Chapter No.6.

It was several days later that Alice had something weird to report. "The alien device has vanished. It's no longer near Titan."

"That's weird," Carl reacted. "Does Titan look the same?"

"Yes. In fact, its atmosphere appears to be more Earth like."

"I guess it decided its work was complete, whatever that means."

"i checked the Galileo Telescope images, and they show the same thing. What's even weirder is the fact that Titan appears to be warming and that the lakes are full of water, not liquid methane."

"That doesn't make any sense. The Sun wouldn't add enough heat to Titan to support that."

"I agree, but the readings indicate that Titan is now like Earth."

"How could Titan heat up to that level?"

"That's a good question. The only possibility would be an internal source, but that's a stretch."

"So, some advanced alien civilization decided to come to our solar system to terraform Titan using some method that's beyond our understanding for some reason that doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does appear to be farfetched."

Carl leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I guess it's our job to discover what's really going on." He paused before he dropped the nuke. "I don't think we're in the same timeline that we started out on this mission in."

Alice frowned. "How could you determine that?"

"I was able to look at my personnel info and it's not right."

"How so?"

"It lists my Ex as being deceased . . . again."

"Maybe it's a mistake."

"Well, that could be, but George Latimore is not listed as being NASA's Mission chief. Someone by the name of Vincent Gorman is."

Alice sighed. "I don't get it. How could we be in a different timeline?"

"The same way that Alice, Margaret and I have been in at least three different timelines, an exotic nuclei cosmic ray blast."

"I don't understand how that could cause a timeline change."

"I don't either, but it's the only cosmic event associated with it, at least as far as we know."

Janet and Margaret walked up to the command center. "What's happening?" Janet asked.

"Carl thinks we're in a different timeline," Alice said.

"What?" Margaret piped in. "What's different?"

"George Latimore is not the Mission chief. Someone by the name of Vincent Gorman is."

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Nope," Carl said. "I believe that the alien device is responsible for this. Unfortunately, we can't verify it because it's gone."

"I assume we still have contact with NASA Mission Control."

"Yes. I had just informed them that we're scheduled for a course correction to avoid a collision with Hyperion. That's going to require two engine burns to arrive in orbit around Titan."

"We should check our personnel records," Janet said to Margaret.

"Good idea," she responded.

Margaret sat down and used her password to get into her NASA file. After several minutes, she turned to Janet. "My file looks the same." She stood up. "Try yours."

Janet sat down and used her password to call up her file. After several minutes, she turned to Janet. "I'm still listed as living at Carl's place."

She turned to Carl. "I assume it's still your place."

"So far. I'm now listed as being the head of a commercial real-estate consortium, and Interesting enough, all three of you are listed as being my employees."

"That doesn't make sense," Janet said. "We work for NASA. How could we be working some other job."

"I don't think NASA minds if its astronauts are involved in other personal enterprises as long as they don't conflict with NASA stated institutional goals."

Janet flashed a teasing smirk while propping her fists on her hips. "So, what exactly do we do for you?"

Carl smiled. "Not that. I think it's just a symbolic position to allow you to live with me without having to explain why you do."

"None of this explains why we're in a different timeline," Alice said. "We have no idea what has changed."

"Hopefully, it's not all that much," Carl said. "Be that as it may, we need to prepare for the main engine burn that will slow us enough to go into orbit around Titan."

"Okay," Janet said. "We'll get our butts in gear and run. Our boss here needs a boob show."

They laughed.

Janet, Margaret and Alice ran off on their way around the quarters deck.

Carl sat down and began a search through NASA records to see if he could determine just how much has changed in this timeline. What he found was both disturbing and interesting at the same time.

The women liked to run later in the day, a time when Carl was relaxing in his bunk. He preferred the morning when they were still in the sack. He had this strange feeling that they looked younger than he recalled. Were they actually younger, or was it his imagination playing fantasy games with him? When they ran past his bunk, he noted that their breasts seemed more elastic when they bounced, a characteristic that would suggest they were younger than their recorded ages. Or was this a result of the timeline change?

When he checked the records, their ages were listed as being five years less than they were in the previous timeline. How was that possible? Were those five years lost or did it mean that the records were deliberately incorrect? This conundrum was beginning to drive him crazy.

The more important question is whether they were sent on this mission to cover a secret that no one wanted to talk about? He had this constant fear that this voyage was for some clandestine reason. He was determined to find out what was going on.

When the women were finished running, they stripped at their bunks and walked past his bunk, which was next to the bathroom. Were they doing this to tease him, or were they just exhibitionists? He noted that their figures appeared to be shapelier than he recalled. Was this his imagination playing games with him?"

He preferred the morning to run, and when he was done, he took a shower before they got up. It gave him time to grab a coffee and go to the command center to search the records.

One morning, he found something that piqued his suspicions about the Titan affair. It seems that there was someone else involved in the Titan mission, a reference noted as Q in a few locations in the original mission's purpose. Was this some foreign organization, or a specific person? He decided to remain quiet about it, at least until he had more information.

"When are we going to do the burn?" Alice asked him as soon as she sat down next to him.

"This Tuesday at sixteen hundred. We'll have to shut down the wheels and strap into the G-chairs before the engines fire. We'll need a correction burn a week later, but we can do that by getting into our bunks and holding tight."

"I can't wait to get there," Alice said. "Titan looks more Earthlike now."

"I still don't understand how Titan could change so drastically," Carl said. "Wouldn't that take more time than just a few months?"

"I agree," she replied. "However, one possibility is that we don't really know what's going on in Titan's interior. It's possible that there's more heat inside it than we realized. One thing that would help in this is the fact that Titan atmosphere is being protected from the Sun's solar wind by Saturn's magnetosphere. Mars, for example, lost its atmosphere when its magnetic field diminished. If Titan still has internal heat, it could be keeping the atmosphere warm, especially since it's larger than Earth's."

"I can understand that, but what happened to all of the methane and other hydrocarbons in its atmosphere and its lakes."

"It's possible that they were oxidized into water and carbon dioxide. Although, that would have required a lot of energy."

"Is it possible that this was something that was planned?"

Alice looked at him with a confused expression for a moment before she replied. "Are you suggesting that this was planned by NASA and not an alien project?"

"It's a possibility that we might want to consider."

She sighed. "That could mean that it's a conspiracy of some sort."

"Yes, by a person or organization known as Q."

She squinted. "Is that something you discovered?"

"Yes, in the original mission proposal."

"Oh, that's just great!" Janet exclaimed. We're involved in some nefarious project to create a new Earth."

"It may be more than that," Carl said.

They looked at him with confused eyes. "What do you mean?" Janet asked.

"Maybe this whole timeline affair is a conspiracy. Maybe that's why Robert Farnsworth tried to plant a nuclear weapon on the Moon to destroy the alleged alien device."

"Yes, I forgot about that. Do you think he's Q?"

Carl shrugged, "I don't know, but it's a possibility."

"Even if this is a conspiracy, we can't abandon this mission," Alice said. "We have to find out what's happening on Titan."

"Yes, I agree," Carl said. "We'll have to wait until this mission is completed before we try to determine what's really going on."

This new revelation did little to assuage their fears about what they faced. The only thing they could do is keep doing what they were trained to do.