Chapter No.23.

Carl gathered the women together to reveal what had happened when he confronted George. They sat there like students at a college lecture, not really enthused in what he had to say.

"I gave George the information that you came up with to explain timeline changes, and his response was not at all what I expected. He said that they know about the dangers of the devices that are terraforming Titan and the Ninth Planet's moon. He told me that they're not sending anyone else out there. He said that we will be assigned to training new astronauts."

"I assume that this means we have to move out of your home," Alice said.

Carl's expression was one of alarm. "Not at all! You may stay here as long as you wish."

"That's very generous of you," Janice said. "But we're not paying for the food we eat and anything else."

"I can handle those expenses. Look, I don't know what you want to do, but I think you are all geniuses, and I don't wish to waste your expertise."

"Why do you think we're geniuses?" Janet asked, her expression showing disbelief.

He smiled. "I've been around smart people all my life, but you women are way beyond any of them. I think there are lots of problems we can work on to the betterment of mankind. I can't allow your amazing brain power to go to waste. It would be a shame to just let it be ignored."

"Are you thinking of starting a think tank?" Margaret asked.

"That's one possibility, but I was thinking of something that we could do to better mankind and earn some money at the same time."

"What you're suggesting would go against NASA's rules."

"The hell with NASA. They're only interested in stuffing their pockets. We have the power to do something good and become a more effective think tank, as you call it, at the same time."

The women looked at one another as if building up a consensus. Janet, turned to Carl with a proposal. "We agree with your plan, as long as you allow us to determine what sort of projects we will work on, and . . . allow us to entertain you." Her eyes reflected an element of orneriness.

Carl's right eyebrow shot up. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Because we enjoy doing it."

"I'm not sure that I follow that reasoning, but it's ok with me."

They cheered as if they were a bunch of teenagers at a rock concert. Carl assumed that they were just teasing him, but he wasn't sure. It didn't really matter. He knew deep down that this was the best thing to do under the circumstances. There was no way he was going to waste their brilliant minds.

The next time he got together with Janet and Felicity, he noted that they had Alice Holmes with them. Alice is the astrophysicist Titan expert. They were attired in puffed sleaved V-neck midi dresses and high heels. They pulled up seats to be near him.

"Good morning, ladies," he said with an appropriate smile.

"We think we've hatched up some more reasonable theories about the terraforming devices," Felicity said.

"I'm all ears."

"We think there's a distinct difference between people vanishing and people being teleported into a different timeline, but it comes with a major problem."

Carl tilted his head. "Oh?"

"It would require the terraforming devices to be able to generate unbelievable fission power levels."

"I'm not surprised. Exotic gamma rays come from cosmic events like supernovae and neutron star collisions, which are off the scale of raw power generation."

"Yes, and that means that the devices have technology that's not yet devised."

"Are you suggesting that it's alien?"

"That's one possibility. The other is for someone to be teleported into the future and then back to the present."

"That's an idea even more ridiculous than what we've proposed."

Felicity smiled. "Yes, and that leaves the only other possibility."

Carl pointed at her. "Alien technology!"

She smiled. "Yes."

"I still don't understand the difference between people vanishing and people being transported into different timelines."

"The first requires direct exposure to cosmic rays. The second involves secondary exposure."

"That makes sense because we've been in several different timelines but never experienced vanishing."

"Exactly, and that's the reason no one realized the danger of exotic cosmic ray production."

Carl sighed. "It appears that the Chandra prophecy was right. Reality is just an illusion."

"That's only because our perceptions of reality are flawed,' Janet said. "We see what our brains interpret."
.
"So, what's next?" He asked.

"We are attempting to determine if aliens were involved," Felicity replied. "That's going to take a good deal of time going back over the radio signals and whatever else we can find in NASA's archives."

That caused Carl's right eyebrow to shoot up. "Ah, I hope you're not hacking into NASA's data file system."

Felicity smiled. "Don't worry. We know what we're doing."

He had no trouble believing that. They were much smarter than even he realized.

It was two days later, a Saturday, that they revealed what they had discovered. He was relaxing out on the main deck enjoying the benefits of nature when Felicity and Janet came to him and sat down near him. He looked at them in an attempt to discern their success, but it was impossible to see past their beautiful eyes.

"We were right," Felicity said. "It was alien data that they used to build the terraforming devices."

"I'm not surprised. How did they get that data?"

"They stole it from us," Janet revealed. "It was in the Chandra radio data we translated. It was information contained in the carrier."

"The carrier?"

"Yeah, that's the underlying signal that the quantum spin data was riding on. Evidently, they had captured this signal some twenty-four years ago, but never released anything about it to the public. We were able to find it and it contained the information that allowed them to create the power levels needed to form the exotic nuclei based cosmic rays. They are essentially super PeVatrons."

"How did they create the power?"

"They used magnetic mirrors to achieve Fermi acceleration," she said. "They're made up of antimatter, a combination of antiprotons and other anti-nuclei that when they collide with atmospheric molecules they create neutrinos of various flavors, including the anti tau variety that is the main evidence of teleportation."

Carl leaned back in his chair. "That's sort of what we thought all along."

"Yes, and it all makes sense now."

He paused before he revealed what he wanted to do. "I think we should keep this a secret and work to determine how to prevent accidental timeline changes. I don't know about you, but this timeline change appears to be the one we should stay in."

"I'm not sure how we could find a way to guarantee we won't be sent into a different timeline," Felicity said, but we'll see if we can come up with a portable detector."

"Great idea," he said with a smile.

They turned and walked away, leaving him alone with his laptop. He searched for his personal data and discovered that in this timeline, his Ex had died in a car accident. He wondered what it would be like to be dead in one timeline and alive in another. Obviously, he had no choice about which timeline he could be in. That's when he realized that he might have finally figured it out.

Author's Notes

Ultra-high-energy gamma rays are gamma rays with photon energies higher than 100 TeV (0.1 PeV). They have a frequency higher than 2.42 × 1028 Hz and a wavelength shorter than 1.24 × 10−20 m.

A magnetic mirror, known as a magnetic trap (магнитный захват) in Russia and briefly as a pyrotron in the US, is a type of magnetic confinement device used in fusion power to trap high temperature plasma using magnetic fields.