warehouse was nearby. Everyone went into their cubicle to get their special gear. At six o’clock sharp, the crews were ready for departure. Julia’s flight was the last one on the schedule and she was watching the spaceships take off through the bulletproof glass wall on the dispatcher’s board. The view was fascinating.
Julia listened to the flight instructions. Jack had already checked all the gear and the navigation system and was looking through the flight variables that he had received in an envelope right before boarding the spaceship. Though everything seemed to be going in its usual way, Julia felt anxious for some reason.
The conversations were recorded during the flight and Jack turned on the system that could create noise in signals. This was his own invention, and nobody knew about it.
– Calm down, Julia. Everything’s fine. Try to go to sleep. I’ll wake you up when needed. We’ll admire the sky together. Have to work.
– What’s up? We can’t hear you. There’s no connection.
Jack took his seat, turned off the noise and contacted the dispatcher’s board.
“He’s right. Anyway I can’t talk to him now.” Julia thought. She curled up in the armchair, closed her eyes and was soon asleep.
Leaving the superspace, Jack looked into the side window. He loved looking at the star-strewn sky, which always seemed to be so near. He found it still hard to get used to this view. Suddenly, something got his attention. He went through the itinerary again. Jack was an experienced pilot. He couldn’t be mistaken. What he had been given were not the coordinates for ω-galaxy. “Where are we headed?”
Julia, wake up, – she heard Jack say.
After years of training, her response was quick and she opened her eyes right away.
– We’ve got a problem, – Jack said after a long hesitation.
– What do you mean? – Julia asked glancing at him.
– I can’t understand anything, Julia. Someone must have changed ω-galaxy coordinates. Our destination has changed.
– How is this ever possible?
– Don’t know.
– How about DBIF, why don’t they respond? They can hear us, can’t they?
– I have contact noise on.
– Why?
– Am not sure yet…
– Jack, don’t take any independent initiatives. Just let me know what you think.
– Are you sure?
– So, where do you think we are headed? – Julia asked with a smile.
Jack answered after a pause.
– I think we are flying to the Earth.
– What makes you think that?
– See these globular clusters? I’ve been to ω-galaxy for about 50 times and to low-earth orbit for about 5 times. And I can assure you that our destination is the Earth. We are in one of the arms of Spiral Galaxy, the Milky Way. We are not very far from the solar system and the Earth, the only planet known to harbor life in the Universe.
Despite Julia’s playful humor, Jack was getting anxious, as he knew his gut instinct was always right.
Julia was just smiling.
– Jack, it’s great to see you don’t want us to be apart. Come on, this might not be a very good joke, as I already feel worried. I won’t be gone long though.
– I know you don’t believe me, Julia. Let me contact the dispatcher’s board.
As he was doing that, Julia started having her reservations. “Jack was too serious. He doesn’t seem to be joking. What if it’s real? No need for guesses. Everything will be clear in a couple of hours, maybe she should open the envelope? No, the instructions stated clearly tat it should be opened upon her arrival.”
Before she had boarded her flight, Julia was given a sealed envelope that contained her internship task. As if reading her mind, Jack said:
– Maybe you should open the envelope to see the task.
– Are you reading my mind or what? Don’t you tell me what I should do, – she said not very confidently.
Her stubbornness made Jack angry.
– Do you get how serious this is? I’m in charge of your safety. Let me do my work.
Julia had never seen him so excited and she gave up.
As she opened the envelope, Julia read the task. “We are flying to the Earth. The internship task is to take part in the program on deporting people to the past.”
“Jack is being overcautious. He just hit the panic button.” The very next minute she knew she was not right. “He realized at once that we were not travelling to ω-galaxy. Why so much secrecy when the program itself doesn’t envision that?”
– Jack, don’t you find it strange that it was me who was given this task? I am not a teleportation major in time. I don’t have the skills. The whole department worked on that. I just know the basics after having taken some classes.
– Julia, please try to tell me what you know about this program.
Julia cast her mind back to the course she had covered earlier.
– The galaxy lords wanted the terrestrials to inhabit only the Earth. It would be great if they could succeed in their plan. In case of failure, they had a special program developed on the teleportation of terrestrials in time. As the volunteers are not wizards and there are a lot of alternate worlds that are similar to each other both in the present and the past, it is highly likely that upon their return to the past, they will find themselves in one of the alternate worlds and can somehow change the future of the Earth or even destroy it.
– And even if they can return to their own world in the past, the conflict between their own world and the new one is inevitable, as it’s hard not to make a mistake and mistakes can be programmed to change the future of the Earth as they may think fit. And you will be the only one responsible for that. A fabulous plan. There you go. – Jack said in fake admiration.
– You know, back then I already had tons of questions. Say, how can we control the present by changing the past? I thought it was impossible. Besides, is it possible to control the real world through an alternate one? Seems to be impossible unless one is versed in magic. The research itself was in its initial stage then.
– So you voiced you opinion.
– Of course I did. Listen, the research in the field of teleportation was conducted with a rare kind of isotope of plutonium, if I’m not mistaken 239m1Pu. This is an artificially synthesized radioactive element with a short life span and in small quantity. This element is used to fuel the time machine. It makes teleportation in time possible in proportion
