but everyone on Earth and on this station, other than your two children, just vanished without a trace."

She blinked several times before replying. "I don't understand. How is that possible?"

"That's what we've been trying to figure out since we came to this space station. Do you recall anything about where you were before you just appeared here?"

"I don't . . . I can't recall anything. I was standing here in this . . . room. As I recall it was July 6."

"Well, it's July 27. You don't remember what happened to you in that time period?"

She shook her head. "No . . . I can't." Her expression was one of not only confusion but embarrassment.

Carl turned to Janet and Margaret. "There goes the theory that people were transported to some kind of nirvana."

"If she came back, maybe others on Earth did," Margaret said.

"If that were the case, why is she the only one to return to this station?" Carl asked.

Neither of them had an answer.

"Okay," Carl said. "Let's assume that this effect, whatever it is, came from the Moon and it's more effective when there's an atmosphere. We were further from the Moon on July 6 than this station is. Earth has the most atmosphere between the ground and the Moon. If this vanishing effect is the result of some quantum particle that we're not familiar with it could explain the fact that we were not affected and not all the people on the space station were but everyone on Earth was."

"That wouldn't account for . . . what's your name?" Margaret turned to the woman that just appeared out of thin air.

"Ellie Weston."

"How did Ellie reappear?" Margaret asked Carl.

"Again, this is acting like a quantum effect where particles can appear and disappear."

"I understand that on the micro level, but not on the macro level."

"I'm only bringing this up to propose a possible explanation for what we're seeing. I'm open to any idea that you might have."

"We should try to determine if anyone on Earth has reappeared," Janet said.

"Yes, Yes," Carl said. "That's a great idea. I'll go see if there's any radio signals. You'll have to set up the telescope to survey Earth."

"First, we're going to see if Ellie suffered any physical effects," Margaret said.

"Yes, that might help us determine what's going on here," he said before rushing off.

Josh and Alicia just stood there staring at the whole affair. Janet decided to console them. "I'll set you two up to your lessons for the day while Margaret here examines your mother to make sure she's ok."

They didn't offer any objections. Obviously, they were overwhelmed by what happened, putting them in parasympathetic shock.

Margaret escorted Ellie down the corridor to a medical station. "Let's get you undressed." She helped the woman remove her clothing before having her lay down on the examination table. She didn't note any damage to her skin such as burns or blunt damage. After programming the auto-doctor for a full scan, she activated it.

Meanwhile, in the station's command center, Carl was busy trying to establish a radio signal. He tried all the normal frequencies and protocols, but he came up empty. If there were people popping back into existence, they weren't trying to elicit help.

Janet programmed the main telescope to observe Earth. This required several operational changes because Earth was not considered an object of interest on the space station.

Although the telescope could image minute details on Earth, her initial scans did not reveal any human activity.

When Carl, Margaret and Janet got together later, they revealed their findings.

"I didn't detect any human activity on Earth, but there could still have been humans there but not outside," Janet said.

"I wasn't able to make any radio contacts across all the frequencies," Carl said.

"The health scans that I did on Ellie were negative. I didn't see any radiation effects or burns. However, I did get a somewhat weird detection of neutrinos. It was too small to consider dangerous. They were more pronounced coming from her clothing."

Carl rubbed his jaw. "That's strange. Neutrinos are created in stars and supernovae. I wonder if she was exposed to some radiation."

"If she was, it didn't show up as a problem."

"It looks like we're back to square one," Carl said.

"What's our next step?" Margaret asked.

"I think we'll stay on this station for a while to see if any other people appear. Eventually, we'll have to go back to Earth to see if anyone appeared there."

No one objected to that plan. Obviously, they were shaken by what had just occurred. Seeing someone pop into existence out of thin air had an emotional effect, but being scientists, they funneled their anxiety into the attempt to understand what was happening, but it wasn't going to be easy.