Folding Time

By Robert Schulman and John Lohr

To those of us who traveled seven years at .9999986 of the speed of light, seven days in deep space with nothing to do may seem like a cake walk. To those on our team who came from new earth, it seemed like an eternity.
That all changed when Mocol quietly said, "There's something out there."….gesturing "there, somewhere ….It's all around us. No physical form. A lot of consciousness. Can't determine intent. Don't know if it's hostile or not."….
Captain Jenna Rydecki called out, " Can we evade it? Can we navigate around it, whatever it is?"
"Negative. It's as if we were captured." ….
Jenna barked to Q "let's recompute our trajectory and get us out of here somehow, STAT! "

In this stand alone sequel to .99999, Follow our space wandering team to… the crater moon, wandering moon, ice moon, gas giant, water planet, octopus planet, giant lobsters, unnamed alien menace, uninhabited cities, ruins, bones, gravity anomalies, hostile interplanetary aliens, and the Andromeda Galaxy as they rush to save New Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350901412

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Copyright © 2023

All Rights Reserved

Print ISBN: 979-8-35090-140-5

eBook ISBN: 979-8-35090-141-2

Contents

Acknowledgementsix

About the Authorsx

EARTH

MY DIG

THE CALL

ALAN

MARIE

FROM THE JOURNALS OF IAN WANG O’TOOLE

THE MISSION

MOON ELEVEN

OUTLIER MOON, 39: CRATERS

THE FIRST FOUR ORBITS: FROM THEIR NOTES:

SIXTH MOON: ICE

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE DIG

THE NEXT DAY

FIRST STOP—MARIE’S

ALAN WHEELER

FROM ANOTHER CALL WITH JEN

THE WATER PLANET

RUTH’S ALL HANDS MEETING

LANDING SITE ONE

WATER UP

THE CITY

JACK’S BACK

MARIE ON EARTH

MOCOL: THE GIANT

OVER THE SEA

GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE WITH THE UNIVERSE

MARIE, JEN, AND JACK

ALAN AND MARIE

ALAN

BACK ON M

ALAN AND THE OCTOPUS

AUTOPSY

FROM THE JOURNALS OF IAN WANG O’TOOLE

ALAN AND THE ALLELES

WE ARE HERE

ASTRO REDOX

IAN WANG O’TOOLE

THE GRAVITY ANOMALY

THOUGHS OF MOCOL GEN

THE BARRIER WAIT

KABOOM

COMMUNICATION: FIRST CONTACT

FROM THE MUSINGS OF DR. JOHN KENNEDY MacLELLAN

CONTACT 1 AND CONTACT

AT THE BARRIER

FROM THE JOURLNALS OF SPACE WANDERER O’TOOLE

TEAM MEETING: DECOMPRESSING THE MEADOWS

ALAN STRIKES GOLD

Visit #2: FROM JOURNALS OF SPACE WANDERER FROM JOURNALS O’TOOLE

MEANWHILE ALAN UNCHAINED

BACK ON FLOTOM

THE SCREEN

POLITICS SAVES THE DAY

DON’T EVER GET IN JENNA’S WAY

IN MEADOW-ONLY MODE

TOO MANY COOKS

MEADOW 22 ON SITE

MEADOW 31 ON SITE

ALAN IS CONFUSED

M

ALAN AND EVIE

ALAN AND EVIE

NORTH POLE

ALAN AND EVIE

TALK WITH THE OCTOPUSES

THE SHIP

JENNA’S MISSION

ALAN REDOX

MARIE BACK ON FLOTOM

MARIE AND DE

MARIE AND DE

M16 IN ANDROMEDA

M22 AND DE

MARIE

THE BAYLOCK 50 MILLION YEARS

FORTY MILLION YEARS AGO

THIRTY MILLION YEARS AGO

THE DOME AND THE MISSION 20-10 MILLIN YEARS AGO

EPILOGUE

Acknowledgements

Bob wishes to dedicate this book to his loving wife, Nancy, and his most wonderful children, Allison and Brian who inspired him and challenged him to engage his creativity. Without them, this book would never have come to fruition.

John wishes to dedicate this book to the memory of Ian Lohr who was the inspiration for the character, Ian O’Toole. Thanks to Paula and Erin for navigating the making of this book.

About the Authors

Robert Schulman and John Lohr are former Wall Street executives, now reformed. They began their careers writing non-fiction before publishing their wildly successful first novel, .99999.

Folding Time is the sequel to that novel. Once again, the authors give you hard science fiction, inspired by Isaac Asimov, with the wry wit of Douglas Adams. They have woven engaging characters into an intricate plot which is meticulously engineered with scientific and sociological concerns.

Robert and Nancy reside in Manhattan, while John and Paula live in Florida.

Jack had stepped through the door onto a space station 10,000 light years away, circling his home planet, Earth. Admittedly, it was a new, updated Earth, but from 400 klicks, it did not look very different. It seemed greener and the air clearer than he remembered. He realized in that instant the magnitude of what his mission had accomplished. A huge piece of the galaxy had been opened for exploration in just the few days since the mission had been completed. They were heroes. De was the latest in a series of heroes like Jen and Marie who had made the mission successful despite long odds.

Things looked normal at the space station. It was just a larger version of the Meadow that was somehow different in shape from the Meadow that took them 10,000 years into the future. This Meadow was nothing more than a transfer station. It had exploded in activity since the connection of eight wormholes from the eight Meadows—the ships that had successfully completed their missions. Personnel and equipment were transferring to and from the outer Meadows. In a few short days, those outer meadows would disconnect from those wormholes and begin their exploration. They were being supplied with new wormhole connectors. After they departed for exploration, the wormholes on the Earth’s side would be disconnected so that ships, all called Meadows, could freely travel to and from the inner ring. There were thirty Meadows in nearby orbit waiting for that disconnect so they could make that trip. Some of them were specially designed to be transfer stations in the Inner Ring. They were going to replace the outer Meadows, which were leaving to explore their respective solar systems. Others were uncrewed. They could each accelerate at 6 gravities, reach near-light speed in about sixty days, and decelerate in roughly the same period. They would be on one- to two-year missions to spread the net of exploration opportunities accessible with the new wormhole connectors they carried. They were to operate in the inner ring, where the solar systems were close to one another, often less than a light year apart.

Jack was suffering; he was second-guessing his decision already. Jack had spent seven wonderful and exciting years with Jen. He was sure that he loved her. She wanted him to explore the solar system with her. Yet Jack had spent the last seven years feeling like a fish out of water. He was a paleontologist—one of the very best in the world. In fact, he’s now probably the only one in the world. He had been employed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York to find the Big One. He was minding his own business digging for bones in Wyoming when he was sucked into a vortex of circumstance that caused him to be 10,000 years in the future. What was he doing in outer space? He had played second fiddle to Jenna and pretty much everyone else for seven years. He needed four to six months to finish his dig, reestablish his own identity, and get his head screwed on straight.

Jen was more understanding than he expected. She did not get angry; they would talk every day and visit after a month or two. It was hard to wrap his head around the idea that even though there were 10,000 light years separating them, with the use of wormholes, they were only a few hours apart. If he could get another wormhole box, she could spend nights with him under the stars like she did before. Wishful thinking.

Jen was on Meadow Twenty-Two in a system called Alpha, greeting the new team. Part of the seven-year crew, De, Ian, and Ruth reunited, bringing their mechanical ability, creativity, and medical expertise. Anton, from the Russian Meadow, had joined them as an engineer in particle physics and resident genius. Astra Zee from New Earth was recommended by the science minister for having extraordinary—and apparently inherent—linguistic skills. She was instrumental in communicating with all of the alien species that had communicated with Earth in the last few years. The science minister admitted that no one was quite sure how, but communicate, she did.

Mocol Gen from New Earth was raised in an obscure archipelago in what had been known as the South Pacific. He was incredibly attuned to the feelings, emotions, and desires of anyone he met. He was said to also be in tune with the whole eco-system. Jen would come to call him an empath. Jen hoped he could bring the calming influence that Katie brought on the voyage from Old Earth to New Earth. Little could anyone suspect the scope of his future contributions. His skills were likely being understated.

Kennix Lai was a synthetic scientist from the Chinese Meadow. Her doctorate was in Xenobiology. She was joining us because we had a water-covered planet in the habitable zone. The chance of life there was significantly greater when compared to the other Meadows’ opportunities. She was a quiet person and difficult to get to know. It was hard to guess how she would fit in with the rest of the team.

With the new team in place, Jen was like a kid in a candy store. She wanted to get started but didn’t know where to go first. There were dozens of moons around the planet they were orbiting. She guessed that a quick survey of them should be the first order of business. There were several that looked like good prospects—not for life, but perhaps for the other critical materials for which they were searching.

Jen was too busy and excited to focus on it much, but she was disappointed. She tried not to be hurt by Jack’s decision. She was arguably one of the two or three greatest living human astrophysicists. She had previously been selected by future humankind utilizing 10,000-year-old information to pilot an impossible mission across time and space. This mission was a success. She was now being offered the most extraordinary opportunity of any astrophysicist’s lifetime. She was brought here to do this. She wondered why Jack needed to be digging in the dirt. Sometimes, irrationally, she wanted to stamp her feet and yell, This is really important, and I need you here. Rationally, she knew that right now his slot was probably better filled by someone with more relevant skills.

EARTH

Marie along with Gaia—the celebrated first baby born in Space—were always first, so they were first to transfer. They arrived at the Science Institute, which was in a city of about 1.6 million people in a place on Earth that used to be called Bolivia. Marie learned that Tolica was the largest city now on Earth. She had asked to go where she could learn the most about the computer activities of society, and where there were good schools for Gaia. In Tolica, they spoke a version of Spanglish. Gaia became fluent in about two days; it took Marie a little longer. It seemed there were four major languages spoken in the four cities of over 500,000 on the planet.

Marie, with her six-year-old daughter in tow, arrived at the Central Computation Center called the CCC. It was a hero’s welcome. Everyone there was in awe of the technological magic Marie had performed. Her story was already legendary. Even before she arrived, her changes to the computer architecture of the Meadows’ operating systems had been incorporated universally on the planet. Those changes increased the productivity of computer operations worldwide by more than 30%. Marie’s scrambling to save the mission had upgraded the operating system to accommodate a mapping system for course guidance. She had done that on the fly, with a system she barely understood. Everyone thought that she walked on water. Marie was pleased, but a little embarrassed by all the attention. She chuckled to herself, "If they only knew the upgrade was built on a twenty-first century video game."

Alan and Katie went to Nordgaard, a city of seven hundred thousand people that was the hub of life sciences activity and advanced university studies for Earth. It was in what had been Eastern Russia on Old Earth. It was one of 30+ cities Earth-wide that was connected by wormhole stations. The language of Nordgaard was Inuit-based with a little Russian mixed in. Alan and Katie used translating devices. Learning the local language was going to take a while. Still, it did not stop Katie from ministering to the needs of any who were needy. This is just what Katie does.

New Earth was a very different place from the old Earth. All long-distance distribution was executed by wormhole. A normal day for a resident of Tolica might be a doctor’s appointment in Nordgaard followed by a stop at the beach and to buy some freshly caught fish for dinner in Damodo—a city of 750 thousand people focused on fishing, tourism, and mining. Damodo sat on the ruins of what was once Sydney, Australia.

The only other large city on Earth was Watabli, which was in what was central Africa. It was the major supplier of raw materials for the rest of the planet. The bulk of the rest of the New Earth population lived in or near small cities focused on fishing, farming, manufacturing, or mining. There were twenty-plus cities that dotted the former US heartland, Ukraine, and Brazil, all connected by wormholes. Everyone and everything could get to almost anywhere on the planet within a few hours.

De got dubbed as a hero of the planet due to his success on the voyage here, when he made the wormhole boxes work at great distance. As a result, the galaxy was now Earth’s oyster. He had also participated in saving the Australian Mission.

De and the entire Geek Squad travelled to Earth to be honored by the Supreme Leader and the rest of the big wigs. De found the whole thing a little much. Can’t we just go back to our Meadows and get on with exploring the Galaxy? he mumbled to no one in particular. As soon as he got the chance that’s what he did.

MY DIG

Jack was standing on the ridge overlooking the site of his dig. 10,000 years hadn’t changed much in what were the Big Horn Mountains. There was no road up the mountain anymore. Doc’s house had long ago turned to dust, and there were pronghorn trails down the ridge instead of horse trails. Still, from memory, he could make out where they had dug. He tried to act casually as his new team unloaded gear and some unidentifiable equipment from the air lorry. With the use of a wormhole at a ski resort in what was once Aspen, it had taken only two hours to get here from the Science Ministry. His Dig. This is where it all started 10,000 years ago. He had nine eager, willing, and very obedient (according to the Science Minister) students from Nordgaard. He expected he would learn their names eventually. Mentally he assigned them numbers until then. They seemed to be interchangeable, but he was glad to have them. They knew how to use all the fancy new equipment. If they knew where to look for the Big One, the equipment would make the search really fast.

Jack picked his way downhill and surveyed the machinery. He asked Six to describe the uses of each piece. Four, Two, and Nine (or was that Eight?) joined them while the remaining teammates unpacked things. After a lot of questions from Jack, he recounted what he had to work with. There were four sorts of pneumatic drills, each three feet in height. They could be calibrated to shoot a laser beam through only specific material. For instance, they could detour or stop at fossilized bone. Their range was up to 80 feet underground.

Then there were the six nuclear shovels—set ‘em and forget ‘em. One could clear a 30-foot square ten feet deep in about three minutes.

There were plenty of assorted manual tools that looked vaguely familiar to Jack: shovels, trowels, brushes, pics, spades, and the like. Number Six apologetically explained that, The archaic tools were expressly requested from the Antiquities Ministry to make the Dig more comfortable for Jack.

Six tents were arrayed a comfortable distance from the Dig site. Number Four handed Jack a Sograf Dig Map. By using a sort of sonar sounding device that went through rock and dirt, it identified exactly where to dig and for what to dig. It found the bones for you. Basically, Jack felt empowered and disappointed at the same time. The excitement of a dig and finding something relevant was the same, while the discovery process was literally at the speed of sound. It was like his job was being done for him. Again. But it WAS His Dig!

He asked the team to have a walkabout, study the Sograf, get comfortable, and have something to eat. A fully stocked provisions Q had also been provided. It didn’t fly well, but it could cook. He informed the team that they would start work in the morning. Meanwhile, Jack did his own walkabout and reflected. He missed Jen. And Eddie. And Minnie. And Jen…. He pulled out his TD, a sort of a phone with a screen that unfolded to approximately 8 X 10, and had just one button. He only had to speak a name (Jen, Science Minister, Ian, Jen, De, Jen) and there you have it. After dinner, he thought...

THE CALL

And the moons, Jack. There are thirty-nine! There are thirteen that look interesting enough to visit. One might be habitable but probably too cold—and we haven’t even scoped the atmosphere of this gas giant yet. It is too big to get too deep into its gravity well, but we can grab atmosphere samples on the fly by. And…the team is Ian, De, and Ruth, and you remember Anton. The new guys fit in perfectly. Astra, Mocol and ….

As she went on, Jack missed her more. He thought about Anton—handsome, trim, crazy smart, and there.

Tell me about your dig, Jack. I know, I just know, you’ll uncover the Big One.

They almost make it too easy. They have tools that can find anything and do it fast—-I want some of this for our ship; you never know what you are going to find, Jack answered.

Wow, give me details on that techno-machinery when you get it sorted out, Jack. Sure, sounds easier than our first shot at it. But maybe not as much fun. And the area is basically the same? Stars, Jack, Stars. I miss you, but I know this is your lifetime dream.

It’s sliding into second place now, Jen, Jack thought.

Jen continued. We start serious stuff tomorrow, Jack—Moon 11. I’ll let you know about it during our next call. Keep me posted. Love you, Bye.

Jack just stared at the stars. It seemed like there were more than there were before. Maybe the air was cleaner, but he sure missed Jen.

ALAN

Alan felt weird; he was way out of his comfort zone. He didn’t speak the language, he hated the cold weather, and he didn’t feel like he was on Earth. It was like being a prisoner in a psychodrama of his own making. He had literally been sent to Siberia. As the day wore on, his view evolved. His crisper was an antique desk weight. As with many things, the others had designed extraordinary tools for the mapping and manipulation at the molecular and even the atomic level. They had absolutely no idea about the potential applications for human medicine, or for humans in general. Thinking about it that way, it made sense. He was the missing piece.

In the back of his mind was the dream he had discussed with Ruth and Evie on the mission. As scary as it sounded, right here in this lab he had the ability to produce better humans. Inbreeding negative traits could be gone in a generation, two at the most. Congenital disease would also be history in short order. If Marie would help him, he could build a random optimizer. Every new birth could be a great and unique person. He picked up the communicator to call Marie. He forgot she was half a world away and likely sleeping. Alan thought to himself, There were other things that Marie liked to do at night. Getting an update on his ‘daughter’ also seemed like a good idea.

MARIE

Marie was the best, and in fact in fact, the only, real programmer on New Earth. There had been four others on the mission, but they all opted to stay with their respective Meadows and explore their designated nearby solar systems. Marie could reach out to them, but she and Gaia were basically on their own. Gaia, even at six-years-old, was becoming a creative programmer.

Marie had spent seven years on the Meadow traveling to get to New Earth, learning how the computers used by the Others should operate, how they did operate, and how they could operate. She had already turned the entire planets’ existing operating systems on their heads. She smirked to herself; "They had not seen anything yet. She had learned that the entire A.I. system that ran the Meadows and the rest of the planet was built on a downloaded 20th century translation app that was discovered on a Godlike device called Apple" which was unearthed just 400 years ago.

Marie chatted, Gaia, that’s why the system is so slow and stupid—it’s an Apple. The good news is that as soon as I finish figuring out the code in which it was written, which is the only thing ‘The Block of Symmetry’ (The Central Core) understands, the whole world is going to change! I will blow their socks off. Who would have thunk it—from federal prison to the CTO of planet Earth in seven years (or 10,000 years depending on how you look at it). All in all, not a bad deal, kiddo.

Mommy, what’s a federal prison? asked Gaia.

We’ll talk about that when you are a little older.

FROM THE JOURNALS OF IAN WANG O’TOOLE

How did we get here, Earth, you ask?

It started while paleontologist Dr. Jack MacClelland and his team, which included Astrophysicist Dr. Jenna Rydecki, were digging for dinosaurs. They discovered not a dinosaur, but a large impenetrable object. The finding generated a flurry of FBI, CIA, DHS, politicians, scientists, MUFON, various VTOL helicopters, and finally, heavy equipment which whisked the object off to Andrews Air Base. There, despite the most advanced military and scientific efforts, it could not be penetrated, opened, marred, or understood. That is, until Jenna solved the entry code. It was clear from her background that it was created for her to solve. It was The Meadow, a ship built by a race we learned were called the Others. The Meadow’s computer concierge, Q, gave Jack and Jenna a list of Others-selected teammates to take the journey of a lifetime. Your humble scribe, I, Ian Wang O’Toole, was one of those hands (or appendages) picked.

With Jenna and Jack, medical Dr. Evie Threetrees, microbiologist Dr. Alan Wheeler, mechanic and engineer extraordinaire DeMarcus Curry, computer hacker (and felon) 19-year-old Marie St. Paul, and humanitarian Katie Mullikan, made the eight who all accepted the idea of traveling at .999986 of the speed of light to the inner spiral of the galaxy. It took us seven of our years as we perceived them to get here, meet you all, and provide our selected skills to help save this world. Just as a side note in case you are not confused enough ten thousand years passed on