Chapter 24. Metaphysics.

When Jack arrived at the command center the next morning, he found Roxie there sitting in the communications module.
"What's up?" he asked.

"I managed to tie into a spy satellite that still functions. It doesn't show any destruction to major cities. However, I don't see very much in the way of activity."

"We already know that a pandemic killed a lot of people. Maybe it's worse than we thought,"

Jack sat down next to her. "We have no idea how infectious the virus is. We would have no immunity to it."

"That's true, but it's obvious that it didn't render humanity extinct."

Jack turned to Tog. "Any contact with Houston?"

"No," he replied. "There are no radio signals from any NASA or ESC communication links. However, I have detected a signal from the Chinese Space command. It indicates that there is some activity from their Mars rovers."

"What about the probe we repaired?"

"It's still orbiting the alien planet."

"Maybe there was no alien attack on Earth," Jack said. "I don't see why we couldn't go to Earth and orbit it at a safe distance."

"I will enter the commands to do that," Tog said.

Jack stood up. "I suppose we were destined to eventually return to Earth." He walked away.

Several minutes later, Jessica, Lorrie and Natalie showed up.

"We felt motion," Jessica said. "Are we changing our location?"

"Jack decided it was time to return to Earth," Roxie said.

Jessica leaned back in her chair. "He must have decided it didn't pose an alien threat."

"We have some evidence of activity from the Chinese space agency," Roxie said. "Maybe when we get closer, we can pick up something from Houston."

"What did the Chinese signals indicate?"

"They indicated that men were more affected by the virus that swept across the planet," Roxie said. "Maybe that's why there's little information from NASA. In this late era that we're in, women suffer a new round of rights suppression. Women aren't in charge of making decisions like they were back in NASA's heyday."

"Yeah, that could explain why we're not able to get any good information. The antennas are not being kept up due to a lack of men to service them."

"Does that mean that we'll never get to go down to the planet?"

"At least not for some time. We don't want to risk Jack getting infected."

Roxie sighed. "Yes, I understand."

"There was also a reference in the Chinese signal that indicated that some sort of time distortion was occurring. I have no idea how that would be possible."

"It's possible that Earth was also blasted with a massive bunch of neutrinos," Roxie said.

"I thought that the Sun does that," Jessica said. "Neutrinos have very low masses and many trillions of them bombard Earth every second without any damage."

"I think these were anti tau neutrinos, which are produced by beta decay in a nuclear reaction."

"There were some reports of nuclear explosions. Maybe that's what they're referring to. I suppose we might be able to get more information when we're near Earth."

Roxie shook her head. "It just shows us how much we don't know."

Jessica sighed. "Yeah, we still don't understand what's happening."

Later at the communal meal, Jack revealed his own theory about what was happening, "I think that what happened on Earth had nothing to do with the aliens. There's no evidence to indicate any involvement."

"We have information from the Chinese Space Agency that Earth was hit with a huge blast of anti-neutrinos that suggests a nuclear explosion occurred," Jessica said. "We also found out that men were more affected by the pandemic virus, which explains why there is little activity from NASA."

Jack tapped a finger to his lips. "Fascinating! Hopefully, we can get more information when we're in orbit around Earth."

"We haven't found any evidence that indicates the aliens were involved with what happened on Earth. It's possible that the destruction of the Valiant 7000 was an accident."

"That's a possibility, but we need more evidence to come to a valid conclusion."

"We'll see what we can do," Jessica told him.

He stood up and walked away.

"I hope they can use a shuttle to get us down on Earth," Lorrie said. "I don't want to be stuck on this ship."

"The problem with going down on Earth is being able to live normal lives," Jessica said. "We have no idea if farming and manufacturing operations are still being done."

"We don't even know if NASA is still operating," Natalie said. "If they're not, we won't have jobs."

"I suppose we'll find out what we can do when we arrive there," Lorrie said.

It took a week to arrive in orbit around Earth, and what they saw changed everything,