48 Size Matters (1/2)
”What!?”
Carlton Brock stared at general Roy McAdam as if he was defying the general to repeat what he'd just said. But McAdam was not easily intimidated. Unlike many other generals, he had actually seen combat, and taken part in it. He was not intimidated by hostile stares.
He said:
”It appears everything in the New World is ten times smaller than here on Earth.”
”They lied to us,” Carlton Brock said dramatically. ”They lied to us! All that revered ancestors bullshit, all that crap about giving us a new, better, richer, Earth so that we aren't thrown back into the Stone Age... All lies! Our children, I mean those guys ten thousand years in the future... A bunch of liars! They promised us the Earth, and gave us a fucking peanut.”
Roy McAdam swallowed a couple of times. It wasn't easy to explain things to Carlton Brock, but he had to try. He said:
”The planet is the same size as our Earth, sir. What I meant is that everything on its surface is actually ten times smaller.”
”Bullshit,” Brock said decisively. ”You know something, general? I've actually been over there myself. Several times, over the last few days. Everything is the same size as it is here.”
”It just appears to be that way, sir. Because everything is to scale. Trees, animals, mountains, geographical features - everything is ten times smaller.”
”But that's impossible! Impossible! You just said that this new Earth is the same size as ours. How do you know, anyway? How have your guys worked this one out? It's not like we have all sorts of scientific instruments over there.”
”It's a relatively simple exercise in trigonometry, sir. If you want, I can explain - ”
”No. No. I don't want to hear it. But... Fuck! That means all of America is the size of Nevada, right? Or something like that.”
”Well no, sir. Of course we have to look into it some more, but it appears the all the land masses - continents, islands, and so on - are the same size as on Earth. We have plenty of land over there. Even more than we have here - there are those new archipelagos.”
”But that's impossible! You've just said that all geographical features are scaled down, as well.”
”Not the size of the land mass, sir. Just mountains, valleys - you get the drift.”
”I don't. Listen, general, what you're saying doesn't make any sense. That would mean - I mean, look at the Rockies. Massive mountain chain, right? You're telling me that the Rockies are just a thin row of anthills over there? It's not true. I've been receiving reports from the settlements we've been setting up all over the place. And it happens that I've just been reading the report from New Denver this morning. The mountains there are as big as the ones we have here. Bigger, if anything.”
”That's because of the scale.”
”Scale! Scale! Fucking nonsense. The Rockies stretch over a vast area, general. What you're saying implies that this area is ten times smaller over there. General Merton, who's in charge of New Denver, reports his teams have been exploring around the settlement. It took them forever to travel beyond the peaks around the town.”
”The consensus is that there are many extra valleys between the peaks, sir. We've seen some of that around our New York colony as well. There are extra features in the range of hills west of our New York settlement. What's more, I've heard that the Saudis report their desert isn't quite the desert they have here. It actually has quite a few rivers flowing through it. There is plenty of sand and rock, but also plenty of oases.”
”They're fucking us around. Our own children are fucking us around!”