Crash-landed on Antichthon
Even though it is now the end of the 22nd century, you should only partially trust automation like you did a hundred and two hundred years ago. Our spaceship artificial intelligence control apologized for the mistake, but the problem remained. Therefore, flight engineer Jeremy Smith, whom the AI was the first to awaken from suspended animation, decided to call a meeting of the entire team.
Alex Kruglov lay in a suspended animation capsule and could not move or speak yet. Still, his hearing had already begun to recover. A short and a long signal sounded barely audible, and then a long, short, long signal. In the ancient Morse code, which has been out of use for almost two centuries, these sound signals corresponded to the first letters of the first and last name of the co-pilot of the spaceship. Then, for several minutes, he listened to Morse code, which, surprisingly for the 22nd century, he knew very well.
His vision was restored, and Alex blinked several times, confirming that he had received the message. A holographic screen unfolded in front of his face on which text began to scroll quite quickly, photographs appeared, columns of numbers replaced text, some graphs were displayed, and text and some numbers appeared again. The transfer of information ended by the time Kruglov fully recovered from suspended animation and was able to get out of the capsule.
“Again, R-Gamma, he didn’t let me lie down,” he said to the android beside him.
“But now you know why everyone has woken up ahead of time.”
***
The origins of our history began 2.5 thousand years ago. Some ancient Greek scientists believed the Earth had a twin on the other side of the Sun. It was called Antichthon. Later, several astronomers observed an unknown space object near Venus. Mathematical calculations showed that Counter-Earth can be located behind the Sun at only one point, designated L3. At the beginning of the 21st century, before the first flight of people to Mars, with the help of two STEREO satellites, they looked behind the Sun and did not find Earth’s sister there. As it turned out later, it was necessary to look behind the Sun between the orbit of Mars and the asteroid belt.
Even though the hidden planet is not in Earth’s orbit, they decided to call it Antichthon. It is also often called Counter-Earth, although it differs significantly from our planet. Of course, we now know that Antichthon’s gravity is 24 percent less than Earth’s and more than half that of Mars. The planet has water both in liquid form and in the form of ice masses. There is oxygen in the atmosphere, but not enough for breathing. Several unmanned probes were sent to Antichthon, which received information about the planet, its atmosphere, magnetic field, and other data. Then, it was time for a manned expedition of four people and four androids.