Then the swirl of motion began to take form, misty, tenuous form, as if they were viewing a strange solar system from a vast distance. The solar system faded from view as the vision in the bowl narrowed down to one planet. Other planets flowed out of the picture and the one grew larger and larger, a ball swinging slowly in space.
Then it filled all the bowl and Gary could see seas and cities and mountains and vast deserts. But the mountains were not high, more like weathered hills than mountains, and the seas were shallow. Deserts covered most of the spinning globe and the cities were in ruins.
There was something tantalizingly familiar about that spinning ball, something that struck a chord of memory, something about the solar system — as if he had seen it once before.
And then it struck him like an open hand across his mouth.
"The Earth!" he cried. "That is the Earth!”
"Yes," said the Engineer, "that is your planet, but you see it as it will be many millions of years from now. It is an old, old planet.”
"Or as it may never be," whispered Caroline.
"You are right," said the Engineer. "Or as it may never be.”
Chapter Eleven
Tommy Evans' ship rested on one of the lower roofs of the city, just outside the laboratories level. In a few minutes now it would be lifted and hurled through a warp of space and time that should place it upon the Earth they had seen in the swirling bowl… an Earth that was no more than a probability… an Earth that wouldn't exist for millions of years if it ever existed.