Twin Earth

“Wait? Wait for what? Surely the time to do something is now?” I remarked in surprise.

“We must wait for the knowledge givers to return. They will know what to do.”

“This is ridiculous,” I moaned, turning around and rubbing my forehead in frustration. “Are you hearing this?” I asked Rachel, walking over to her. She had gone to look at one of the many screens covered in diagrams and equations and had a puzzled expression on her face.

“Heard what?” she mumbled, without looking up.

“These people refuse to do anything about the sphere decaying. They want to wait for the aliens who created it to come and rescue them. I thought you said these people were smart?”

“Even if we do fix it Tom, it doesn’t mean we can get home,” Rachel replied, finally looking up. “Have you seen this?”

“What is it?”

“These diagrams. I think they are of this planet. Look, here is Mochuvia and the sphere surrounding it, but look at this,” Rachel replied, pointing to a dark mass in one corner that had various equations surrounding it.

“The void?” I suggested.

“That’s what I thought, but these equations suggest it’s a black hole, but... there’s something odd about the maths.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think it’s calculating the effects of a black hole when there doesn’t seem to be one there, but why didn’t they tell us what they had discovered. Why say to us they don’t know what is beyond the void? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe they don’t understand their own maths,” I quipped, but Rachel frowned. “No, I think they know alright and they’re just not telling us, but why?”

“Well, let’s find out shall we?” I replied, marching back over to Apo sat at his table.

“No, Tom, wait. That’s not what I meant,” Rachel pleaded, trying to catch up and shaking her head as I sat down in front of Apo and proceeded to stare at him whilst he was eating a bowl of very red-looking peppers mixed into something that looked like rice.

“So, when were you going to tell us about the black hole?” I asked Apo.

“Tom, do you have to be so rude?” Rachel moaned, sitting down to join us. “I’m sorry Apo, Tom is just...”

“No, it is okay Rachel. Tom is like how we used to be.”

“And what do you mean by that?” I exclaimed, pulling a face.

“We did not wish to scare you that is all. When you came through the sphere, we were happy to have humans from Earth visit us again...”

“You’ve had visitors before?” I interrupted.

“Of course, but not for many thousands of years. We used to travel freely between our two planets, but during the Great War we became separated when the ellipse was closed. It was for our own safety and for the safety of our people back on Earth.”

“The ellipse?” I asked, confused.

“Are you... related to ancient civilisations from Earth?” Rachel replied excitedly. “Like Mayan or Egyptian? But how... how did you have the technology to come here?”

“Yes, we were once the same as you. Descendants from ancient Earth’s people. Our civilisation was powerful and strong, but also technologically advanced. We discovered Mochuvia through the study of the stars and our solar system. Back then Mochuvia was much more active due to the slowing of the planet’s rotation. Bursts of energy and light would escape and become visible on Earth. We called it the time of Great Fire.”

“This is incredible. The Mayans were known for their astronomy, but we lost a lot of our knowledge about them to the Spanish invasions,” Rachel replied.

“Yes, the Great War,” Apo whispered, looking down and playing with is food. It was the first time I had seen him sad and it looked strange to see his usual smile reduced to a troubled pout.

“What happened? And what is this ellipse?” I asked, urging him to continue.

“Our ancestors suffered extreme drought and famine on Earth, so we decided to send some of our best scientists to Mochuvia in the hope of a better life, but then our people began to fight for resources between our two worlds. Finally, after the Spanish invaded, it became too dangerous to keep the planets joined so we decided to close the ellipse, severing our connection to Earth so they would not find us. We hoped to re-join our worlds one day, but no-one had the courage to try.”

“That’s so sad,” Rachel mumbled.

“We do not know what happened to our people on Earth after that time.”

“Your whole kingdom collapsed,” I replied bluntly, ignoring a glare from Rachel, but thinking how selfish it was that they had just run away, leaving their own people to die.

“Oh,” Apo replied softly.

“So, is this ellipse thing still working?” I asked. “Maybe we can use it to get home?”

“The other end to the Earth ellipse is in the South, but it is too dangerous to go there. It is why we have never tried.”

“Why?”

“Because it is where the underdeveloped live.”

“The what?” I remarked as Apo stood up and walked over to the screen Rachel and I had been looking at previously.

“What is the ellipse exactly?” Rachel asked, following him over.

“It is one of many. The ellipses are gateways to other places. A physical way if you like, to travel by body to other locations.”

“Well this just went a bit Star Gate on us,” I muttered sarcastically, joining them.

“They enable us to travel physically over great distances through the bending of space, like what you see here,” Apo replied, pointing to the black void drawing on the screen.

“The black hole?” Rachel replied astonished.

“We call it infinite zero-time dilation, through intensive mass creation.”

“What?” I mumbled, completely lost.

“The mass dilation created in our controlled ellipses is the equivalent of many solar masses, creating zero infinite time within it. As light is absorbed, or a being is absorbed, it looks as if it is stuck, suspended in space and time, but in reality it has been forced through to another location.”

“So it’s like a white hole at the other end?” Rachel suggested.

“Yes, if you like. It is where the light is released once it has reached infinite zero.”

“Sorry, I’m lost. How can time, light, whatever, be infinite and zero at the same time? That’s impossible.”

“But they are the same?” Apo asked, confused.

Rubbing my head, I struggled with the concept and wished I had paid more attention to cosmology at University.

“So, why were you not crushed to death when you went through the ellipse on Earth?” I continued.

“We were, but we also passed through.”

“Eh?” I exclaimed. “So, you died... and lived... at the same time?”

“Yes, if you like, depending on your view point in space.”

“So, it’s a worm hole?” Rachel asked.

“Worm hole? I do not know that phrase,” Apo replied, confused.

“But how do you stop it collapsing?” Rachel continued without hesitation. “The predicted Einstein-Rosen wormhole theory states it would just collapse, making it impossible for travel.”

“It is merely a case of using negative energy density and negative pressure in a vacuumed state.”

“But how do you do that? Do you create the negative energy yourself?” Rachel continued, intrigued.

“No, we take it from the void where it is naturally created, but we have not mined any for thousands of years now, not since we’ve developed the ability to use our conscious minds to travel.”

“But why would you stop using the ellipses?” I asked.

“This is why you must not go to the south. When we closed the Earth ellipse our people were very different to how we are today. Like you, we continued to argue here on Mochuvia and confused our minds with violence.”

“Bit harsh,” I muttered.

“Fights and war broke out on Mochuvia because the desert that surrounds our planet began to encroach on our settlements as our planet’s spin slowed. Eventually we divided into two races, us in the north and the underdeveloped in the south. We preferred ordered scientific knowledge, but the underdeveloped did not. They were driven by greed and power. They did not want clarity of thought. For a while we fought for resources. They would steal our technology, such as our solar receivers, which helped hinder the advancement of the desert as well as gave us energy, but eventually the desert became so large that it was impossible for the underdeveloped to travel to the north. We have not heard from them in over five hundred years and our light detectors have ceased to report any activity in the south. We assume they began to fight between themselves when they could no longer steal from us and have died off as a sub species. It would be a logical conclusion to their existence.”

“Do they look like you?” I asked, intrigued.

“We used to look the same, like you from Earth of course, but we evolved to how we are now from the sunlight and the turbulent environment of our planet. However, the underdeveloped grew shorter, hairier and fairer skinned because they chose to live underground. They did not have the creator technology that we had to survive, nor did we wish to give it to them.”

“So why is the ellipse to Earth in the south?”

“It is just where it was left after the Great War. We had a few ellipses in the north, but they were stolen by the underdeveloped, except one, which lies on the shores of our northern ocean, in a part of our complex that is no longer used.”

“Where does that one go? Can we use it to get back to Earth?”

“No, it is forbidden to use it.”

“Why?” Rachel asked.

“Because it leads to the creator’s home-world.”

“The ones who created the sphere? The anomaly?” I exclaimed in surprise. “Then why don’t you use it to contact them about it decaying?”

“It is forbidden!” Apo cried, clearly fearful at my suggestion.

“But you can’t just wait for them to pop over. It could be too late by then. Clearly the decaying of the sphere is causing our planets to gravitationally pull on each other. We could end up destroying each other,” I shouted in disbelief.

“But it is forbidden,” Apo reiterated, distressed.

“What about the void. You suggested it was also an ellipse of some kind?” Rachel asked.

“No, it is not an ellipse. It is similar, but it is natural and much bigger than we could ever create.”

“But according to your equations here, if I understand them correctly, it is a black hole?” Rachel continued.

“Not in our existence.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Your black hole, or the infinite zero-time dilation as we call it, is on the other side of this dimension. It is what controls our pocket of space.”

“Sorry, what is he saying Rachel?” I asked, lost.

“If I’m correct, he is suggesting... and this makes more sense now to what the maths is saying here, that there’s a black hole in another dimension, on the other side of the void. And I think... I could be wrong, but I think the equations here are saying the black hole is pulling on our space time in this dimension, creating a pocket of space surrounded by dark matter.”

“Wow,” I muttered.

“Dark matter? I am not familiar with that expression,” Apo queried.

“The matter that surrounds Mochuvia in the sphere, it doesn’t add up to enough mass to create the gravitational fluctuations we see in the anomaly. There must be something else there. We call it dark matter, although we don’t know exactly what dark matter is.”

“You mean the electrically charged fermionic particles?”

“Is that what it is?” Rachel exclaimed. “You know what dark matter is?”

“Do you not?”

“No,” both Rachel and I replied in unison.

“Oh. Did you not evolve like us?”

“I guess we didn’t,” I mumbled sarcastically.

“The war was worse than I imagined,” Apo replied sadly, looking thoughtful.

“And the rest,” I replied.

“You had more war?”

“I guess we have a lot to learn from each other’s histories, but one thing I can say is that Earth is nothing like Mochuvia. In many ways it is worse, but at least we don’t have a huge desert surrounding our planet.”

“We cannot see your Earth due to the distortion of the sphere,” Apo commented sadly.

“Forget Earth,” Rachel exclaimed. “You understand what dark matter is?”

“If you mean what the sphere is made of? Then yes, it is your dark matter that you speak of, but it is only dark because you cannot see it, if that is what you mean?”

“We can’t detect it properly, not without calculating the gravity and the excess of mass that must be creating it,” Rachel replied, stumbling over her words as she looked again at the equations on the screen. ”

“So, excuse me for being slow here, but what are electrically charged fermionic particles?” I asked, feeling somewhat intimidated by Rachel’s knowledge.

“Ugh, you’re such a hadron head. Did you not learn anything at University?”

“I did, thank you. Just not very much on dark matter,” I replied, annoyed.

I was beginning to feel that Rachel was enjoying getting one over on me and that it had been brewing for a while. It made me feel even more uncomfortable, if that was even possible considering our current situation.

“Apo’s referring to tachyons. Tiny particles that are smaller than photons of light. It’s a theory that has been mulled around for a while but is often dismissed. It’s a concept I’ve been toying with when studying black holes that you have electrically charged fermionic tachyons fluctuating with anti-tachyons in the quantum vacuum. You know, like virtual particles that duck in and out of existence.”

“Okay,” I muttered. “I’ve heard a little about that,” I lied, trying to study the equations and follow what Rachel was saying.

“It’s a theory about the beginnings of the universe. The Big Bang was such a huge explosion that it literally ripped these virtual tachyons out of the quantum universe, but we just haven’t been able to detect them yet because they travel faster than the speed of light.”

“So you think this anomaly is made up of these virtual tachyon thingies?”

“They would explain the masses we have detected, yes.”

“But how can a tachyon have mass if a photon of light doesn’t? And how does it travel faster than the speed of light! Doesn’t that just blow the whole laws of physics out the window?” I exclaimed, frowning.

“Negative-mass. Keep up.”

“Sorry, I don’t buy it.”

“You don’t have to. Apo here is saying this is the case. If you travel slower than the speed of light, like your brain is right now, you will have positive mass. At the speed of light, like a photon, you would have zero mass, so go beyond that and you get negative mass.”

“So, what. They travel back in time?” I remarked, ignoring the insult.

“Now, you’re getting it.”

“Trust me, I’m not. You can’t have negative mass. It’s... impossible.”

“String theory, quantum fluctuations, they add up to a negative squared mass. The vibrations pull particles away from negative mass into positive mass, but what I don’t understand is the string would need to vibrate a lot for this to happen and we don’t have the space?”

“I am in awe of your knowledge Rachel,” Apo announced, smiling at Rachel and showcasing a perfect set of white teeth. “I can answer that question for you. They vibrate in other dimensions, like that which we see in the void.”

“How do you contain them in the anomaly though so that it doesn’t collapse?” Rachel continued.

“It is collapsing Rachel, did you forget?” I quipped, annoyed at not understanding anything that Apo and Rachel were discussing.

“Tom is right. There is a shift in the pull of the void. The dimensional black hole as you call it, we believe it is being merged into another black hole in a dying universe and is pulling on our pocket of space. It is literally ripping apart the sphere,” Apo replied.

“Oh my god,” Rachel cried. “So how do we stop it?”

“Like I said, we have to wait for the creators. We cannot travel inside the void. It is not a stable ellipse suitable for travel, it is vastly bigger and more destructive. No-one has ever travelled into the void. We must wait for the creators to help us.”

“Or we could go to your sacred creator ellipse and ring the doorbell,” I replied.

“Tom has a point Apo. We have to do something. Both our planets could be destroyed any time now. Mochuvia could be sucked into the void. We can’t afford to wait.”

“I... do not know what to do. No-one has ever gone through the creator’s ellipse. I am not sure if our bodies are even designed to travel that way anymore. We are not like you now.”

“But we are,” Rachel announced.

“Why am I wishing I kept my mouth shut,” I groaned.