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The frozen lake cracked beneath his feet as he reached out to rescue the swan.&nbsp;The ice was too thin to take his weight. The cold water sapped the heat from his body. He panicked. He was sucked into the icy depths. It was a week before his parents discovered his body. The turmoil changed their lives.&nbsp; “I reckon I died in an alternate universe,” David Dinwoodie enjoyed telling his tale to a captive audience. The professor was the centre of a group of six students who he had recruited to help him with his experiment. “But why were you walking on a frozen lake in the first place? Like, surely you knew it was dangerous.” Susan had been told of the incident by her parents, who went to the same college at the same time as Dinwoodie. They heard him tell the tale many times. Many, many, many times. “I was only six so I was oblivious to the danger. There was this swan, you see. It skidded on the ice as it made its landing.&nbsp;I thought it was hurt so I went to rescue it, you see. I must have got half-way there before it took off. I was all alone. Then the frozen lake cracked beneath my feet. I laid down on the ice spreading my weight over a larger area, you see. Then I crawled back to shore and ran home to Mum and Dad.&nbsp;Boy! did I get a telling off. I reckon if the swan hadn’t taken off at that moment I would have gone further from the shore. The ice would have been thinner, and I would have drown, you see.” “But how do you know, like, you would have died in an alternate universe?” Susan was captivated by his story. “Well there’s an infinite number of universes, you see.” David ran his fingers through his beard. “Everything happened in that alternate universe exactly the same as in this universe until I was six. Then the time-line changed when I died in that universe. If you were in that universe right now, you wouldn’t be talking to me, but to some other professor, you see.” “I don’t think I would be here,” said Susan. “When I was ten, like,&nbsp;there was a big power cut and the whole town was plunged into darkness. I went outside, like, and saw the stars as I’d never seen them before.&nbsp;There was a conjunction of Venus and Mars.&nbsp;It was beautiful and inspired me to take up astronomy, like.” “There you are, you see. In the alternate universe that power cut may never have happened and you might be a historian, or something.” “Well, I’m sorry,” said Susan, “I don’t believe in alternate realities - its just science-fiction. My Mum and Dad, like, have always told me there is just one universe.” “Don’t you see. The parents of Nicholas Copernicus thought the Earth was at the centre of the universe, but I’m telling you that there are an infinite number of universes.” BANG! A pyramid appeared floating in the room. The colour of sandstone, each edge was 3.14 inches. Gravity took it in its grasp. The group formed a circle around it as it lay on the floor. “What’s that!” Susan spoke the words that formed in everyone’s head. Everyone, that is, except David Dinwoodie who picked it up. “Remarkable. I’m working on the design of a probe to send into the past, you see.&nbsp;It looks exactly like this, but it will be years before I can launch it. You see, I’m afraid that the BZT particles that I have to focus on it will send it into another universe rather than back in time, and I need to do lots more research before I can launch it.” “Looks like there’s something written on one side,” said Susan. David flipped his spectacles from the top of his head and read the words “Trust Susan.” They launched the probe a year later. Clearly he had sent himself a message from the future.&nbsp;He had done the research that must have taken a decade to complete. If other universes didn’t exist - as Susan had suggested - then he could skip that work.

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Flight to a new Reality

AstroGeoffrey

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Geoffrey Hugh Lindop

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