“It can't be true. Is that some kind of a sick joke? Was the flight canceled?”
We shouted in support of our commander, asking the same questions all at once. Trevor raised his hand for silence.
“Yes, you heard it right. It's hard to believe. But it is true.”
“But how?” Finn asked.
“Your flight was a very long one. Almost two hundred years. A lot of things happened during this time. The most important of them occurred on Earth ten years after you left it. A way to move through the Droescher-Heim space was invented, that is, the ability to puncture conventional space in order to travel faster than light.
We fell silent.
“You had a Pullman-Anderson sub-light drive leveraging the Pullman effect. But puncturing space is instantaneous, all you need is an enormous amount of energy,” he cleared his throat.
I think all of us just sat there for a while – confused, with our jaws dropped.
“You see,” the speaker continued, “a new expedition was arranged and sent to Terra Nova. It reached the planet one hundred and thirty years before you did. Do you understand?”
We kept silent. I finally closed my mouth and heard Boris grunt incredulously next to me.
“The colonists reported that the planet is habitable, but humans can't breathe the local atmosphere. Which means modified atmosphere is required to establish bases here,” he paused.
“But a new problem arose,” Trevor continued. “The planet is inhabited. It is inhabited by an aggressive life form showing vestiges of intelligence. And these creatures have an advantage. It is their home world. These monsters wiped out the colonists from the first expedition. And from the next one too. We are descendants of the third colonization wave. This,” he made a circular motion, “is the third human base on this planet.”
“Were there other expeditions?” Finn asked.
Trevor shook his head and answered, “Communication with Earth is lost. We don't have enough power for a hyperspace puncture. And there have been no ships from Earth in the last fifty years.”
The hall sank into a deathly silence. Everyone was gripped by foreboding thoughts about the fate of their home planet, as well as relatives and friends back there. About humanity as a civilization.
“How many people do you have here?” Lisa asked.
“Twenty-eight,” Trevor replied. “Thirty-three, counting you.”
“Not enough. An almost extinct population,” Leonov commented.
“We know,” Taney looked at him. “And it grows even smaller as we continue to fight the indigenous life forms.”
The news was quite shocking. My thoughts were racing back and forth between the flight and the incomprehensible situation here, I could not concentrate on anything. But then the smartest member of our team, a winner of the Abel Prize in mathematics, Ji Cheng, spoke.
“You’ve said that the first expedition arrived a hundred and thirty years before us. But if the drive was built ten years after our departure, then the expedition should have arrived one hundred and sixty-nine years before us, because a hyperspace flight from Earth to this planet takes twenty-one years,” she said and looked at her watch.
Trevor and Bush exchanged glances. To be honest, I didn't understand how she had arrived to this conclusion.
“I said that the drive was invented, not built. The project took several decades to implement. Are you satisfied? Any other questions?” Trevor asked with displeasure when Cheng nodded.
