Zero World by Jason M. Hough Read Free Book Online Page A

went on, the image of Duplica and her moons cross-faded to much closer footage, taken from low orbit. Viewed like this, minor differences became apparent. Most notable were the craters. A whole series of circular wounds that weaved like a mottled snake from southern Europe, down to India, and up through the Koreas. Though British raised, Caswell had been adopted from Korea. The sight of his homeland thrashed by impact depressions shook loose latent feelings of anger and sadness in him.
    What he thought of as the Pacific Ocean drifted by, and the California coast came into view. The string of craters continued, all the way to the coast of Florida.
    Thoughts came to him faster than he could process even their basic nature, much less any deeper ramifications. Should he think of these places in such terms? Was there an actual California or United Kingdom here, in the political sense? Hell, were there people at all? It could simply be a copy of Earth at the landmass level, a feat of terraforming never dreamed of before.
    But the very fact that he saw so much green here meant plant life, at least, and that in and of itself was quite possibly the most important discovery in human history. Life existed here, something never found before despite all the effort made in that regard. Alice Vale and her crewmates had found extraterrestrial life.
    She went back to play God
….
    A chill ran up his spine and settled across his scalp. “What did you find here, Alice?”
    When England came into view the image zoomed in again.
    Caswell went perfectly still. There were roads and villages. A massive city, as big as London, though not in quite the same location. This metropolis straddled the Severn River, not the Thames. Curiously, it seemed to be surrounded by nature, not sprawl, andsimilarly hard-edged towns and cities were sprinkled across the landscape. Thin roads, or perhaps tracks, connected these places.
    What the crew of the
Venturi
found here is nothing short of miraculous. A planet almost identical to Earth, populated by intelligent life. Human life, Peter. Whoever they are, however they got here or how this place came to be, they appear to be at a technological level similar to where we were in the 1950s. The
Venturi
even intercepted radio transmissions that sound an awful lot like English, believe it or not.
    “English?” he blurted to the empty cabin, unable to stop himself. He’d yet to get his mind around the idea of life, human life, on another world, geographic similarities or not. But English? “How the hell is that even possible?”
    The footage began to cut from one scene to the next. All taken from orbit, grainy and unsteady, but what they showed was unmistakable. A train of sorts, powering along tracks. Boats with oddly curved sails bouncing along on whitecaps. A vast square of something like concrete with dark diagonal forms moving about chaotically like insects. Caswell squinted, unsure what he was seeing, and then it clicked: the shadows of people, meandering, in the late afternoon or early morning.
    After their visit, the
Venturi
returned to Earth’s side of this wormhole and, from what we can gather, a huge debate began within the crew. They argued over what to do with this discovery, and who to tell about it.
    At some point, Alice Vale formed ideas of her own. From the access logs you provided us, we know she spent the better part of a day in her bunk downloading data. Patent databases, schematics, knowledge archives on almost every topic imaginable. Mountains of information related to every technologicaladvancement humanity has ever achieved. Even things like culture, fashion, and art.
    She took all this with her, Peter. She killed the rest of her crew and ran back to this place as the sole representative of Earth, armed with all our collective knowledge. We don’t know why, but we can guess.
    “To play God,” Caswell said aloud.
    We think she’s going to give it to them, probably hoping they’ll reward her