In the Parallels

The days passed as we moved on, further and further away from the familiar. It became apparent as we explored methodically, that the Parallels closest to what we still called Home Earth were different only in slight details. In some of the earliest Parallels, we could find no real differences. Perhaps the differences lay in something obscure like a slight variation in a species of beetle in the Amazon jungle or something like that, something none of our instruments – or any of us – could detect.

If it wasn't for our most useful instrument – the Parallel Worlds Detector – we would be hard-pressed to know whether we were on Home Earth or one of its nearby Parallels.

Soon though, the differences multiplied 'logarithmically,' as Sheena said, only half-joking. It did seem though the further we got from the familiar, the more unfamiliar it all got.

'Do you suppose,' Sheena said, some weeks into our journey. 'That ours... our home Earth is the real one, the one all the others are deviations from?'

'I doubt it,' I said. 'It was the old religions that saw Earth as the centre of the universe. We now know we are just one planet around one sun, one star among so many others. We know we are not the centre of the Universe, so why should we be the centre – if there is such a thing – of these parallel universes.'

Sheena nodded. 'Why then haven't we encountered any other travellers, explorers... scientists... like us coming the other way, from the other Parallels, then?'